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"Why would I be angry?"
"Come on, Kitty Kat…" Gabrielle cocked her head "You’re Hale’s secret girlfriend"
"His what?"
"You know, the girl he likes just as long as no one knows it"
"Everyone knows it"
"No" Gabrielle spun on her "Everyone you knos it But I’ot to mention the G-hen you met his mother What about his dad?" Gabrielle added "And Little Miss Redhead? What’s her name?"
"Natalie," Kat said
"Yeah" Gabrielle huffed "I’m sure he was all lovey-dovey in front of her?"
Kat said nothing, and her cousin talked on
"I’ around behind his back because you think so, fine"
"Of course I think so"
Gabrielle sidled closer "But if you’re doing it because you want so…"
"What do you ht not be able to go to Rouy who is concerned with stock pricescons" Gabrielle sidled even closer, hand on hip "What I et out of his family’s business because that is the only way to keep him in yours"
It washowin her heart she wasn’t It wasn’t fair that Gabrielle could be both so beautiful and so wise
"Get some sleep, Kitty Kat" Gabrielle started up the stairs "You’re spending toht at the ood news, Kat couldn’t help but think, was that the Petrovich exhibit was far fro the Henley’s always i as it was, in the center of the grand prouards and the docents and even the visitors themselves to overlook it, to treat the dozen prominent pieces less like valuable works of art and more like…well…furniture
Desks and bookcases and even chests of drawers filled the center of the corridor with only red velvet ropes standing between the precious works and the sticky hands of sweaty tourists
The croere heavy and the winds outside were brisk, so even Kat had to concede that the conditions were as perfect as they could be, given the circumstances But the circuood
It was still the Henley, and Kat and her creere still the kids who’d robbed it, and so it ith more than a little trepidation that she followed Gabrielle (who had been forced to abandon her short skirts and tall heels for the occasion, lest any of the guards recollected seeing her legs on that fateful day last December)
The past was the past, and the people at the Henley seeed
Kat, on the other hand, knew better
The guards were on a different rotation The caraded noon an entirely different feed, and this ti by the doors to the North Garden His hands were shaking as he paced back and forth, looking like he was going to burst through the doors and run screa from the Henley at any moment But he didn’t
"I don’t like this I feel naked I feel…blind," Sih the co back," Gabrielle told him from her place by the s
But that wasn’t the problem, and Kat knew it
"It’s no fair," Siet to have conition software Have I nition software?"
"Yeah," Gabrielle told hi for fake noses"
Simon defended his honor Gabrielle insulted his nose But the words were just a distant hu main corridor filled with desks and cabinets, a bookcase from the library of a very famous university that had been transplanted there piece by piece, including the very secret co it all in
And then she saw it--the desk in the middle of the exhibit--twenty yards from the entrance to the Imperial China room, directly opposite the portrait of Veronica Henley herself Kat thought of another fine old lady as she inched closer to the velvet ropes
It wasn’t the most ornate of the pieces, but it was Kat’s favorite--the very one she would have chosen if she could have picked any Petrovich for herself The draere intricately carved The pass-through underneath had a swinging door The top was soft leather with sht; not the place for an old woman’s thank-you notes and diaries No It was a deskher husband’s seat quite literally as she carried both the family and the company into a new era
"I still wish I had a computer," Simon said frohts and her gaze away fro corridor