Free Paris Was The Place I Met My Billionaire Lover (My Sweet Billionaire Love Story Series) by Kiera Zane Page B

life!”
    “That cop knew your last name.  You’re going to tell me you served in Iraq together?”
    Julien turned and kept walking, leaving Caitlyn to keep up with his own rugged pace. “You got us to the top of the Eiffel Tower way past the closing time.  You just walked away from a murder scene -- ”
    “Self-defense.”
    “Tell me, Julien, be honest with me; who are you, really?”
    Julien stopped walking, the two of them still in the fog of doubt as it was cleared away by the breeze of revelation.  Julien’s voice was low, his accent thick around his deliberate English.
    “I never lied to you.  Everything I have told you is the truth.  My name is Julien Cherierre.  I raised myself on the streets of Paris and became a business consultant.  All of it true.”
    Caitlyn nodded, her mind quickly shuffling through the images to find the glaring holes in his story.  Suddenly, she felt like her father, peeling back the layers of misdirection to finally get at the truth.
    “What about the rest of it?  The armed forces?”
    “True, but I was not there long.  I’m afraid my discharge was not considered honorable.  You can hardly blame me for not bragging about it.”
    “What happened?”
    “I was caught steeling.”  Julien thought about it, then had to correct himself.  “Well, I was set up, truth be told, but the end result was much the same.”
    “Stealing?”
    “ Oui, Caitlyn.  It was a crate of penicillin, which had been looted from a children’s hospital, to be sold on the armed forces black market.  My friend, so I thought, asked me in on the deal.  Instead, I double-crossed him, stole the medicine, and gave it back to the hospital.  My so-called friends turned me in as the original thief.”
    Caitlyn began to imagine the scenes; an unjust dishonorable discharge, a modern-day Robin Hood being drummed out of the service by scoundrels. 
    Yeah, right , Caitlyn had to say to herself.  Let’s see how this really adds up :
    “So that’s how you raised yourself on the streets of Paris, as a thief.”
    “ Oui .”
    “And you’re still a thief.”
    “ Non , Caitlyn, not for many years now.  But I was, an art thief to be precise.  And I was one of the best in the world.  I stole ... well, I’m not at liberty to say.  But when I say that I have a savings built up, I don’t strictly mean that I have it in stocks and bonds.”
    Caitlyn twitched, not sure what to make of this.  She knew it wasn’t good.  “You’re sitting on stolen artwork, living off it, and you tell me you’re not a thief.”
    “Some of what you say is true,” Julien said, raising his hands to Caitlyn’s arms.  She eased them away and stepped back.  “I am not a thief.  I hold no illegal artwork.  But I have had much of it in my possession in the past.  It has all been returned.”
    “Then where does all your money come from, this business consulting bull crap?”
    “But this is true as well!  My clients are museums, like the Louvre , where I am currently employed.  Museums hire me to make sure their security systems are in good order, that they cannot be violated.  Using my unique expertise in this field, I offer my consultations on how measures can be improved.”
    Caitlyn had heard of this kind of thing before; computer hackers where usually offered top-dollar jobs by the biggest companies to make them hack-proof.
    Still, one or two things more to check out...
    Caitlyn asked Julien, “And how is it that you know all the cops in town, and in the Tower...?”
    Julien couldn’t help but drop a little chuckle.  “I don’t know every cop in Paris, obviously.  But I am known to them.  Of course, a high-profile former thief will be known to the local police, no?  And I am known by others because I frequent those places, and I tip well; because I am paid well and I remember what it’s like to have to scramble just to survive, to go to bed hungry, without blankets or medication.”
    “I ... I