Free The Russian's Tenacious Lover by Nic Saint

the very least. Preferably four. The two of us won’t cut it, I’m afraid.”
    “But she’s just a kid!” cried Glynis.
    Now it was Jenn’s turn to be annoyed. “I’m not a kid anymore!” She threw up her hands and raised her eyes to the ceiling. “God, I hate it when people do that! I’m eighteen!”
    “Eighteen,” said Glynis, flicking her eyes back to Thomas in a scolding look.
    He merely shrugged, amused by her annoyance.
    “If you don’t include me in this little scheme of yours,” Jenn started to say, “I’m telling my father.” She pointed to Thomas. “First I’ll tell him Tom stole Mummy’s diamond, and then I’m telling him you stole it from him and now you’re planning to burgle his very good friend Rostislav Mamykin.” She planted her hands on her hips and raised her chin mutinously, presenting the perfect picture of the recalcitrant teen. “Let’s see how Daddy feels about that !”
    For a moment, the two women stood glaring at each other in a contest of the wills, then Glynis let out a disgusted cry. “God, you rich people are impossible!”
    Far being it from Thomas to point out the obvious fact that Glynis was very much a part of the rich set herself, he muttered, “So that’s settled then. Jenn is joining the merry band?”
    Glynis lifted her shoulders in a gesture of exasperation. “I guess so.”
    Quite inconsiderately, Jenn pumped her fist and cried, “Yessss!”

CHAPTER 14

    “No, no, no, and no means no.” The head of the family spoke softly but with decision and authority, and Glynis suppressed a groan of annoyance.
    “Look, Dad, Tom says this job requires a four-man team. Right now, we’re three, so we need you!”
    Hugh looked up at the mention of the word Tom. “So it’s Tom now, eh? When did this happen?”
    Ignoring him, she went on. “Tom says he could wrestle up someone from his team, people he’s worked with before, but frankly I don’t trust him. For all we know he could be working the inside stand. Get a bead on some of Mamykin’s jewels for himself and then secure a buyer. That man,” she added with a look of exasperation, “is the slipperiest devil I’ve ever encountered.”
    “Yes, slippery and quite charming,” murmured Hugh with a twinkle in his eye.
    She hadn’t heard the amusement in his voice nor seen the twinkle, for she continued in the same tetchy vein. “I swear if we don’t tie that man down and lock him up in the deepest dungeon or the highest tower, he’ll be out of here before we have a chance to get even near those pearls. Did you know he almost escaped?”
    “Is that so?”
    “If Jenn hadn’t dropped her backpack and I hadn’t heard the thump, he would be on his way to Moscow right now.”
    “I doubt it, honey,” said her father warmly. “If Thomas Spencer wanted to escape, he would have done so without the help of Jennifer Crocket.” He plucked at the meager mustache he’d been cultivating for years now. “No, if that man is still here, it means he wants to be here.”
    Glynis merely shrugged. “Whatever. Now are you going to help us or not? We can’t do this without you, you know.”
    She eyed him with a look she’d perfected over the years. The one she’d learned while being dangled on his knee. Each time she wanted something, she would give him that pleading look that he found so particularly hard to resist.
    “I don’t know, honey,” he wavered. “I’m a man of advanced years.”
    She rolled her eyes. “Dad, you’re fifty.”
    “Still. What in the blazes can you expect me to contribute to this… operation of yours?”
    “You could keep an eye out,” she offered. “Or you could distract the guards.” She flapped her arms. “Whatever, Dad. Tom says he needs you, so that means he must have something in mind for you to do.”
    He smiled again. His daughter hadn’t noticed how she’d gone from referring to Thomas Spencer as that rat thief to calling him by his Christian name, and had apparently