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Nic jumped out of his chair, pumped a fist in the air. “I knew it, baby! I knew that reporter had a bad source.” He gave Marc a second to look over the documentation she’d provided, then ripped the folder out of his hands and headed for the door.
“Where are you going?” Marc demanded.
“To make a copy of this file. And then I’m going down to the LA Times myself and force-feed every single page of this to that jackal of a reporter. I hope she chokes on it.”
“I feel obliged to warn you of the illegality of such actions,” Hollister said. But he was grinning, and Nic just rolled his eyes and flipped him off, so she figured it was a long-standing joke between them. Which didn’t surprise her at all—Nic was totally the kind of guy to skirt the rules just enough to make a lawyer like Hollister absolutely insane.
She started to sit down in the chair vacated by Nic, but Marc grabbed her and pulled her into his arms. Then he picked her up and actually spun her around his office, laughing the entire time.
“Yes, well, I guess I’ll leave you to your celebrating,” Hollister said. “Send me a copy of the report when you get it back from Nic. I’ll make sure to have it messengered over to the editor of the LA Times before I go home tonight.”
“I thought Nic was already doing that?” she asked as Marc finally set her back on her feet. “He looked like a publicity director on a mission to me.”
“Oh, he is,” Hollister assured her. “But I just want to cover all the bases. Make sure no one has a chance to say the verification—and our comment on it—slipped through the cracks.”
He left the office after that, leaving her and Marc alone to grin stupidly at each other.
“I want to celebrate,” he said, grabbing her hand and bringing it to his mouth. “I want to take you out somewhere fancy and ply you with champagne and chocolate and moonlight.” He pressed several kisses to her fingers, before turning her hand over and doing the same to her palm and wrist.
Shivers of excitement went through her at the whisper soft contact, and she leaned into Marc. Let him hear the hitch in her breathing and let him see the way her hands were suddenly a little unsteady.
His eyes darkened and then he was kissing her, his lips and tongue and mouth devouring her own as need—hot and dark and overwhelming—flowed between them.
“Hold that thought,” he growled when he finally ripped his mouth from hers. Then, grabbing a small remote from his desk drawer, he darkened the privacy shades on the windows until no one could see in. Then he strode over to the door, starting to close and lock it. But before he’d done much more than swing it shut, Lisa appeared, pale and disheveled.
“I need to talk to you,” she said. She looked absolutely panicked, her face drained of color and her hands shaking as she made her way into his office without an invitation.
“What’s wrong?” Marc asked, leading her to a chair. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she told him, placing the tablet she held on the desk. “But the vault isn’t.”
Isa felt her stomach plummet to the floor, felt her heart stick in her throat. “What does that mean?”
Lisa pulled up a spreadsheet on the computer, gestured to it wildly. “It means we’re missing several of the large, two-carat and above VVS1 diamonds. It means,” she said, choking on tears, “that Bijoux has been robbed.”
* *
*
“That’s not possible,” Marc said, keeping his voice—and himself—as calm as possible.
“That’s what I said when I went in to pack up several of the jewels for shipment this morning. But they’re missing. I’ve checked and double-checked the logs. I’ve searched every drawer within five rows in both directions, just in case they were put back in the wrong place for the first time ever. I’ve even pulled up the security tapes and nothing suspicious popped at all. No one has been in that vault in the last three days who doesn’t belong there.”
“Three days? Is that the last time you saw those diamonds?”
“I saw them Saturday. I had just secured them in the vault when you called me into your office. I haven’t checked them since—have had no reason to until today. No one except Isa has.”
He could barely think around the suspicion—around the rage—that was seeping into him from all directions. This couldn’t be happening again. It simply couldn’t. It wasn’t possible. Isa wouldn’t do this to him a second time, not when they were finally starting to get somewhere. Not when he was finally beginning to move past her betrayal of six years ago.
Yes, he’d been suspicious enough to stay in the vault with her. But they’d moved past that. No way would she do this. And no way would he be so stupid that he didn’t see it. Not when he’d been so careful. Not when he’d worked so hard to make sure she wouldn’t fall victim to temptation while she was here.
While she was in his vaults.
He told himself not to jump to conclusions, not to let his suspicions run away with him. But still he couldn’t look at Isa as he called up security and ordered the video for the past five days to be emailed to him.
“What can I do to help?” Isa asked from where she was standing, frozen, next to his desk.
He didn’t answer. Didn’t trust his voice, or the words that would spew out of his mouth.
