Chapter 45

"Sorry again, I wasn't here to meet you yesterday." Oliver Evans was a tall, broad man with sandy blond hair and deep lines beside his eyes and around his mouth.

His face, or maybe his expression, seemed older than his body. He and Landon were the same height, though his father was broader across the shoulders, with a slight belly rather than Landon's youth-trim waist.

Was that what Landon would look like in 15 years?

The idea that she might still know him, let alone be with him, in fifteen years was wonderful.

"Da, can I help?" Landon rose from the wooden kitchen chair beside hers. Unlike Nana's kitchen, this one was simple to the point of being spartan, though there were odd piles of papers in various places, including on the end of the six-seater oval wooden table.

"I am capable of making tea," Oliver opened a cupboard and reached for a mug but paused, looking over his shoulder at his son. "Why don't you get your mother's tea set?"

Landon had put his hand on Colette's shoulder when he stood, and now he squeezed her, a small hidden response to his father's words.

Colette placed her own hand atop his, rubbing his knuckles with her thumb.

"Still in the china hutch?" Landon said after a small pause.

"Yes." Oliver grabbed a battered box of Tetley tea bags. "And maybe the pot."

Landon disappeared through the kitchen door, headed deeper into the house. Colette looked at Oliver, who seemed slightly uncomfortable. She hid her smile as he rubbed his head with his hand exactly the same way Landon did.

"Are lambs soft?" she asked.

Oliver looked up. "Lambs?"

"Landon says they aren't soft, but they look very fluffy."

Oliver relaxed. "Like a scrubbing brush for dishes."

Colette made a distressed noise and slumped dramatically in her chair. "I'm heartbroken that they aren't cuddly little clouds."

"You want something soft, you want to pet a cow calf. The hair on their faces is so soft." Oliver touched his own nose.

Colette sat up. "You have baby cows?"

"This is a dairy farm and it's the right time of year. The sheep are new. I can't milk as many as I used to. Doctor said I have low blood pressure and need to slow down, so I got rid of some cows and got some sheep to keep the grass down in the front."

Landon had returned while his father was talking, carrying a tray with a delicate china tea set on it. Landon set it on the counter by the sink before turning to his father.

"What's this about your blood pressure?"

"Bit low. I have to drink more water. Less time on my feet. It's nothing to worry about, Land."

"It sounds like it is. And I was going to ask about the sheep. I thought maybe you were renting that pasture."

Oliver shook his head.

"Da, you should have told me about your blood pressure."

"You have enough to be getting on with, with your job."

At the mention of Landon's former job, Colette's stomach clenched. Oliver had been away yesterday helping a fellow farmer with something, and apparently he hadn't spoken with his in-laws since returning. Or they wanted Landon to tell Oliver himself.

Landon filled the electric kettle and turned it on.

"They're sure it's just blood pressure?" Landon was staring at the kettle, his shoulders tight.

"I went to Dr. Peters to check."

Landon nodded once, then returned to his chair. Under the table, Landon grabbed her hand, holding tight.

"My mother died of heart disease." Landon was speaking to her, but looking at the kitchen wall. There was a photo taped there. A dark-haired woman with skin a few shades darker than Landon's lying in a hospital bed. A small dark-haired boy with a goofy smile that showed off all his teeth was in bed beside the woman. A younger Oliver stood beside the bed, holding the woman's hand.

The photo looked weathered, the tape that held it to the wall yellowed with age. It looked like someone had taped it up there, meaning it to be temporary—maybe so they wouldn't lose it, maybe waiting for a frame—and it became a holy artifact.

"When she was pregnant with me, they discovered she had atherosclerosis. It was already advanced, even though she was young and healthy."

Colette didn't know what atherosclerosis was, but she didn't say anything, only squeezed Landon's hand.

"When I was two, she was diagnosed with premature coronary artery disease. I remember her being tired all the time."

"She'd hate that that's all you remember," Oliver said quietly. "She wasn't like that, before she got sick."

"And she had none of the risk factors." Now Landon sounded almost angry.

"Genetics." Nana appeared in the open kitchen door, a food-laden tray in her hands.

Landon and Oliver both raced to help her. She handed it to Oliver, then took Landon's arm, leaning on him as they followed Oliver to the kitchen counter.

"This is good." Nana picked up one of the elegant tea cups. "Using the tea set your mother gave Armaiti." Nana patted Oliver's arm.

Colette wondered about their relationship. Nana—whose actual name Colette didn't know—was Oliver's mother-in-law. She understood, in a detached way, that they moved to England to help care for their daughter and grandchild when their daughter was sick, and when she died, they stayed to help raise Landon.

But they were still here. Landon was grown up and moved out. Why had they stayed?

Oliver looked at the tray Nana had brought and sighed. It was a familiar sound of mild exasperation she'd heard from Landon more than once.

"I can feed myself. And our guest."

"Of course you can." Nana patted Oliver's arm. When he didn't move, the pat turned into more of a shove to get him out of the way. Oliver was easily twice her bodyweight but he staggered to the side as if she'd really pushed him.

The byplay had the feeling of comfort and routine. As if they'd done this a thousand times before.

For Colette, who'd had only a guardian—because no one wanted to adopt her—and no other family, the idea that maybe the Maliks had stayed because Oliver was their family, even without his wife or son in residence, was almost fantastical.

She could almost see the web of love and shared grief that wove between these three. If Nani—whose name was Ali, Colette was pretty sure—was here, she was sure he'd be a part of that web.

Landon had lived through a parent's terminal illness and death. But he'd had this web, this net of love, to hold him up. To keep him from falling and falling, hitting the cold stone reality. They caught him before he could find out exactly how cruel the world was at an age when that knowledge would break him.

Colette had fallen.

The tightness in her stomach became a sinking feeling.

"Sit. Talk to her. And to your son."

Nana shot Landon a look, though she was addressing Oliver. Landon winced and she shooed him back towards the table.

"I can feed myself," Oliver told Colette as he sat across the table from her. "And other people."

Landon sat beside Colette, leaning in to whisper in her ear. "Nana's here because she doesn't want to miss out on anything."

Colette covered her smile with her hand.

"What do you do?" Oliver asked. He sounded less curious, and more like he was following a script. Questions to ask when meeting new people.

Landon dropped his arm over the back of her chair, but when he went to answer for her—or throw off the conversation by announcing he'd quit his job—she touched his leg.

"I'm a gem and jewelry appraiser."

"Ah, good." Oliver looked like he had no idea if that was good, bad, or other.

"She appraises rich people's jewelry," Landon clarified. "Among other things."

Colette tried to pinch him but his thigh was too muscled.

"I also occasionally do some work for museums."

Oliver sat back, his gaze now really focused on her, his interest clearly engaged. "Museums? We're not talking about grandma's pearl ring."

"No," she agreed. "Unless this grandmother was a German baroness, and the pearl is a one of a kind, twenty-kilogram natural pearl from a giant clam."

"How much would something like that be worth?" Oliver asked.

Colette considered. The giga pearl had recently been valued at at least fifty-million euro, but it was twenty-seven kilograms. There were many factors that went in to valuing pearls, but if she had to put a number on it…

"Fifteen to thirty million euro."

Olive and Nana both froze, Nana turning to stare at her.

"Maybe more, if there's a story behind it."

"A story makes something like that even more valuable?"

"If I say diamond, what do you think of?" She felt much more comfortable with this conversation now, though that feeling of dread still sat low in her stomach.

"The Hope diamond," Nana said immediately.

"Why?"

"It's the most expensive diamond in the world," Oliver said.

Colette shook her head. "Top five or six. But not the most expensive. It's well known because it's supposedly cursed."

"I think I remember that," Oliver said. "Everyone who owned it died, or went bankrupt."

Not everyone, but who cared about truth when the story was so much better?

"Have you seen the Hope diamond up close?" Nana started to pick up a tray.

"No. It's in a museum in America. But I have had the privilege of handling some other rare diamonds."

Landon, who was half out of his chair to go help his grandmother, turned to her with a narrowed gaze.

She smiled. Landon grimaced and sighed.

Heh.

Landon carried over the tray of food Nana had brought, and a second tray with the tea set.

"Are cursed diamonds worth more or less?" Nana asked.

"It depends, and it's not just diamonds that have stories. Actually, there's a charity gala at a museum in Amsterdam next month, and one of the items being loaned to the museum for the night is rumored to be the Beggar's Pearl."

"It's cursed?" Nana asked.

"Of course." Colette smiled. "A Portuguese merchant supposedly saw the massive natural pearl in a blind beggar's basket, and offered him a loaf of bread for it. The beggar couldn't see the bread was moldy—and in the sixteen hundreds in the West Indies I'm not sure they would have had loaves of bread, but perhaps it was casave. The merchant took the pearl to the Portuguese king, and tried to use it to buy his favor. The king took the pearl, and gave the merchant a ship, but the ship was unsound, and the king knew it. The merchant tried to sail, and the mast broke, killing him. Not long after, the king's palace burned nearly to the ground."

Nana made an approving sound.

"The Beggar Pearl disappeared for hundreds of years after that, and has never been sold, at least not publicly. There's one photo, from nineteen fifty. In the picture the pearl is mounted in a filigreed gold setting on a simple gold chain. An insurance company employee supposedly took the photo of the jewelry as part of an insurance inventory, but never revealed who was insuring it."

"Are you going to the gala to appraise it?" Nana asked.

"No, I wasn't hired for that."

"How much would something like that be worth?" Nana asked.

"The Beggar Pearl would be hard to value, because the story surrounding it could make the bidding more intense, or could scare buyers away. If it were me, I'd value it at sixty million just to be safe."

"What's the most expensive thing you've ever appraised?" Oliver passed out teacups.

Landon hadn't yet sat, but was instead in the kitchen putting things into the fridge and gathering napkins. Colette watched him from the corner of her eye as she spoke.

"The Centenary diamond. Two-hundred and seventy-three carats, highest grade color, flawlessly cut by a team of experts in Johannesburg. They built a room underground specifically for this diamond, so it could be cut and shaped without fear of mechanical vibrations."

Landon slowly looked up, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed.

"How much is it worth?" It was Nana who asked this time.

"A diamond like that, sometimes it's hard to value, because they're rarely sold. The Kohinoor Diamond, which is now set in the Queen Mother's crown, technically has no price. Not price-less, but no price, because it's not, and probably never will be, for sale. And it's only 100 carats." Colette smiled. "And it's cursed."

"Only women can wear it," Oliver said immediately. "Any king or prince who wears it will be ruined."

"Exactly."

"We should go to London together," Nana announced. "Go see the Crown Jewels again. Colette can tell us all the real things those little plaques don't say."

Colette nodded, but she was looking at Landon, who slowly raised his head. He turned his phone to face her. She had to squint, but recognized the picture on the screen.

The image was Gabi Tolkowsky—one of the most skilled diamond cutters of the modern age, great nephew of the man who perfected the round-cut diamond—holding up the Centenary diamond.

If Landon had found that picture, it meant he'd looked up the diamond. And if he looked up the diamond, he knew that its whereabouts were currently unknown. Not exactly missing, but…

DeBeers, who mined and cut the gem, had publicly stated that they no longer had the diamond, but refused to say who did have it. And no auction house had a record of its sale.

Landon shook his phone, eyes wide his expression best described as, are you fucking kidding me?!

"To answer your question." Colette smiled at Oliver and Nana. "The Centenary diamond is probably five-hundred million euro."

* * *

Landon's father sat back, blinking, as if he had trouble imagining anything could be worth that much money.

Landon passed the napkins before resuming his seat beside her. Once more he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

"Colette, do you have a half-billion dollar diamond?"

She kept smiling at his father and grandmother as she whispered her reply.

"With me at the moment? No."

"If you stole that diamond, I'm going to put you over my knee and spank you so hard you won't sit for a week."

Colette swallowed a chuckle and turned so she could whisper into his ear. "What is the American expression? Don't threaten me with a good time."

Landon sat up abruptly. "Ah, Nana, you made nankhatai. Here, Colette, you'll love it. They're rosewater cookies."

"Rosewater and cardamon," Nana said. "And cucumber sandwiches."

The conversation wandered around the topic of famous and expensive jewelry. When Nana asked how she got interested in it, Colette didn't say that her guardian had used her as a mule for jewelry thefts when she was a child. That may have been where her exposure began, but her real interest came later.

"Jewelry is how paleoanthropologists determine whether archaic humans were capable of complex thought and relationships."

She could feel Landon's surprise at her answer, and her cheeks felt warm. She wasn't lying or evading. She really had gone to university for this. People liked to talk about the value and craftsmanship of jewelry, but the why—why create jewelry at all?—had always fascinated her.

"A hundred and fifty thousand years ago, someone collected tiny, pretty snail shells, and made holes in them, turning them into beads. Yes, that's astonishing that they had tools with the finesse to do that, but more astonishing is that they would, not that they could.

"We have no idea how they wore them, and we don't know why they wanted to. Was it a show of status or wealth, like the British Crown Jewels? Or was it part of their belief system, like a rosary? Was it made for a child, to protect them, like a changmingsuo amulet, or a mal de ojo bracelet?"

Colette stopped, realizing she'd leaned forward in her excitement to talk about this. She sat back, her face hot.

"A hundred and fifty thousand years?" Oliver shook his head, then took a sip of his tea. "I wouldn't know how to make jewelry out of a snail shell and I have a whole shed full of tools."

Nana grinned. "She's smart. I like her, Landon."

"So do I." Landon pulled her against him and kissed the side of her head.

"Kimia, Oliver," Ali's voice, laced with alarm, echoed from the other side of the house.

"Nani? Are you okay?" Landon was already out of his chair, beating his father out the door.

Colette wasn't sure what to do, hesitating in her seat even after Nana had walked out. She managed to wait another thirty seconds before curiosity got the better of her, and she followed them, moving quietly so that she could backtrack without them knowing she was there if this was a family thing she shouldn't see or hear.

They were in the living room of Nana—whose name was apparently Kimia—and Ali's wing.

She snuck up to the door, pressed against a wall so she could see in but they couldn't see her.

Ali was seated in one of the armchairs, perched on the edge, a remote in hand. Kimia stood beside him. Oliver had his palms braced on the back of the other armchair.

Landon stood behind all of them, shoulders tight.

"I can rewind." Ali carefully pressed buttons on the remote.

Serious but lively music played—the intro to a news segment.

"A dramatic scene took place only days ago in a picturesque village near Northampton. The BBC has learned that ten members of a suspected organized crime group based in Russia were arrested after an explosive fight in a small hotel in Catesbury."

Colette's heart stuttered in her chest.

"At least three men, one of whom has been identified as a former London Metropolitan Police force detective, confronted the criminals on the night in question. Locals reported hearing explosions, and exclusive footage obtained by the BBC shows the remains of what appears to have been a car bomb outside the hotel."

"Watch this next part," Ali said.

"One woman, believed to be a French citizen, was taken to a local hospital. Her affiliations are unclear at this time, but she was seen leaving the hospital the next day with a man believed to be the former detective inspector."

Colette wanted to run, she wanted to turn and dash out the door. Instead she slid into the room, just enough so she could see the screen.

The grainy vertical footage from outside the hospital had clearly been shot on someone's phone.

In the video she walked slowly, leaning into Landon. The bandages around her wrists were visible, the baggy scrubs obviously not hers. Landon wore all black, his hair rumpled, but at least his dark clothing didn't show any blood or dirt.

Their faces were blurred, and no names had been used, but the shocked expressions on Landon's family's faces made it clear they recognized him.

"The British division of Interpol has taken the case, but declined comment on the motives behind this shocking scene. In a recent statement, Interpol stated that there are ten foreign nationals in custody, one of whom is under guard at Charing Cross Hospital in London. No one employed by the British Interpol bureau was involved in the event—a correction from earlier reports that indicated an Interpol inspector was involved."

The new anchor's flat delivery somehow made everything worse.

There was an interview with a local who claimed to have heard five or six explosions and gunshots that night, then a second interview with someone who claimed that they weren't criminals, but Russian spies.

Ali paused the TV.

Colette couldn't bear to look at Landon, instead studying the other's faces. They looked horrified and scared. Confused and worried.

Her presence wasn't just a risk to Landon, but all these people too, who would have mourned him if he'd died during the rescue attempt.

If she'd never made it out of Damien's house the first time, it wouldn't have hurt anyone. No one would have even noticed she was missing with the possible exception of her forger. Certainly no one would have risked their lives to try and save her, possibly leaving a grieving family behind.

"That was you two?" Oliver asked slowly, turning to face his son.

Landon crossed his arms. "Yes."

"Why is Interpol disavowing you?"

"Disavowing? Da, I'm not James Bond. They weren't lying, because I quit. I quit when they ordered me not to go."

"Your job ordered you not to go after Russian spies, so you quit and did it anyway. Land, what's wrong with you?"

Colette squeezed her eyes closed, the fear-laced anger in Oliver's voice ripping into her.

"Interpol made the wrong call," Landon said through his teeth.

"You don't just quit!" Oliver barked.

"Are you going to be arrested?" Ali asked, now standing.

"No," Landon assured him, then amended, "I don't think so. They don't have any evidence that I committed any crimes."

Colette wondered vaguely which one of them—Landon, Rolf, or Andrei—had made sure there was no evidence that they'd been the one to set off the explosives.

"Is the Russian government looking for you?" Nana asked, voice sharp.

"They weren't spies. They were criminals. They'll be tried for kidnapping and false imprisonment?—"

Colette sucked in air and took a step back at his words, only a second before Nana whipped around to look at her, the older woman's eyes bright with intelligence as she realized the full implications of what Landon had just said.

"—and then extradited to be tried for human trafficking, theft, and a slew of other crimes in various countries."

Shame slithered through Colette and she looked at the ground, the weight of Kimia's stare heavy against the back of her head.

"Organized crime?" Oliver demanded. "Is the fucking Bratva coming after you, Land?"

"Oliver." Nana's soft admonishment stopped him.

In the silence that followed she knew they were all looking at her.

Landon muttered, "Fuck." His footsteps were quick and sure.

Colette backed up, shaking her head. "I need to..."

"Oh fuck," Oliver breathed. "They kidnapped her?"

"And he went to rescue her," Nana confirmed. "She told me, when I met her, that he saved her. I thought maybe he beat up someone at a pub who'd hit her."

Now his family knew it was all her fault. She was the reason he'd quit his job. She was the reason he'd put himself at risk, not just physically, but morally. She was the reason he'd possibly made an enemy of the Bratva.

She was selfish for dragging him into her troubles.

She was cursed, like the diamonds she liked to steal.

Colette whirled towards the door, stopping when Landon caught her hand. He didn't pin her to the wall or hold her tight. His hand curled loosely around hers, holding but not restraining.

"Don't do this, Colette. Don't run."

"You deserve better," she whispered through a tight throat.

"I love you."

"You shouldn't."

"Promise me you'll stay," Landon insisted.

She should go, but she didn't want to. She wanted to be with him. Stay with him.

Good sex and being in love didn't change anything. She might have fooled herself into believing it did, and had even started to imagine a future with him.

Eventually, he'd go back to being a good man of law and order, with no place in his life for a thief.

Eventually, he'd realized that having her in his life might mean risking his family, because men like him didn't marry the kind of women who got kidnaped and tortured by the Bratva.

"I'll stay," she said, letting him tug her into his arms. For now.