know what this will mean for Waverly’s?”
“I do. It’s an amazing find and right when we need it the most.”
Ann sent him a quick look. “It’s been rough, I know. But this will turn things around.”
“Undoubtedly,” he agreed. “But why the hell did Roark leave something this valuable overseas? Why not bring it home right away?”
Ann waved that question aside, but said simply, “He didn’t have time. After his stop in the Middle East, he was on his way to the Amazon, for some top secret meeting with another one of his contacts. If he’d taken the time to bring the Rayas treasures home, he might have lost out on the next acquisition.”
Vance still didn’t like it. The Gold Heart was legendary. Collectors all over the world had been looking for this missing statue for more than a century. Leaving it in a vault, no matter how safe, was taking a risk. “When will he be back?”
“I’m not sure,” Ann said, still smiling down at the photo she held in her hand. “He said he might run into some trouble with his latest quest.”
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?”
“He didn’t say.”
His brother didn’t say much, dammit. If he was expecting trouble, then Vance wanted to know about it. “Well, what the hell is he after in the Amazon?”
“He didn’t tell me that, either.” Lifting her gaze to his, Ann said, “Roark doesn’t exactly keep us in the loop when he’s on one of his trips. You know that yourself, Vance. And you just admitted that no one is better than Roark at what he does.”
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Doesn’t mean I like it.”
“Forget about everything else for a second, Vance. Don’t you see what this means for us? At auction, the Gold Heart could bring in as much as 200 million. Maybe more. And that’s not even taking into account the rest of the collection, which is pretty extraordinary.”
“I know, Ann.” Still, he had a bad feeling. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been steeped in a morass of suspicion for the past couple of weeks. But his internal alarms were ringing. Oh, not about the statue. As he’d told Ann, he had no doubts about its authenticity. If Roark gave his approval, that was good enough for Vance. But why now? Didn’t it seem just a little bit coincidental that the one thing that could pull Waverly’s out of this mess just happened to show up at the perfect time?
“It isn’t just the sale itself that will do a world of good for us. With all that’s going on right now,” Ann was saying, “this is just the big news we needed. The fact that Waverly’s acquired this statue to sell at auction is the kind of cachet you can’t buy.
“We’ll be above reproach and no rumors will be able to touch us. Any of us. This will push all speculation out of the paper. When word of this gets out, no one will be talking about anything beyond the fact that Waverly’s is the top auction house in the world. Let’s see Dalton try to pull something now.” She whispered that last part and Vance shot her a look.
Was there more to the rumors about Ann and Dalton than she was saying? She’d denied it all to the board, but that didn’t mean she was telling the truth. Of course she would lie to save her ass—the question was, would she sell out Waverly’s to do it?
He didn’t think so, but the woman was clearly on the raw edge of emotional meltdown. Her usually cool, dispassionate gaze was fired with an excitement he hadn’t seen in her before.
Maybe it wasn’t only Charlie dealing with threats from an unknown source. Maybe Ann was doing battle with a few demons of her own.
“That’s all of them?”
Charlie turned her head to look at Vance. He was crouched beside her office chair, studying the emails she’d pulled up on her computer screen. The heat of his body, so close to hers, went straight to her head and clouded all rational thought. It was a wonder she remembered to breathe.
He glanced at her and must have seen something in her expression because his brown eyes darkened and those gold flecks seemed to shine more brightly. “You keep looking at me that way and we’re not going to get anything done.”
“Sorry,” she said and unbelievably enough felt a blush burst onto her cheeks. At least, she assumed she was blushing. Her face felt hot and she was mortified. Idiot, she told herself firmly. He’s trying to help you. The least you could do is remain coherent. “Yes, that’s all the emails. Well, except for the one I got this morning.”
“You got another one?” His tone was as sharp as a knife. “Pull it up.”
She hadn’t wanted to show him this one, which was just stupid, since she’d told him everything else. But this email was darker. Scarier. Heck, she didn’t want to read it again herself. But she clicked on the message and when it popped open, her gaze went right to the bold-faced type.
No more stalling. Give me what I want or you lose the kid. I know where you live. I know your secrets. I’m through screwing around with you. Contact me by five p.m. tomorrow.
“Son of a bitch,” Vance muttered through gritted teeth. “Have you answered him?”
“Yes,” she said. “Right after the first threat came in, I tried to make him tell me who he was. Naturally, he wouldn’t. And when I got this note this morning, I sent him an email trying to stall for time. I didn’t hear back from him. But I don’t know what to do. I can’t steal from Waverly’s and if I tell him that, I might lose my son—”
“You won’t lose Jake.”
“I can’t risk it,” Charlie said and even the distraction of having Vance’s face so close to hers wasn’t enough to ease the panic inside her. “I have to do something.”
He nodded, his gaze fixed again on the email. “He knows where you live.”
“Yeah, I saw that.” She rubbed her hands up and down her forearms in an attempt to ease back the chill snaking through her. It didn’t help. It was creepy enough to get emails. To know that he could show up at her apartment was downright terrifying. “It’s scary to think he’s watching me.”
“Yeah, well, he’s done watching you.”
“I don’t know how I can stop him.”
“I do,” Vance said, his voice low and dark. “You and Jake are moving in with me for a while.”
Charlie just stared at him. Impossible, her mind was shouting. Woo-hoo, her body screamed. And somewhere in the middle Charlie tried to make sense of what he’d just said. But nothing came to her.
“I can’t let you do that.” She shook her head firmly, coming down on the side of reason instead of listening to her body’s urging.
“You’re not letting me do anything,” he told her. “Decision’s made.”
“Excuse me?” Her spine went as stiff as a poker and her chin lifted. Locking her gaze on his, she didn’t back down an inch from the steel she saw shining in his eyes. “I don’t take orders from you—” She caught herself and
