Page 26 of The Forgery Mate (Taken by His Alpha #6)

T he whiskey bottle grows emptier between us. Well, mostly me, but I pretend not to notice, each sip melting me a little more into Ezra’s embrace.

“It’s a family business,” I say into the comfortable quiet, the back of my head resting on Ezra’s shoulder, the glass loose in my grip. “It’s what I know. My grandfather taught me more about forgery than school ever taught me about truth.”

Ezra’s fingers trace idle patterns across my skin, neither urging nor interrupting, just present in a way that draws the words out of me.

“He wanted to be an artist. A real one, with his name on gallery walls and in auction catalogs.” The whiskey burns pleasantly down my throat, warming me from the inside out.

“He had the talent. God, did he have talent. But not the connections. Not the right background or education or friends in high places.”

My grandfather’s studio materializes in my memory. The north-facing windows he’d covered with translucent paper to diffuse the light, the worn brushes arranged by size and purpose, the paints mixed to precise recipes he recorded in a leather-bound journal I still keep hidden among my things.

“No one would buy his paintings.” A familiar bitterness seeps in despite the years between then and now. “But they’d pay fortunes for his forgeries. For his perfect Renoirs and Monets and Vermeers.”

Ezra shifts behind me, his chin resting on my shoulder as he reaches for the bottle to refill my glass. “So, he gave them what they wanted.”

“At first.” I accept the refilled glass, watching the amber liquid catch the light. “But then he realized he could go a step beyond simply copying pre-existing works. And he did something most forgers never attempted.”

“Painting perfect originals,” Ezra supplies, revealing more depth to his knowledge.

“Yes.” I take a sip of whiskey. “He stopped just copying and started creating new works in the style of established masters, paintings they might have made if they’d lived longer or worked more. And they were good. Better than good. They were…”

“Authentic,” Ezra finishes when I falter. “In everything but their provenance.”

My chest constricts. “Yes.”

He holds me closer, his steady breaths on my neck soothing. “But it wasn’t enough for him.”

“No.” The word comes out heavy with inherited grief. “He wanted recognition, even if it was anonymous, and no one knew his name. He wanted his work to exist in the world. To be seen. To matter.”

Ezra presses his lips to my shoulder in silent encouragement to continue.

“So he started replacing other people’s artwork with his own.

” The confession falls into the quiet room, the final piece of a puzzle I’ve kept scattered.

“He’d steal an original, create a forgery so perfect that the owner would never realize it wasn’t real, then sell the original to fund his true passion. Painting new masterworks.”

“That no one would buy because they weren’t by a known artist,” Ezra says.

“Exactly.” The irony had never been lost on my grandfather, nor on me when I followed in his footsteps. “He’d laugh about it sometimes, this circular trap he couldn’t escape. The better he got at forgery, the more he was paid to be someone else, never himself.”

Ezra’s hand slides up my arm, fingers trailing heat across my skin. “What happened to him?”

The question picks at a scab I’ve let harden over the years. “Caught stealing from a private collection in Geneva. Spent his last years in prison. Died of pneumonia three weeks before his release date.”

“I’m sorry.” The simple words carry genuine regret, and it strikes me again how different Ezra is from what I expected when I first approached him as Knox.

“Don’t be.” I drain my glass, the burn of alcohol matching the burn in my throat. “He died having created his greatest masterpiece. The fact that no one knew it was his was the price he paid for playing the game.”

“My forgery,” Ezra says.

“Yes.” I close my eyes, seeing the painting as clearly as if it hangs before us. “ Anatomy of a Ghost . My grandfather’s greatest work. The culmination of everything he’d learned, everything he believed about art and authenticity.”

“The one you came to steal from me.” Despite the words, there’s no accusation behind them.

“Yes.” My answer hangs between us, simple in its honesty.

Ezra shifts to see my face. “But you didn’t take it.”

“No.” The admission costs me nothing now, here in the quiet sanctuary of Ezra’s loft, wrapped in his arms with the taste of whiskey on my tongue. “I didn’t want to leave you with nothing.”

His expression softens at my words. “You left me with everything except yourself.”

“I thought it was kinder,” I whisper, the words an inadequate salve for the pain tattooed across his body.

“Kinder for whom?” His question holds no anger, only a genuine curiosity that deserves an honest answer.

“For you.” I reach up, threading my fingers through the streak of silver in his hair. “I was protecting you from all the ways I could hurt you. From all the ways loving me could destroy you.”

Ezra catches my hand, bringing it to his lips. “Did it ever occur to you that I might want a say in what risks I take? In who I choose to love despite the consequences?”

No, it hadn’t occurred to me. I decided without giving him a choice, convinced my departure was a gift rather than the theft it truly was. “I was trying to do the right thing.”

“The right thing,” Ezra murmurs against my palm, “would have been to trust me with the choice. With the truth.”

His words settle into my bones, rearranging a fundamental part of me. All my careful masks, my calculated escapes, my practiced lies, were built on the assumption that honesty was too dangerous to risk.

Yet here I am, more naked than I’ve ever been, speaking truths I’ve never voiced, and the world hasn’t ended. Ezra hasn’t turned away in disgust or disappointment. He’s still here, holding me as if I’m precious rather than broken.

“What about your parents?”

The topic shift leaves my alcohol-soaked mind reeling. “What about them?”

“Where were they while your grandfather taught you the family business?”

“My father was a musician, in town for a show only long enough to knock up my mother.” I sigh, my lashes fluttering down. “My mother…She’s somewhere in California, a mistress to whoever she can con into paying for her lifestyle.”

“The family business.” His arms encircle me fully now, his heartbeat steady where mine threatens to falter.

Ezra traces lazy circles on my stomach, and his mouth finds the sensitive spot where my neck meets my collarbone, sending a shiver through me. “My family has a business, too, you know.”

“Yeah. Lots of businesses.” I turn my head to give him a fuzzy frown. “No need to brag about being a billionaire.”

His fingers pause on my hip bones, close enough for my dick to thicken with interest. “Imports.”

The shift in his tone brings my full attention to him, and I struggle to focus past the curl of desire and the warmth of whiskey seeping through my veins. I wait, sensing more to come, unwilling to interrupt whatever truth he’s prepared to share.

“Stolen goods,” he clarifies, each syllable deliberate. “Artwork. Relics. Pieces that should’ve never been locked behind glass.”

My body tenses, muscles going rigid with surprise and the kind of understanding that arrives with sudden clarity.

Not the shock of discovering criminal connections.

A family as rich as the Rockfords has to have some shady dealings, but the perfect alignment of our worlds, the unexpected symmetry of our separate paths, feels too perfect.

Kismet.

My tongue darts out to sweep over my bottom lip. “You’re a smuggler.”

“That’s what my mother called it.” His lips curl into a smirk. “I call it reclamation. Curation. Giving passion back to what was preserved to death.”

His fingers resume their lazy caress, tracing the contours of muscle and bone. The touch distracts me, building the heat under my skin, and I shake my head to stay focused.

“Museums are mausoleums,” he continues. “Climate-controlled vaults where great works go to be entombed, admired from a distance by people obligated to appreciate them but rarely understand their meaning.”

I think of the endless gallery openings I’ve attended as Lorenzo, the wealthy patrons more concerned with being seen than with seeing, with proximity to importance rather than to beauty.

“Art deserves to be touched.” Ezra’s hand slides along my ribs to emphasize his point. “To be felt. To exist in spaces where they are truly loved.”

The philosophy strikes a chord within me, resonating with unspoken beliefs I’ve carried since watching my grandfather work. His reverence for the masters he copied wasn’t only technical appreciation. It was love, a conversation across centuries, an intimate dialogue between creator and recreator.

“That’s why I loved your grandfather’s forgeries.” Ezra’s hand moves down my stomach, and my legs part in an invitation he ignores for now. “They went beyond skill. They are audacious.”

I shake my head, struggling to keep track of the conversation while he teases my body. “What?”

His lips curl against my shoulder in a smile felt rather than seen. “He wasn’t just copying, he was adding to a conversation that should have died centuries ago, and making it new again.”

His understanding hits harder than the truth about his family. Ezra doesn’t just see my grandfather’s technical brilliance. He feels the heart of it, the longing to create meaningful artwork in a world that only values names, not vision.

“Maybe we’re not so different, you and I.” His palm flattens over my stomach. “We both believe beauty should be free. Should be alive. Should be touched.”

His hand slides lower again, teasing at the line where sheet meets skin, the whisper of contact sending heat spiraling through me.

“Your family moves art around the world.” I slowly piece together this new understanding. “To private collectors who appreciate it. Who live with it.”

“Art belongs with those who love it most,” Ezra confirms. “Not those who can pay the most at auction, but those who will wake up every morning and see it with fresh appreciation. Who will touch it when no one’s there to witness their awe.

Who understand that ownership is just temporary stewardship. ”

I think of the paintings I’ve stolen over the years, of the forgeries I’ve left in their place. Had I been following the same philosophy without naming it? Ensuring that beauty remained in circulation, that the world didn’t lose what my replacements preserved?

“You’re still a thief,” I say with ironic recognition.

“Takes one to know one.” His teeth graze my earlobe, the sensation sending shivers down my spine.

Ezra refills our glasses with the last of the whiskey, and we drink in silence, the liquor warming our bodies as the night deepens around us. The city beyond the windows has grown quieter, the hour late enough that even Skyhaven’s perpetual rhythm has slowed to a gentle pulse.

In this moment, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been while pretending to be someone else. And it’s all because of the man behind me.

Ezra sets his empty glass on the nightstand. The shift brings us closer together, his body flush with mine, and his arm around my waist tightens.

“Finish your drink.” He nuzzles my nape. “You’re staying the night.”

It’s not a question, nor quite a command, but a simple statement of fact. Any other time, from any other person, the presumption would cause my independence to bristle and rouse my need for escape routes and contingency plans.

But not tonight. Not with Ezra.

I drain my glass, and he takes it from me, setting it beside his.

Then he kisses me, his mouth finding mine with unerring accuracy despite the awkward angle.

He pinches my chin, drawing me further toward him, deepening the connection, tongues sliding and curling together until we’re both breathless.

I let him guide me back onto the sheets, let his body cover mine, let myself believe that maybe home isn’t a place to be found but a person to be chosen.

As Ezra’s hands map familiar territory with renewed hunger, as his mouth claims mine with possessive certainty, I surrender to the truth we’ve both always known.

Some forgeries are more authentic than their originals.

And some loves are worth the risk of exposure.