The Beautiful Thief (Stolen Hearts #2)(26)

“Let me do the talking,” said Adam into her ear as they approached the desk.

In order to get past the front reception area, everyone had to show an ID and go through a turnstile, like getting onto a subway. Melody didn’t remember this from the reception that had been thrown last week. There must be a way to remove them so the elites of society wouldn’t have to go through the indignity of security measures.

She let Adam take the lead and hung back while he walked up to the desk.

“Adam Smith here to see Ike Shriver.”

“Is he expecting you?” asked the man behind the desk.

“No, but he wants to see me. If you just let him know I’m here, he’ll let me up.”

The man picked up the phone and dialed.

“He’ll let us up, right?”

Adam held up a finger, silently telling her to hold on.

After saying a few monotone words into the phone, the security guard hung up. “You’re clear, Mr. Smith.” He hit the button to allow Adam to go through the turnstile.

Melody started to follow, but the guard held up a hand. “Who are you here to see?”

She frowned. It had been pretty clear she was there with Adam. “I’m with....” She trailed off when she realized that Adam was already halfway to the elevators. Son of a.... “I’m sorry. I left my wallet in my car and it had my keycard and my ID in it. I was hoping you’d let me through just this once?” She smiled and tried to look as innocent as possible, but when the security guard told her that he’d need to call her boss to get her entry into the building, she wasn’t surprised.

“I think she’s out for the day. Let me just go back to my car. I’m sure my wallet just fell out of my purse in the backseat.” She smiled at him as she turned around, but the smile quickly turned to a grimace once the security guard couldn’t see her. “Damn it, Adam.” But if he thought that she was going to wait patiently for him to get out, he had another think coming. The incident at Carlo’s should’ve proved that.

When she was closer to the door, she stopped and looked at the mass of people leaving the building to go to lunch meetings or grab their first cigarette since getting to work that morning. There were hundreds of ways for her to get in.

Adam hadn’t given her a roadblock; he’d given her a speed bump.

Picking out a mark was easy. Purses were easy to slip into, but getting a particular card out of one was more difficult. But men were easy in a different way. For one, they were easy to distract. Also, the man she noticed wore his identification clipped onto his belt. She was sure it made it easy to always have on hand, but it also made it easy for her to pick it up. As he stepped out of the building, Melody followed. She took her cell phone out of her pocket and pretended to make a call as she quickened her steps. Soon enough, she was in front of the man in question.

She would like to let this go on a bit longer, but she didn’t know anything about his schedule. He could be about to wave a cab over or turn in to any of the nearby shops or restaurants. She’d need to make the lift now.

So Melody abruptly stopped and started to speak in short, clipped words into the phone. “What? No, they can’t do that. That’s it. I’m coming back.”

Sure enough, right as she turned around and took a long stride back toward the CE building, the mark was right there. She slammed into him with extra force and stepped on his foot for good measure.

He grunted at the unexpected collision and was just about to yell at her, but Melody could see the exact moment he realized she was hot and he ended up swallowing whatever curse he was about to spew at her.

“Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry,” she said in a soft and breathless voice. She kept on touching him, first his shoulders and chest, making it so he wouldn’t know where to focus. By the time her fingers closed on the badge and it slipped off the belt, the mark was muttering out an apology.

“No, it’s my fault.” Melody suddenly knelt down and picked up her phone. Then, still at crotch level, she looked up at him. “I’m just so clumsy.”

Without another word, she got up and walked away, leaving the poor man dumbstruck in the middle of the sidewalk.



Adam knew abandoning Melody downstairs had been a calculated risk, but it was one he was willing to take.

If he’d left her at the hotel, he was sure she’d have time to figure out a way to beat him there or get her own entry into the building. Hopefully the last-minute switch would give him enough time to work with. He wasn’t expecting the conversation with Ike to last long.

But when he left, Ike would be vengeful. If he saw Melody, that would make her the ideal target. Her little stunt in the stairwell had scared off Shriver’s guys easy enough, but that was mostly the element of surprise. Next time they saw her, they’d be expecting her to fight.

And if they saw her with him, they’d think hurting her would be a way to directly hurt him. Which wouldn’t be completely wrong, Adam admitted to himself.

As long as they were doing this... whatever they were doing, she was his responsibility. So even if she had a death wish, he would do his damndest to keep her alive.

Besides, he had a feeling that whoever she’d talked to on the phone earlier wouldn’t be too forgiving if Melody got hurt.

The elevator hit the security level and Adam braced himself as the doors opened. Ike wasn’t taking any chances with this meeting because Bett and Rickards stood there, waiting for him.