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I was mesmerized, locked in his gaze. “Only if you’ll do the same.”
Something changed between us in that moment. This felt more real than anything I’d ever experienced. I wanted him. I wanted us. And it was happening.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Daniel
Present
I staredat the blue dot on my phone screen, annoyed that this was as close to Vivian as I could get now, annoyed that I’d been reduced to this: a man not so pissed off about the traffic out of the city because it allowed him to constantly watch a poor substitute for the real thing.
Easing forward with little more than a glance, I willed the dot to move. The car in front of me stopped, and I pressed the brake. Damn my lawyer and the hoops I had to jump through. As if it weren’t aggravating enough that I had to go to him in Connecticut, this was our second attempt at this meeting, and whether his wife liked it or not, it was happening. If we’d met as originally scheduled, I could have been home by now giving Vivian’s whereabouts my full concentration instead of being stuck in this blasted car.
I cursed when the phone vibrated and Vinny’s name popped up. It seemed like I was doing that a lot lately. “What?” I answered impatiently.
“That’s no way to greet someone bearing good news,” he said.
“If you’ve got any, it would be a first.” I was in a constant state of irritation when it came to Vinny.
“Now, now. Let’s not be sharp-tongued.”
I didn’t like his attitude, and a sense of foreboding came over me. “Then say something I want to hear,” I snapped.
“I’ve got the jaune.”
Fucking hell.We were preparing to facilitate the transfer between parties, so what was Vinny doing with it?
“Congratulations. Now what are you going to do with it?” I queried, sounding bored.
“Get it to your buyer.”
“And when are you planning on doing this?”
“As soon as you fucking set it up.”
“I just don’t see that happening, Vinny.” I needed to find out how much more he knew. Donato and I never discussed specifics over the phone. I didn’t know how Vinny had gotten that diamond, wasn’t totally convinced he had it, and was even less sure he knew who wanted it.
“Daniel, you have to get this to them.” His tone turned from cocky to borderline panicked.
“Why would anyone ever give that to you without payment first?” We used to do these exchanges with bags of cash, but now we mostly did electronic transfers into untraceable bank accounts. The second we had the item in our hands was the second the seller got their money.
“I lifted it.”
“You what?” I growled, gripping the steering wheel with one hand until my knuckles turned white.
“It’s all profit. For us.”
I dropped my head back and closed my eyes. I prayed he was lying. Jesus Christ. A throbbing started in my temples.I’dmade contact with the owner.Iwas facilitating the transaction. NowIwas a marked man, because the owner of that diamond would not take this lightly. She had lots of contacts with my business associates. This could bury me both figuratively and literally.
“What have you done?” I kept my voice low when what I really wanted to do was shout.
“Made us a ton of money.”
He wasn’t this stupid. He couldn’t be. There was more to his agenda. Vinny had done this to set me up. “Take it back.”
“Why the fuck would I do that?” he asked incredulously.
“Are you trying to get us killed?”
