“I’ve left a few plants at your new office so you don’t forget me,” he said. “Real plants. Not nineties throwbacks that are unsuited to an office climate. The moth orchid is finicky and the tillandsias can be particularly tricky. They don’t grow in soil and instead need rocks or shrubs to cling to. They’ll need several hours of indirect sunlight so don’t put them on your bookshelf.” He gave me one last, long kiss and opened the door.
“Jack?”
“Yes?” He looked over his shoulder.
“Why were you still in the bushes outside the museum if you knew the necklace was already gone?”
He turned fully to face me. “I was thinning the hellebore when I saw a woman in an oversize suit jacket and a fedora trying to throw a rope into a window two stories high to rescue her friend in the dark and rain. I’ve traveled all over the world and I’ve seen many things, but I’ve never seen anything like that. And then the alarm went off and she didn’t run. She didn’t give up. She refused to leave her friend and tried to scale a sheer brick wall with her bare hands. I didn’t know love and loyalty like that existed. I only knew what it meant to be alone. I had to meet her.”
“We didn’t meet,” I said. “You grabbed me and dragged me into the bushes.”
“That’s what you do when you find the love of your life,” he said.
“You love me?”
His voice was soft as he turned away. “I think I loved you from the moment you threw that rope.”
Epilogue
Jack
Six Months Later
Imagine you are just an ordinary guy. You have a good job. You came into some unexpected money and now you have a brand-new Ford F150 truck waiting for you behind your cousin’s greenhouse in Chicago. Your Acanthocereus tetragonus cactus is thriving. You have your health. And you have found a woman to love and who loves you back. You call her every day just to assure yourself she isn’t a dream, and also because she loves burner phone sexy times almost as much as you.
On a cool summer evening in New York, you repossess an incredible sixteenth-century bronze by Willem Danielsz van Tetrode. Don’t worry. The collector is a bad guy. On your way to the airport, you are run off the road by four goons in a Mitsubishi Mirage. They have guns and tire irons and they look like they mean business. But this time you have not been cavalier about your safety. You promised your girlfriend you would come home to her alive, and she has threatened to withhold all sexy times if you get seriously injured. You are carrying the Sig Sauer 45 and two small Beretta M9-22s that your cousin gave you when you were last in Chicago. Your rental car is fully insured, and you are wearing the bulletproof vest your girlfriend bought you for Christmas.
You are also not alone.
After you get shot—but live thanks to your vest—Gage blows up their rental car and helps you beat them and break a few bones. You toss them in the ditch and tell them to pass along a message to Mr. X: Watch out for Oliver Twist.
You search their phones and pockets and discover the details of Mr. X’s next target—a $50 million collection of Cambodian antiquities hidden in a secret gallery beneath a controversial billionaire’s Chelsea home.
You tell Gage to use his special skills to question Virgil. He has always been Mr. X’s weakest link. Also, you haven’t forgotten that day in the butcher shop when he kicked you in the head. You call your boss, who green-lights the job. As always, it’s off the books. No one can know what you do.
You have a good feeling about this one. After you repatriate the bronze to Italy, you make two calls. First, you call your cousin and tell him you’re coming for your truck. Then you call your girl.
Unfortunately, your girl isn’t interested in hearing about your exciting new job. You regret leading with the ambush, the blown-up car, the shooting, and the fight. You have to send her a “proof of life” picture and then fly all the way to Chicago to show her you haven’t been seriously hurt. Gage comes along for the ride. There’s someone he wants to see.
You drive up to a fancy condo building in Evanston and pick the lock on the back door. Old habits die hard. Ten stories of stair climbing later, you knock on her door. And there she is. Now your heart aches. Now your pulse beats strong and fast. You wrap your arms around her and kick the door closed. You are home. You lift her to your hips and carry her to bed. You don’t talk because you need her lips on your lips. You don’t breathe because you need her breath in your lungs. You rip off her clothes because you need her skin on your skin. She has awakened something inside you—something wild and forever.
When it is over—and it is many hours before you both collapse from exhaustion, because you are a stallion in bed—you lie under the sheets and hold her in your arms. You tell her you’ve got a job that could be your way out. A treasure trove in a secret gallery owned by a billionaire whose daughter just got engaged. But you can’t do it alone. You need a team, people you trust, a leader to plan.
You need the Wedding Crew.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Every author needs a crew. In this case, instead of a heist, they helped to bring my story to life. Thank you to my editor, Kristine Swartz, for her keen eye, amazing insight, and belief in my crazy story from the start. Thank you also to my agent, Laura Bradford, for her support and patience and mad diplomatic skills. Thank you to the incredible design team at Penguin, and in particular Lila Selle, who made a cover that made me scream in delight, and a huge thank-you to Mary Baker, Stephanie Felty, and Daniela Riedlová and the rest of the Penguin team for helping to send my story into the world with a bang.
I’d like to give special thanks to all my plushies and stuffies for their sacrifice and bravery. It wasn’t easy being dropped from a balcony with only a skipping rope to hold you, but now we’re all prepared if we have to steal a diamond from a room filled with laser beams or if Tom Cruise needs a stand-in for his next Mission Impossible. You guys rock!
To Jamie, Sapphira, and Alysa for being my reason for everything. To John for being there, holding my hand, and carrying the load. And to Mom and Dad, who always have time to listen.
And finally, thank you, dear readers, for coming on this adventure with me and being the best crew an author could ever imagine.
TO HAVE AND TO HEIST
SARA DESAI
READERS GUIDE
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
Simi’s parents are so desperate to see her married, they ambush her with eligible young bachelors. How do familial expectations influence Simi’s perspective on relationships? Why does she continue to meet the potential suitors despite having no interest in getting married?
When we first meet Simi, she comes across as risk averse. She is still living in the same city where she grew up. She has the same best friend. She remains closely tied to her family. And she has been through a number of dead-end jobs, each one very similar to the last. What motivates her to take the risk of getting involved in a heist with a man she barely knows? How does her life change once she starts taking risks?
Simi and Jack have their first fight after he abandons her during a break-in. He explains later that there was a very small chance the intruders would have hurt her because they were after him. He was also confident she could look after herself. Do you agree with his decision? Could he have handled the situation a different way? Was he sufficiently apologetic, or would you have expected more groveling?