“Where is it? Can you get it?”
“It’s in the possession of a security company.” She said it out of instinctive fear he would break in here looking for the treasure if she wasn’t frank about it. “Why are you talking to me about this, rather than Angelo?”
“Don’t you want to know that your fiancé is a thief? A con artist? It’s no accident he booked your engagement party for the night your parents were scheduled to attend an event where I will receive some well-deserved recognition for my philanthropy. That’s what kind of man he is. He’s trying to buy respectability by attaching himself to you while nursing an old grudge against people he knows are better than he is. Your mother would be horrified if she knew the truth of his background. Not that I’ll say anything. If you can get me the jewels?”
She shuddered at his sly tone. Tomas was no better than the kind of man he was describing. She distantly heard the front door.
“He’s coming.” She hung up.
Her skin was clammy, her mind whirling. Had Angelo known who she was that night? Had he followed her to the rooftop and purposely seduced her to put her in this position of having to marry him? Why had he been there? For the painting, yes, but something else? Something on the rooftop? A tin full of jewelry, perhaps?
The door opened and her intended entered. His charming, “Querida,” rang falsely. “What’s wrong?” He frowned.
“You said you would wake me,” she mumbled, not having to pretend a scattered mind as she rose, head aching and spinning. “I need to get ready.”
* * *
Despite her aversion to shining brightly, Pia wore a silver dress covered in tinsel-like beadwork. It scooped across the tops of her breasts and ended midthigh. Her feet were in some sort of glass slippers that completed the icicle look.
He smiled darkly in the back of the car, beginning to enjoy the private knowledge that he alone knew how easily she melted under his kiss or caress.
“We have time,” he pointed out, glancing at the closed privacy screen.
It was an hour to her brother’s villa and, he discovered to his consternation, he longed quite badly to touch her. This afternoon’s meeting with her brothers had been tense, their contempt for him undisguised. He ached to fill his hands with her, catch her cries of pleasure in his mouth and reaffirm that she belonged to him. She’d seemed befuddled and distracted when he arrived home, but now...
“Come here,” he invited.
“I had a call while you were out,” she said in a hollow voice. “From Tomas Gomez. He asked about the jewelry.”
For a wallflower, she excelled at delivering a surprise crosscut that snapped a jaw. A nest of snakes came alive in his belly.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you left them with a security company. That’s what Melodie’s husband is, isn’t he? A security expert?”
Top in his field, globally.
“So you confirmed to Tomas that I had the jewels.” A call to Pia had been inevitable, he supposed. The scumbags wouldn’t confront him if they could unsettle a woman or turn her against him.
“He asked if I helped you retrieve them,” she continued in that empty voice. “Did I?”
A metallic taste filled his mouth. “Inadvertently,” he admitted.
“On the rooftop.” Her voice developed a pang that made him feel as though she was slipping through his fingers. “That’s why you seduced me.”
“Our lovemaking just happened, Pia.”
“Did it? He said you’re using me to climb society’s ladder. You knew who I was!”
“I have my own society. I don’t need yours,” he spat, even as panic dug talons into him. “Don’t listen to that piece of garbage. He’s a liar.” Don’t side with him.
“He called you a liar. And a thief.”
“It takes one to know one,” he muttered. White-hot anger grew into a spiked ball inside him, too painful to contain. “But I’ve never lied to you.”
“Only hidden the truth.”
“Do you want the truth?”