Ancient History Series

That Rat, Carter Janson (Ancient History Book 1 /States of Love Series Book 35)

Every man has secrets, but some are bigger than others….

Felix Peake escaped a shady past to carve out a successful career as an expert in Mesopotamian art and gain the respect of the Chicago art community. But when an assistant curator—a man Felix could easily see himself falling for—asks him to reauthenticate a cuneiform tablet to avoid a looming scandal, Felix’s carefully constructed life could crumble.

The tablet is a fake, and Felix is intimately familiar with the artist. Master forger Carter Janson—Felix’s ex and first love—disappeared from his life six years before without a word of explanation. Now, to hold his world together, Felix must find the original tablet, steal it back, and replace the forgery—all before the museum exhibit debuts. It’ll mean slipping back into a role Felix wanted to leave behind and risking his promising future. But even then, he can’t do it alone. He’ll have to confront that rat, Carter Janson.

Excerpt

“I’ve never told you about Boston.”

“Honey.” Hettie reached out to push a lock of Felix’s dark hair off his forehead. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”

He hadn’t. Felix wasn’t sure there was enough alcohol in the world at the moment.

He eyed Hettie’s half-finished mimosa, and she pushed it out of his reach.

“What’s going on, Felix? This isn’t like you.”

It wasn’t. He wasn’t a drinker. Alcohol made him grow maudlin, then indignant; then it was full-blown tragic regrets.

He was not someone who normally stressed, not about anything. And he sure has hell never entertained the idea of visiting his father.

“I’m going to tell you something, and I need you not to hate me.”

“I can’t imagine me ever hating you.” Hettie gave him a reassuring smile, and he laughed. It sounded slightly manic.

Felix wasn’t even sure where to start, so he started somewhere in the middle.

“I haven’t seen my father since I was twenty-two.”

“Was it because you’re gay?” Hettie looked aggrieved on his behalf. “Because that’s just shit.”

“What?” Felix shook his head. “No.” His father was an asshole, but he wasn’t that kind of an asshole.

“I just thought—”

“No, Dad didn’t care about that sort of thing.” His father hadn’t cared about much of anything outside of his art history teaching position at the University of Boston, the overseas museum tours he took a handful of students on every summer, and his extracurricular activities.

But maybe that wasn’t being fair. His father had always seemed to take people as they came. Once Felix had come out, his father had slipped seamlessly from talking about the beautiful female subjects of his favorite artists’ paintings, on their rare dinners together, to talking about the beautiful men.

“My first boyfriend was one of his less promising art history students.” Though his father had found Carter promising in other ways.

No doubt Hettie had been forced to listen to way too much about his asshole ex every time Felix had more than a couple of drinks in him.”

“Well, then I’m at a loss, honey. What is it you’re telling me?”

“My father’s serving a fifty-four-year sentence in Stateville Correctional for killing a guard while robbing the MoMa.”

Hettie just stared, and Felix gave her a moment for that to sink in.

There was a whole hell of a lot of ramifications to being business partners in a gallery of any sort with a man with such a dubious pedigree.

“And there’s another twenty-six for dealing in stolen goods and running an art forgery ring.”

“Oh my God.” She looked around, checking to make sure they hadn’t been overheard before grabbing his hand and tugging him off the barstool to drag him to an empty corner booth. “We shouldn’t be talking about this here. Maybe we talk about this someplace else? Your apartment?”

There wasn’t anything to drink at his apartment.

“That’s not all. I used to—”

“If you’re about to tell me what I think you’re about to tell me, don’t. We all do stuff we’re not proud of. I used to shoplift makeup from the shop at the end of my block when I was thirteen.”

Felix doubted she had any real idea of the extent of his confession. He also didn’t think shoplifting two-dollar eye shadows and bypassing alarm systems in order to help his father to burgle some of the most valuable private art collections in the country was remotely the same thing.

“I’m not sure my sins and yours are quite on par.”

“Still.” Hettie frowned. “Are you being blackmailed?”

“No,” Felix answered, shaking his head. He had done everything possible to help ensure no one ever connected him to his father. It wasn’t impossible, but it was unlikely. “Michael’s tablet is a fake.”

“So? Tell Michael or the museum or whatever.”

When he just looked more miserable, she narrowed her eyes.

“What does this have to do with your father?”

“It’s Carter’s.”

There was the look, the one that told him she did remember his last drunken confession of epic proportion. His drunken confessions were always epic. It was a surprise she’d even agreed to meet him here when he’d called her.

“Your ex?” She sounded disbelieving. “The asshole who just up and disappeared on you? I thought he was a painter.”

“Yeah, yeah, a terrible one.”

“Even if he made the forgery,” Hettie said, lowering her voice to barely over a whisper. “How could you possibly know it’s his?”

“Because the dumbass signed it!”