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I reach down and grab the glittering gemstone, tearing it from her neck and tossing it into the water. I expect a yelp of surprise, maybe a little laugh at my impish behavior, but what I get is the harrowing scream I’ve heard from her.
“No!” she leaps out of her chair and rushes to the edge of the boat, her wide eyes scanning the water.
“It’s just a necklace. I’ll get you another one,” I reply, thoroughly taken aback by her reaction. “A thousand more, if you wish.”
“You fucking asshole!” she screams, spinning around and shooting danger from her eyes. “Why did you do that?”
“I was just having fun,” I reply, heat rushing up to my face. I’m confused, but I’m also terrified I’ve done something that’s going to make her hate me. I just don’t understand what was so important about that necklace.
Valerie looks back over the edge of the boat, leaning down like she’s about to jump in. I have to run up behind her and grab her to prevent this. Not only would it be dangerous, but since the boat is moving, the necklace would be far behind us by now.
“Let go of me,” she cries, struggling to break free.
“Valerie, you can’t jump! Stop it.”
She spins around, jabbing her finger into my chest. “No, Pasha,youstop it. You threw my necklace overboard without even asking. You can’t just do shit like that. You have no idea what that necklace means to me.”
Her voice has changed from angry to desperate, breaking as she tries to come to terms with what just happened. I’m still confused, but less so as I realize the necklace has some deep sentimental value that can’t simply be bought back.
No matter how many I buy for her, they’ll never be anything close to the original.
“Valerie…” I say, looking out toward the water. “We can get it back. I’ll find a way.”
“It’s at the bottom of the goddamn ocean. How the fuck would we get it back?” she asks, her eyes wide as she searches mine for answers. She’s willing to give me a chance at redemption, but I need to be willing to do the impossible for her.
I take her hand, looking deep into her eyes. “Valerie, we’re going to stop the boat and I’ll get a search team on it immediately. Nobody will rest until that necklace is found.”
She looks past me toward the water. There’s doubt mixed with the faintest glimmer of hope on her face.
I put my hands on her shoulders, leaning in to kiss her forehead. “I promise you, darling, we’re going to get that necklace back. I don’t know what it means, but if it’s important you, it’s important to me.”
She offers up a smile in response. It’s a weak one, but I’ll take what I can get.
“Stay here,” I say, running down to the control room to stop the boat.
We’ll need to know the exact coordinates of where it was dropped if we’re to have any hope of finding it. It could be buried under sand by now, lost deep in the darkness of the ocean, but if there’s any chance at all of getting it back, I have to take it.
When I rejoin Valerie on deck, she’s wearing a towel, looking down at the water as though she might be able to spot the necklace on the ocean floor.
I place my hand on her back, looking down with her. “It’ll come up. I have a whole crew heading down here that specializes in finding things underwater. Divers, submarines… you name it.”
She nods, still watching the water with unfocused eyes. “I hope they find it. I just don’t want to lose the only piece of my sister I have left.”
“Your sister?” I ask, surprised to hear anything about her family. I assumed she didn’t have any siblings.
She nods, bringing her hand to her chest where the emerald would’ve been. “That was her necklace. Julia. She was my twin, actually. We looked so similar that people thought we were identical twins, but we weren’t. We just liked to fool people into thinking we were.” She laughs, and it’s the saddest laughter I’ve ever heard.
“And you lost her,” I whisper, thinking back to the conversation we had the night I got so angry at Valerie. My jealousy was for nothing, and I feel even more idiotic than I did that night. How could I have jumped to such an insane conclusion when all she was doing was thinking about her sister?
Valerie looks at me with tears shimmering in her eyes. “Julia was my other half. My better half, really, because once she died, I became an absolute wreck. I hadn’t actually realized how bad it was until you suggested I go to rehab. Thank you for that again, by the way. I feel like I made real progress there.”
I nod. “It’s a good place to be sometimes. There’s no shame in getting help when you need it.”
She crinkles her nose at me. “I don’t think you need any help. You’re kind of a do-it-yourself type of guy.”
I chuckle. “I have a whole fleet of men who work for me, darling. I’m anything but independent.”
“Okay, true… But between the two of us, I’d trust you to be the stronger one. You’re my rock.”
