Claimed

by Tracy Wolff

  He walked over to the bar in the corner, poured himself a tall Scotch, and drained it in one long swallow. Then he poured another one and did the same thing.

  When he turned around again, prepared to face Isa one last time, he found that she’d finally given him what he’d asked for. She was gone and he was alone. Again.

  Seventeen

  She didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to go. Didn’t know how to deal with the fact that her heart had just split open and broken into a million pieces. Again.

  After she’d fled Marc’s office, his words ringing in her ears, she’d run through the halls, down the stairs and out onto the grounds that stretched along the ocean.

  And now, here she was, staring out at that ocean and wondering how, how, how, she could be in this position again. How, after everything that had happened six years ago, that the two of them could be in this position? Again.

  She told herself to just leave.

  Told herself to walk to the parking lot, climb in her car and drive away.

  Told herself that this time, she wouldn’t look back. Ever.

  Marc had turned on her again. The thought slammed into her over and over. With each step she took on the sand, with each wave that rolled in, the knowledge that he didn’t trust her ripped at her.

  He thought she was a thief, thought that after everything that had happened these past few days—after everything that had happened six years ago—she had actually turned around and stolen from him.

  As if she would do that. As if it was even possible for her to hurt him that way.

  Then again, maybe it wasn’t so far-fetched that he believed it. After all, he had no problem hurting her. Had no problem turning his back on her six years ago and no problem turning his back on her now—despite all the sweet words he’d spent the past few days, and nights, whispering in her ear.

  Just the memory of these few stolen days had her feeling like her whole body would break apart. Like her skin would crack under the weight of her sorrow and her limbs, her organs, her heart would fly right out of her in a million different directions.

  Isa wrapped her arms around herself at the thought, tight around her middle, her hands clutching her sides. And she walked along the shore, right where the water met the sand. Right where the infinite waves swamped the crumbling shore.

  She walked and walked and walked.

  And as she did, she lambasted herself for all the things she’d done wrong. For all the hope she’d let herself feel even when it was idiotic and dangerous...and painful. So painful.

  She’d known better, even as she was doing it. Had known better than to trust Marc after what had happened between them six years ago. More, she’d known that he would never be able to fully trust her.

  Which was the real problem, wasn’t it? The fact that no matter what she did, no matter how she’d changed her life or how she’d tried to help him, he was never going to get past who she’d been. Never going to see her for who she really was.

  It was a hard truth to swallow, one made harder by the fact that she had never stolen from him. Not then, and not now.

  No, she hadn’t stolen from him, she forced herself to acknowledge as she kept walking, her shoulders hunched against the wind blowing in off the water. But she’d certainly thought about it six years ago. It would be a lie to pretend otherwise.

  That was who she’d been then, what she’d done. Not because she needed the money—her father had stolen enough through the years that her children’s children would probably never need for money—but because she’d wanted the thrill.

  The old Isa had been an adrenaline junkie, raised by her jewel thief father after her mother passed away. She had loved the game, the con, the robbery more than anything else in the world. Except her father...and eventually, Marc.

  She’d met him at a big society party she’d been casing, had fallen for him hard the moment he’d handed her a glass of champagne with a smile and a quip. And that damn raised eyebrow of his. She still remembered what he’d said to her at that moment—would probably remember it until she died. Because even as it was happening, she’d known that it was one of those life defining moments.

  She’d looked up into his shining sapphire eyes, ripe with amusement and desire, and she’d realized that she wanted to know more. Realized that she wanted to know him.

  And so she’d ditched the friends she’d been with, ditched her plans to steal the big, fat Poinsettia Ruby that had drawn her to the party in the first place. She wasn’t going to lie—it had hurt a little to walk away from the huge, thirty-five-carat stone surrounded by ten carats of flawless diamonds—but she’d done it. Despite the fact that it had been right there, just waiting for her to pluck.

  Okay, so maybe it had hurt more than a little. Maybe it still did.

  But that night she’d wanted Marc more than she’d wanted the stone. More than she’d wanted to please her father. More than she’d wanted the life she had. And during the six months they’d had together, she’d continued to want him more than anything.

  She’d given it all up, cold turkey. She’d missed it—of course she had. For most of her life, stealing big, flashy jewels and pretty paintings had been as natural to her as breathing. But she’d wanted what she saw in Marc’s eyes, what she felt in his arms, more than she wanted the dark, shiny, illicit thrill that came every time she’d pulled a heist.

  Her father hadn’t understood—he’d never wanted anything more than he’d wanted the rush of the next job. Had, for the longest time, thought she’d been casing Marc, trying to find his weakness. Trying to get inside Bijoux’s vault, where—at the time—two of the most perfect diamonds ever found were being housed. The Midnight Sun, a colorless and flawless forty-carat Russian diamond valued in the tens of millions and Hope’s Fire, a twenty-seven-carat nearly flawless diamond whose value came as much from its rich and violent history as it did its quality.

  Marc had been preparing to auction off both of them—at the time, he’d spent the first few years of his career moving Bijoux away from blood diamonds and firmly into the conflict-free arena. A huge event was planned—a huge gala that she had contributed time and expertise to helping him pull off—with the proceeds going to a charity that helped children in areas where blood diamonds were mined.

  Her father had been thrilled when he’d found out, had been convinced that she was just using Marc to find an in with the diamonds. When he found out that wasn’t the case, found out that she was with Marc because she loved him and wanted to spend the rest of her nonthieving life with him—he’d been furious. He’d accused her of turning her back on him.

  And she hadn’t been able to argue, had she? Because she had turned her back, not on her father, but definitely on the life he’d given her. The life he’d raised her to want, to expect, to relish.

  She should have known then what would happen, what he would do. In many ways, her father was a child, as thrilled by the chase, by the hunt, as he was by the shiny baubles he stole. And once he was focused on a score, nothing short of the apocalypse could tear him away.

  What she hadn’t realized—what she’d been too naive at the time to understand—was that in falling for Marc, she might as well have painted a target on him and his business. In giving him her attention, her love, her loyalty, she’d made him and his diamonds the focus of her father’s attention. In fact, when she’d told her father that she wasn’t going to steal anymore, that she was going straight and building a life for herself as a normal person, she’d pretty much put a giant red X over Marc.

  When the diamonds turned up stolen and Marc’s whole business—his whole life—had gone to hell, she’d known who had done it. Of course she’d known. She’d stolen with her father since she was nine years old, had recognized the earmarks of a Salvatore job as easily as she recognized her own face in the mirror.<
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  That was where she’d made her second mistake. Because she hadn’t told Marc then what she knew. Hadn’t gone to him and explained who she was and who her father was and offered to help him get the stones back. Instead she’d gone to her father, and tried to convince him to return the stones. He’d refused—of course, he’d refused. It was, in its own way, a matter of honor to him. Marc Durand had stolen something precious from him and he had returned the favor.

  Even after that encounter, she still hadn’t told Marc the truth. How could she when doing so would not only send her dying father to prison but would also make Marc look at her with scorn, hate, disgust. She hadn’t been able to do it then. Hadn’t been able to ruin all of her dreams, all of her happily-ever-after fantasies, in one fell swoop. Even though in keeping her own dreams alive, she’d destroyed Marc’s.

  And perhaps she would have gone on living a lie forever if things hadn’t gotten so bad for Marc. She liked to think the guilt would have made her confess eventually, but after everything that had happened these past few years, she was honest enough to admit that very well might not have been the case.

  As it was, she’d stood by for weeks as Marc’s life became a nightmare. As the insurance company hounded him, refusing to pay because they were convinced the entire thing was an inside job. That he was guilty of fraud and a myriad other crimes. That he’d done the entire thing for the money, and as some sick kind of publicity stunt.

  He’d kept most of it from her, but she’d seen. How could she not when he was growing more haggard, more worried with every day that passed. And when the cops, at the insurance agency’s behest, started looking at him and Nic, she’d known she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  She’d talked her father into returning the jewels—largely because he’d known she would steal them back if she had to—and then brought them to Bijoux headquarters in the most complicated reverse heist that—she was sure—had ever been pulled off.

  The insurance company, the cops, Marc’s board of directors—none of them had known what had hit them. And they still didn’t—except for Marc, who she had confessed everything to.

  And who had returned her grand gesture by kicking her out of his life without a backward glance.

  She’d known it could happen before she told him—she had been lying to him for weeks, after all, while he went through hell. While the company he’d worked so hard to build had begun falling apart piece by piece. But there was a part of her that still hadn’t expected it, still hadn’t been ready for it. How could she have been when her love for him was so absolute, so boundless, that there was nothing he could have done that would have made her turn her back on him?

  And now he’d turned his back on her again. Even after everything she’d done to create a new, legitimate life for herself. As she’d wandered the streets six years ago, she’d promised herself that she would turn her life around. That she would become someone better, someone that no one could ever accuse, ever toss aside like that, again.

  She’d done it, too. She’d given up being a jewel thief when she met Marc, and once her father had died she’d given up all connections to that life—her friendships, her apartment, even her name. She’d built a new life instead, one where she could use her expertise to help, to teach, instead of to harm.

  She’d done it for herself, because it had been important to her to make amends for everything she’d done. And, she realized as she walked the lonely stretch of beach watching the sky slowly turn the inky purple of twilight, she’d done it to impress Marc, too. Though she’d never sought him out, never told him who she had become, there was a part of her that had always believed that if he knew—if he found her—he’d accept the new Isa and forget the pain and the disloyalty and damage of the past.

  She hadn’t let herself acknowledge any of those hidden hopes until this moment, however, and now that she had, all they brought was more of the crippling pain she’d sworn she’d leave behind.

  Because he didn’t believe in the new her.

  He didn’t believe that she had changed at all.

  The magnitude of the pain made her want to whimper, to cry. Why, she wanted to shout to the unsympathetic sea, why was there always more pain?

  She kept walking, head bowed against the cold rolling in as darkness descended over the roiling sea. The wind picked up, blew her hair around her face, snuck inside the thin blouse that was no protection at all. It creeped inside, bringing the cold under her skin. Bringing it all the way to her bones.

  And still she walked. And still, as she looked out at the waves crashing against the shore, all she could see was him.

  Eyes shadowed.

  Skin pale.

  Jaw tight.

  Fists clenched.

  He’d been all but seething with rage, with betrayal, with the past that lay between them like a wasteland.

  She’d known better. Had known not to take this job, not to do him this favor. Everything inside her had screamed that it was a bad idea. And yet, she’d done it anyway. How could she not have, when he’d needed her? When—despite how it had ended six years ago—she’d once loved him with everything inside her? With her heart, her soul, her entire being.

  When—and she hated to admit it almost as much as she hated that it was true, that it would always be true—she loved him still.

  It was because she loved him that the pain was so catastrophic.

  Oh, the trip she’d just taken down memory lane had been a bitter one, filled with all the mistakes she couldn’t change. But the pain of that didn’t come close to the pain she’d felt seeing the look on Marc’s face as he’d demanded to know if she had stolen from him again. As he’d ordered her, voice blank and eyes dead, to get out of his office. Out of his building.

  Out of his life.

  Just the memory had her breath hiccupping in her throat and tears blooming in her eyes. She told herself she wasn’t crying, that it was just the sharpness of the wind that had her eyes stinging and her chest aching.

  She didn’t buy it, though.

  She wasn’t much of a crier—could count on one hand the number of times she’d cried in her adult life—but right here, right now, she couldn’t not feel the agony and the defeat of what could have been.

  She couldn’t not cry.

  She didn’t know how long she stood staring out at the vast and endless ocean.

  Long enough for the tide to roll in and over her toes, across her feet, up her calves.

  Long enough for stars to twinkle against the darkness of the night sky.

  More than long enough for her tears to dry and her heart to crack wide-open as the truth settled over her like a mantle. Like a weight she couldn’t bear.

  Marc would never believe in her. Even if he found proof that she hadn’t stolen those diamonds, he still wouldn’t trust her. No matter what she did, no matter how much she’d changed her life, no matter how much she tried to convince him that she wasn’t the person she’d once been, it wouldn’t matter. He would see only what he wanted to see, believe only what he’d always believed.

  It was a bitter pill to swallow, one that shattered the last vestiges of hope she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding on to. But it was also the catalyst she needed to get moving again, the impetus that got her started on the long walk back to Bijoux’s headquarters—and her car.

  And if she cried the whole way back, well then, nobody needed to know but her...

  Eighteen

  Marc kept his staff working well into the night, trying to find out what had happened to the diamonds. Or, more accurately, trying to find proof that Isa had stolen them. Not because he planned to press charges but because he wanted to know.

  No, not wanted. Needed. He needed to know. Needed the vindication that came with being proven right. He needed to know that the look on her face—in
her eyes—as he’d gone off on her had been as fake as the tender words she’d whispered to him while they made love.

  Because if that look wasn’t fake— He shut the thought down fast. No, he wasn’t going there. Wasn’t going to think, even for a second, that he had made a mistake. Because if he let that idea in now, he’d never get it out of his head again. And he wanted to believe it so badly, wanted so much for Isa to be innocent, that he was afraid he would convince himself she was, even if she wasn’t.

  Or worse, he would convince himself that the theft didn’t matter at all.

  It hadn’t been big diamonds, wouldn’t cost his company much of anything, really, except the annoyance and manpower that came with trying to figure out how the theft had been accomplished.

  He’d been over the tapes himself. He’d had Nic and Lisa and his most trusted security people go over them, too. He’d examined every second Isa had been in the vault, had studied every drawer she’d opened, every diamond she’d looked at. And he couldn’t see it. Couldn’t find where—or how—she’d done it.

  And he needed to know how because he was never going to know why. They’d spent the past three nights making love and it had felt so good, so right. They’d fallen into old routines, old patterns of conversation, so easily. As if the six years he’d spent without her hadn’t happened. As if the whole debacle back in New York was just a nightmare and not the sad, awful truth that had woken him up in the middle of the night for years.

  When he thought about going back to that loneliness, thought about the fact that he would never hold Isa in his arms again, it made him crazy. Made him want to grab her and shake her all over again.

  How could she do this?

  Why would she do this?

  How could the money from fencing the diamonds be more important to her than what they had between them?

  Maybe that was the problem. Maybe he was only imagining that there were feelings under the heat. Maybe, when he’d been falling for her all over again, she’d only been using him. Only been looking for a way to get back at him for the way he’d kicked her out all those years ago.