all that latent smouldering heat erupted.
In fact, maybe, just maybe, dinner wasn’t out of the question after all.
CHAPTER THREE
‘THAT’S it. I’m done.’
At the sound of Bella’s voice Will snapped his head up to find her rolling her shoulders and rubbing the back of her neck.
It had been three hours since he’d joined her in the vault and in those three hours these were the first words she’d uttered, at least to him.
By the time he’d caught up with her, she’d already got to work, so engrossed in taking her tools out of her case and setting her things up that she’d barely acknowledged his arrival. She’d cast a quick wide-eyed glance at the dozens of boxes neatly lined up on the table and had muttered that if she was to finish this side of midnight she’d better get on with it.
Will had figured that, as conversation didn’t appear welcome, an invitation to dinner would most likely be ignored, so had planted himself at the other end of the table and opened up his laptop.
His plan had been to bide his time until a suitable moment to ask her out cropped up by clarifying any misunderstandings that might have arisen from his phone calls in the car, and catching up on some work.
Ha. What a waste of energy that had been. He didn’t think he’d ever had a less productive three hours. Every time he tried to concentrate his gaze would slide over to Bella and he’d find himself wondering exactly what colour her hair and eyes were. Somehow dark brown and light brown didn’t quite cover it.
At one point she’d been examining a long multi-stranded pearl necklace, and he’d had a sudden vision of her lying on the table completely naked, except for the pearls, with one leg bent and an enticing smile curving her lips. His body had responded with a startling intensity and even now, an hour later, he could feel a lingering ache behind the buttons of his jeans.
Not that she’d been aware of his musings, of course. Or his reaction to her. No. Her complete and utter focus on her work was as fascinating and as impressive as his wasn’t.
Shutting down the spreadsheet he’d spent the last hour staring pointlessly at, Will closed his laptop. ‘And?’ he asked.
‘The pieces on this side,’ Bella said, indicating the group of boxes on the table to her left, ‘are genuine. These,’ she said, turning her attention to the group on the other side, ‘are not.’
Well, that was something to be grateful for, he supposed. The group on the right was a tenth of the size of that on the left. ‘Not quite as bad as I’d feared.’
Bella nodded. ‘I agree. It seems that all the big stones are genuine. It’s the smaller ones that have been tampered with.’ She frowned. ‘Which does make some kind of sense, I guess.’
‘Really?’ None of it made any sense to him.
‘Absolutely.’
‘How?’
‘Smaller stones are easier to replace. Fewer questions asked when taken to be sold.’
‘You think they’ve been sold?’
Her eyes jerked to his. ‘Don’t you?’
He didn’t have a clue what to think. ‘It’s certainly a possibility.’
‘Well, I can’t think why else anyone would do something like this. Do you have any idea who it could be?’
Will frowned. As far as he knew only he and his aunt now had access to the safe and for the life of him he couldn’t see her raiding the contents. And as for his father, well, he’d been difficult, yes, but he’d never replace the stone in the engagement ring he’d given to Will’s mother, whom he’d loved in his own warped way.
Nevertheless, he thought, cutting that avenue of thought off before he got tangled up in the memories and the guilt, someone was responsible. ‘Not yet,’ he said grimly. ‘But I will.’
She tilted her head and the look in her eye turned quizzical. ‘Is any of it yours?’
Will went still and felt some of the heat leave his body. ‘On my father’s death three months ago it all became mine.’
She flashed him a wide smile. ‘You know what I mean.’
He did, and his temperature dropped a little more. ‘I take it you recognise the collection.’
‘I doubt there’s anyone in my industry who wouldn’t. The famous Hawksley Collection.’ She grinned. ‘It’s legendary. So wonderfully romantic. The kind of thing little girls’ dreams are made of.’
The kind of things her dreams were made of? he wondered darkly, catching the trace of wistfulness in her voice and feeling something hard and cold lodge in the pit of his stomach.
Romantic? What a joke.
Bella and little girls, and the rest of the world for that matter, might like to believe that the famous Hawksley Collection consisted of two hundred tokens of undying love, but what Bella, the little girls and the world didn’t know, what no one outside the immediate family knew, was that his ancestors were a bunch of adulterous lying cheats, and that ninety per cent of the items in the collection represented an apology for one infidelity after the other.
‘So?’
Biting back the urge to snap that it was none of her business, Will schooled his features and forced himself to remain calm. ‘No,’ he said flatly. ‘In that respect none of it’s mine.’
But it was hard to stay calm when all of a sudden his stomach was churning and his head was pounding.
It was hard to stay calm when he knew that the collection was built on a pack of lies and that the legendary status it had acquired was completely undeserved.
It was even harder to stay calm when he had to live with the constant knowledge that he ought to have contributed to that ninety per cent. Just once.
Before he had time to brace himself, memories of Tania slammed into his head and a steel band tightened around his chest crushing the breath from his lungs.
As clearly as if it had happened yesterday, he could see the look of devastation on his ex-girlfriend’s face when, racked with guilt, he’d admitted he’d been unfaithful. He could still remember the tears, the recriminations, the pain he’d caused. And he was still, years later, plagued by guilt, despite her subsequent forgiveness and her acknowledgement that he hadn’t been wholly to blame.
‘Maybe you simply haven’t met the right woman yet.’
Setting his jaw and pushing the memories aside, Will dragged himself out of the past. Not met the right woman? His gut twisted. With any luck he never would. Because there’d be no relationships for him. Ever. No marriage. No children. No family. No danger of wrecking any more lives, the way his ancestors had. The way he had. He simply couldn’t risk it.
‘Maybe not,’ he said coolly, ruthlessly obliterating the pang of regret that jabbed at his soul and pulling
