Love Unlocked Read Online Free

she’d rushed into several ill-advised romances with dark, exciting men, only to have her heart broken. Then when her careers—as gallery curator and art thief—both took off, she had neither the time nor the energy to properly vet prospective boyfriends, lest they be Interpol plants or too inquisitive for their own good. So the relationships, if they could be called that, had been sporadic and brief. Was loneliness another reason she’d been so ready to chuck it all and return to America, land of her unresolved issues?
    Annoyed at her self-pitying introspection, Eve shut the lid of her computer with a click and inspected the kitchen with a critical eye. The appliances were all installed, and most of the furniture had been delivered. She’d been living here for less than two weeks, but so far she was ahead of schedule. Should she start thinking about repainting the walls, or get to know the area better? Los Angeles and San Francisco were both within a half day’s drive if she were craving some culture. She’d always been good at finding things to occupy her time, but she’d have to get out of the house if she wanted activity. Opportunity wasn’t likely to literally knock on her door out here.
    A knock sounded on the front door, making her smile.
    The man on the other side of the door resembled Hudson around the eyes and the chin, but his lips were thinner, and his nose a different shape altogether. His dark brown hair was straight and cut short and he wore a wide gold wedding band on his left hand.
    “You must be Will,” she said. “Come on in.”
    Will Cleary was an intelligent, efficient man who, along with his apprentice, Carlos, had her new locks installed within an hour. He presented a more than adequate plan for the rest of the security measures she’d requested, with a few more of his own ideas added in and approved by Eve.
    They sat at the kitchen bar on her new stainless steel bar stools, finalizing the plans and going over the estimate.
    “I met your brother the other day,” Eve said, broaching a subject that had been niggling at her brain for days.
    “He covers for me from time to time,” Will said. “Did he do a good job?”
    “Oh, yes, fine. Silly of me to lock myself out in the first place.”
    “It happens,” Will said easily, shuffling papers back into a folder with her name on it. “I’ve done it myself, believe it or not.”
    She smiled and showed him out. Will was likable and she trusted her gut feeling that he was honest. She rested with her back to the door and thought of her lock pick set, gathering dust. If she’d had them with her the day she’d moved in, might she never have met Hudson?
    She’d tried not to think about him since he’d invited her to sit for him. The idea had thrown her, and not least because she had been certain he was going to ask her out when he had that cute, nervous, talking-too-fast thing happening. But he’d asked her to model instead of to dinner and she’d actually wanted to say yes to his—request? Offer? Who would turn down a chance to work with one of the most brilliant, not to mention, gorgeous, painters of the twenty-first century?
    Getting involved with a man, a painter, no less, was not part of the plan. Eve was giving herself time and the space to think, to reflect, to decide what she was going to make of her life. The last decade had been some kind of bizarre dream, where she did things that regular people— real people—didn’t do. As a girl, she’d longed for glamour and adventure, and she’d gotten her wish, in spades. It had taken every ounce of her courage to walk away from that life and imagine a different path for herself. The still-rational part of her brain had known that if she didn’t walk away, that glamorous, adventurous life would end either in jail or death. Those were two adventures she could put off indefinitely.
    But a life where the most pressing matter on her plate was picking a china pattern was not as fulfilling