Blackmail Baby Surprise by Holly Rayner

Author:Holly Rayner [Rayner, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-27T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

EMMA

Emma could hardly focus at work the next day. Thank goodness she was ahead with all her assignments, or it might have been a real problem that her thoughts kept drifting to Patrick.

One moment, she was replaying their almost kiss in the art gallery, or the way it had felt to walk arm in arm with him, or his deep chuckle when she said something that amused him. The next, she was thinking about Aurora. Then she was daydreaming about the visit to Patrick’s home and the glimpse she would get into his life — and perhaps the opportunity to kiss him again, properly this time. And then she was back to thinking about Aurora and how it wasn’t fair of her to kiss Patrick at all, not when she was about to steal from him on behalf of his nemesis.

By the time five o’clock came, she was so tired from her pinballing thoughts that she packed up and went home without waiting to ride the elevator with Patrick. In fact, she hadn’t seen him at all that day. Emma felt a stab of remorse that she hadn’t gotten to spend any time with him, then another stab of guilt about what she had to do.

At this rate, she was probably going to collapse from stress before she had a chance to steal the painting at all.

Back at home, Emma shucked her winter gear and stood in front of the Aurora forgery. It was almost finished, which was good since she now had a timeline for when her mini-heist would happen. All she needed to do was a few finishing touches on the colors in the skyline. Emma knew it wasn’t a perfect replica of the original. She had a life-sized image of it, printed on good quality paper, pinned to her wall beside the forgery. If Patrick spent a lot of time with the painting, he would recognize the differences quickly — especially with the extra touches Emma had made. Again, she had to hope that this painting wasn’t particularly special to him.

Emma sighed. Over the last few weeks, Aurora had become special to her. There was something about the painting that spoke to her. In the beginning, she’d found it relatively simplistic, but the more time she spent blending colors and deepening shadows, the more she enjoyed the painting. The woman looked so brave, so hopeful, so small in front of the backdrop of the ocean and the sky. Emma couldn’t help feeling a little like her, facing off against powers beyond her.

The fact that she liked Aurora only made the thought of stealing it worse. Emma didn’t know what Aleksander planned to do with the original, though she suspected he would end up selling it. Or, she hoped he would. Surely, Aleksander wasn’t spiteful enough to destroy it.

Emma took up her brushes and got to work on the final touches. As she painted, her mind continued to spin from Patrick to Aleksander to Aurora to her plans to steal the painting.

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.