"That was easy." Chris watched as the brunette strolled away. "Why didn't you ask if you could borrow her car while you were at it?"
"I did. It's an off-white Mercedes convertible. She said that she left it in long-term parking." Robin twirled the key ring around one finger before pocketing it and taking her hand again. "Come along, love."
She was in Rome with a man who stole things as casually as other people used hand towels in a restroom. What he needed or wanted, he took. He added insult to injury by somehow coercing it from people who probably had no idea they were giving him anything.
No wonder he'd become a thief. The world must have seemed like a free toy store to him.
Chris knew why it bothered her. As a foster kid, she'd never had anything but the clothes on her back and whatever her caregivers bothered to feed her. She might have grown up to be a thief herself, if not for the Renshaws. By adopting her they had saved her from the indifference of the system and the inevitable down-spiraling mess it made out of the lives of unwanted kids left to its mercies. What her foster mother had done to her might have turned her into a junkie or a whore, if not for her mom and dad.
That she had to go along with Robin's crimes in order to save Hutch made Chris feel disgusted—more with herself than him. But what was really getting to her, what was going to make her explode any minute, was the way Robin kept rubbing his thumb against the back of her hand and smiling at her and acting as if they were on their honeymoon.
Or the fact that in a small, wistful corner of her heart, she wished that they were.
Robin found the Mercedes and unlocked the passenger door for her as naturally as if the car belonged to him. He treated her the same way, as if her coming along with him meant she'd go along with whatever he did.
"Do you want the top down? It's a lovely night." When she didn't get in, he gave her hand a tug. "We only have two days, Christal. Get in."
"My name isn't Christal. This car doesn't belong to you. Neither do I." Chris twisted her hand, but he kept hold of her. If he didn't let go of her right now she was going to make a fool out of herself. To remind herself of who he was, she said, "You can't steal or bully out of people whatever you want, Robin. No matter how good you are with your magic, whatever it is, eventually you're going to get caught."
His dark brows rose. "I don't use magic, and what does this have to do with getting into the car?"
He didn't care. He genuinely didn't care that they were, in effect, stealing this woman's car. "How do you sleep at night?" she demanded.
"I sleep during the day."
"You know exactly what I mean." She was sick of this vampire fantasy role he insisted on playing, too. "Doesn't it bother you knowing everything you have you stole from someone else?"
"I have not stolen everything," he told her. "When I bought the Armstrong building, for example, I paid cash for it."
He'd bought a high-rise building in downtown Atlanta for cash. Of course he had; he was the son of the Magician. He could probably buy Atlanta.
"Where did you get the money?" Chris asked. "How many priceless paintings did you have to steal to cover the down payment?"
"None. I invest in the stock exchange. Google did very well for me that year." He watched a security guard stroll past them. "A gentleman does not discuss his financial empire in public. Now we have to go."
Chris didn't budge. "What does happen to the art you steal? Are you warehousing it? Do you sell it to private collectors?" Maybe if she could convince him to turn himself in and work with the bureau on recovering and returning the artworks he had stolen, it might reduce the time he would have to serve in prison.
Am I trying to work out a plea agreement? For the Magician's son?
Chris backed up a step. "I can't do this. I can't go through with this."
"Yes, you can."
She looked at him, suddenly and inexplicably angrier than she ever had been in her life. "I won't."
"Get in the car, love," he said through his teeth, "or I shall pick you up and stow you in the boot."
Chris opened her mouth, closed it when he rattled the keys, and mutely climbed into the car.
Robin drove through Rome the same way he did everything: with style, enthusiasm, and a lot of nerve. On the way to their "borrowed" accommodations, Chris said nothing. She ran through different self-defense scenarios in her head, trying to use her training to settle her internal agitation and cool down the flames of outrage burning into her brain.
It didn't work very well, but it was better than talking to him.
Robin parked in front of an ancient-looking edifice and came around to open the door for her.
Chris was out of the car before he got there. "Nice. Looks about a thousand years old."
"Four hundred, I'd say." He put her arm through his. As a young Italian couple passed them, he murmured, "Stop scowling like that. You resemble a tourist."
There was no elevator; they walked up an old but beautifully preserved marble staircase to the apartment on the top floor. Robin unlocked the door and paused to input a code on the alarm system keypad inside.
That upset Chris more than the Mercedes. "You made her give you her security codes?"
"How else were we to get in the place?" he countered. "Besides, it will provide a measure of protection for us during the day. Unless you wish to guard the door and windows personally?"
"Never mind." Chris looked blindly at the chic decor and warm colors of the apartment. There were several paintings on the walls, but none of them were museum quality.
Robin's mobile phone rang, making Chris jump.
"Excuse me." He walked away from her as he answered it, stopping and tensing as he listened to the caller. "I'll be there," was all he said before he shut off the phone and pocketed it.
"Who was that?" Chris asked.
He glanced at her and then shook his head. "No one important." He went to the windows and opened the curtains, looking down at the street.
"You're lucky this lady is single." She took off her jacket. "Her husband might have thought we were burglars breaking in and come after us with a gun."
"If someone shoots at you, use me as a shield," Robin said, walking around the apartment and opening the rest of the curtains.
She followed him. "You're wearing a bulletproof vest?"
"No." He paused to pick up an expensive column of multicolored blown glass and admire it. "Bullets cannot harm me."
She took the vase out of his hand and replaced it on the shelf. "I'll remember to have that engraved on your headstone. Right over 'beloved son of international art thief.'"
"I may not be anyone's beloved." he said, "but I am rather hard to kill."
"So you're planning on dying of old age? With your lifestyle?" She made a contemptuous sound. "Maybe if you get consecutive sentences."
"I do not age." He gave her a narrow look. "My kind are immortal."
Here we go again. "Right, I forgot. Vampires live forever. But wait, you said that you're not a vampire." She was too close to him, too angry to move away. "Does that make you a god, or a half god, or an elf, or what?"
He didn't like that. "I have explained this to you. Very patiently, I might add."
"Yet I'm still confused," she said sweetly. "Maybe you should buy me a deck of the cards or the rule book, so I can keep all the characters straight."
He moved closer to her. "I have trusted you with the truth of what I am."
"What are you?" Chris spread her hands. "Maybe you need to reread the rule book, though, because your special talents are all mixed-up. You drink blood, but you're not a vampire. You rose from the grave, but you're not a zombie. Bullets can't hurt you, but you're not Superman. By the way, is the contessa also immortal?" She folded her arms. "Or did she get another superpower when she rolled the special-abilities dice?"
"I brought a full bottle of Valium from the plane." He gestured to the case he'd brought in. "Perhaps you should take one and lie down."
"What happens if I don't? Are you going to knock me out, or lock me in the bedroom again?" She shoved him, or tried to. He didn't move an inch. "I know—why don't you make me an immortal? I'd like to have bullets to bounce off me, and I'd be very happy to spend the rest of eternity hunting down your thieving ass."
"You have no idea what you are saying." His gaze burned into hers. "What it has been like for me and my kind. The centuries of being tormented. Hiding among you, trying to make a place for ourselves. Being treated like animals."
"You're right; I don't. But then, I'm the sane one in the room." Tired of sniping at him, she turned away. She was in a beautiful flat with a handsome man whom she was probably going to fall in love with right before he stole another priceless treasure, this time out from under her nose, and it was the last place on earth she wanted to be. "God, what am I doing here with you?"
He turned her around to face him. "Given a choice, I assure you, madam, I would have left you in Atlanta. I have no time for your human tantrums."
"You're immortal," she goaded him. "All you've got is time."
"You should watch your tongue." Copper heat glittered in his eyes. "Or put it to better use. Is that it?" He cocked his head. "Do you need my direction again?"
Chris felt something inside her snap, and she drew back her arm and punched him in the face.
Phillipe of Navarre had served as seneschal to Michael Cyprien since their human lives, when his master had taken him from the fields to serve in his household. At first Phillipe had been reluctant to trade his scythe for a sword—he was a villein born and bred, trained from the time he could walk to work the land—but his family had been overjoyed. No more would they go hungry during the lean years; Phillipe's position would provide for them. And so he had, even after he took his vows with his master and went to fight with the Templars in the Holy Land.