Page 54 of The Love Bandits

Personal, he’d said.

Nicole would tell me I’m an idiot for not making sure that it’s not a soft case containing stolen jewelry—or maybe drugs. Hell, even Claire might side with her, and Claire is the kindest, most understanding person I know.

But here’s the problem.

I want to look, which means Jake is interesting to me in a way that goes beyond his cocky smile and nicely defined arms and abs. I want to sit in this apartment for hours and search through his sketches and this bag. To try to log in to the laptop I saw sitting on the coffee table in the living room.

I want to know if he really did quit stealing things before this current situation, and why.

Maybe that’s the real reason I brought Rosie. So I wouldn’t be able to do that. So I’d have someone in the next room, holding me accountable.

I stuff the bag into the trash bag and return to the dresser, where I start packing up Jake’s clothes. Did he bring his own, or did he go to the extent of purchasing a whole wardrobe for Jake Jeffries? Where does his character end and he begin? I find myself running my fingers over some of the shirts, imagining him buying them in a secondhand store while working on his persona.

I’ve done that.

I’ve shopped for a person I wanted to appear to be rather than the person I am.

I’ve thought,He’d like this.Or,This will impress him.Not stopping to ask if I liked it too.

When I leave the bedroom, Rosie’s staring into the trash can. “Looks like he threw all the glue traps away. I wonder if this building has a serious rodent problem.”

He threw them away.

I think of the look on his face when he was locked in the room earlier and, before that, when he saw that thing stuck to Professor X’s side.

I know in the way that I sometimes intuit things that he threw them out because he didn’t want anyone to be stuck like that—to be ended like that. He did it because somewhere in his chest, Jake Not-Jeffries has a heart. A soul that doesn’t want to be contained or boxed up, and he has empathy for other creatures who are the same way. I feel this knowledge change me.

“I don’t like the look on your face,” Rosie tells me. “What didn’t you want me to see in there?”

I sigh and say, “He had some personal things in his room. He told me where they were but asked me not to look at them.”

Her eyebrows wing up, and her mouth lifts into a smirk. “And how will he ever know if you do?”

I sigh again, hating the answer even as I make it: “I’ll know.”

Rosie whistles, her eyes glued to my face. “Lainey.”

“Are you going to tell Claire about all of this?” I ask.

“No, but you should.”

I nod, because she’s right, even though I know Claire will realize what I do: this is significant.

It also means that I should stay away from Jake Not-Jeffries. Because fucking a thief who’s basically in house prison with youis one thing. Fucking a thief you find interesting, a thief you would like to sympathize with, is entirely another.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

JAKE

I call Roark to tell him I’ve seen the necklace. And I pace in my assigned room while we talk because my heart’s thumping fast and hard.

“You actually had eyes on it?” he asks in a low rumble.

“That’s what I said.”

“And you met the owner?”

“I did.” I swallow. “She’s…interesting.”

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