The French Thief: An International Legacies Romance Read online

  The French Thief

  An International Legacies Romance

  Camilla Stevens

  Copyright © 2019 by Camilla Stevens

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  About the Author

  Camilla Stevens is a New York transplant from Los Angeles. At night you can find her typing away, usually with a glass of wine, getting all the steamy, humorous, Happily Ever After stories out of her head and down on the page. You can usually find tulips, her favorite flower, making an appearance in most of her novels.

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  Also by Camilla Stevens

  WRIGHT BROTHERS SERIES

  Mr. Wright & Mr. Wrong

  Mr. & Mrs. Wright

  So Wrong

  STAND ALONE

  One Night

  Sweet Seduction

  EX-CLUB ROMANCE SERIES

  Archer: Ex-Bachelor

  TEXAS HEAT ROMANCE SERIES

  Home Run

  High Stakes

  Hard Sell

  INTERNATIONAL LEGACIES ROMANCE

  The Italian Heir

  The French Thief

  DESCRIPTION

  She was my rival.

  Now, she’s just MINE.

  ANDREW MERCIER

  Cocky. Enigmatic. Seductive as sin.

  Appearing when and where I least expect him.

  Is he just a chameleon?

  Or a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

  I try to resist but the draw is just too strong.

  Little by little he cracks my facade.

  I soon learn he knows everything about me…

  Including the fact that I have my eye set on a valuable painting that disappeared in Occupied France during WWII.

  The problem is, he’s after the same painting.

  Now he’s offering to help me steal it.

  I soon learn some offers are too good to be true…

  From the corporate high rises of New York to the gorgeous sights and bright lights of Paris, find out the truth behind the betrayal in this Stand Alone book in the International Legacies Romance series.

  WARNING: Due to adult content, 18+ Only

  Contents

  Author’s Note

  Part I

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Part II

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Author’s Note

  This book, as with all of the International Legacies Romance books that will follow, is a romance, not just between the two characters but also between me and the places I’ve personally been and loved. An ode of sorts.

  Thus, I’d just like to offer the following caveats and explanations:

  Language and Writing Style

  Since most of these books take place in countries around the world, in order to have some semblance of authenticity, I had to have some way to include the local language (in this case French) without a) writing it in French and translating for the reader (ugh!) or b) including “he/she/they said in French” after every bit of dialogue.

  As such, I’ve distinguished anything that isn’t said in English by putting it in italics. I realize that some readers may find this annoying, and I apologize, but I’d rather have you annoyed than confused, or worse, assuming everyone speaks English with one another.

  That said…welcome to Paris (and New York)! I hope you enjoy it as much as I personally did and one day have the chance to visit yourself.

  The Werwolf Order

  The Werwolf Order mentioned in this book is drawn from the real life Nazi plan named Operation Werwolf, which was a guerrilla movement to operate behind enemy lines during World War II. The Werwolf Order in this book is purely theoretical. Artistic license and all.

  I’ve used a variation of the German word for Werewolf just to make the title a little more plausible and avoid confusion about any paranormal undertones in the book (not that there’s anything wrong with it, but this is not a paranormal book).

  Part I

  Brielle & Andrew

  Prologue

  1940. Paris, France (Nazi Occupied)

  Murder.

  That was the only word to describe what Victor Ardant had just done.

  He unclenched his hands and Marie Brunot fell to the floor of his private study. He stared down at her limp body, but no hint of emotion stirred in him. It had all been exhausted on the woman she had single-handedly condemned to death.

  Noémie.

  That spurred him into action. If what Marie had said was true, he had only a short amount of time to act. He deliberately avoided looking at the painting opposite his desk as he rounded it to get to the hidden safe.

  Marie’s final words taunted him, making it hard to focus on what he needed to accomplish.

  “I hope the rumors of what they are doing in Germany are true. That Jewish whore deserves no better!”

  That was the moment everything had gone red, returning to normal only when he’d felt the absence of Marie’s pulse underneath his thumb.

  A murder for a murder.

  Victor was fully aware of the stories trickling in from the east, what the Nazis were doing to the Jews and others they had imprisoned. That’s why he had started preparing the moment that traitor Pétain had signed the armistice agreement with those monsters this summer.

  And now, the Gestapo pigs had Noémie, thanks to the French police working with them. Not to send south to the unoccupied territory with the other French Jews, but arrested and sent to prison…or worse. He had called her neighbor and learned that it was true. She, and thankfully only she had been taken. Then, he had confronted Marie, the only one who could have betrayed him this way.

  He opened the safe behind his desk and quickly gath
ered all the contents. Before exiting the study, he took a brief moment to stare at the painting of the only woman who had meant anything to him since his wife died over ten years ago.

  Ana, his wife, had been a wonderful woman, but their marriage had almost instantly become a marriage of convenience the moment their first child was born. She had always been a fragile woman, and both births had weakened her even more. Any energy she had left was spent on their children until. Victor had always been grateful about that, but the passion he longed for had always eluded him.

  Until Noémie.

  The painting had been a surprise from Noémie a month after he had proposed to her. One of her artist friends, who was supposedly well known in the art world—something Chabat—had painted it for her. While Victor knew nothing of art, he did have to admire the artist’s skill. He had captured Noémie’s essence perfectly.

  “Adieu, mon amour.”

  He ignored Marie’s body as he ran into the hallway.

  His parents had known the Brunots since before the last war, the one that started all this nonsense. Victor had been almost a teenager when Marie was born, and he’d never thought of her as anything more than something akin to a younger sister. Her family had lost everything in the aftermath of that war. That was why he’d taken her in to help raise his children after their mother died.

  Then came Noémie.

  The first time he had laid eyes on her, she took his breath away, not just with her beauty but her spirit, her intelligence, and, as cliché as it was to say, her passion for life. She had introduced him to art, literature, food, music, an entire world of Paris that I’d never been exposed to. And when the war came to their beloved country, the Germans barreling right into Paris, she was the first to defy them with minor acts of rebellion.

  And now she was gone.

  Victor had known Marie’s feelings toward him, and thus Noémie, from the start. He’d never imagined she would go this far.

  “Adeline? Charles?” he called out, his voice penetrating the large apartment home he owned in the heart of the city. Adeline, his sixteen-year-old daughter, was the first to respond.

  “Yes, Papa?” She had one of her diaries and a pen in her hands. There was a smile lingering on her face from whatever it was he had drawn her away from, and the happy expression was like a dagger to his heart. A part of him hated that he was about to take this from her, probably for a very long time.

  But at least she would be alive.

  “Get your brother, I have something important to tell the two of you.”

  Something in his voice eroded her smile and she quickly rushed to get her younger brother Charles.

  “Come with me,” he said to the two of them when they came back, drawing them toward the end of the hallway where their bedrooms were.

  “You both know how much I love you,” he began, which immediately put them on guard.

  “What’s going on, Papa?” Adeline asked, a wrinkle of worry in her brow.

  “I’m very likely going to be arrested…and handed over to the Gestapo. Which is why we all need to leave—today.”

  The protests and cries came instantly.

  “Hush, hush,” he soothed.

  When they were settled, he turned his attention to Adeline, who was always sensible and intelligent. He’d need her to take care of Charles, her thirteen-year-old brother, who had his deceased mother’s soft nature.

  “There is a man here in Paris who can make fake passports. I have his name and address written on this piece of paper,” he said, pulling it from the pocket of his coat and including it in the bundle he handed to Adeline. “Take this money from my safe and this key to the store. Collect as much jewelry as you can. You know which is the most valuable right, Adeline?”

  She nodded.

  He’d been raising her to take over Ardant Jewelers eventually, so he trusted her to pick the pieces that could easily be traded for their way out of Paris, hopefully out of France as well.

  “Good, good,” he said, nodding. “Get started on the passports immediately. Then wait there until I meet up with you.”

  “Why aren’t you coming too, Papa!” Charles cried.

  “I’ll be there soon,” he said, giving him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry.”

  He turned to Adeline and he could see it in her eyes. She knew why he wouldn’t be going with them—at least part of the reason why. He certainly wasn’t going to tell her about what had just happened in his study.

  “Is this about Noémie?”

  He nodded. “Marie…she.”

  “I see,” she interrupted, her eyes falling to the floor with anger in them. Adeline had always been headstrong, which often put her at odds with Marie. It also made her initially suspicious of Noémie. But Noémie had a way of inspiring people, drawing out the best in them, which eventually not just warmed his daughter to the woman, but made her respect and admire her almost as much as her father did.

  “I don’t understand,” Charles whined.

  “I’ll explain,” she said, turning to him. “Right now we have to go, Charles.”

  Not for the first time, Victor thanked God for blessing him with such a daughter.

  She placed a reassuring hand on his arm and gave him a sad smile. “Go. Go get Elise.”

  “Thank you,” he said, feeling the tears come to his eyes.

  When Noémie unexpectedly became pregnant with Elise, Adeline was the one to insist on making both of them part of their family.

  Then the Nazi’s came.

  Victor pulled both his children into him, squeezing them tight and calming Charles’ cries.

  “I love you both so much,” he said into his hair. “I’ll be with you soon. Until then, I want you to follow Adeline’s lead, Charles. She’ll know what to do.”

  Victor turned his head so that his cheek rested on Charles’ head and his eyes met Adeline’s. She nodded with understanding. Their father may not make it, but for her brother’s sake, she would keep up the facade.

  “Okay, now,” he said, pulling away. “Both of you pack one suitcase. Only necessities. Then go to that address. I’ll meet you soon.”

  The two of them stared at him for one moment, then rushed to their rooms.

  Victor rapidly made his way to the dining room where he found Agnès, one of the housemaids staring wide-eyed, having heard at least the most dire part of the conversation with his children.

  “Mister Ardant, is it true? Are the Nazis—?”

  “Hush, Agnès,” he said in a calming but commanding voice. It wouldn’t do to have her go mad, even though she was half-Jewish and had every reason to be afraid. Victor wasn’t the only one who had heard the rumors. “You will be fine. I’ve taken care of everything.”

  That did nothing to ease the fear in her eyes.

  “I have a fake passport you can use. It was meant for—” his voice caught before he could even utter the name, “meant for Noémie. I want you to use it instead.”

  She blinked in surprise, which was no wonder. Agnès and Noémie were as different as night and day, especially in terms of personality.

  “Noémie?” she asked in confusion.

  “Yes. The hair color is close enough, especially in black and white.” He scanned her face trying to find a resemblance. Agnès was pretty, but in a softer, more timid way than the vibrant Noémie. “If you wear make-up it should be fine.”

  Her wide eyes fell to the floor, seemingly more terrified at that idea than the Nazis.

  “Agnès,” he said sternly, bringing her attention back to him. “I need you to do one very crucial thing.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “They haven’t taken Elise. She was staying with the woman across from Noémie’s apartment and…I need you to get her.”

  “Oh, Mister Ardant, but aren’t you coming too?” she cried.

  “I can’t,” he said, thinking of the body in his study. It was one thing to be arrested as a traitor, or whatever nonsense the Gestapo were using to round
up the resistant French. It was another thing to be a condemned murderer. “I have one thing I have to deal with first.”

  “I can’t go without you!” she protested.

  “You must, Agnès. There isn’t much time and you know what they will do to her if they find her. She’s my daughter, still only a baby. I have to save her. You have to save her. Like I said I have money and passports made out under new names. It’s the only way the two of you will survive this war. Get Elise, and if I’m not there by dark fall, leave Paris, just the two of you. Tell the woman that Elise is staying with where you’ve gone and I will find you. Head south, or to Switzerland. From there, you can make your way to America.”

  Victor took hold of her shoulders before she could crumble at this understandably overwhelming request.

  “The Nazis are coming, Agnès. You’ve heard what they are doing to women like you, to children like Elise. You know what they are going to do to me because of my association with all of you. This is the only way.”