A Thief on Christmas Eve [Romeo & Julian 1] by Sage Marlowe

Author:Sage Marlowe [Marlowe, Sage]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781622420391
Google: cJrGzl_b4a8C
Publisher: Siren-BookStrand
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Julian barely even felt it. Saturday morning, downtown New York. There were a lot of people in the streets, and sooner or later some of them were bound to accidentally bump into each other. Except no one had bumped into him accidentally.

“Sorry, buddy,” a male voice muttered in passing, but the man was gone before Julian even had the chance to realize what happened. He lifted his hand, brought it to his hip, and gingerly fingered the pocket. It could be anything. Maybe the guy had really just brushed him in passing, maybe he had tried to pick his pocket, or maybe he had dropped something into it. The pocket contained nothing, so either a small-time criminal had been unsuccessful or Julian’s pocket now contained something which it shouldn’t.

He slipped his fingers inside. Nothing. He pushed deeper and felt…a scrap of paper. Paper? He struggled to remember what it might be. A long-forgotten shopping note perhaps? He gingerly closed his fingers around an edge and pulled it out, immensely relieved when it was really just a piece of paper, nothing unusual. The kind one used for—shopping notes. Except it wasn’t a shopping note. It wasn’t something Julian had written himself, either. The handwriting was neat, in black ink, and spelled Thirty minutes, Café de Paris. Café de Paris? It sounded vaguely familiar. If he was supposed to be there in thirty minutes—he quickly checked his wristwatch, hoping he hadn’t lost too much time finding the note—the place couldn’t be far away.

Julian took out his smartphone, punched in the location, and waited for it to come up with a result. As expected, the Café de Paris was nearby. Just off the main road half a block down.

He started walking. His heart pounded excitedly. The note hadn’t said so, but it was clear that he was expected to turn up on his own. It could be a trap. It could be Romeo. I’ll find you. That had been two weeks ago.

The Café de Paris was a charming little place, tucked between two much larger buildings in a small alley, and as the name suggested, it was French style through and through. Elegant arrangements of tiny welded iron tables with matching chairs dappled a tiled floor that instantly brought the rough pavement of a French place de ville to mind. Unlike any of the overpriced, pseudo-French places he had been to before, this one looked both appealingly genuine and genuinely appealing.

Julian made a mental note to come back on a quieter day to try the food and simply enjoy the atmosphere. Now his mind was on other, more urgent matters. He scanned the faces of the few patrons. Hell, even the people around him looked like the real deal. There was a lot of olive-tinged skin and dark-brown eyes, and, indeed, Julian spotted one or two berets. No trace of Romeo, though, which meant that this was either a trap or a practical joke. He scanned the inside of the café again,

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