“You, Mr. Slater, are her sole heir and have been for some time.” The woman handed him her card. “Call my office when you’re ready. We’ll deal with the family in the meantime, though I assure you it’s all airtight. My condolences for your loss.”
Slate sat heavily back down in the pew. Gigi took up position beside him again. Neither of them said a word until they were alone in the church. For almost an hour, they just sat there.
“Even if we’re right,” Slate said finally, once it was just the two of them, “even if she survived—she’s never coming back.”
That just now seemed to be sinking in for him.
Gigi laid her head on his shoulder. “You taught her to shoot,” she said simply. “And she taught you how to braid.”
Slate closed his eyes and shook his head. “When my mother was dying, Eve visited her sometimes, in the hospital. She barely knew me, but she braided my mom’s hair for her and taught me how to do the same.”
The idea of Mattias Slater braiding his dying mother’s hair almost undid Gigi.
“If I ever see Eve again,” Slate said calmly, “I’m going to kill her.”
“For faking her death or leaving you all that money?” Gigi asked.
“Both,” Slate replied. He looked down at his hands, and Gigi realized: He was holding one of the seals that Eve had given him. Without a word, he laid it in Gigi’s palm. “I don’t know how to do this,” he told her.
Gigi stared at the seal in her hand. “Take control of a massive fortune or develop functional interpersonal relationships, including one with me?”
“Both.”
Gigi smiled, and the next thing she knew, Mattias Slater was touching her face, so Gigi tentatively touched his.
“Would you listen,” Slate said, “if I told you that this is a very bad idea? ThatIam?”
“I’d listen,” Gigi assured him, “and then I’d bring my lips very close to yours…” She did exactly that. “And I’d say,All right, Mimosas. Let’s play a game.”
Chapter 102
LYRA
You’re sure you want to part with this piece?” The jeweler looked from the black opal ring to Lyra. “It’s quite remarkable.”
Lyra snuck the briefest of looks at Grayson, who arched a brow. In other words:Put your money where your mouth is, sweetheart.
He’d come back to her. Now it was Lyra’s turn to hold up her end of the deal.
“I’m sure,” she told the jeweler, who had to be eighty if he was a day. He was the kind of jeweler who requiredappointments, the kind who dealt only in one-of-a-kind pieces.
The kind to quote an absolutely eye-watering number at them without so much as batting an eye.
Lyra stared at the jeweler for a moment, then shot Grayson a disgruntled look. “You have got to be kidding me.”
“I am universally known for my comedic timing,” Grayson replied in a deadpan.Pay up, his eyes said.Or rather, allow the gentleman to pay you.But there was something else in Grayson’s eyes, too, something about the exact set of his lips that felt to Lyra like the throwing of a gauntlet.
It was that not-quite-smile that had Lyra turning back to the jeweler.
“Is that really the best you can do?” Somehow, Lyra managed to ask that with a straight face, like she bartered over precious jewels all the time, like there was nothing particularly remarkable about an establishment where every piece of jewelry was a work of art, a place where the quality of the ultra-precious gemstones was matched only by their number and size.
“Perhaps there’s something else you have your eye on?” the jeweler asked. “A trade I might throw in to sweeten the deal?”
“What do you have,” Grayson asked, “that is simple and small?”
“Subtle,” the jeweler interpreted.
“Durable,” Grayson countered. “Suitable for everyday wear. But the more vivid, the better.”
