1 - 20 of 24 Works by Bear
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Summary
To convince a dangerous observer that Josephine has genuinely fallen into police custody, Brigitte is required to conduct an authentic-looking arrest.
It's not the first time she's done it. It's not even the first time this year - Josephine has been arrested by Brigitte Desjardins often enough that they no longer require rehearsal.
Today, however, Josephine has made several unannounced revisions to their usual script...
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One senior police officer.
One international con artist.
One casino.
One night.
A lifetime of consequences.
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How Josephine and Brigitte first met, as decided by me.
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There's a heatwave in Beaumont-sur-Mer and Brigitte is stuck at work without air conditioning.
Josephine has a pool and an intense sense of civic duty when it comes to ensuring one police officer in particular is taken care of.
Brigitte is, of course, very grateful.
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Evelyn Vale won a great deal of money from a wealthy idiot on a yacht in Antibes. Fair and square, as it happens - a detail he has conveniently forgotten.
Unfortunately, he won't pay. More unfortunately still, Evelyn Vale doesn't exist quite enough to sue him for it.
Which is how Josephine and Brigitte - one posing as a woman she isn't, the other posing as a solicitor she also isn't - come to be sitting in a stately Provençal salon, waiting for an audience with the one person who actually controls the family funds: his grandmother.
She is ninety-one years old, entirely unimpressed, and about to uncover a good deal more than either of them bargained for.
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A sequel to 'Clear Eyes'.
The morning after the night before, and Josephine has a lot of thinking to do now she's able to reliably do so.
This is dangerous for everyone involved. Truly.
Series
- Part 2 of A Night to Remember
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The evening at Casino de Beaumont is very much like any other - Josephine in the process of parting an odious man from a substantial amount of money, Brigitte watching from the mezzanine above.
And then, rather suddenly, everything is wrong.
Series
- Part 1 of A Night to Remember
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Brigitte Desjardins has spent years tolerating Josephine Chesterfield’s nonsense with remarkable patience.
Josephine - elegant criminal mastermind, professional liar, and frequent visitor to the Beaumont-sur-Mer commissariat - talks her way past a new desk officer by casually claiming to be Brigitte’s wife.
Unfortunately, the entire station hears her do it.
Now Brigitte is enduring wedding favours in the break room, bridal magazines on her desk, and a staff who believe themselves unbearably hilarious every time they ask after her “wife.”
Josephine, naturally, finds the fallout delightful.
Brigitte has had enough and decides that Josephine should face some consequences for once.
After all, Josephine always rewrites the narrative.
...Perhaps it is time someone returned the favour?
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A misunderstanding when they first meet leads Brigitte to believe that Josephine only wants what Brigitte can offer as a police officer.
For years afterwards, their relationship is carefully confined to something safe and professional.
Until one evening forces both women to confront the truth of their situation...or, rather, what they each believe the truth to be.
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A sequel to 'Fine Lines'.
Accidentally locked in the evidence archive at the commissariat overnight, Josephine and Brigitte are forced to entertain themselves.
Which is difficult, considering the lights are off and the floor is concrete.
But, as previously discovered, you don't need to be somewhere comfortable for something interesting to happen...especially if you've got a lot of feelings you've been keeping to yourself.
And Brigitte has a lot of feelings.
Series
- Part 3 of Here I am, stuck in the middle with you
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Josephine is concerned that the integrity of her con will be compromised by her mark's wandering hands. Luckily, she has the perfect solution - a police officer with a disapproving glare.
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Josephine needs a wife at short notice. Enter Brigitte.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 6,628
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 3
- Hits:
- 21
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Summary
At an Interpol conference in Lyon, Brigitte Desjardins is doing her best to remain professional - despite the unexpected appearance of a certain “lieutenant” who does not officially exist and has no respect for boundaries.
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Josephine finds cosplaying as law enforcement both enjoyable and educational.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 6,039
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 4
- Hits:
- 20
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Summary
Josephine is having an uncharacteristic crisis of confidence as her birthday approaches, and neither of the women in her life will let her wallow in it.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 2,423
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 4
- Hits:
- 16
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Summary
5 times +1
Josephine tells herself she works alone.
Except, increasingly, there is a Brigitte-shaped space built into the structure of her cons.
And, even when there isn't...she seems to be there anyway.
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A sequel to 'Silver Linings'
The last time Josephine had gotten herself into trouble that required...innovation, she and Brigitte had ended up squashed into a wardrobe.
It had not been her finest moment, and Brigitte had complained at length. During, and for days afterwards.
Well, now it's Brigitte's turn to think on her feet as they flee an active crime scene. And the consequences this time are far more extensive than being a bit uncomfortable in a confined space.
Series
- Part 2 of Here I am, stuck in the middle with you
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Summary
It was all the pear’s fault.
Breakfast should have been uneventful: sunlight on the terrace, coffee cooling in delicate cups, the Mediterranean performing its usual sparkle.
Instead, a single, perfectly sliced piece of fruit becomes the catalyst for Josephine Chesterfield’s most destabilising realisation to date - she may be catastrophically in love with the one woman capable of arresting her before lunch.
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Brigitte is having an eventful day at work.
Josephine is out for dinner with a truly idiotic man whose only redeeming quality is the money she is slowly siphoning from his accounts.
It is February 14th. Neither woman would admit to wanting to spend Valentine's Day together. They are not sentimental.
And yet.
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Josephine has no respect for boundaries. Not to worry - Brigitte is dreadful at enforcing them anyway.
5 times Josephine contacts Brigitte with an absurd request, and 1 time she got more than she bargained for.
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Josephine sets her cup down. “All right. What is it?”
Brigitte blinks. Straightens. “Pardon?”
“You have not corrected me once,” Josephine continues. “You have not sighed. You have not looked at me as though I am a personal inconvenience. I find it suspicious.”
Brigitte exhales through her nose, the sound halfway between a laugh and surrender. She rubs her thumb along the rim of her cup.
“I need to ask you something,” she says.
Josephine’s smile sharpens. “Oh?”
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For decades, Brigitte has been fending off well-intentioned older relatives who want to see her settled down. She thinks she has found a permanent solution to ending the matchmaking once and for all. Josephine takes Brigitte's plan and adjusts it to her own liking.
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Josephine raises her eyebrows, unrepentant, and circles the desk to retrieve her teacup and sit. “You like Paris. And,” she continues smoothly, “I will need someone with a badge and an air of authority. Someone who can make things appear legitimate, misfile the right paperwork, discourage the right witnesses.”
Brigitte exhales through her nose. “You are describing several crimes.”
“I am describing necessity.”
“And I am hearing inconvenience.”
Josephine smiles, undeterred. “You are hearing opportunity. Brigitte, I need someone improvisational.”
“If only you knew such a person,” Brigitte says. “Tragically, I am very busy enforcing the law.”
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Josephine wants to commit financial crimes in Paris, and she wants Brigitte to come with her.
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Summary
Before Penny and Thomas, there was Josephine, Brigitte and Beaumont-sur-Mer.
- Language:
- English
- Words:
- 1,641
- Chapters:
- 1/1
- Kudos:
- 6
- Hits:
- 30