The Sapphire Affair (Jewel #1)(46)

Her mother hissed. “Bastard. Lying, scheming, cheating, Rolex-wearing bastard.” Her mom sighed heavily. “Shame on me. I think I just earned myself ten points of bad karma. I need to go apologize to the universe for that verbal tic I just unleashed. How is the dear?”

Steph flashed back to her brunch with Eli, cycling through terms to describe the man—chipper, upbeat, happy. Instead, she went with: “He’s his usual self. The weird thing was he mentioned something about focusing on his charitable endeavors these days. I never knew he was a big charity guy.”

Her mother scoffed. “Ha. He was hardly a big charitable supporter. Getting money out of him was like bleeding a rock.”

“You mean, you don’t know how to bleed a rock, Mom? If you’d just asked me I would tell you,” Steph joked.

“See? If I’d only thought to ask you. I need to skedaddle, darling. I’m trying to catch a morning yoga class. Your friend Lance is going with me.”

Steph tilted her head. She hadn’t known Lance to do yoga. “Lance? My boat guy Lance?”

“Yes. He’s quite flexible.”

“Mom!” Steph admonished.

“I don’t mean like that. I mean, he’s quite flexible in his cat and cow and warrior poses. You just assumed I meant something dirty. Speaking of dirty, have you followed my advice? Found a hot sexy guy for a little something?”

Butterflies swooped through her belly as she returned to Jake. To his hands, and his mouth, and his sexy, sinful side. “As a matter of fact, I did,” she said, though yesterday was a one-time lapse, and she could not, would not go there again. “But it won’t be a regular thing.”

“Why not? What’s he like?”

“He’s funny, and rugged, and smart. Smoking hot, too.”

“Sounds perfect for an island tryst.”

Island tryst.

She liked the sound of that. In theory. In practice, it was fraught with too much danger. Not only for her heart, but for her life. Jake was hot and funny and wickedly talented, but they didn’t see eye to eye. They were coming at the diamonds from opposite angles.

The evidence was mounting that Eli indeed had a stash of diamonds. But Steph wanted to get to the truth of the diamonds and convince Eli to return them. Jake wanted justice, too, but he also wanted Eli’s head.

There was no way an island tryst could work.

After she finished the call, she dropped the name of the diamond mine into the search bar on her phone. She read about its commitment to politically correct mining, its adherence to world standards on labor, and the fact that half of its proceeds went to schools in Africa.

Could this be one of Eli’s new charitable endeavors? The website listed some of its biggest supporters for its charitable arm and she studied the names closely.

“Ha!” she declared out loud. Her stepdad’s name was nowhere to be seen.

But another name caught her attention.

Isla Evans.

His fiancée.




Jake waited for Eli.

Because work was all that mattered, he tackled it with determined vigor and blinders on.

At 9:22 a.m., Eli opened the front door, shut it behind him, and walked down the stone path toward his circular driveway. In his right hand, he tossed his car keys up and down a few inches, like he’d done the other day.

He also stopped to sniff the orchids and the roses.

The man was a creature of habit, which boded well for Jake. Men who followed routines were easiest to track. Eli seemed to have his, except . . .

One thing was different this time.

Today, he didn’t waft the scent of roses into his nostrils with his free hand. Eli’s left hand was tucked inside his pants pocket the whole time. Grabbing binoculars, Jake peered through the lenses to see if he could figure out what the man was up to. He zeroed in on the pocket, and judging from the outline of Eli’s hand, it sure looked like he was clutching something in that pocket.

Not that.

But something else precious. Maybe a small pouch with jewels? He was willing to bet that Eli had diamonds from the Frayer mine in his pocket this morning.

After Eli got into his car, Jake followed him, keeping his eye on the target with a new intensity, zoning in on the reason he was in the Cayman Islands in the first place. For a job. And that job meant he needed to know the target and avoid distractions.

Like sexy, feisty, fantastic women. Like one in particular who felt like magic in his hands.

He’d failed miserably yesterday at avoiding distractions. The memory of Steph coming undone in the backseat of her car threatened to derail him again today. Her cries of pleasure echoed in his mind, turning him on again.

He gripped the steering wheel, frustration searing through him. Why had he thought he could pull off a tryst with Steph Anderson? The woman was right to have tried to put her foot down when they’d teamed up, but then she’d gone and kissed him in her car. A kiss that turned into a hell of a lot more in the parking garage.

His jaw clenched as he focused on the road. Foot on gas. Hands on wheel. Eyes on concrete.

Then his dick had the audacity to announce its intentions to have her again. Fucking traitorous prick.

Settle down, boy. We need to focus.

Jake did not need to be having dirty thoughts as he followed her stepfather. He repeated that word. Stepfather. He was crossing his lines and breaking his rules, because Jake Harlowe did not get involved on a job. Been there, done that, had the scars to prove it didn’t work.