The Sapphire Affair (A Jewel Novel Book 1) (13 page)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

International Diamonds commanded the corner of the street. The sign above the shop glittered, with huge cutout gems bookending the name.

He pushed open the door, and a blast of cool air-conditioning greeted him. He was nearly blinded by the dazzling displays of gems. Cases upon cases. Row upon row. Necklaces, and bracelets, and rings, and watches, and even barrettes.

The shop was busy, thronging with curious tourists, judging from the attire. But also a few businessmen, he reasoned, when he spotted a pair of men in slacks and button-down shirts at the far counter. They were engaged in what looked to be a deep discussion with an employee. This was good. The busier the shop was, the less likely anyone would remember him, even though the diamond he had was memorable.

He wandered along the counters, peering through the glass at the loose gems, absently drumming his fingers along the case.

“May I help you, sir?”

The question came from a young woman in a white lab coat. She wore black glasses and had her dark hair twisted up in a bun.

“That’d be great,” he said, reaching into his pocket to remove the gem. “My sister’s husband gave her a diamond to try to win her back after he broke her heart. But he did it again, and we’re just trying to figure out how much this pretty little number is worth, even though nothing’s worth the cost of the heartache he gave her.”

The woman shot him a sympathetic smile. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Diamonds are a wonderful gift, but so much more wonderful when it’s a true expression of love.”

“Couldn’t agree more. And she just wants to donate the money to charity now. She doesn’t plan on keeping it. She wants something good to come of that bastard’s cheating ways.”

“I completely understand. Let’s see what you have,” she said, spreading out a velvet cloth on the counter. Jake laid the diamond on it.

“Oh my,” the woman said under her breath. She looked up at Jake. “He really did mess up.”

Jake laughed lightly. “He sure did.”

Using a tweezers-like object, the woman carefully plucked the diamond from the cloth, raised it to her face, then peered at it through a small magnifying glass. “This is gorgeous,” she said as she regarded the stone.

Jake waited as she considered it from all angles.

Once she set it down, she fixed on a closed smile, then spoke in a crisp tone. “This is watermarked.”

A bolt of nerves crashed into him. Shit. Watermarked had to be bad. Was that like trying to use counterfeit money? Was she going to press a button behind the counter, shutter the metal blinds, and set off alarms to keep him caged in?

“Is that so?” he asked, keeping his tone as even as it could be. “Where does it come from?”

“Not all diamonds are watermarked. But some are, and a watermarked diamond means it comes from a particular mine. This is from the Frayer mine in the Northwest Territories in Canada, which specializes in conflict-free, politically correct diamonds mined from the subarctic north.”

Jake nodded and released his breath. Whew. “Well, at least the ex has that point in his favor,” he said, though his mind leaped several steps ahead to Eli “The Thief” Thompson. Was he a thief with a politically correct conscience?

“Yes, this is one of the best-regarded diamond mines in the entire world. And these diamonds with the blue tint are highly valuable. At this size and carat, I would estimate this is worth at least ten thousand dollars.”

He nearly bit his tongue, holding in the whoop of both shock and triumph he was tempted to unleash as the amount registered, and he added up numbers. “That so?”

“It is indeed,” she said, her dark eyes fixed on him, as if she were studying him. “I can handle the transaction for you if you’d like. We have handled a few of these diamonds recently. Every time we receive a new one, we can easily find buyers all over the world. I can give you full value today, sir. Are you ready to get started?” she asked, sounding way more eager than he’d expected for someone forking over cash, rather than being on the receiving end. Her gaze remained locked on his, and her stare was intense.

And, admittedly, a little odd. Like she was ready to pounce on him if he said yes.

“Let me talk to my sister, and we’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Excellent. I look forward to seeing you. I’m Monica. You can ask for me. I’ll be looking forward to helping you.”

He saluted her as he pocketed the gem with his other hand. “Great talking to you, Monica.”

Two minutes later, he climbed inside Steph’s Jeep and handed her the five-figure gem. “Your stepdad is generous. That bad boy is worth ten K. You’re going to change the combination on your safe tonight, Ariel.”

Her eyes widened to the size of moons. “Are you kidding me?”

He shook his head. “I assure you I’m not,” he said, then told her the details of the mine as they stayed parked on the side of the road, the afternoon sun shining through the window. “So Eli gets them from this Canadian mine, from a merchant who sources from there, probably through Constantine Trevino. That’s the guy he was in contact with back when he was still at the fund. He gets all the diamonds while he’s still in the United States working with this guy,” he said, though the part that worried Jake was what Eli was doing with the stones now that he was here in the land of do-whatever-you-want-with-money. Was he selling them all off and converting them back into cash? Was he selling them in small chunks? Wilder had said someone had brought a small batch of these blue diamonds into International Diamonds recently. Did that mean Eli had already turned a few stones into greenbacks?

Jake doubted it. Eli was cunning. He was probably cashing them in bit by bit, stone by stone, so as not to draw undue attention. Time was of the essence.

Later today, he’d call Andrew and update him on this latest discovery. See if his client had any new intel on those e-mails he was trying to decode. Especially given that the diamonds were watermarked, Jake had no interest in hunting diamonds that were highly traceable. He needed to know that point A led to point B—that the stolen money was used to buy the gems from that mine. The clues added up, but facts were awfully nice, too.

“Once he gets the diamonds from that mine, all he has to do is get on a plane to the Caymans with a pocketful of diamonds,” Jake added.

Steph arched an eyebrow. “A pocketful? I don’t know. Maybe he doesn’t have as many as you think. Maybe he’s giving them away as gifts. For his fiancée, for me. We have no idea how many he actually has,” she said, her voice rising as she once again tried to poke holes in the possibility of what her stepfather had done.

It was noble, and sweet, in a way, that she wanted to believe the guy. But she was also dead wrong.

“I guarantee he has more than a few. A lot more. In fact, I know exactly how many he has,” Jake said, his lips twitching in a confident grin.

She knit her brow together as she cranked the AC button, since the car was heating up. “How do you know?”

“Because it adds up,” he said, tapping his temple. “Math.”

“OK, Mr. Math. Tell me how two plus two equals
a lot more
.”

“The e-mail from the merchant. It said
safe transport for a grand
.”

Her jaw went slack. “Seriously?”

He nodded. “Two plus two,” he said, his tone gentler, even though excitement was coursing through him as he worked with her to assemble clues. He’d nearly forgotten how fun it could be, now and then, to work in tandem.

She shook her head, a flicker of sadness in her eyes as she spoke. “It does add up. Ten million divided by ten thousand is indeed one thousand,” she said, her tone heavy, as she divided the missing money by the cost of one stone. “Otherwise known as
a grand
.”

Safe transport for a grand.

“It seems the safe transport reference wasn’t about the cost of the transport, but
how many
they were making plans to move,” Jake said.

She ran a hand through her hair and sighed. “I just wish—”

Her eyes snapped away from his. She pointed and slid down in the driver’s seat. He glanced around. A man with salt-and-pepper hair headed down the block.

“What’s wrong?”

“Tristan,” she whispered like a hiss, then peered out the window. “Shit.”

In a blur, she unbuckled her seat belt, slid out of the seat, and climbed on top of him. “Kiss me so he doesn’t notice me.”

No time to think. Just follow orders. Ex-military, Jake knew how to do that, and this was the easiest order ever. He cupped her face and sealed his mouth to hers. He looped his hands in her hair and swept his tongue across the seam of her mouth. She moaned quietly and parted her lips for him.

To hide her more, he grabbed the ball cap from his head, gathered her long blonde hair in his hand, and covered it up with the hat on her head. He could feel her smile as he tucked her hair into the cap while barely breaking the kiss.

“Thank you,” she murmured, then returned her mouth to his.

He was positive the dude had walked past them now. But hell if he was going to stop. Not as she straddled him, angling her body in a perfect position for fucking. Not as she started to slowly rock her hips into him. And not as she kissed back harder and hungrier, her lips greedy for all this contact. She tasted like tropical temptation itself. He explored her mouth thoroughly, tangoing his tongue with hers, tasting her lips, devouring her.

He couldn’t even remember why they’d decided on no funny stuff. This was worth it.

She picked up speed and started riding him harder. As her breaths grew faster, he half wondered if she was going to bring herself to orgasm by humping his erection in his shorts. While he loved that idea and wanted nothing more than to hear her little moans turn into full-blown cries of pleasure, he also didn’t want the two of them to get arrested for public fornication.

Opening one eye as she kissed him, he scanned the street. Coast was clear.

Gently, he pushed her off him. But this was not going to be the end. “I’m driving,” he said. “And I’m finishing what you just started. If that’s a problem, you need to tell me now.”

“It’s not a problem,” she whispered, and the look in her eyes was full of lust, and said yes.

He turned on the engine and drove away from the diamond district. Five minutes later, he pulled into a parking garage in a nearby shopping center and found the quietest floor. He grabbed a spot next to the wall and pulled her into the backseat.

“So much for no funny stuff,” he said, sliding her sexy body alongside his. Right now, he didn’t care about rules. He was driven with need for her.

“You mean this won’t make me laugh?”

“If I’m doing it right, you won’t be chuckling at all. You’ll be screaming my name,” he said, running his fingertip along her mouth as he tugged her next to him. His hand traveled along the bare skin of her legs. So damn soft. As she stretched out beside him, her eyes locked with his. The look in hers was vulnerable and hungry at the same time. She wanted this and she wanted to give her body to him.

“Make me . . . ,” she whispered, taking a beat, “scream your name.”

She parted her thighs.

Killing any more resolve he had.

Not that he had much. It vanished when she’d jumped him on the street minutes ago. Now, it was far in the rearview mirror as he brushed the inside of her thigh. She quivered in his arms, and her reaction sent the temperature inside him soaring.

“Challenge accepted,” he said, and she smiled in that sexy-sweet way she had, then her eyes floated closed as he reached the damp panel of her bikini bottoms. He inhaled sharply as he brushed his index finger across that lovely wetness. His dick twitched against his shorts, wanting to find a temporary home inside her. He was so damn eager to bury himself inside her, to slide into her, to make her back arch and her toes curl as he took her to the edge.

But this moment wasn’t about him getting off. He wanted to watch her writhe in pleasure. To hear her cries. To see her lips form his name as she came undone. He slid a finger across her, gliding over her slick heat. Oh hell, she felt fucking fantastic, and lust crashed into all corners of his body as she shuddered and rocked into his hand.

He dropped his mouth to hers, claiming her lips in a hot kiss as he tugged her bikini lower, then returned to all that fantastic wetness that coated his fingers. She rocked into him as he stroked her and kissed her, and whatever resistance she’d had seemed so far gone, too.

She was supposed to be denying this.

She was supposed to be stronger.

But she wanted to forget what she’d just learned. She wanted a break from all this thinking about good guys and bad guys, cons and crimes. She wanted to turn off her mind and let her body take over.

Because this man knew what to do with her. Those talented fingers. That wicked mouth. He kissed like he was the reigning world champion in the sport of kissing, and she was his perfect partner. His lips were a dream, and his mouth tasted fantastic, and now he was touching her right where she wanted him.

He stroked faster, hitting her in all the right spots. She raised her hips, meeting his hand, needing his fingers. Craving so much more. Sparks raced through her bloodstream with every move he made, and soon she couldn’t concentrate on kissing him. She could only narrow in on the agonizingly exquisite ache between her legs.