by Addison Fox
“Do you think someone would hurt them? Would actually find a way to sabotage our business to get to us?”
Although it was silly, Lilah imagined the words floating between them like heavy bubbles, lumbering along waiting to pop. “I don’t know what to think. Especially after last night.”
“We need a plan. And a way to manage this. If only—”
Violet stopped, but Lilah knew what was underneath the words. If only Max Baldwin hadn’t snatched the handful of jewels. The original cache would be gone and they’d be safe.
“We can’t go back, Vi.”
“No.” Violet shook her head. “No, we can’t. But we can do something other than sit here waiting for the other shoe to drop. I’ll host tonight. Let’s get the guys together and we can figure out a game plan.”
“Which reminds me. In the craziness of last night I forgot to tell you the new information. Reed’s mother thinks the rubies are the famed Renaissance Stones. We should add that to the list of information.”
“I read something about them. It was quickly, in passing, like a list of some of the world’s most famously mined stones, but I passed it over.” Violet dragged out her phone and tapped herself a message. “I’ll look them up as soon as I get done with my appointment.”
“I can do it.”
Violet grinned at that. “I know you. It took you a day to remember the supposed name of the jewels. Are you really going to give up your afternoon of baking solitude to hunt around on the computer?”
“You know me so well.”
Violet’s green eyes twinkled with humor before she added a quick wink. “I know. And now we have one more clue as we figure out what to do with the rubies.”
Lilah shifted and the ruby stored in her shoe rubbed against her toe like a punctuation point to Vi’s comment. She knew she needed to leave it at home. Locked up in the safe in her bedroom. But without it, she felt bereft.
Naked.
For some reason she couldn’t define, the ruby had become something of a talisman. And holding on to it gave her the illusive feeling of power. As if she had a bargaining chip.
Something to fight with.
At that very thought, she knew she’d put a bit too much faith in her own abilities to protect the rubies—or the one she had control over.
Violet was right. They had to find a way to move the jewels into safer territory, and then figure out a way to ensure the ones who wanted the stones didn’t see them as a threat any longer.
Imagining herself some battle-ready negotiator wasn’t smart or safe. And she’d spent far too long working to be both to give it up now. She’d arrange another safe-deposit box in the morning and then they’d work on getting the stones returned. It was the only way.
“Do you want Reed involved?”
“Of course. We’ve got nothing to hide and the more we work with the police the sooner we can get this behind us.” Violet glanced at her watch and leaped up, snagging the box off the counter. “I need to go. Follow me out and lock up behind me.”
* * *
Steven guzzled his second cup of coffee and ignored the screaming pain in his temples. Despite four aspirin and the second cup since arriving at the small café, he wasn’t having any luck shaking the hangover.
Damned Lilah.
The woman made him crazy. Always had. And here he’d spent the past four years believing himself over her. Well rid of her, more like.
How humbling to realize he’d achieved neither.
The espresso was hot on his tongue—and a poor imitation of what they served in Italy—but it would have to do as he mapped out his strategy. He had until three o’clock tomorrow. And then he was to meet the Duke a block away from Elegance and Lace, the ruby in hand.
Why the Duke seemed convinced the women even had the stones in their possession was ludicrous, but he’d follow the man’s orders. All Steven needed to do was entice her to give it up and the Duke promised he’d handle the rest.
The whole plan smacked of lunacy and Steven had had the fleeting thought—more than once—to head off to his Vegas location for a few days. He was a businessman, after all. A position the Duke respected. The man would surely understand his need to attend to his business.
He’d get away for a few days. Play the tables. Visit with Darla—Didi?—whatever her name was, after she finished up her burlesque show at the hotel.
Just clear his head.
That was all he needed and then he’d figure out how to handle this damn thing.
He slugged down half the espresso, an image of Robert’s and Charlie’s eager faces chatting him up about the rubies.
“Who knows what’s there, man? Josephine Beauregard’s father was the jeweler to the Queen.” Charlie giggled as he slammed a hand on the table in one of the private rooms at Portia. “The freaking Queen of England!”
“What Charlie means is that we don’t know how big the score is. The rubies are a sure thing, as are the fake crown jewels. Beyond that, who knows what else was smuggled out of England?” Robert had remained calm, but Steven had seen his tell. Excitement had hovered behind Robert’s eyes, snapping with impatience to have his hands on the score. “We just need you to help us make the connection.”
“Word has it there’s an interested buyer.” Charlie warmed to the topic. “Like Robbie here says, it’s a sure thing.”
A sure thing.
There was no such thing.
He’d hunted for one all his life and every time he thought he got close, it vanished, replaced with people who gave him a hard time. Wanted too much—no, demanded too much.
Like Lilah.
She’d been perfect at first. Fresh and sweet, that blond hair like a halo around her head. He’d been enamored from the start, determined to have her all to himself. And oh, how he’d had her.
She’d been an unexpected fireball, full of as much passion in the bedroom as she showed in the kitchen.
And he’d been hooked. Lilah. His drug. Sweeter than any pastry and more decadent than the finest wine. The first few months were intoxicating. Portia had taken off like a rocket and they were riding the wave together.
A packed house every night, Dallas’s elite filling the tables. She’d helped further cement that, table after table ordering her desserts.
Then the press had gotten wind of their relationship and it took off to another level. Society invites. Parties. They were the freaking crème, and he’d finally arrived.
And then she’d gone and gotten cocky, suggesting what he should serve. Getting testy about her dessert menu, claiming she knew better what should be offered up each night.
He knew his menu.
Knew his vision for Portia.
And he refused to settle.
On a small sigh, he drained the last of the espresso and briefly toyed with ordering a third before resisting the urge. He needed to plan, and a layer of jitters on top of the headache wouldn’t help.
Lilah hadn’t been able to handle him and the moods that came on him when he created. He well knew she wasn’t going to invite him into her kitchen with open arms.
So he needed to figure out his way in.
Refreshed at the challenge, he let Vegas fade from his mind. He’d do this and find out what Lilah was doing with a cop, of all things. He dropped an insulting tip for the crappy espresso and walked out of the café.
The noon sun nearly blinded him as he walked toward his car, an image forming in his mind. As the vision took shape, his steps lightened for the first time that day.
His problem of an ex-wife was in for quite a surprise.
Chapter 11
“Do they always argue like this?” Reed’s voice was low, audible only to her, as they both kept their attention firmly on Violet and Max.
“Alw
ays seems like a stretch since they haven’t known each other that long, but...” Lilah hesitated, running through all the previous times she’d been in both their company. “Well. Yes, they do.”
“It’s fascinating and a bit daunting, all at the same time.”
“That’s because it’s the verbal equivalent of foreplay.” Cassidy murmured the words from across the coffee table, the twinkle in her eyes evidence she hadn’t missed their discussion.
Laughter welled in Lilah’s throat and she reached for her glass of Chardonnay to keep the giggles at bay.
Violet and Max were a sight.
They’d all arrived at Violet’s for light hors d’oeuvres, cocktails and an elaborate crime scene re-creation.
“Where’d you get the whiteboard, Vi?” Cassidy piped up from the rich leather couch that separated the kitchen from the living room. Violet and Max quieted, Cassidy’s question like the bell at the end of a prize-fight round.
“Our storage closet.”
“We have a whiteboard?” Cassidy’s eyes widened. “At our shop?”
“Yes, we have a whiteboard.”
Amusement tinged both their words, but it was Violet’s long-suffering sigh that had them all smiling. Their acute businesswoman was surrounded by creators and Lilah knew they drove her nuts.
The city’s lights filtered through the window of Violet’s high-rise apartment. Lilah loved this place, the city spread out before them. As someone who had lived in Dallas her entire life, it was fascinating to see how the city had changed and grown, and Violet’s building was just one more example of Dallas’s progress.
Floor-to-ceiling glass rimmed half the apartment, the exterior giving way to exquisite views of downtown.
Reed had again chosen a nonalcoholic drink and he settled the soda on the coffee table before leaping up and crossing to the whiteboard, his patience clearly at an end.
Lilah gave him considerable credit for the spry moves, even as she noticed the distinct stiffness in his back. For a man who’d spent the previous night getting bandaged in the emergency room, he had retained a remarkable sense of nimble grace. “Do you mind if I write down a few things?”
“Of course not.”
He made a quick map, placing X’s at various points and a small bulleted list of notes beneath.
“You look like you’re teaching class, Graystone.” Max tossed the good-natured jab before shoveling in a beef crostini.
“Of a sort.” Reed turned around and capped the dry-erase marker. “We have a lot of leads, but once you dig underneath them, what looks like a connection seems like a dead end. What we need to figure out is where there’s a real connection.”
“But we have one. Steven.”
Lilah fought the knee-jerk nausea that swam in her stomach at Violet’s reminder, frustrated that even after talking about the man for two days he could still reduce her to jelly.
“Yes, but how?” Reed asked. “He’s a connection to Robert and Charlie, but we’ve pretty much ruled out his involvement in last night’s violence.”
“Why would you rule him out?” Tucker spoke up from beside Cassidy. He’d been quiet up to now, taking in the discussion.
“The timing just isn’t plausible.”
Reed had shared his thoughts with her earlier and Lilah had to admit it made sense. The time stamp on the video footage he and Jessie had reviewed made it virtually impossible Steven had ordered the cut brake lines.
“But if it’s not Steven, then who?” Violet crossed in front of the board and tapped a fingernail against her glass of wine. “He’s the only logical connection.”
“Maybe not.” Reed walked everyone through some of the other theories he’d tried on her over the past few days. Jessie had already discovered the death certificate on the gem appraiser and Reed had added the man’s details to the other information they knew on the whiteboard.
The working assumption was that the man had talked at some point in the past fifty years.
Beyond that lone fact, Lilah couldn’t see any other connection beyond Steven.
So what was hidden beneath the surface?
There had to be something there, in the soup of words Reed had scratched on the whiteboard. Threads between the disparate information that would lead them to their answers if they only tugged on the right one.
Lilah listened to the arguments with half an ear as her thoughts drifted to Steven.
Where they thought they’d had answers, she now knew all they had was a loose thread.
She knew it was petty to feel disappointed he didn’t appear to be involved in their accident. No matter what she thought about him—or what emotional scars still lingered—the fact remained that it was a long stretch from bully to killer. He was a man who did his damage in private, where he felt powerful and in control. Would he really risk his cushy life for something with such dire consequences as murder?
But even as she tried to convince herself not to be disappointed Steven wasn’t at fault, something stopped her.
Lingering anger over three lost years of her life?
Was she so petty that she’d allowed Steven to remove any sense of compassion? Had his slow and steady decimation of her self-esteem also eroded her belief that people were fundamentally good?
And that an individual was innocent until proven guilty?
Hell, in her mind she’d already hung Steven by the noose of his vanity and small personality, assuming he had added killer to his less-than-stellar résumé.
And what did that make her?
Suffocating fingers clawed at her throat and she excused herself to the restroom. Maintaining even strides, she had no interest in tipping off the rest of them that she was in the middle of a meltdown over the horrifying realization that her soul was still as damaged as ever.
But damn it all.
Damn, damn, damn.
Steven. Why did it always come back to Steven?
Violet had left a small light on in her spare bedroom and Lilah slipped inside. She could still hear them arguing and was grateful everyone was distracted by the discussion at hand.
A few minutes.
That was all she needed to get her raging thoughts under control. To get the roiling storm of memories back in the bottle, the stopper of her iron will trapping them tight inside.
She’d healed. She had moved past the abuse and the bruises and the damn heartbreak. She’d begun to believe in herself again. In her ability to make decisions and believe they were the right ones for her future.
And in a few short days, all that time and effort had vanished as if it had never been.
“Would you like a refill?” Violet stood in the doorway, the Chardonnay in her hand, the contents catching the light of the small bedside lamp she’d left on earlier.
Lilah stared down at her empty glass. “How’d you know?”
“Reasonable hunch. You said restroom but you took your glass with you.” Violet refilled her wine, then followed with her own. “Want to talk about it?”
“Isn’t that all we’ve been doing is talking about it?”
“I suppose.” The edge of the mattress depressed as Violet sat down next to her. “But sometimes it’s the things we’re not saying that cause the problem.”
“I’ll give you one good guess what I’m not saying.”
“Steven DeWinter. The gift that keeps on giving.” Violet took a sip before exhaling on a huge sigh. “Bastard.”
“Yeah.”
“What did Reed think of him last night?”
“He didn’t say much, but his cop’s eyes spoke volumes.”
“That man doesn’t miss much.”
Lilah thought about his steady view of the restaurant the night before. Like a predator, he appeared unaffected by his surroundings, yet she knew
he saw everything.
Watched everyone.
And could pounce with lethal force at a moment’s notice.
“I’m sure he spent the entire time wondering how I could be stupid enough to mix myself up with Steven.”
“If you believe that, then I think you’re sorely underestimating Reed.”
“How couldn’t he?”
“I think the real question is how could you? The man’s done nothing but defend you and believe in you. And if my powers of intuition and an ability to sense sexual tension are any indication, he’s already in way over his head with you.”
Lilah diligently ignored the image of her and Reed wrapped up in each other, focusing on the matter at hand.
“He got a taste of my jerk of an ex-husband last night. How could he possibly see me as anything but some dumb woman, taken in by a preening peacock?”
Violet remained still, her steady green gaze considering. “Do you remember last year? When I forgot that big spring booking and the couple went somewhere else.”
Stymied by the change in topic, Lilah could only nod. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I cost us a six-figure affair. We’d have likely cleared about twenty thousand to our bottom line.”
“It was a mistake.”
Lilah’s eyes were sharp. Unflinching. “Yes. Exactly. It was a mistake. Clearly, you’re capable of recognizing them.”
“This isn’t the same.”
“While I won’t argue the emotional impact of what you dealt with is far more severe, the fundamental concept of a mistake is just that. Something unintentional.”
Lilah wanted to argue the point but—as usual—Violet had wrapped whatever she was saying in a nice neat bow. Crafty and cunning, that was their Violet.
“It’s not the same.”
“Suit yourself.” Violet took a small sip of her wine before she spoke once more. But where Lilah braced herself for another round of arguing, Violet knocked her sideways.
“You said Reed doesn’t miss much.”
“No, not that I’ve seen.”
“Me, neither. And what I’ve observed is that he certainly doesn’t miss you.”
