The Thief and the Painter by Candice Clark

Author:Candice Clark [Clark, Candice]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: What The Smut Books
Published: 2023-12-28T16:00:00+00:00

When I woke up this morning, Amelia was gone. I can’t say I wasn’t pissed off that she’d snuck out like a thief in the night. That was my line, after all. The funny thing was, when I woke to find her gone, I’d had the irrational thought that she had indeed stolen something from me. If only she knew I would freely give her anything she wanted, all she had to do was ask. I’d tried to call her a few times and sent a handful of texts. She hadn’t responded, but I wasn’t worried. I knew where she was at any given time throughout the day, so I knew where to find her when I was finished with my current meeting. I thought I’d made my position clear enough last night. But it seemed that was only for the duration of time that we spent in a bubble of our own making, cut off from the outside world. Clearly, Amelia still hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that we were inevitable. I was trying not to let it get to me. She’d have her “come to Jesus” moment soon enough. In the meantime, I’d continue laying the groundwork for our future. Laying the next stepping stone along that path, I sit on a park bench at dusk, watching the sun set over the water near The Battery. The irony that so many of the turning points of my life have taken place on this waterfront isn’t lost on me. No matter how much money I make, my plans to run as far and as fast as I can have been put on permanent hold. My heart now beat outside of my chest, and if I wanted to truly live, I’d have to follow wherever it went. For now, it called Charleston “home”, so I guess I did too.

I wasn’t sure how I’d transitioned from a streetwise kid with an unhealthy obsession to a sneak thief so deeply in love that the very idea of being apart from Amelia made me feel crazy. The dangerous kind of crazy. That was why this meeting was so important. The outcome of this conversation could make or break us. Glancing down the shadowy path, I feel my body tense when I see movement.

If I didn’t know better, I would be wary of the small, hunched figure coming toward me in the dark. The slow, skulking walk wouldn’t be out of place in some heart-racing thriller. I wasn’t afraid, though. On the contrary, I had a low buzzing sensation beneath my skin that could only be described as excitement. It had taken me a long time to forge this relationship and convince Gloria to trust me. I didn’t believe that she felt any loyalty to Suzanne because if she did, she wouldn’t be here right now. She did, however, love Amelia. It was the only reason, I believed, that she’d stayed in that house all these years when any rational person would’ve run at the first opportunity.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.