The Perfect Con (A Bad Boy Romance Novel) (Bad Boy Confessions Book 1) (2 page)

“Come on.” I flipped off the stove and marched from the kitchen, collecting my keys from the foyer. “Let’s go to The Fountains, then.”

“Argh,” Gabe groaned. “What, no pancakes now?” He lunged up from the stool and slouched at the same time, letting his head fall back and whining like a teenager. “Seriously?”

I smacked him upside the back of his head, just as hard as our father would have. I had to keep the tradition alive. “Stop complaining,” I barked. “Let’s go.”

“
S
o
, you’re telling me that you ladies don’t have anyone in Aurora Beach who can come and pick you up?” the security guard—Igor, how glam—demanded unsmilingly for the third time.

“That’s what she said,” Madeline said in an exhausted drawl. She pulled her straight shock of pale blonde hair into a ponytail and glowered at me. “I’m done here, though.”

“You really hate us, don’t you, Igor?” I whispered. “Who hurt you?”

“Well, I guess we can call the police,” Igor murmured, mostly to himself.

“Go ahead,” Madeline mumbled.

I turned to her and snapped, “I am not going to shame my poor uncle by dragging him down to this glorified strip mall so he can bail us out of fake jail! Fuck that!” I whirled back toward Igor. “We didn’t even make it out of this garbage boutique WITH anything!”

The sales clerk with the platinum faux hawk had called security about us before we’d had the chance.

“What are they going to charge us with? Walking around in a store, carrying merchandise from that store? Seriously, rose print panties,” I railed. Igor was used to it. He grimaced and continued to scribble in his little ticket pad. “Some lip gloss that is supposed to taste like sangria. And a pair of tortoise shell sunglasses. That was it. A grand total of, what, twenty, twenty-five dollars? What are you going to do, fry me?” I shrilled sarcastically.

Igor didn’t respond.

My pride was too strong to let them intimidate me into going home. They couldn’t prove anything.

“Dammit, it’s Sunday!” I insisted, as if that had ever been called into question. “And we are here to shop!”

“Lift,” both Igor and Madeline added in grim unity.

“Whose side are you on?” I hissed at Madeline. She shrugged, and I brushed off the exchange with a small but still irritated smile. That’s what I loved about Madeline. She had no sides. She really didn’t give much of a shit about anything. Complete nihilism from a friend is super-appealing for someone who’s lost both parents to long sentences in the kind of prisons where they only send the best of the best. (Or the worst of the worst, depending on your perspective.) Not to mention flunking out of school. And that whole arson thing.

“Just what the hell is the meaning of this?” a masculine voice interrupted the dispute. I turned around and felt time slow to a
gorgeous
stop. Waves crashed. Stars fell. The fucking angels sang. My eyes grew large and my mouth went slack as I gaped at this towering—and impeccably dressed—Adonis who had come out of nowhere. Dark brown
hair cropped short on the sides, swept from right to left like he was on the Harvard rowing team or something. His suit and tie were a silky, pin-striped black, with a crisp royal blue dress shirt and matching kerchief tucked into the side pocket. Ever since getting expelled from San Maria’s Catholic High School, I’ve had a thing for uptight authority figures. I just want to loosen their ties a little bit. And their belts. I unconsciously
sank my teeth into my lower lip.

Beside him stood another giant, this one with a funky t-shirt in black and neon, dark hair mussed by gel, frosty gray aviators, and a provocative, rakish expression. Both of them had rock-solid jaws, brooding brows, and luscious mouths.

The casually dressed one looked to me and assessed me with an exaggerated kind of brotherly concern. “Are you all right, Sofia? Has this frumpy man hurt you?”

I frowned. I did not like these men knowing my name without knowing me—but, at the same time, they did seem to be here to help. Maybe my uncle had sent them.

“Fine,” I said hesitantly. Madeline and I exchanged a look. She shrugged, as if to say,
Whatever works.

“So, you’re in the habit of detaining shoppers at The Fountains now?” the fancy dressed one asked sternly. “Isn’t there any real crime for you to address?”

“She’s a thief,” Igor replied snidely. “And thieves belong in jail. She’s lucky she’s only being banned from the premises.”

“BANNED?” I cried. “At the BEGINNING of my vacation?”

But Ivy League held out a hand to me, palm up, in a gesture which
called for silence. I scoffed aloud. “I’ve got this, Sofia,” he instructed. Although the words should have been spoken with cool, with calm, they were spoken with a definite tide of fire just below their surface. An unexpected tingle blossomed in my panties at the sound of his voice calling my name, a little rough, a little too hard. I love to watch reality TV, and I’ve heard that tone a million times before. He was two inches from snapping. “If you take issue with her, then you take issue with Leonardo Battista,” he stated, seeming to grow an extra few inches tall. “I was the one who instructed her to hold those products until my arrival.”

“Uh.” Igor blinked. “The…rose panties? And lip gloss?”

A grin kinked at the corners of my lips, and I tamped it back down. Blush crept up in a clear advance from the man’s—Leonardo’s?—neck to his neat little hairline. What a cute little lion. If I’d known I was going to run into him this afternoon, I would have dressed a little sexier. Rawr.

“Yes,” Leonardo said. I could tell that he was having trouble working the word out of his throat. “That’s right.”

“Hey,” the one in aviators snapped, stepping forward and jabbing a finger at Igor. “What a man and his freaky lady do in the privacy of their own home is no business of ours.”

Igor looked back at me, then at Leonardo. “One pair of Miss Behavior under garments, size…small.” His eyes shifted suspiciously. “You sure she was holding these for YOU, sir?”

Leonardo’s jaw and knuckles clenched simultaneously. “If I say that she was,” he repeated tersely, “then she was.”

“That’s—how he likes them,” I interjected helpfully, finding my stunned tongue and coming to a stand. “Nice and tight. Very supportive.”

“That’s right,” Leo agreed miserably, scooping one arm around my shoulder. I gasped—to my embarrassment, I gasped out loud—as a thrum of electricity traveled down my torso, settling like a lightning bolt between my legs. Jesus. My eyes flashed to him, and his eyes flashed to me. He swallowed, and our eyes flitted away from each other again. That had to have been my imagination, but—hadn’t he felt it too?

“For the undercarriage,” I added, clearing my throat and remembering myself. In high school, I had been a regular to the drama circuit. Infusing my performance with a touch more confidence, I added, “Size small is more supportive to the undercarriage.”

Leo glared at me, and I grinned back at him. He cleared his throat pointedly. “But, honey, we’ve been over this a thousand times. Size small is too small. I can’t fit anything in there.”

“Oh, that’s right,” I said, putting on an expression of chagrin. “Sorry, cupcake.” I couldn’t help it, but I went ahead and swatted him on the rear. His ass was so—so—perfectly round and tight, I had to relent before I went ahead and squeezed. Normally, I’m the coy one being chased, but something about this gorgeous man made me want to just take him down. I had to have him. Or at least to mess with him a little bit.

Leo fumed, but I nodded toward Igor. It was obvious Leo and his associate needed me for something, or were somehow indebted to me; people don’t just come out of nowhere and help you. I felt secure in teasing him.

“That’s—that’s fine,” Leo allowed stiffly. His eyes shifted to me. “I’ll punish you later,” he promised darkly, and my lips parted without conscious thought. “Now, if you’ll please return the items.” He turned toward Igor. “I’d be happy to pay for them.”

But Igor hesitated to hand him the rose panties.

“Forgive me for saying, sir,” he said, scrutinizing Leo with a mild dread. “But I just don’t believe you. I’d rather wait for my superiors to—”

“Excuse me?”

“Thieves deserve to be prosecuted, Mr. Battista, no matter how young, or pretty, or rich, and, as a licensed security official of The Fountains, it’s my duty and my privilege—”

Rolling his eyes, the Vin Diesel-looking Leonardo reeled back and knocked a tight fist right into Igor’s jaw, sending him rocketing into a rack of bikinis. “You had your chance,” he growled, then turned to me and nodded, eyes crackling with energy from the violence. “Hey,” he said, nodding toward the exits. “Wanna get out of here?”

I moved my mouth, but no sound came out, and his large hand shot forward and gripped my arm. Another shimmer of electricity danced where he had touched, and we bolted through displays of makeup and cheap shoes, through the entryway of Miss Behavior, and back out into the broader streets of The Fountains shopping center. We looped around the back of a nearby store and I checked our surroundings, breathing heavier now, saw no one chasing us and no cameras, and collapsed onto one of the benches lining the walk. Madeline and Aviators loped over from behind us.

Aviators braced his knees and panted. “I suck at cardio,” he wheezed. “Hey.” His eyes registered Madeline’s lanky legs alongside him and he pulled himself erect, suddenly cured. He whipped his aviators off to reveal stunning gray eyes, as crisp and cool as fog. “I like your hair.”

Madeline slanted a disinterested glare in his direction. In spite of the run, she was largely unmoved, and to the untrained eye, she could have just been standing there, looking stoic, for hours. “Thanks,” she murmured monotonously. “It’s fake.”

“I like fake,” Aviators chirped.

“I’ll bet you do.”

“Thanks for that,” I sighed, glancing first to Leo and then to Aviators. One of them grinned, while the other regarded me with sobriety and filled the vacancy next to me on the bench. The way his eyes traveled over me, knowing and invasive, left my tongue tied in knots. Aviators may have had the cool gray eyes, but this one… His eyes were so dark, it was like storm clouds roiling over my body when he looked at me. “H-how did you guys know who I am? You work for the Castillo house?”

Leo looked to Aviators and smirked. “Uh, no,” he replied, clearing his throat and raising his eyebrows. “We do not work for any fucking house.”

Aviators stuck his hand out to shake mine. “Anyone would recognize Sofia Castillo, star of So You Think You Can Dance, season one!”

“I was the first person they eliminated in the Live shows,” I reminded him coolly. “And that was, like, eight years ago.”

“Gabriel Battista, dedicated ballet fan. Or Gabe, for short,” Aviators said. I took his hand and he gave it a vigorous shake. It had been a while since I’d met someone so likable and repellant at the same time. “And this is my brother, Leonardo. Or Leo, for short.”

“Sofia, but you already knew that,” I remarked.

“Madeline,” my friend introduced herself, applying a sarcastic flourish by panning a limp hand forward.

“So, you punched out a security goon because you liked the show?” I asked Leo. I looked between him and Gabe, pushing my curtain of auburn curls out of the way. “Seems pretty far to go for an autograph.”

“You didn’t believe that, did you?” Leo grimaced. “Perhaps you’re not the woman I thought you were.”

“Hey.” My eyes darkened. “I didn’t ask you to think about me at all.”

Leo’s jaw clenched and my body tingled responsively. “Good,” he said. “I won’t.”

“I’m the one who was the fan of the show,” Gabe interjected. “And you were magnificent, eight years ago or not.”

“Are you gay?” Madeline asked flatly.

Gabe considered her. “Not that I’m aware of,” he answered. “I just watch a lot of TV. A lot.”

“I’m not into ballet, personally,” Leo explained with a terse impatience. “I’m in the business of…um…goods relocation.”

“Goods relocation,” I echoed thoughtfully. A slow smile spread over my lips. “I like that. Cute.”

Of course he was a thief. I should have known. Swooping in with his associate, a bullshit story at the ready, his pressed shirt and his pressed slacks alongside that goofy t-shirt and pants obviously unchanged from the night before; of course they were thieves. That was how they knew me. They knew me through my family name.

Castillo—not exactly a rare name in Florida, but it could have been that my family was the most famous bearer of the patronym. My father, Arturo, had been a mover on the black market. Drugs and organs and guys with no thumbs and no names, guys only known as “Worm.” He’d been shunted off to federal prison some—wow—it had been over ten years now. Eleven. Only nine more to go before he got the option of parole. My mother had ratted him out for immunity, and she’d disappeared afterward. I’d never see her again, I was sure of it.

But my uncle was smarter about it. He had a shell company as a “systems analyst” where all the money moved. From the outside, he would appear to be a legitimate businessman. Unless he actually left prints somewhere, he was golden.

But he didn’t know that I knew about that, and he’d be horrified if he learned it. As far as I was concerned, he was Uncle Ronnie, rotund, congenial, and law-abiding. Mom and Dad had been forced to come out as career criminals a long time ago, and I had wanted to join them on jobs—before all those arrests, of course—but they’d refused nonstop. No matter how often I begged. And I had seriously begged. They kept calling me innocent, their little girl, blah, blah, blah. I was not “innocent.”

“Maybe we should have this conversation somewhere else,” I suggested, glancing over my shoulder. After what had happened to my dad—I was hyper-aware of the possibility that anyone could be listening at any time, and the consequences could be dire. Though, if it had taught me anything, it was not to trust the ones you love.

Leo glanced up and down the walkway and nodded. “I think you’re right,” he said.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Madeline snapped. She looked back and forth between the two of us. “Because I’ve been starving since the Adderall wore off, and all the food here is junk.”

Leo flicked the cuff of his dress shirt and checked his watch. I smiled. He couldn’t have been any older than his early thirties, and he still used a real watch. So did I, and I had felt like the last of a dying breed for ten years now.

“Hm,” he said. “It’s after three now. How about an early dinner at a nice, quiet bistro?”

“How about dancing?” I countered.

“Dancing?” he repeated, as if he had literally never heard the word before.