Riley will be here in twenty seconds with some life-size dolls. Why?’
‘Yay!’ Morgan said, coming from the bedroom and towel-drying her wet hair. She draped her towel over the back of the couch and Noah fought the urge to ask her to put it back in the bathroom. He was obsessively neat, courtesy of the army, and she was a slob. Her untidiness drove him nuts.
Noah opened the front door, and walked over to the lift. As the doors opened he grabbed one mannequin and tucked it under his arm. ‘Friends of yours, Ri?’
‘Ha-ha.’
Riley handed him a duffel bag and he walked back to the apartment and dumped them in the hallway. He went back for the second dummy and Riley followed him, carrying the second smaller bag.
He watched, amused, as Morgan and Riley sat the mannequins—expensive ones, with arm and leg joints—on the colourful couches. Morgan squealed and immediately reached for the duffel bags. Thinking that they probably needed alcohol for whatever they were up to, he went into the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. When he returned with two glasses in hand his eyes widened at the rainbow-hued lingerie now scattered over the coffee table. No, not lingerie...sexy-as-sin burlesque costumes. Beaded and decorated corsets with fluffy skirts and feathers. And there were some without skirts, skimpy, with oversized clips to attach to stockings.
His mind instinctively imagined Morgan in one of those outfits and he cursed when his pants stirred. High heels, stockings... He thought of the survival courses he’d taken in the SAS. Nothing sexy about those...
Thoughts of sex bolted away and his heart ran cold as Morgan picked up a duffel bag and a treasure trove of jewellery rained down on the table. Emeralds, rubies, diamonds, gold...so much gold. Pearls, sapphires... If Morgan had liberated the MI jewellery collection from the walk-in safe on the fourth floor—and he knew she had access to do that—he was going to freakin’ kill her. Slowly, and with much pleasure.
‘Oh, my, look at his face.’ Morgan chuckled as she held Riley’s arm and doubled over with mirth. ‘Quick, grab your mobile and snap a pic. We’ll call it Nervous Noah.’
‘In a moment you are going to be Mortuary Morgan,’ Noah replied as he approached them. He handed over the wine and picked up a necklace with a canary-egg-size diamond hanging off a gold clasp. He examined the stone, didn’t see the deep sparkle and reflections a diamond that size should have and his blood pressure dropped. ‘Paste. You nearly gave me a heart attack!’
Morgan grinned. ‘They are all paste, and it’s fantastic that we have them to play with.’
Noah held up his hand. ‘I think I need wine for this...hold on.’ He went back to the kitchen, brought another glass and the bottle back and perched on the arm of the chair. ‘Now, what are you doing, exactly?’
Morgan crossed her legs Indian-style and with her wet hair and make-up-free face she looked a teenager. Like she had when she was nineteen, when she’d stolen his breath from his lungs. Nothing much had changed there, Noah thought.
‘Okay, so you said that we can’t have live models showing off the collection...’
‘Categorically not,’ Noah said.
‘So, Riley and I want to place mannequins on round plinths throughout the ballroom, each of them in a gold burlesque birdcage à la Moulin Rouge. We’ll put them in provocative poses—on swings, bending over, et cetera. The mannequins will all be dressed in burlesque costumes—sexy corsets and stockings, high heels and masks.’ Morgan picked up a handful of lace and stockings. ‘The great thing is that we have paste copies of all the jewellery collection and Riley has the mannequins, so we can experiment before we make a final decision.’
‘Why?’ Noah asked.
Morgan, who was examining a pearl necklace, frowned up at him. ‘Why what?’
‘Why do you have paste copies of the jewellery collection?’ Noah asked patiently.
‘Oh...a Great-Something Moreau needed to raise some cash to buy another mine and he handed over the collection as collateral. He didn’t want it known that he was cash-strapped, so before he did that he had paste copies made of the jewellery. He got the jewels back but ever since, whenever the family acquired a new piece, a copy was made. Riley and I played with these as kids.’
‘Huh. So they are exact replicas?’
‘Absolutely.’ Riley draped a long string of pearls around her neck. ‘So what do you think of our birdcage idea, Noah? Can the real jewels be secured?’
Noah thought for a minute. ‘I want an area between the guests and the cages, about a foot and a half, where we can put a pressure plate so that if anyone steps up to a mannequin it’ll trigger a silent alarm.’
Morgan looked at Riley. ‘We can do that.’
‘I want in on the design of the birdcages. I want to put laser beams between the rods, so that if anyone breaks the beam it’ll trigger an alarm.’
Morgan lifted a bustier of white silk embossed with silver beads and waved his security issues away in order to play with the colourful garments and the fake bling.
‘Okay... Look at this one, Ri! Such a gorgeous red, with black inserts, and the feathers make a teeny-tiny skirt. If we teamed it with those striped thigh-highs...dynamite! Let’s dress a mannequin in an outfit, choose the corresponding jewellery and mask, photograph it and do the next one. And where on earth did you find all these outfits?’
‘A burlesque show that lasted six weeks on Broadway. Apparently the costumes were fabby, the performers not so good.’
Noah put his wine down, stood up and picked up a mannequin, looking it over.
‘What on earth are you doing, Noah?’ Morgan asked.
‘Seeing where we can place a motion sensor so if the jewels are moved once they’ve been put in place it will trigger—’
‘A silent alarm.’ Morgan and Riley chorused.
‘Smartasses.’ Noah dropped the mannequin and thought that he badly needed some testosterone before he started to grow breasts. ‘I’m going to watch some manly sports on ESPN. Have fun playing with your grown-up Barbies, girls.’
Noah’s hand drifted over Morgan’s hair as he passed her. He wasn’t sure if she noticed because she was frantically scrabbling through the piles of multi-coloured, beaded and luscious garments to look for...who knew what?
Concentrating on sport was a nightmare when he couldn’t stop imagining Morgan in a tiny black and red corset sparkling with diamond-like beads, black striped thigh-high stockings, red ‘screw me’ heels and an elaborate Mardi Gras mask...straddling his hips, his hands on the smooth, warm, bare flesh above those heart attack-inducing stockings...
He dropped his head back against the arm of the couch and adjusted his jeans. Could a man die from lack of sex and frustration? He was convinced that it was a distinct possibility.
Morgan knocked once on the conference door and popped her head in. Noah, on a video conference, flicked a
