Page 12 of To Catch a Sub

“Ma’am, it’s clear that you’re not just here to return a stolen item,” Anu said.

Colette tried to turn her chair to face Anu, but Landon hadn’t released her legs. She tried to spread her knees, shoving against the inside of his legs with her own. He didn’t budge. Their physical battle was silent and unseen, happening below the edge of the table.

She could have said something to alert Landon’s boss about what he was doing, but that felt like admitting defeat.

“Are you saying I didn’t bring you a fifty-carat diamond that might be a famously missing gem?” Colette tipped her head and pursed her lips in mock confusion.

“This conversation is a waste of my time.” Apparently they’d reached the director’s threshold for professionalism, because now she was visibly irritated.

Good. The more emotion she could elicit from these three, the better the rest of this would go.

“Director, may I?” Landon moved his feet and relaxed his thighs, freeing her.

He sounded distressingly calm. Where was his irritation and anger from only moments ago?

He sat back in his chair, facing her.

She mirrored his posture, and the rest of the world seemed to fade away. It was just her and Landon, facing off in a battle of wits and wills.

Colette slowly crossed her legs, the movement just a little too exaggerated. His attention dropped to her thighs, the hem of her skirt now riding dangerously high.

“Hypothetically,” Landon said slowly. “If you were an art thief and cat burglar?—”

“You make it sound so sexy. I like it.”

His jaw muscle flexed. “It seems to me, that the last thing a smart thief would do is walk into a police station.” He paused. “Or in this case an Interpol NCB.”

“A reasonable assumption.”

“Yet here you are.”

Colette raised one shoulder. “Here I am.”

“So I’ll ask again: what do you want?”

She wasn’t going to answer. Not yet. She hadn’t finished forming the framework of circumstance and information that would ensure they did what she needed. “I’m turning this diamond over to the authorities, to you, so it can be returned to the rightful owner.” Colette arched a brow. “This will be an art-recovery coup with international implications.”

“Handling stolen property is a statutory offense.”

“How do you know it’s stolen?” She let her lips twitch.

“Because the Saudi diamond has never been recovered,” he countered, but there was wariness in his eyes.

“Is that the Saudi diamond?” she asked innocently, pointing to the bagged stone.

Landon’s eyes widened, then his gaze flicked down, and she could practically see him thinking.

“Ma’am—” The director started.

The sound of the other woman’s voice was shocking, Colette having almost forgotten anyone else was in the room.

“She never confirmed it.” Landon’s tone was resigned as he sat back, arms crossed. “She’s said she thought it was the diamond, or it might be. She never confirmed it.”

“That’s bloody good,” Barry breathed.

Colette decided she liked Barry. She was going to be friends with Barry.

“I only began to suspect what it was after I’d been asked to assess it and remembered the story of the stolen diamond.” Colette grinned, first at Landon, whose hard, glittering stare made her stomach flutter, then Anu, then Barry. The director was stone-faced, but Barry smiled back.