Free Thief of Hearts by L.H. Cosway Page B

making a start on the new assignment I’d given them, but I could tell Stu was eavesdropping. After his abrupt departure at lunch, I wondered if he was still pissed at me.
    “My friend Jamie is having an author visit his bookstore to do a reading and I offered to help out,” I replied.
    “Wow, no offence, but that sounds mega boring, Miss Anderson.”
    I chuckled. “It’s not boring at all. This guy wrote a book about the Persian Wars. You should read it if you ever get the chance. I find the whole thing fascinating.”
    “Oh my God, it gets worse. I think you just about put me to sleep there.”
    I heard a little snicker come from Stu’s direction and now knew he was definitely listening. Well, at least snickering was better than the scowl he’d given me at lunch. Turning to Susan, I smiled, because for some reason I had a fondness for the way she liked to playfully rib me. Unlike Stu, who I still had suspicions about, being cheeky was just Susan’s way. “Did you enjoy the movie 300 ?” I asked.
    “Yeah, obviously . Tell me a woman who doesn’t want to stare at Gerard Butler’s oiled-up CGI abs for ninety minutes.”
    “Well, that film tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where a small force of Spartans and their allies fought against the giant Persian army to defend against invasion. There’s a chapter in the book that gives a more realistic overview of it. I always find it interesting to pick out the alterations made when transforming history for the big screen.”
    Susan rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m still bored.”
    I wagged my finger at her. “A curious mind makes life interesting, Susan. You shouldn’t always dismiss things before they’ve had a chance to wow you. If you do, you’ll miss everything that’s wonderful in the world.”
    “Maybe my idea of wonderful is just different to yours. Ever think of that?” She cocked a hip, all attitude.
    “Okay, true. But if you go around living your life indifferent to new experiences, you’re going to have a grey life. Wouldn’t you prefer it to be a rainbow?”
    Susan shot Mary a look like I was some hippy-dippy crazy woman. “Here she goes again, philosophising.”
    Mary chuckled, shaking her head and continuing with her assignment.
    “It’s my job to help you open your minds,” I said, addressing Susan again.
    “Yeah well, you know what they say about that,” said Larry, joining our chat. “If you open your mind too much, your brain might fall out.”
    Smiling, I replied, “That’s why you only have to open it a little. You’ll be surprised what you’ll learn with just the tiniest smidgen of curiosity.”
    “Curiosity killed the cat though, didn’t it, Miss Anderson?” Larry went on unhelpfully. Sometimes I wondered if he just liked the sound of his own voice.
    “Are you just going to keep throwing sayings at me today, Larry, or are you going to get on with your assignment?” I questioned firmly.
    “I was only saying,” he huffed, lifting his pen and turning back to his work.
    Sensing someone’s attention, I glanced to the side to find Stu studying me. I held his stare, wondering what he was thinking. A shiver trickled over my skin, the same awareness he always seemed to provoke. I wore a sleeveless shirt and his eyes traced the bare skin on my arms, the hollow of my throat. Feeling too exposed, I shrugged on my cardigan and excused myself to the bathroom.
    The man frazzled me, even when he didn’t say a word. How I was going to survive the next five months?
    ***
    “Herodotus is by far my favourite classical author. Sure, he might’ve been a tad creative with the truth, but you have to be if you want to entertain people. I mean, everything else seems flat and lifeless in comparison to his Histories ,” said Jamie. I was helping him open cardboard boxes full of books in preparation for the author reading and signing he was hosting today.
    “Hmm, I quite like Aristotle, and I was always very interested by the