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‘An airfield?’ Jen exclaimed. ‘Why?’
‘Um...’ Luca flashed a bemused glance at her. ‘To catch a plane.’
He might think that was funny, but she didn’t. ‘Going where, exactly?’ she pressed in a firm tone.
‘To Sicily, of course,’ he said, frowning.
‘Sicily?’ The way he said it, you might think it was a café down the road. ‘But I don’t have my passport with me.’
‘No problem. It’s being couriered to the jet right now.’
‘You’ve been in my room?’ she exclaimed, fuming.
‘Not exactly. I have people who arrange this sort of thing for me.’
Of course he did. A billionaire’s contacts would be many and varied, she accepted grudgingly,
‘You’ve been hired, and you know where the job is situated.’ Luca gave a relaxed shrug. ‘You might as well visit Sicily sooner as later.’
Turning the wheel, he swung onto the slip road leading to the motorway.
‘But I haven’t packed anything,’ Jen protested. ‘I didn’t expect—’ And even if she had, Luca’s high-handed attitude was outrageous.
‘I apologise for the short notice,’ Luca drawled, managing not to sound sorry at all.
‘Short notice?’ Jen exclaimed. ‘Don’t you mean no notice? You should have warned me what you had in mind.’
‘What kind of surprise is that?’ He smiled.
She didn’t.
‘Tonight wasn’t supposed to be a surprise,’ Jen pointed out. ‘What you bought at the auction was a quiet dinner for two at the club, and nothing more.’
‘Do you always play by the rules, Jennifer?’
As Luca accelerated into the fast lane, she gathered he didn’t.
‘Last chance,’ he said. ‘Tell me if you want to go back?’
Throw everything up? That was where this would lead. She’d probably lose her job at the auction house, and that might threaten the qualification she’d worked so hard for. And she’d learn nothing more about Raoul, or Luca—in fact, she might never see him again.
‘Well?’ he said, glancing at her. ‘What do you want to do?’
There was an exit coming up. She had about two minutes to decide—thirty seconds at the speed Luca was driving.
‘I’m not kidnapping you, ’ he said with amusement. ‘I’m merely acting according to the security details I’ve put in place to protect you and my father’s latest gaudy purchase.’
‘The Emperor’s Diamond?’ She had never heard the precious stone referred to with anything other than awe.
‘Please don’t tell me he’s bought something else?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said honestly.
‘Are you spellbound by its worth?’
‘No,’ she said honestly. ‘Its value means nothing to me, beyond the fact that I have a duty of care towards a purchase made by a client. I’m fascinated by the gem’s provenance—who cut the stone, who owned it before your father, and how it came to be discovered in the first place—that’s what fires my interest.’ She frowned. If Luca disapproved of his father’s hobby, why had he taken time out of his busy life to come to London to set these plans in motion? ‘A quick phone call was all it would have taken to warn me that you intended to fly to Sicily tonight—’
‘The essence of security is silence,’ he insisted. ‘The fewer people who know my plans, the safer those plans will be.’
‘Don’t you trust me?’
‘Do you trust me?’ He softened this question with a faint quirk of his mouth. ‘We hardly know each other, after all.’
‘And your flight plan just happens to be filed?’
‘My jet is always fuelled and ready.’
Of course it was.
‘Surely you won’t pass up the opportunity to see my father’s fabulous collection of jewels? You’ve got around thirty seconds to decide’ He was already braking.
‘Your father’s haul?’ She couldn’t resist reminding Luca of his previous comment.
Her reward was a brief grin that coated every part of her with heat. Thankfully, her brain was still working. ‘Experts with years of experience would bite your hand off for the chance you’ve given me. So, why me, Luca?’
‘I wanted your fresh take,’ he said, keeping his attention firmly fixed on the road ahead.
She dug her heels in. ‘Not good enough.’
‘You’re studying to be a gemologist, aren’t you?’
‘Studying being the operative word,’ Jen agreed.
‘But you’re top of your class.’
‘I’m a student. I’ve been sitting in a classroom with a professor teaching me. I would have thought you?
??d need the professor for this job, not the student.’
He shrugged. ‘New ideas and a fresh approach are more important to me than some tried and tested formula.’
Or was she of some other interest to him altogether? Jen wondered. ‘Will I meet your father?’ The thought of a meeting with a man with such an intimidating reputation alarmed Jen, but she’d rather be prepared for it than not.
‘No. He retired to Florida recently.’
So why was she creating an exhibition for Don Tebaldi? ‘Won’t he want the jewels with him, or at least want to see his latest purchase?’
‘He trusts me.’ Luca huffed a laugh without humour. ‘He might not like me but he trusts me.’
A father not liking his own child was so far out of Jen’s experience she couldn’t get her head around it. She’d grown up safe in the knowledge that she had two loving parents, which had made their tragic passing all the harder to bear.
‘My father didn’t like either of his sons,’ Luca explained without emotion. ‘He held us both in contempt. There was only room for one bull elephant in our herd, and that was my father.’
She let the subject drop. She could feel Luca’s bitterness and hurt. This was the most he’d opened up to her, and went some way to explaining why Raoul had felt so abandoned. On the face of it, this trip was a dream come true, but dreams could be deceptive, and this was happening too soon in her career. It didn’t make sense when people ten years her senior would have trampled her in their rush to catalogue the treasures of one of the world’s most notorious and secretive collectors. She was confident she had the ability to do the job, and she was excited to see the jewels. The thought of spending more time with Luca was exciting too, but she didn’t fully trust his motives. Worse. She didn’t trust herself. She had no experience of men. She was a frustrated virgin, which was the human equivalent of a powder keg waiting to blow.
