Tinsel In A Tangle

Jake handed her his argyle socks and slipped his bare feet into his dress shoes.

His feet were sexy. Who knew feet could even be sexy?

“Well, are you going to use the socks or what?”

People were so rarely nice to her it took her a moment to realize what he’d done. He was letting her borrow his socks. She couldn’t hide her smile as she slipped his socks on. They were much too big, but they were warm and soft.

“You’re a very nice guy, Jake Hoffman.”

“Yeah. Don’t let word get around,” he said dryly.

He took her by the hand and they headed off to find the snack bar.

Forty-five minutes later, she couldn’t believe she’d forgotten how much fun she could have with Jake. And not the naked kind of fun. Real fun.

He hadn’t been joking about raiding the café. They sat at a small table under the one light that illuminated the seating area of the café. A feast of junk food surrounded them. They’d found chips and pretzels, a couple of day-old croissants and four different kinds of cookies that were bigger than her head.

“Come on,” he said. “You can fit another bite of chocolate croissant, I know you can. They’re your favorite.”

They were her favorite. Her grandmother used to make them from scratch for special occasions. Or at least she’d claimed to. Ana had never told Grandmother that she’d found the box from the local bakery in the trash one morning.

“I really can’t,” she said, shaking her head.

If she was going to live in a bathing suit on a beach for the rest of her life, she was going to have to start being more careful about what she ate.

Jake munched on an oatmeal raisin cookie, his favorite. Grandmother actually had baked those. Ana had helped her on many occasions.

She’d taken Jake for granted for years. She’d cut ties with Staffordshire International but she always knew, in the back of her mind, that he’d be there if she ever needed him.

And she was about to screw him over.

For what?

A rock?

Granted, it was the most beautiful rock she’d ever seen, and it was the one material thing in the world that was important to her, but did Jake deserve to have his reputation ruined just so she could have a rock? She never for a moment worried about how losing the diamond would affect Leonard. Aside from the fact that he would’ve known he’d lost, she knew he wouldn’t care. It was nothing more than a shiny bauble to him. But maybe she should have put more thought into the other people who would be affected by her decision.

Would she give up the Staffordshire Diamond for Jake? Let it be sold into private hands? Let it be sold for something most definitely immoral if Leonard was involved, possibly illegal?

Yes.

The answer was instantaneous. She’d give up the diamond for Jake, if necessary.

Hopefully it wouldn’t be necessary.

“How are you going to do it?”

“Excuse me?”

How long had she been lost in her own thoughts? Had she accidentally been in the middle of a conversation without realizing it?

“The necklace.” He pointed to the stone that still rested between her breasts. She had a feeling she’d miss the weight of it once it was time to take it off.

“What about it?”

He rolled his eyes at her. She didn’t know why she liked it so much when he got annoyed with her, but she did. This time she wasn’t faking though. She didn’t know what he was talking about.

“How are you planning on stealing the necklace?”