The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)(23)

Jake cracked up, thinking of his dart coach from last night. “Is that so?”

The man nodded. “Oh yes. He plays a mean game of darts.”

“As a matter of fact, I got some pointers last night from a lovely lady. It’s all about the angle,” Jake said, then raised his arm and mimed tossing a dart.

The man nodded approvingly. “I shall try that next time.”

Jake flashed him a smile, then snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something. “Say. Do you happen to have any of those diamonds with a sort of bluish tint to them? A very faint blue glow?”

The man shook his head. “Ah, sorry to say I do not. Those are quite special. One of my colleagues down the street at International Diamonds has some from time to time. A few months ago, he handled a small batch of them for a new customer, who brought them in from the United States. International Diamonds is where you want to go for a stone like that. He might even have one or two left over from that batch.”

Ding, ding, ding!

“Excellent,” Jake said, reining in a grin and extending a hand to shake. “I appreciate that. And I’ll be back to pick one up for my sister soon. What’s your name?”

“Wilder.”

“Nice to meet you, Wilder.”

The man bowed once more, then headed over to his new customers as Jake took off.




As Jake walked away from the shop, he grabbed his phone and called up that e-mail from his case file—the one Andrew’s IT guy had resurrected from the deleted folder.

Jake scrubbed a hand across his chin as he studied it once more. The note referenced an amount. The sender discussed safe transport. But there was no mention of paintings or art, specifically.

The luxury good itself had gone unnamed. Andrew had suspected art given Eli’s affinity for it, as well as his fiancée’s business venture.

Perhaps the e-mail was about art. But maybe it was actually about something else. After all, how many $5,000 paintings did you have to move to equal $10 million? A f*ck ton, that was how many. And paintings took up a helluva lot more space on a plane than gems did. Especially when they required safe transport.

Jake’s instincts were telling him something. To pay attention to the little details, too—the name of Eli’s nightclub, the bling on the woman, the tint of the diamonds, and the timing of the jewel trade.

Was Eli ferrying something else entirely from the United States to the Caymans?

He called Andrew and ran the new possibility past him.

“My team is still working on deciphering those other documents to see if we can get any more intel, but I’m looking at the e-mail now to Constantine,” Andrew said in a focused tone. “And if that’s what he took to the Caymans, they’d be the rightful property of the Eli Fund.”

“Let’s get ’em back, then.”

“Let’s do it.”

Jake located International Diamonds, a sprawling shop that occupied a huge street corner. The sign said OPEN TOMORROW.

Looked like he was free to rendezvous with the mermaid for now.





CHAPTER NINE


Her stepfather held his arms out wide, beaming as Steph walked up the steps to Tristan’s, his favorite brunch spot on the island. No surprise that brunch was his favorite meal. That was a fitting choice for a man who liked the finer things in life. Wine, art, caviar, trips, and very pretty women.

But he also liked his kids. He practically bounced on his sandaled feet as Steph headed to him. The second she reached the top step, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close.

Like he’d missed her.

Like she was his precious girl.

She caught a faint whiff of his woodsy aftershave, a familiar scent from her youth. His arms wrapped around her were the definition of safety. So many times growing up, he’d comforted her with a hug when she’d fallen, gotten hurt, lost a game, and so, some kind of muscle memory kicked in as he embraced her.

Family.

She’d never known her own father. Eli was as close as she’d ever come to a dad. Perhaps that’s why the way it ended hurt even more, knowing he’d absconded with the money her mom had given him to start his business. Steph’s brain told her Eli was a con man, a thief. Trouble was that standing there in his strong, warm hug, she desperately wanted her brain to be wrong. How could she love and loathe this man so much at once? Her muscles tensed with simmering frustration over how he’d hurt the person she loved most at the same damn time that she was actually happy to see him, too. She was tired of the push-and-pull tug-of-war inside her heart, of trying to sort the truth from the lies. If she was to have any peace, she had to find out which was the real Eli.

“It’s been too long,” he declared, breaking the embrace and dropping his hands to her arms, smiling widely as he seemed to drink her in. “You don’t look a day over twenty. How old are you now? Eighteen? Fifteen?”

“Eli,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“I know you’re twenty-eight, sweetheart. Let’s catch up on everything. I want to hear every detail of what you’ve been up to,” he said, and in mere seconds, the ma?tre d’ swooped by and seated them at the best table on the terrace. The restaurant had just opened for brunch and was already bustling.

As soon as he walked away, the restaurant owner marched over and beamed. “Hello again, Mr. Thompson,” he said.