I scowled, and maybe it was my imagination, but it suddenly felt the jewel was very hot against my skin. "What about the prince who ordered it dug up?"
"I do not know about him."
There are some things worth enjoying, and food was one of them. Despite the weird circumstances, the danger, the jewel, I was determined to enjoy my first Scottish meal in nearly five years. Hot food. Good food. Heaven. "I guess mass murder isn't a new thing after all, huh?"
His teeth flashed, white and square. The grin lightened his whole face, and I could suddenly see through to someone else, a man who made jokes in a language I didn't understand, to friends he'd known his whole life, who all lived a life entirely different from my own.
I wanted, suddenly, to go back with him to his Romanian world, into a walk-up flat in a faceless post-war building. I could see the kitchen, Communist-built utilitarian and plain, with half curtains at the window. There would be a little television on a stand on which he watched football games. The kind of football where they wore shorts, not shoulder pads.
It lasted only a flash, my little vision, but it must have put a different expression on my face, because his shifted. His gaze was more direct, his mouth softer in that way that's so dangerous for a woman who has been devastated by the games of men. "What do you know, Sylvie Montague? Hmm?"
I looked away, lifted a shoulder. "Don't even start playing with me," I said, and looked back. "And don't make the mistake of underestimating me. You'll regret it."
"I will not underestimate you." His mouth lifted on one side, and he held up one hand. "Promise."
"Finish the story," I said.
"Well, it goes on as it began. A murder over and over, whenever someone got his hands on it. It is stolen, disappears for a generation or two, resurfaces."
"So not everyone who comes into contact with it dies."
"No."
"But you're not taking any chances, are you?"
He lifted a brow. "I am a thief. Perhaps not the cleanest soul, yes?" His eyes glittered. "I prefer not to touch it."
"It's okay if I'm cursed to possible murder? Thanks ever so."
"You do not believe in curses."
"I wouldna count on that," I said in my best Scottish English. I drank a deep draft of my beer. "I am half Scot myself, you know. We believe in the dark side."
"Not you," he said, and his voice was quite sure.
I scowled. "What makes you think you know me?"
He leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You don't believe in anything. You don't believe in ghosts or God or curses." His eyes were steady. "Men, families, nothing."
A hollowness emptied out my chest. I narrowed my eyes. "You did your research."
He tilted his head. Curls tumbled to one side. "Yes."
Against my thigh, my cell phone buzzed suddenly. It startled me, but I grabbed it and looked at the ID to see who was calling in. "Unknown" flashed over the screen. That might have meant it was anyone at all in Scotland, since I didn't have their numbers programmed in. I didn't answer.
"Sorry," I said, "I have relatives here. That's something you might have considered, you know, before you dumped you
secret
on me."
"I did."
A brief cold chill touched the back of my neck. "What does that mean?"
He shrugged. "Nothing. Just that you'd have resources."
"For…?"
"To help you, that's all. You do not think I would hurt them?" He said it with a slight shake of his head, a slight wrinkling of his brow.
I met his gaze, smiled slightly. "Luca, don't try to play me. I was raised with international playboys and the women who wanted their money, with thieves and art experts and people currying for favor with every sort of celebrity you can imagine." I narrowed my eyes. "You're an amateur."
For a long moment, everything about him was utterly still, and I had a clear image of a sleek cat, tail twitching dangerously.
Then the thick black lashes swept down, heat rose in his cheeks, and he laughed softly. "Forgive me." His chin jutted out, and he met my gaze. "I forgot who raised you."
"Touché," I said, heat in my own cheeks. I slammed down the rest of my pint. "Let's get out of here. You can get me my suitcase."
I stood, jammed my arms into my coat sleeves. He stood with me, and put his hand on my arm. His hair gave off a scent of cloves and oranges, startling and exotic. "Sylvie, I am sorry."
"I'm going to the toilet." I pulled my arm away, tossed my purse over my shoulder. "Pay for our dinner. Then you can tell me what the hell is going on."
"I will," he said, taking out his wallet. "I promise."
Chapter 5
The first step in evaluating a diamond is the simplest,
cut
. There are eight basic cuts for a diamond: emerald, heart, pear, round, marquise, radiant, oval and princess. There are others, of course, but these are the main shapes found in modern diamonds.
—www.costellos.com.au
I
n the ladies' room, I checked my lipstick and then took out my phone. One message was waiting, and I flipped open the phone to punch in the voice mail number. Nothing happened. The phone flipped back to the original icon of a flashing envelope. I tried it a second time, and the same thing happened.
I scowled, but I'd have time to figure it out later. I washed my hands and went back out front. Luca was counting out money to the bartender. While I waited for him, a short, sturdy-looking man at the bar said, "Hey, ain't you that race car driver's daughter? The one in papers all the time?"
I raised my brows. "'Fraid so."
"Yer mum's a local girl? I went to grammar school with her."
"Is that right?" I smiled. "I'm here to visit my grandmother."
"She was sweet, yer mum. I was wrecked to hear what happened to her."
"Thanks." Against my hip, my phone buzzed again, and I was about to pull it out when Luca came toward me, tucking pound coins in his jeans pocket. Time enough to check the message later—it was likely a cousin or aunt, anyway.
"Take care," I said to the man at the bar.
"You do the same, gerl."
Luca went out on the street into the dusk, but I remembered in time to duck my head out first and look for my cousin Keith, who'd been out here just a little while ago. No sign of him. No sign of anyone much, really. I stepped out. A small breeze buffeted my bare knees, and it would be cold later, but it wasn't bad yet.
"Which way?" I said to Luca.
"A car park by the station," he said, cocking his thumb. "Will you walk with me for a little while first, please? Let me tell you my story?"
A damp gloaming hung in the air, soft purple brushed with orange, and I did want to walk by the sea before I slept.
This
sea, which I'd traveled a very long way to visit. Birds with muscular wings flapped overhead, calling to their mates to come get supper amid the pools left behind by the tide. I could smell the muskiness of the water.
Beside me, Luca stood a head taller than I, his body lean and graceful, his shoulders a square evenness I wanted to touch. He tossed on a leather jacket, and I found my gaze lingering on his mouth again.
At the same time, I was aware that he'd used me, that he was a thief, that his life was not the sort I should get mixed up in.
But how boring would life be if we only did what was good for us? "All right," I said. "It better be good."
"That will be for you to decide."
I tucked my purse close and folded my arms over my chest as we headed west, down the street toward the sea. "You stole the jewel?" I prompted.
"Yes," he said. "I am, by profession, a thief."
"And where did it come from?"
He smiled slightly as we emerged onto the quiet promenade. "I imagined you had unraveled that by now."
"Ah. The Kingpin. The drug lord." I paused at the top of a short set of steps to the sand. The last fingers of light gave a backlight to the Goat Fells on Arran, and splashed against the windows of the expensive homes lining the beach.
Luca inclined his head. "You do not know who it is?"
"Who? You mean the drug lord?"
"Yes. They called him The Swede."
"Doesn't ring a bell. Should I know it?"
"Perhaps. It will explain the Maigny connection."
I waited, but he was savoring his moment. I spread my hands. "Well?"
"Henrik Gunnarsson."
"Still nothing," I said. "And while I know Maigny would not particularly care for a close examination of his business, I wouldn't think drugs would appeal to him." He preferred art, jewels, antiques. "Drugs would be too messy."
"Let's walk," Luca said, gesturing.
I frowned at his stalling, and stopped where I stood. Wind came off the water, brisk and invigorating, but it would soon be very cold. The wind skittered up my skirt and I shivered. "Let's not. We can stand here on the bridge."
"As you wish." He faced the sea, putting his face in profile, and I saw something ancient in the Semitic angle of his high-bridged nose, the fullness of his lips. A profile meant for an ancient Greek coin. No, not Greek. An ancient Romanian coin. Yes, that worked. A Gypsy prince, that was Luca, both wild and elegant. The wind gusted his scent of oranges toward me, and I found myself breathing it in before I knew what I was doing.
Dangerous.
In a hard voice, I said, "Tell me."
"Maigny hired me to steal the jewel from Gunnarsson. They are old, old rivals—something that began over a woman who became Maigny's mistress. You may remember her."
"He had a lot of mistresses," I said with a shrug.
"I have the impression this one might have meant a little more to him. Elena?"
I didn't say anything, but memories swished forward. A woman with a deep bust and long legs and beautiful shoes, chuckling at me. A man with ice-blond hair and cool eyes, smoking on a balcony in Paris. Paul, his jaw hard, ordering them out of his house. I couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen. "I remember her, but not because he was somadly in love." Though I supposed he might have been. What did I know—or care—of adult love affairs at the time? "She betrayed him. Stole something, maybe. I can't remember exactly."
"Yes, she betrayed him. She stole a Celtic brooch from him, and took it to Gunnarsson."
"I see." And I could. I could imagine the cold fury that must have overtaken him when he discovered her treachery. "So, how did Gunnarsson end up with the Katerina?"
"It was largely to thwart Maigny," Luca said.
"Ah." Old, bad blood. How typical of men. "So Paul wanted it as payback for the earlier theft." It was a test to see how much he knew.
He glanced at me below his lashes, quick and measuring. "Not exactly. Partly, of course, but he has been seeking this jewel for twenty years or better. Something to do with his father." He shrugged, and leaning on the bridge, laced his hands together. "I don't know."
"His father was a thief, like you," I said. I watched a pair of gulls wheeling against the eggplant-colored sky. "He spent years tracking down the Katerina, and managed to at last steal it from a war criminal who'd fled to Brazil. Paul was young, eight or nine, and saw the jewel when his father brought it home."
"Mmm." Luca's murmur was sympathetic—and knowing. "I can guess the next part. Maigny's father was murdered and the jewel disappeared."
"From what I gather, it was quite brutal. Dismemberment, maybe even decapitation."
Was it my imagination or did Luca shudder slightly? "So it goes with curses."
I thought of Gunnarsson, he of the Kingpin's Crown Jewels that I'd been brought in to evaluate. He'd been garroted. "Did you know the Kingpin?"
"No." The word was short and cold. "He was dead before I arrived. He had only held the Katerina three days."
"And was murdered."
He looked down at me, his hands quiet on the stone balustrade of the bridge. "Yes."
"Who did it?"
"Who knows? Perhaps it was your Maigny."
"No." Paul was a very wealthy man with an eye for beauty who'd made his fortune in canny investments. While I could credit the idea of his hiring a thief to steal a gem from a drug lord with whom he had an old grievance, I didn't think he was a killer. "Who else wanted the jewel?"
He made a pishing noise. "More to the point, who did not?"
I nodded. "And you have now stolen it yourself."
"Yes."
"Has he paid you?"
"Half."
I raised my eyebrows. "And now you've stolen it and have his cash and there are others after the jewel, and if you live another week it will be a miracle." I tossed my heavy braid over my shoulder. "And you dragged me into this mess, why?"
"It belongs to Romania," he said.
I half snorted. "And a thief cares about that, why?"
He gave me an injured look. "My country is poor but proud, and she has been overlooked. Our wealth comes in claiming our own heritage and taking pride in it. If the crown jewels of England were stolen, wouldn't a British thief wish to return them?"
"I suppose." I was still picking up a note of insincerity. Something not quite right. A gust tossed handfuls of dust into my eyes. "Let's go back." We turned around, and I noticed a pair of lovers kissing on a bench. Something about them looked—off.
I frowned. Or was I just being paranoid? Not everybody was paparazzi. "What do I have to do with all of this?"
"Your name was in the newspapers after the murder."
"Yeah. And?"
He paused, put his hand on my arm. Again the night wind blew his exotic scent toward me, mixing it with the sea in a heady combination. I looked at his mouth, wondered…
"When I saw your photo in the paper, I knew I had seen it before, but only when they mentioned your father was Gordon Montague did I realize that I could protect myself from Paul's wrath."
I raised an eyebrow. "How will I protect you?"
"Sylvie, think," he said. "Why choose you? He won't kill me as long as you are with me."
"Why would I care if he kills you?"
"It does not matter what you think. It matters that he will do nothing to endanger you. You are the most precious of all creatures to him, did you know that?"
I snorted. "We haven't spoken in five years."
"That may be," he said quietly, and lifted a hand to my face to capture a strand of long hair that had escaped my braid. He smoothed it back. "But it has not changed his feelings for you. He's very protective of you."
Luca's fingers were graceful and delicate on my cheekbone, and as I looked up at him warily, I spied something in his blue eyes. Surprise, perhaps. A tendril of awareness unfurled on my spine as he took a step closer.
From behind us came a shout, "Hey, Sylvie! Is that your new boyfriend?"
I turned, instinctively, and the flashes went off, pop, pop.
"Shit." I whirled away, putting my back to them. "C'mon," I said to Luca. "Let's get out of here."
He had not moved, his hand still circling my arm. He appeared to be confused as he stared at the photographers, and I'm sure they caught very flattering, open-mouthed pictures of him. They'd run with some appropriately awful headline about shocking secrets or something appropriately comic-bookish.
The flashes from the cameras lit up the night, and Luca scowled. "Who—?"
"Fucking paparazzi," I said, striding away. "Where' s the car?"
He hurried to catch me. "Language, language," he said with a chuckle in his voice.
"You try having sleazy photographers taking your picture every time you're about to kiss someone." I was still stinging from an encounter in New York last spring, when the doggedness of a pair of photographers had cost me a developing relationship with a man I'd really liked. Joseph had been a professor at Berkley. He'd found the attention daunting, and dumped me.
"Were we about to kiss?" Luca asked.
I glared at him. "Don't be arch."
He grinned. "The car is here." He pointed toward a car park near the train station. Behind us the photographers strolled along, shooting photos lazily, their cigarette smoke carried invisibly toward us on the night.
He led the way toward a tiny Ford Mini. White. I raised an eyebrow. "Could you
possibly
have chosen anything less cool?"
He made a face, brushed the question from the air with a wave of his hand, and opened the passenger door for me. There was that one moment of disorientation when I looked down and there was no steering wheel on the left. I started to duck into the car, but Luca captured my arm. Stopped me.
And before I knew what was happening, he slid his hand into my hair, tilted his head toward mine and kissed me.
Even as I was falling into it, I knew exactly what he was doing—for some reason he wanted our photos in the tabloids. He wanted something passionate and sexy. Under ordinary circumstances, I'd never be famous enough to make the covers, but with the news of the drug dealer's stash, and the sexy possibility of a lost gem, and the excitement over my father's current wins on the circuit, chances were excellent—especially with Luca's good looks—that we'd be plastered over them all tomorrow. For a split second, I wondered who he wanted to see us.
I started to pull back, half offended, but who was I kidding? I was using him, too. It wouldn't exactly kill me to have my ex-husband see photos of me kissing some dashing foreigner. For a single long moment, I felt a ripple of satisfaction at the idea of Timothy standing in line in some grocery store, and the tabloids emblazoned with me and Luca kissing.
That was where I was in one minute.
The very next second, he lifted his head slightly, his hands cupped around my face, and he looked faintly puzzled. "Well," he whispered, and before I could gather my senses enough to move away, he'd bent his head again, claimed my mouth, and something shifted with both of us.
Just that simple. He tasted exactly right. There are people you know are bad for you and you let them get away with murder for all kinds of physical reasons. That's all I can tell you about Luca. His mouth was as luscious as it looked, the lips full and delicious and somehow elegant. That scent of oranges, sharp as freshly grated peel, swept through me, made my hips soft, and I lost my head for three seconds.
Or maybe it was thirty.
I know my head fell back into his palm, that his thumb was on my cheek, that he might have been mugging for the cameras at first, but it shifted for him at the same instant it did for me, and there was nothing pretend in the sudden thrust of his tongue, the sparking electricity that ran in blue rivulets between us. That tendril of unfurling awareness on my spine moved trough my body, twining around those places our bodies touched—chest, knees, lips.
I very nearly let go. His fingers slid down my neck, traced my collarbone—