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Brooke grinned and winked at me. ‘You too.’

I watched her slip out of the room, her flirty wink leaving me with brand-new butterflies in my stomach.

At nine p.m., the bar was busy.

I’d waited in the room for a while, pacing and practicing my lines and trying to settle my nerves, before heading back down to the lobby. I picked my seat strategically, on the far side of the curved marble bar, which put my back against a wall and gave me a good view across the room.

‘What can I get you?’ the bartender asked as I hooked the handle of my backpack on the purse hook under the lip of the bar. I took my jacket off, too, and folded it across my lap.

‘Could I get a Coke and a bowl of French fries?’

He nodded and set a black square napkin down in front of me.

I took stock of both the layout of the bar and its patrons while the bartender poured my drink. There seemed to be a few people around who were wearing jeans and casualdresses, as well as all the guys in suits. Brooke had already prepped me for that, and how I needed to establish myself in the room before making a move.

I took the paperback and pens out of my backpack and set them on the bar, leaving the bag unzipped at the top. Back in the room we’d given the book a decent beating to make it look like I’d been reading it for a few days already, dog-earing pages and breaking the spine.

Chapter Fifteen.

Mr. Collins was not a sensible man…

I’d read the book before, so it didn’t take long to get into the swing of it, randomly underlining various passages as I went along. The bartender brought me my drink, and I nodded my thanks, and ten minutes later a waiter came over with a decent portion of fries, with condiments on the side in tiny white ramekins.

From my vantage point I could see the clocks on the wall behind the check-in desks, and right when Brooke had said they would, businessmen started appearing at the bar. She had found a program for the convention, so we knew the dinner finished at ten, before the ‘casino and dancing’ portion of the evening started.

By ten thirty the place was packed with people moving back and forth between the ballroom and the bar.

I kept my head down, scrawling brightly colored notes in the margins of the book, and waiting for someone to get close enough. Getting here early had been good for me. I was still more nervous than I’d ever been in my life – and that was saying something for a person who wasperpetually anxious – but I’d claimed my spot and I knew what I was doing. In theory.

‘What are you reading?’

Bingo.

The guy was old, older than my mom for sure, with light-brown hair that was going gray at his temples.

I turned the book over and smiled as I held it up to him.

‘Ah, Austen. A classic,’ he said pretentiously.

‘It’s an assigned text for my class.’

‘Enjoy.’

He’d sized me up now, and, having deemed me too young to make a move on, smiled politely and turned to his friend so I was left staring at the back of his head. His jacket was unbuttoned and hung loose at his waist. All my nerves crept into my throat, making me breathe faster and harder, and my vision blurred around the edges. None of that mattered, though. No one was looking at me.

It was now or never.

I stretched down to scratch my leg and, as my hand moved back up, I reached into his jacket pocket and slowly, carefully, plucked out his wallet.

It was heavy.

Shit.

Shit!

Moving leisurely – people noticed quick movements – I dropped the wallet into my open backpack.

And … that was it.