by Amy Atwell
That irritated—and frightened—her enough to walk away from him toward the kitchen. “Did you really hold Cosmo at gunpoint and threaten to kill him?” She turned to see his eyes had widened. Hell, he’d done it. Disappointment crashed upon her.
Mickey followed her so slowly it amounted to a creep. “When did you talk to him?”
“Who?”
“Come off it.” His syllables were clipped and flippant, a far cry from the purring sensuality that normally poured out of him. “Cosmo—no one else was there.”
“Edgar was there.” Iris raised her brows at him.
“Yeah, like you’re getting the four-one-one from a rabbit. For the record, threatening and killing are two very different things. I never intended to kill Cosmo.” He refilled his coffee cup before stalking back out of the kitchen. “I’m going to get dressed.”
About time. But she didn’t say it out loud. She stood alone and waited, the air-conditioned tile chilling her bare feet until she pulled her bathrobe more closely around her. She hated this feeling of being strong, completely independent, self-reliant to a fault. It was so solitary, so final. But she wasn’t about to look to a man like Mickey to help her out.
After a minute he returned, mostly dressed, though his fly was still unzipped as he buttoned his shirt.
“Mickey, I’m not cut out for espionage. I hate lies and secrets. I’ve got it bad enough with Cosmo, I don’t need to look for more trouble. I think you should find someone else to help you track down your missing gems.”
Mickey’s fingers stopped buttoning, leaving his shirt open from his ribcage up, revealing that broad muscled chest that made her mouth salivate, her eyes want to weep, and her inhibitions start to pack their bags.
But life wasn’t about fantasies. It was real. Concrete. She intended to stay grounded, not fly off on some fool’s errand that could potentially derail her carefully mapped-out future. She wanted reliable David, so sane and sensible. Someone she could count on, someone who understood her and looked out for her interests. Someone safe. Mickey might be more colorful, more passionate, but how could she expect anything but heartache from a man who practically brandished a sign proclaiming My Middle Name Is Danger.
He’d fallen silent. She stole a glance, expecting to see him brooding in that moody way of his.
He’d cast all artifice aside. Before her stood a man who appraised her with the most open, honest clarity in his blue eyes. Finally, he frowned. “I’m sorry you want out, Iris, because that’s impossible. Like it or not, you’re integral to this deal. You have the answers.”
“To what?” she asked in exasperation.
“That’s the trick. We have to find the right questions.” He tugged some folded papers from his back pocket. “Last night I didn’t know what kind of gems had been stolen, but after talking with you, I was able to check with some sources—”
“What sources?”
“I can’t tell you, but trust me, these people know their business. We don’t mean Cosmo any harm—in fact, we hope to help him. But he didn’t give us much information. Did you know he’d flown to Russia?”
“Cosmo? To Russia?” Iris’s heart listed and sank.
“Moscow and St. Petersburg. He met with a man named Konstantin Vanislav, who’s well connected with the Russian mafia. Ever heard of him?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Apparently, she knew even less about Cosmo than she’d feared.
Mickey unfolded the papers and held them out to her. “Tell me what that is.”
Gingerly, she accepted them. The top one showed a badly photocopied color picture of what appeared to be a crown. Beneath it was a sketch of the same crown with handwritten notations scribbled upon it.
The handwriting was Cosmo’s.
She turned back to the picture. A royal crown, cast in gold, lay on a blue velvet pillow. Built to fit a man’s head, the intricate spires rose in filigreed elegance. Around the base, jewels encrusted the brim. The copy only showed them as a dark blood red, so she referred to her father’s notes, while her stomach rolled uneasily.
Cosmo’s notations confirmed her worst suspicions. She dared to look at Mickey. He’d seated himself in an overstuffed chair to don his boots, but even as he tugged them on, he watched her with barely concealed expectation. He wanted her to congratulate him, she could tell from the raised brow, the badly hidden smile. It would serve him right to get a dose of reality.
“There’s no proof this crown was ever made. No one’s even sure whether these stones exist.”
“But your mother believed they were real,” he said, sitting up. “Tell me the whole story, Iris.”
Sinking onto the sofa, she ran a hand through her messy curls, her gaze fixed on the picture. Her mother’s lovely contralto voice, rich with its native Russian accent, played from her memory banks. She knew the story by rote.
“Alexandrite was first discovered when Alexander II was the prince of Russia, the son of the current czar. By the time he came to power in 1856, the original vein of alexandrite was already depleted. Count Perovskii, who helped identify this new stone and name it, gave some large stones to the Romanovs. But it’s also said that for Alexander’s coronation, a special crown was forged from rose gold and platinum then inlaid with ten alexandrite gems with a total carat weight of over a hundred carats. While the stones weren’t uniform in size or cut, they all came from one single stone, so they matched each other flawlessly in clarity and color. They belonged together, like a family.” That message sank into her today. She lifted her eyes to meet Mickey’s steady gaze.
“Was the crown worn? Displayed? Anything?”
“No one knows. Its very existence is doubtful. The story goes that the crown was commissioned, the stones were cut, but no photo archives of Alexander’s coronation show him wearing a crown that matches this description. Apparently, tradition won out over the beauty of these new gems and crown design.”
Mickey frowned. “Then where did Cosmo get this photo of the crown?”
“It’s pretty easy to doctor a photo these days, especially for a master of illusion.” Iris raised her brows at him.
Mickey cursed softly. “Any idea where the crown is today?”
She let out a controlled breath. “According to the myth, the crown no longer exists. My mother told me the Romanovs were a picky lot. When Alexander II’s grandson Nicholas took the throne, he dismantled the crown and had the gems reworked in a necklace for his wife Alexandra. The necklace was a gift to celebrate the birth of their son in 1904.”
Mickey rubbed his temples as if his head ached. “Okay. So, we’re not looking for a crown. We’re looking for a necklace.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What the hell happened next?”
“The Bolshevik Revolution.”
Chapter Seven
He was so fucked.
Mickey opened his eyes to squint at Iris and idly wondered if she had any idea she was torturing him more with that flimsy bathrobe than with her wild stories about Russian czars and revolutionaries. He rubbed his temples some more, wishing he had that bottle of painkillers, but he’d left them in the car.
Focus. This crazy myth sounded exactly like the kind of bullshit story Cosmo would spin, but if there were any truth to it, Mickey needed to know. “Are you saying the Bolsheviks took the necklace?”
She shrugged, then thankfully smoothed out that pucker in her robe that had been granting him teasing glimpses of a rounded white breast. “According to my mom, the necklace could never be found. Alexandra was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. As the revolution gained momentum, it’s said she sent the jewels to ten of her royal relatives throughout Europe. Years later, a small group of Russians started a search to acquire the ten gems and bring them back to their homeland.” She dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “It’s rumored they belong to a powerful family in the Russian mafia.”
Mickey watched her with fascination. She’d become positively vibrant as she spoke about th
is myth. Clearly, she didn’t want to believe it, yet it was real to her.
“If someone owned all ten stones, with or without the necklace, would they be worth ten million dollars?”
“And then some,” she said with a laugh. “These stones were believed to be flawless examples from the first find of alexandrite. Their link to the Romanovs increases their value. To have all ten as a set, even without the necklace, would be to own history.”
His headache started to recede. At last he was on the right track. “I need those ten stones if I’m going to help Cosmo. Not the real ones, but something close enough to buy us some time. Can you help me?”
Her lips parted in surprise, and hesitation clouded those brandy eyes of hers. After a moment, they became brilliant with determination. “How soon do you need them?”
“Honestly?” He laughed. “Two nights ago.”
“Well—” She put the papers on the table and adjusted her robe as she leaned back. Finally, she met his gaze again with a sheepish grin. “Not that I’d tell this to everyone, but my mother received copies of these gems years ago. I still have them.”
“Where’d she get them?”
“Her aunt sent them to her from Russia as a special gift. Now, they’re not real alexandrites, but they should look really close to these pictures.”
Mickey’s pulse revved. He might survive this assignment after all. “And they’ll change color and everything?”
Iris nodded. “They’re treated with a chemical called vanadium that causes the color to change under different types of light.”
“Will you give them to me? I’d say lend, but if something goes wrong, I might not be able to get them back.”
“What are you going to do with them?”
“I’m going to turn them over to my boss and hope like hell they buy me enough time to find Cosmo and the real gems.” The lie pricked his conscience. He really intended to use the gems to broker an introduction to Turner’s boss and capture them both. But that should still help keep her father alive. He reached for her hand. “There are risks here, Iris. These people are dangerous.”
She squeezed his fingers. “But you think you can save Cosmo?”
“Yeah.”
“Then come by my shop around ten. I’ll have the copies ready.”
Unable to stop himself, he leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “You’re the gem, you know that?”
She rose, flustered by his attention. “It’s what I do.”
Stiffly, he stood. Retrieving the papers, he prepared to leave, but one thing troubled him enough to make him stop. “Iris, there are others who work for my bosses. Someone else might show up and ask for the gems. Don’t trust them.”
She awarded him a gamin smile. “Like I trust you?”
Her bright smile was a sucker punch to his gut. “Don’t even trust me,” he said soberly.
***
It was nine o’clock when Iris arrived at the Bellagio and let herself into Lying Eyes. She’d called Ginny to give her the morning off, and Iris intended to use the next few hours wisely.
As she did every time she entered, she took a moment to survey her empire. With the lighting dimmed, the showroom was reduced to a minor twinkle instead of the loud sparkle it normally cast. Cubic zirconias masqueraded as the finest diamonds, while chrysoberyls of all colors portrayed rubies, sapphires and emeralds. A number of the lower-valued gems played themselves—topazes, garnets, amethysts and opals.
Alexandrite was so rare she’d never attempted to display the simulated copies she had. It would be too difficult to explain to people about the history and the color-changing magic.
A soft pounding on the store’s glass door shook her from the reverie.
“Iris!” a faint voice called.
She discovered Allie, dressed in black cargo pants and T-shirt, outside. The willowy blonde carried a cardboard box in her arms and a backpack flung over her shoulder.
Swallowing her frustration at this latest interruption, Iris hurried to the door. “What on earth are you doing here?”
Allie ducked her head at Iris’s tone. “I called your apartment, but when you didn’t answer, I got a feeling you’d be here.”
“And what’s Edgar doing here?” Iris made a conscious effort to soften her delivery.
It worked, drawing a slow smile from Allie. “He needs his aunt Iris. I got called into a brush-up rehearsal, and I didn’t want to leave him at my place all alone.”
“He’s a rabbit—”
“But he doesn’t like to be alone. You can understand that, can’t you?”
It wasn’t so much the words, but the way Allie said them that had Iris stepping back to let the blonde and the rabbit enter. Yes, dammit, she understood completely why someone wouldn’t like to be alone. How often had she been alone growing up, with her mother caught up here at the shop and Cosmo gallivanting wherever he pleased?
Allie walked without hesitation to the back room, where she placed the box on the floor. Her sinewy arms hauled the rabbit out and tucked him against her body. The rabbit nuzzled her neck. “He’s really the sweetest thing,” she said with a chuckle.
“Can Sweetie Pie Edgar stay in the box? I don’t want to be picking up any little gifts he chooses to leave.”
“You’ll be fine. He’s litter trained. I’ve got a box and some litter in the backpack.”
“You’re joking, right?” Iris didn’t believe in a litter-trained rabbit.
When Allie didn’t respond, Iris turned to find the blonde in one of those eye-to-eye communions with the rabbit.
A chill stole up Iris’s spine, but she downplayed it. “Now what’s he saying?”
Allie’s eyes never left the rabbit. “I get the sense that no matter what happens, he doesn’t want to be left behind. He needs to look after you.” Even she sounded puzzled.
“Don’t you mean I need to look after him?”
The blonde’s brow furrowed in concentration. “I don’t think so, but then, it’s an inexact science.”
I’ll bet. Iris still had to wonder if all the hocus-pocus with Edgar was some con Cosmo had taught Allie.
Allie considered her before adding softly, “Whatever it is you’re doing, be careful, sis.”
Iris laughed off her uneasiness. “Don’t worry. I’m doing a little work here, then I’m headed home for the rest of the day. I’ll take Edgar with me, but will you come get him before this evening?”
“Sure.” Allie lowered the rabbit to the floor. With a soft groan, she brushed at the white bunny hairs on her black shirt. “I should be done with rehearsal before two.”
“Sounds good.” Iris escorted her to the big glass doors.
Rummaging in one of the many pockets covering her pants, Allie withdrew a long piece of silver leather studded with dark red gems. “Edgar slipped out of this, and I couldn’t get it back on him to save my life.” She held it out. “Maybe you’ll have better luck.”
“Sure,” Iris lied. The poor animal was already living part of his life out of a cardboard box. She wasn’t going to force a collar on him, too. With a quick goodbye, she locked the doors after Allie left.
In the back room, she tossed the collar onto her worktable. Edgar explored beneath it, his ears swiveling this way and that. In case he made a sudden break for it, she closed the door to the sales floor before returning to the worktable, where she unzipped the backpack and found a small cat litter pan and a bag of some sort of new-age looking litter.
“You so owe me, Cosmo.” She placed the filled pan in the corner. “Bathroom’s over here, Eddy.”
The rabbit blinked its red eyes before resuming an exploratory hop around the workroom.
“Are you looking for something to eat? You should have told Allie if you were hungry—she would’ve fed you. Now you’ll have to wait until we go home.” She straightened and pushed a stray curl behind her ear. “Look at yourself, Iris Fortune. You’re talking to a rabbit.”
Determined to prove she could overcome all
the chaos tossed her way in the past thirty-six hours, Iris straightened her cropped periwinkle jacket and smoothed her palms down the matching skirt. With the flick of a switch, she illuminated her worktable with bright lights then dug in her purse for a small set of keys. They jingled as she crossed the room to a set of fireproof filing cabinets. A total of fifty drawers lined the wall, all unlabeled, but Iris knew the contents of each and every one. This was where she kept the raw stones and metals for her jewelry pieces. Even though she didn’t deal in real diamonds, sapphires, pearls or emeralds, the value of these costume gems caused her insurance agent palpitations.
Unerringly, she inserted the key into drawer number thirty-three. She rarely opened this drawer as it only contained her limited copies of alexandrite and a stockpile of aurora borealis rhinestones. Inside, everything lay in place, just as it had the day before when she’d looked for signs of Cosmo tampering with her things. Gingerly, she withdrew the tray of alexandrite and carried it to the worktable.
On the tray rested a dozen or so loose stones, smaller gems she could incorporate into jewelry pieces—not that she’d ever needed them. There was also a square box Iris hadn’t opened for years, but now she lifted the lid to consider the high-quality copies within. Each close to ten carats, they were a family heirloom dating back to the 1920s when, according to her mother, her great-grandfather had cut them to resemble the Romanov gems.
Don’t ever sell these, Iris. So her mother had said time and again. But Iris knew her mother would have handed them over willingly to help Cosmo if he were in trouble.
Unshed tears blurred her eyes for a few moments. These ten stones had been her mom’s treasure. Iris had always believed the Romanov necklace, like the crown, was merely a myth, but if it did exist? Authentic stones like these would be priceless.
And Mom would have loved seeing them.
She tried to push the box away, but felt an extra drag to it. How odd. Exploring the white foam on which the stones lay, she discovered an uneven surface beneath them. Confused, she lifted a corner of the foam to find more gems beneath it. Adrenaline shot through her system as she removed the foam to reveal its hidden layer. Yesterday she’d examined the store to see if Cosmo had taken anything. It hadn’t occurred to her he might leave something here.
