Free The Black Sheep and the English Rose by Donna Kauffman

doors, in private with him, at least for the next several hours. With a bed handily nearby. She sighed a little, not caring at this point what he thought.
    â€œI’ll see what I can scrounge up,” he said, a hint of concern in his voice. “We shouldn’t dally too long, though. Reese has to be making plans to set up a buy as we speak. We need to get a handle on his partner and/or buyer, then move on it as fast as we can.”
    She trembled with a bit of relief. No dallying. She was perfectly fine with no dallying. She didn’t even feel bad for making him worry just a little about her. The fact that he did made it just as hard on her anyway. “You have equipment to do a fingerprint trace from the glass?”
    â€œI have access there to a lot of things.”
    She let that bit of news sink in, wondering now if his reasons for keeping a place in town were more business oriented than sentimental or personal. A convenient way to keep the various tools and technology one needed in a profession such as his handy and available. If her every move wasn’t so keenly followed by either her Foundation board or the folks who employed her for her other services, she’d consider making a similar investment herself.
    The more she thought about it, the more the idea of having her own private little oasis appealed to her. Imagine a place where no one could track her every moment, her every scheduled breath. Not an impersonal hotel room, or one of her family’s ancestral holdings, complete with gossipy staff, but her very own, very private, very personal little place.
    She allowed herself a few indulgent moments to imagine such a thing, telling herself that from a practical standpoint, it would make great sense to have such a base of operations to work from. Of course, there was no way she could hide herself away in London, as she was far too high profile there. The press would ferret out her hidey-hole in minutes. And though she spent considerable time in New York, D.C. and L.A. when she was in the States, if it was Foundation business, she was usually so heavily scheduled, with her time stretched over more than one city, that she’d have little enough time in any one place for a permanent residence to do her much good. The same could be said for Milan, Paris, and Rome.
    And when she visited a city on her other business, she rarely stayed in the same spot for more than a night or two before moving on, and never in the same place twice on consecutive visits. Friends and Foundation members assumed she was on one of her many shopping sprees. And, in a fashion, she was, in fact, usually hunting for a new bauble.
    The town car rolled to a stop in front of a tidily maintained but otherwise nondescript row house. “Yours?” she asked, somewhat surprised. She hadn’t known what to expect, but perhaps something a bit more elegant, something in the more fashionable Greenwich or SoHo neighborhoods.
    Finn nodded. “Home away from home.”
    â€œWhat made you choose this area?” They were in Chelsea, if she had her bearings right.
    â€œInteresting neighborhood. I had some friends who lived here when I worked for the city, and I always enjoyed the energy here.”
    The area was definitely a mixed bag between high brow and low brow, which, when she thought about Finn’s more rumpled elegance, perhaps made more sense than she’d originally thought.
    He slid out and held the door for her. She stared up at the building in front of her, and he stepped in behind her, his hand on the small of her back, making it almost impossible to keep track of what he was saying. Something about the place being one of the few restored nineteenth-century brownstones still privately owned. All she could think about was how warm and large his palm felt against the curve of her spine.
    She might have taken the steps a bit more quickly than recommended for someone with heels on, but the sooner they got