Tinsel In A Tangle

Cauliflower ears was out and their boy Ajax, ex Hell’s Angels enforcer turned anti-security expert, was in. All according to schedule. Up next, Sweet Celestia would be removed from her glass vault, placed in the hands of Melody Solo, and Annie Leibaholm would do her thing. That would take an unfortunate amount of time, require a lot of faffing about with lenses and lights and poses, and then Celestia would be polished and returned to her vault where she’d sit until the auction in twenty-four hours’ time.

Except the real Celestia would be freed from her velvet-lined vault by Cleve’s crack team: Ajax, Gustav and Santino.

And no one would see it coming until the moment the buyer tried to verify the fake they replaced Celestia with, and then the only thing coming would be red faces and legal threats.

On the screen, Gus and Santino fussed about Melody, flicking hair, touching brushes to her cheeks, under cover of assessing the particulars of the display case Sweet Celestia was secured in. Melody had to be Hollywood-taped into that dress, it fitted so close it might as well have been painted on.

“Cor, think we’ll see some tits?” said Brandon.

It was the last thing Brandon said before Cleve banished him from the room. He felt oddly protective of Melody, and if she came out of that dress, he didn’t want Brandon to have the privilege of seeing her exposed. Yes, Melody in his bed would’ve been a fine, fine diversion. A humorous one, if she wore the shoes she could barely totter in.

Finally an auction house official wearing white gloves removed the stone from the case and, on Annie’s instructions, placed it in Melody’s outstretched hands. The silly girl made a goofy face and Cleve barked a laugh as everyone else in the room in Geneva bristled. He had no doubt her agent would hear about her unprofessional attitude, but he couldn’t help but be amused by her. Apart from the Sweet Celestia, she was the only genuine thing in the room.

The next half hour was taken up with a lot of stalking around and camera-pointing. A lot of minute adjustments to Melody’s fingers, wrists and the distance from her face the Sweet Celestia was held. Gus and Santino stood just out of shot, neither of them acknowledging their acquaintance with Ajax.

It was hunger not boredom that almost drove Cleve away from the screen. Afternoon in Geneva was breakfast time in Ubud and there was fresh fruit and strong coffee to consume. He was recording this, so he didn’t need to watch it live, but a good crime boss didn’t let a little time difference interfere with getting his control freak on. He’d learned that lesson at the professor’s feet, which meant he was watching, despite a grumbling stomach, when Anni

e instructed Melody to rise, when Melody stumbled in her spiked jeweled shoes, went to her haunches, tried to rise, lost her balance, tripped, grabbing for a light stand and sprawled in a tangled heap of legs and hot metal, a flash of naked breast and a photographer’s umbrella. When the Sweet Celestia spilled from her hands and bounced on the carpet.

And all hell broke loose.

Chapter Three

It happened like Aria rehearsed it. A second to wobble. A second to plummet to a crouch, hands down to break her fall. A second to release the fake Celestia from the jeweled arrangement at the front of her shoe, and another to snap the real Celestia in its place. Then the attempt to rise, stumble, trip, grab at the light stand and hit the floor in a tangled heap, releasing the fake stone from her hand.

It tumbled in a most satisfying way, eliciting gasps of horror.

The crouch was the artistry; the pratfall was the distraction she needed to ensure all eyes were on the fake Celestia and no one thought to examine her too closely.

It was the most exhilarating six seconds of her life.

But she hadn’t accounted for the way the room would erupt. Everyone moved at once, the assistants lunging for the fake diamond as Annie retreated with her camera, the PR guy almost treading on her hand as he tried to catch the synthetic Celestia on the bounce. Even the four stoic security guards showed they weren’t made from granite, one of them stepping forward, the biggest one face-palming to stifle his amusement.

She also hadn’t calculated on the shouting, for all the hands that would grab at her to haul her up, or for the fact that she simply couldn’t stop laughing, and not with Melody’s vacuous giggle, but with her own enthusiastic, full-throated guffaws.

It was most inappropriate.

The Giovanna Talessi dress was ripped from hip to hem, one of the light stand struts had carved a deep bleeding scratch across her shin. The Hollywood tape didn’t hold, so she’d had a wardrobe malfunction and flashed the room, and she’d have jewel-tone bruises on her elbows for sure.

But she’d done it. She had the Sweet Celestia, all sixty-one million of her, secured in a custom-made metal frame on the toe of her shoe. The same shoe she’d snapped the purposely weakened heel on while everyone was focused on the runaway artificial diamond. Now it was simply a matter of the manufactured stone passing an examination that would focus more on its integrity than authenticity, then being shouted at and sent home in disgrace with the shoes in her possession.

She’d had to eliminate any chance she was asked to surrender the shoes. That had been Pari’s job. To handcraft the most unusual stolen goods getaway vehicle ever, to promote the shoes to Contessa for the shoot, and to impress on the dresser that the shoes should only be returned in pristine condition or the model might as well have them, because it would be an insult to return them.

It was like the cotton balls—hard to believe anyone would swallow it.

“Darl, are you okay?” Gus was kind. Santino held on to her so she didn’t fall again. She managed to slam her teeth together to stop laughing.

While the fake Celestia was scooped off the floor by the gloved official and examined under a special light, polished, buffed and returned to its velvet cushion, Katerina brought a robe and peeled Aria out of the ruined dress. Neither Annie nor either of her assistants made eye contact with her, and the PR man was so angry he was incapable of speech. She had to tend to her own wound.

She was bustled back to the pop-up dressing room, and it was there that a cold-faced Greville’s head-honcho dismissed her. “You are a disgrace. You’re clearly on drugs. Your contract is void. You will not be paid for this job. Your agent will be informed of your unprofessional behavior. Please leave this instant.”

Katerina thrust the ripped and bloodstained dress at her. Aria still wore one of the shoes and held the broken one, the one worth sixty-one million dollars. “Take the dress and shoes, they’re ruined anyway. It’s the best you’ll do out of this job.”

She hung her head. She was still Melody Solo, imposter model, and had to act the part until she could be any number of her other aliases and go home much richer. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“My advice is to find another line of work.”

“That’s lovely, thank you.” It came out strangled because she desperately wanted to laugh again.