Authors: Tara Crescent

A Thief in Venice (10 page)

Epilogue

Lucia:

July 29.

This year, I wouldn’t fail my parents. The Madonna wasn’t meant to be. I had tried and tried again, and every single time, I kept ending up in Antonio Moretti’s dungeon, at the receiving end of his whip. A whip I craved deeply.

I didn’t want to think about Antonio. But my mind wandered to the look in his eyes as we played. Everyone else saw hardness and steel in Antonio. When we were together, I saw softness and warmth there instead.

Our relationship had really grown in the last few months. We went out openly, Venice gossip be damned. The museum director had looked at me thoughtfully a few times, but he hadn’t mentioned Antonio, and neither had I. I was still expected to do a good job. Nothing was going to get handed to me because I was Antonio Moretti’s girlfriend. It was exactly what I wanted.

Things were good. Except for that one tiny little phrase we were both holding off saying.
I love you.
I wasn’t sure why, but with each day we didn’t say those words, we invested them with an importance they didn’t deserve. We’d made a promise to each other the day I had handed him the collar and asked him to place it around my neck. I wasn’t seeing anyone else. He wasn’t either. Our bodies made constant promises to each other, but our voices stayed silent, neither of us wanting to say those words first.

Stay focused,
I whispered to myself fiercely. I was killing time in a little café. In ten minutes, I’d make my move. I’d been watching the house for weeks now, the house that held the painting I wanted to steal this year. When their shift ended and the guards changed, my window of opportunity would appear. Mere minutes, but it would be enough.

A hand slid across mine, and I jumped, startled, as Antonio eased himself into the chair opposite me.

“Can you really move on to the next job?” he asked me with a slight smile. “What about the Madonna?”

I looked at him. “I failed. I got over it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Did you indeed, love?”

He’d never called me love before. Always Lucia. Or little thief. Never love. My heart started beating in my chest and I stared mutely at him.

“I came to make you a proposition, Lucia. A way to keep the Madonna.” His voice was very steady.

“How?” My tone was harsh.

“As a wedding present.” He looked at me, and raised my hand to his lips, turning it over and kissing my palm and my wrist. “Little thief, I love you. Will you marry me?”

For eight years, I had stolen a painting every year. Until, one day, I crossed the powerful head of Thieves’ Guild, and without meaning to, I had fallen in love with him. The serenity that I sought in the painting of the Madonna? I had found that serenity with Antonio.

“Yes.”

***

Much later, we were in his bed, our bodies entwined and our need for each other temporarily satiated. His finger traced lazy circles over my forearm. “So, does the Madonna go back to the Doge’s vaults?” he asked, a certain wry resignation in his voice.

I laughed and looked at the painting hanging on the wall. “You know, I’m beginning to like it where it is.”

He grinned and kissed me. “Such a bad girl, Lucia,” he said in my ear, nibbling at my earlobe.

I looked at him, a slight challenge in my eyes. “Are you going to do anything about it?”

He smiled with genuine pleasure as he reached for his belt. “For the rest of my life, little thief.”

Read on for a special preview of An Heiress in Venice!

Blurb:

He is Enzo Peron. By day, he is a Chief Inspector of Police in Venice. By night, a Dominant at Casanova, Venice’s most exclusive BDSM club.

She is Alice Blackwell, an American heiress who has fled to Venice. She comes to Club Casanova, hoping to explore the submissive desires she has held in check for many years.

He dominates her. She submits to him.

But Alice has a past, and it is determined to reclaim her.

An Heiress in Venice (A BDSM Romance Novel)

By Tara Crescent

Prologue

Alice:

It was three years after Ian’s death before I even thought about another man.

I’d been at some kind of fancy art gallery opening, the kind where they fed you cheese and wine and tried to get you to buy art when you were slightly tipsy. A guy had come up to me, we chatted about the meaning of life, and at the end of the evening, he asked me out to dinner.

Craig Dearborn had been handsome, kind and funny, and I’d had a much better time than I had expected. But, two days later, I’d received another letter in the mail, this one containing a photo of Craig and me from our dinner. I’d been laughing at something he’d said. I had looked happy.

My mysterious letter-writer had only written one sentence, but it was effective enough.

‘End this, or I’ll end him.’

I had ended things with Craig, declining to offer an explanation. But that had been the last straw. I’d lived in the shadow of the letters for the last three years, my emotions oscillating between angry recklessness and hopeless terror. But I’d be damned if I was dragging another person into the shit-show that was my life.

Many, many years ago, when I was a child, and my parents were still talking to me, they’d told me about the city they had honeymooned in. Venice. They had made it sound so magical. My mother’s eyes had been soft as she remembered how she fed the pigeons at the Piazza San Marco and how my parents had sat on the cobblestones and had eaten bread and cheese and fruit, and found themselves perfectly content with life.

Once upon a time, my life too had been magical, but those days were past. Yet, I still ran away to Venice.

***

It had been a week since my arrival in Venice, and on cue, a letter was slipped under the door of my hotel room. This time, there was no picture.

‘How far do you think you can run, Alice?’

And though I’d moved halfway across the world, hoping to be left alone, I’d been wrong. Whoever this person was who wanted me dead, I couldn’t outrun him or her. I couldn’t hide. All I could do was wait.

Intrigued?
Click here to continue reading An Heiress in Venice!

End Notes

Dear Reader,

I hope you enjoyed reading
‘A Thief in Venice’
as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also hope you’ll consider
leaving a review
. Reviews are one of the most important ways readers like you discover new books. Please take a moment to tell me
what you thought
– I’d really, really appreciate it.

If you’d like to know when the next book in the series will be out, please visit
my website
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. My mailing list receives a free story approximately every two months. Right now, the mailing list is reading
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Cheers, and happy reading!

Tara Crescent
http://www.taracrescent.com

Books by Tara Crescent

BDSM Romance:

Teaching Maya

The House of Pain

The Professor’s Pet

A Thief in Venice (Nights in Venice Book 1)

An Heiress in Venice (Nights in Venice Book 2)

A Starlet in Venice (Nights in Venice Book 3) –
Coming Soon!

BDSM & Medical Play:

Triage (Doctor Dom Volume 1)