Love Thief Read online

  Love Thief

  The Tavonesi Series ~ Hunter and Ava

  Pamela Aares

  SeaStar Press

  A Note from Pamela

  In LOVE THIEF an heiress with a secret mission finds herself fighting for her heart and life when she meets San Francisco’s notorious Gentleman Thief.

  “A perfect blend of mystery, passion and life-changing romance!”

  * * *

  Hello My Dears!

  I’m excited to bring you Love Thief, the next book in my Tavonesi Series featuring Ava and Hunter’s love story.

  The Tavonesi Series explores the adventurous lives and sensual love stories of the Tavonesi family and their captivating friends. This story introduces the adventures of a group of seven women who’ve been dubbed the Undercover Heiresses—a band of women who risk everything to see justice done for the voiceless and powerless.

  I have to admit that Hunter Sterling, the hero of Love Thief, has totally captured my heart. His heart-warming journey to be able to love is a timeless story of healing, forgiveness, challenge and adventure. When he meets the fascinating and secretive heiress Ava DuBarry, a spark kindles to life—a spark that opens him to love in ways he’d never dreamed possible.

  Curl up with a cup of tea and wrap yourself in love and adventure. I hope you love Ava and Hunter’s story as much as I loved writing it!

  And if you have time and are so inclined I’d be grateful if you’d leave a review—reviews make an important difference to helping readers find great books!

  xo Pamela

  * * *

  P.S. Here’s the description of Love Thief:

  Robinhood never had it so rough… A museum security expert by day and a thief with a hidden mission to right wrongs by night, Hunter Sterling is no stranger to deception. But when he teams up with a secretive heiress to recover a priceless statue, he finds himself caught in a web of life-changing secrets and falling for a woman he’s not sure he can trust.

  The mysterious Ava DuBarry cracks open the passion and life purpose Hunter’s been seeking, but can their growing love overcome the forces threatening to tear them apart?

  Also by Pamela Aares

  The Tavonesi Series:

  Love Bats Last (Book #1, Alex and Jackie)

  Thrown By Love (Book #2, Chloe and Scotty)

  Fielder's Choice (Book #3, Alana and Matt)

  Love on the Line (Book #4, Cara and Ryan)

  Aim For Love (Book #5 Sabrina and Kaz)

  The Heart of the Game (Book #6, Cody and Zoe)

  Love in the Vineyard (Book #7, Natasha and Adrian)

  A Very Daring Christmas (Book #8, Jake and Cameron)

  No Stranger to Love (Book #9, Parker and Juliet)

  Until Love Finds You (Book #10, Coco and Evan)

  * * *

  Also by Pamela Aares:

  Jane Austen and the Archangel (Regency Romance,

  Book #1, Angels Come to Earth)

  Are you new to The Tavonesi Series?

  For a limited time as a gift to my readers, you can get the first two books in the series for free by becoming part of my VIP Reader’s Group. Just click on the link below the image and you’re on your way to delicious love stories!

  * * *

  Click HERE to be a part of my VIP Reader’s Group and get LOVE BATS LAST and THROWN BY LOVE for FREE and discover where the emotion packed Tavonesi Series begins!

  (And don’t worry— I appreciate the trust you have in me and will never spam you.)

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  BOOKS BY PAMELA AARES:

  Love Bats Last

  Thrown By Love

  Fielder’s Choice

  Love on the Line

  Aim for Love

  The Heart Of The Game

  Love in the Vineyard

  A Very Daring Christmas

  No Stranger to Love

  Until Love Finds You

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  He hadn’t expected trouble.

  Still, picking the simple lock on the back door had taken longer than he’d anticipated. Luckily for him, the Ascher family wouldn’t be back for two days. But the risk of being heard or seen by a neighbor made time an enemy.

  Hunter pulled the door closed behind him and stepped into the darkness. From meticulous research he knew the floor plan of the small middle class house by heart. Kitchen. Hallway. Living room.

  He shifted the zippered black case to his right shoulder.

  He could’ve left the painting in the kitchen. Could’ve leaned it up against the counter and left the way he’d come. But since he’d risked his neck to steal the van Gogh, he was determined to showcase it. Plus, the family deserved some sense of presentation, of style, surrounding the biggest surprise of their lives.

  Stealing the little painting the previous week hadn’t gone smoothly; he hadn’t counted on the dogs. And evidently Russian dogs didn’t speak English. Not that any command would’ve kept them from chasing Hunter down.

  Trust a Russian mafia boss to use killer beasts to protect his ill-gotten property.

  If Hunter hadn’t had vaulted over the wall, he would’ve been trapped with the dogs. And with Bulow. The hair on Hunter’s neck stood up. He’d rather face the dogs; they had hearts. At least with them, his end would’ve been swift. Bulow, on the other hand, loved causing pain.

  The world was full of heartless criminals, and eventually Bulow would cross the wrong crime boss, someone even nastier than he was. Hunter’s focus had been on rescuing the painting, not taking down the criminal.

  When he reached the living room, Hunter removed the family photograph that hung over the mantel and propped it at the base of the small fireplace. Dressed in blue denim and white shirts, the members of the Ascher family smiled out at him. But Hunter knew the pain in their past and the dire financial straits they faced as a result of Mrs. Ascher’s protracted fight against cancer. He slipped the strap from his shoulder, unzipped the case and unwrapped the van Gogh. The painting would fetch several million at auction; any collector would drool to have the painting in their collection. The Aschers’ financial problems would be over, even if the scars of the war crimes couldn’t be erased. Still, Hunter had done his part. He wasn’t a social worker, but he was a skilled thief. And the painting was back in its rightful owners’ hands.

  He hung the van Gogh over the mantel and stepped back to admire his handiwork. He’d spent years stealing back artworks taken by the Nazi regime and clandestinely returning the pieces to the families of the original owners. No one suspected that he was the man the press had come to call the Gentlemen Thief. In his mind, he wasn’t really stealing. He was righting wrongs that should never have happened in the first place.

  As he straightened the painting, a blast of unwelcome realizations kicked him in the gut: The task of making amends for the crimes of his war-criminal grandfather was coming to an end. The thrill of the chase and the
edgy rush of possibly getting caught weren’t enough for him anymore. And though being CEO of his successful security company was lucrative, the work didn’t light his fire. Facing his thirtieth birthday, he was adrift, untethered and unsure of his next steps.

  But one thing hadn’t changed. The seeking-justice bug was still deeply embedded in his soul.

  Hunter drew a sheaf of papers and a photo from the case and placed them on the mantel below the painting. The provenance documents would prove that the Ascher family had owned the painting in the 1940s. And the old photo showed the van Gogh hanging over their relative’s mantel in Prague during better days, less fearful days, before the war.

  Hunter touched a finger to the surface of the van Gogh in a goodbye salute. Too bad he couldn’t use a flashlight to admire the painting’s evocative beauty one last time. Beauty . . . Few people understood its power. Or its importance. The heart of beauty’s transformational power beat far beyond the images manipulated by commercial culture.

  A clatter in the backyard had Hunter holding his breath. A high screech and hiss followed.

  Cats.

  He let out a breath, but fighting cats could draw attention, and Hunter didn’t relish being delayed. He had twenty minutes to change into his tux, paste on a smile and drive into the heart of San Francisco and to the DuBarry Museum gala before the party ended at midnight.

  Chapter 2

  Ava exited the limo and made her way through the throng of well-wishers crowding the museum’s exhibit hall. As a member of the board and daughter of the founders, she should’ve arrived earlier to welcome the press and guests, but she’d been caught up preparing her report on her investigation in Africa and had lost track of the time. And though her driver had brilliantly maneuvered the rain-slick San Francisco streets, traffic had cost them another half hour.

  Ava’s smile wobbled as she slipped past her father flirting with a woman in a skimpy gown, and heat flushed Ava’s cheeks. This was a special night for her mother, and Ava had hoped her father would control himself for a few hours in public. Across the room, her mother was making a good show of pretending not to notice. But Ava felt the sting. Her father’s philandering and her mother’s suffering were constant reminders of her own traumatic history with men. She’d never again fall for a man she couldn’t trust.

  Through a break in the crowd, Ava spotted Emma Langley and headed toward her.

  To the outside world, Emma was the director of Time for Love, a high-end and ridiculously exclusive dating agency, and Ava’s employer. But Emma’s real work was as director of a secret group of wealthy, influential and highly trained women who’d banded together to battle injustices. In one of her lighter moments, Emma had dubbed the group the Undercover Heiresses, and the moniker had stuck. The Heiresses had the funds, the skills, the resources and the determination to go all the way for a cause, no matter how much time was required. And because of their cover—as employees of Time for Love—they could meet without raising suspicions and work anonymously, gathering information and making plans without interference, righting the wrongs that governments and entrenched bureaucracies preferred to ignore.

  “You look like you could use this.”

  Emma’s throaty English accent broke through Ava’s painful memories.

  Ava accepted the glass of water and felt Emma’s assessing gaze as she took several deep sips.

  “Are you thinking about Alicia again?” Emma’s whispered question was barely audible above the chattering crowd.

  Ava nodded, not wanting to lie. “Her death still haunts me.”

  Two years earlier, Ava’s dearest friend had been filming a documentary in Africa about the black market trade in endangered species. She’d foolishly gone off on her own to scout a location and had been kidnapped by a gang of poachers. Their ransom demand was more than Alicia’s family would make in a lifetime. Ava had used her own funds and arranged the bitcoin transfer, and she and Alicia’s parents had caught the next plane to Africa. By the time they arrived at the wildlife preserve, Alicia’s body had been found outside the perimeter fence. The note in her pocket, written in her own hand, said that her death was a warning to anyone interfering with the poachers.

  Emma had warned Ava about the futility of focusing on what could’ve been, what should’ve been, and the if-onlys: if only she’d known about the Heiresses earlier, if only she’d been able to marshal knowledge and resources to keep Alicia safe, if only she hadn’t drawn Alicia into her love of elephants in the first place—

  “It’s perfectly normal to feel loss deeply,” Emma said as she wrapped an arm around Ava’s shoulders. “But grief is one thing, guilt is another,” she added, as if she knew the run of Ava’s thoughts. “It does no good to agonize over a tragedy that none of us had any chance of stopping.”

  For years Emma had been Ava’s rock, first as headmistress of the boarding school in Switzerland and later as a mentor and friend when Ava had attended college in California. Several months after Alicia’s death, Emma had offered Ava a position with the Heiresses. The life of a self-indulgent trust-fund baby had never appealed to Ava, and the prospect of being able to prevent future tragedies had pulled her out of the deep depression swamping her. She’d dived into the Heiresses’ rigorous training program with the single-minded focus of a drowning sailor grabbing a lifeline.

  But now, as director of the Heiresses, Emma was blocking Ava from taking on a larger role in the Africa case. Ava’s recent fact-finding trip to the African wildlife preserve had gone well, but she’d been angered by the conditions and challenges she’d discovered and had pursued a couple of strategic initiatives without checking in with Emma. Displeased by the news, Emma had yanked Ava back to San Francisco and stated flat out that Ava had lessons to learn before she’d be ready for further involvement in such a dangerous operation. And she’d been drumming into Ava the importance of channeling the urge for revenge into healing and justice, a lesson Ava had struggled to make room for in her heart.

  Emma touched her fingers under Ava’s chin in a gesture she’d first used when Ava was the shy new girl in the exclusive boarding school in Switzerland and reluctant to mix with the older girls. “This is your mother’s party. Your duty is here tonight.”

  Ava nodded, knowing she was right. She gestured her glass toward her father. “I hope we at Time for Love never make as poor a match as my parents did.”

  Emma’s steel-blue eyes glittered. “Matching individuals is like solving a crime. You can have compelling facts, but there will always be essential elements that escape even the best investigation.” She smiled at Ava’s mother. “The secrets of the heart reveal themselves in surprising ways.”

  Darcy Mears, killer IT wizard for the Heiresses and front office receptionist at Time for Love, sidled up to them balancing a champagne glass and a plate piled high with food.

  “Secrets of the heart?” Darcy waved the glass, her polished black nails a stark contrast to the column of rising golden bubbles. “Don’t you two ever take a break? This night is about art! My first love.”

  “I thought DiCaprio was your first love,” Ava said, attempting a teasing tone and making the effort to drag her thoughts and her spirit back to the party.

  “His-tor-eeee,” Darcy said, narrowing her eyes. “You know what your problem is, Ava?

  “I have the sneaking suspicion you’re about to tell me.”

  “See?” Darcy said, turning to Emma. “She’s so profoundly perceptive.” She laughed. “But seriously, Ava. You don’t even believe in love.”

  “Guilty as charged.”

  “Then you’re in the danger zone. Better the enemy you know than one you don’t. I predict that love will sail in and upend your boat.”

  Ava ignored Darcy’s barb and tapped Emma on the arm. “You didn’t go out on the date we set up for you.”

  “I’ve told all of you that I’m not looking for a new man. I had thirty-two wonderfully loving years with Colin.”

  “Em, life stretches ou
t way beyond fifty,” Darcy said, her usually punk tone going soft. “There are three new guys in our database that I think you’d like. One’s a winemaker right here in the Bay Area. And another is—”

  “You are a danger to my nerves, Darcy Mears,” Emma said with mock seriousness. “I’ve a mind to assign you to a mission on a faraway island without internet.” She waved as she sauntered away.

  “Death for sure!” Darcy stopped her feigned faint midswoon. “OMG, check that guy out. Sign me up for true love right now, Ava. And he’s watching us.” Darcy raised her glass in a salute.

  Ava pivoted. Hunter Sterling, rumored to be the hottest playboy on the West Coast, stood a few feet away, encircled by glittering socialites. Her breath caught as his piercing stare met hers. In person he was far more handsome than in the photos she’d seen. And Darcy was right—though women surrounded Hunter, his gaze was focused on them. No, he wasn’t watching their group—he was staring at her.

  Darcy elbowed Ava. “If we had a hundred guys like him in our database, we could all retire to a private island.”