Free Thief: A Bad Boy Romance by Aubrey Irons

Just wanted to come by and see how my favorite ex-pat is doing back at home.”
    “Aww, am I your favorite?” I clasp my hands over my heart. “That- gee, Agent Riley, that really means a lot. Thank you.”
    He raises a brow at me as I grin right back at him. “I’ve got my eye on you, you know.”
    Fuck him. Again, if he had something concrete, I’d already be in an interrogation room asking for a lawyer. I’m not entirely sure what he’s playing at showing up like this, but I do know damn well that the Federal statute of limitations was over three years ago.
    “Just make sure you get my good side, okay?”
    I wink as he shakes his head at me, his arms still crossed over his chest.
    “Welcome home, Silas.”
    “Enjoy our lovely town, Agent Riley.” I call back over my shoulder. “Try the lobster rolls down on Commercial Street.”
    I wait until I’m a block away and around a corner before I almost drop to my knees, the wind leaving me in a whoosh.
    Fuck . Welcome home indeed.

Chapter Thirteen
Ivy
    I leave my sandals on the beach as I head down onto the rocky shore. The water is cold, as it always is in New England, even in the summer.
    I shiver as I let just the tips of my toes into the lapping waves, feeling somehow comforted by the feeling of the Atlantic against my skin.
    Shelter Harbor doesn’t get big surf-type waves. That’s out on the breakers around the mouth of the harbor itself. Here in the protection of the bay though, we just get little lapping ones - the ebb and flow of the water teasing endlessly against the shore.
    Tickle waves, my mom calls them.
    I grin as I let them tickle my feet, feeling centered - feeling at home.
    Of course, I’m also grinning because these tickle waves are about to become a $5,000 Instagram picture.
    I push the little bottle of skin cream down into the soft brown sand and black pebbles of the shore, pushing it just enough in, right next to my toes, so that the water just splashes gently across it.
    Perfect .
    This week’s skin cream product placement apparently specializes in minimizing high-heel-related calluses. Or, something. This one I’m not actually that familiar with, but my management team made sure it was part of the “to shoot” product bag - along with the sandals up on the beach, the sports bra I’m currently wearing, and of course the yoga pants that carry my brand - that I was supposed to come home with and photograph
    “Make sure you really get enough of that quaint Cape Cod charm, okay, Ivy?”
    I frown at Lori, my immediate manager. “Shelter Harbor isn’t actually on Cape Co-”
    “Hon?” She looks down over the top of her tortoise-shell glasses at me from behind her wide, glass desk. “It doesn’t really matter, okay?”
    Here in decidedly not Cape-Cod-located Shelter Harbor, I bring the phone up and point it down at my feet, framing it just right. Some people who do this kind of work hire a team, but polls have shown that people really dig my “home shot” aesthetic. They like that I’m “au naturale” and don’t use pro photographers. They like that I’m “so genuine” in my selfless quest to highlight-reel my life of endless yoga retreats, active wear, and goji-berry cleanses.
    Right.
    I mean, I’m going to Photoshop the shit out of these pictures later on my laptop, but sure - “au naturale” it is.
    The sun’s perfect right then too, the light great for that mid-afternoon summer dazzle. I swap to a video, shooting a quick one with sound that I’m sure will get 300,000 likes by dinner time if I can get it up in time.
    The skin cream along with my toes captured in about fifty shots, I make my way back up to the beach, slipping back into my sandals and climbing the wooden stairs back to the piers. My eyes dart across the harbor scene I could probably still navigate with my damn eyes closed. The smell of Halstead’s lobster-roll take-out window, the sounds of mechanical winches down on the docks loading empty nets onto