Los Angeles, inside Brief Locksmith Company.
Slater toyed absent-mindedly with a lock; normally, a mechanism that intricate
would take the world's top female lockpicking master all of forty seconds.
Yet she'd been fiddling with it for over half an hour.
Had anyone been watching, they'd have seen instantly that the beauty's mind was elsewhere.
But Slater had precious few friends.
Though she had plenty of suitors, her career focus had already turned away dozens.
So this distracted side of her was rarely witnessed.
A knock at the door finally snapped her out of her daze.
Knock-knock-knock!
Startled, Slater looked toward the entrance,
then, realizing she'd been day-dreaming,
hurriedly refocused on the lock.
"Come in," she called without lifting her head, hiding her fluster.
Attention restored, she spun the mechanism; a soft click sounded and the lock opened.
The office door swung open and a plainly dressed middle-aged woman stepped inside.
"Miss Brief, flowers for you."
Recognizing the receptionist, Slater's racing heart steadied—
only for a wave of disappointment to follow.
"Thank you, Maria. Who sent them?" she asked, unable to keep the wistful note from her voice.
Maria glanced at the card on the flowers and gave a helpless shrug.
"It's still from Mr. Charlie Clock, Miss Brief—one of your suitors."
An awkward smile instantly flashed across Slater's face.
Even though the bad-boy who'd shown up earlier had avenged her father's murder,
and even though Slater knew that, more than a year ago, Charlie Clock hadn't really been to blame for her father's death,
the man who'd promised her he was going straight—her father—
had accepted Charlie's invitation to pull one last job,
and had died on that very job.
Naturally, Slater couldn't help but hate Charlie Clock for it.
She had only agreed to his proposal
to join Charlie Clock's heist against Steve
because Steve was the one who'd actually murdered her father.
Slater lacked both the courage and the means to take revenge and kill Steve herself,
so she'd had to borrow Charlie Clock's crew to settle the score.
If everything had gone according to plan, she'd figured that once the revenge was complete,
her resentment toward Charlie Clock—if it didn't vanish entirely—would at least fade to almost nothing.
But the plan had, of course, fallen apart.
Because halfway through, that bad-boy had barged in.
Thinking of this, Slater couldn't help giving the bouquet Charlie Clock had sent another long look.
Disappointment and loss were written ever more clearly across her face.
"Just leave it there."
Slater said calmly.
"Mm-hmm, I'll throw it out right away!"
Miss Maria answered reflexively.
Only after the words were out did her brain catch up.
She stared at Slater in surprise; she remembered that over the past while,
although the gentleman named Charlie Clock hadn't shown up once,
his flowers arrived like clockwork every single day,
and her boss—the stunning Miss Slater Brief—would unhesitatingly tell her to toss them or give them to her or the other receptionist.
Today, however, Miss Brief had suddenly told her to keep the flowers.
In that instant a flurry of thoughts raced through Miss Maria's mind,
condensing into a single line: "Miss Brief has finally been moved by Mr. Charlie Clock's sincerity."
She hastily set the bouquet aside,
murmured an apology, and slipped out of the office.
Once Maria was gone, Slater's gaze drifted to the roses.
A faint floral scent drifted into her nostrils.
Yet as she looked at the roses, the person on her mind wasn't Charlie Clock, the sender,
but another young man—an asian a few years younger than her, even handsomer, surprisingly well-built, and wrapped in an air of mystery.
"Heart-thief!"
Slater muttered under her breath, giving an indignant little snort.
Ever since that night on the farm her father had left her—when she'd learned the boy had avenged her father's death—her already favorable opinion of the young asian named Hunter Sun, built over the previous ten days,
had finally, under a surge of hormones,
led her in that farmhouse room filled with childhood memories
to give herself to him and share the ultimate intimacy.
Once the flames in her body burned out and cool reason returned,
Slater suddenly hadn't known how to face him.
So at dawn she'd fled,
driving off in his car, leaving the farm her father had left her.
After several frantic days,
she found his image surfacing in her mind unbidden.
Thus, a week after her escape,
she slipped back to the farm in the same ford mustang she'd taken—
only to find nothing: no reproach, no greeting, no note, and no sign of the man.
The young, handsome asian thief seemed never to have entered her life,
appearing like a hero to save her,
quietly killing Steve—the man who'd shot her father—
and on that night tasting forbidden fruit with her, leaving Slater with exquisite memories.
Then, like a burst bubble, he vanished entirely from her world.
"Liar!"
"Thief!"
"Bastard!"
Slater cursed softly, until a knock sounded again.
She sniffed, composed her face, and called, "Come in!"
The office door opened,
and there in the doorway stood the very figure who had haunted her dreams for over half a month.
Seeing the bad-boy's faint smile,
Slater's cold mask shattered in an instant,
replaced by joy, delight, and indignant shyness.
The heart-thief who had taken her body—and part of her heart—had finally reappeared.
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