she was trapped. The luxury sedan had a roomy interior, but it became unbearably small and airless. She felt enclosed with a panther. A hungry one. Her feet were still tangled with his and she carefully withdrew them to her side of the car.
“Are you finished work for the day? Can I buy you a drink?” she asked. Somewhere reputable and crowded, preferably. “I’d like to talk this out. I always understood that Istvan died after he gave Grandmamma the earrings.”
She was using her conciliatory I statements deliberately. The family didn’t call her their number one mediator for nothing.
“You’re wrong.” No compromise in his tone. “She came to the house after he was killed, stole my great-grandmother’s earrings, sold one to escape to America and sold the other one when she arrived.”
Now she was growing annoyed.
“My grandmother is a very kind and honest person. She would never steal and certainly wouldn’t lie, especially to family. I don’t know how the story got so twisted. How did you even wind up with one earring? How long have you had it?”
“My grandmother Dorika dealt in art during Soviet times. She came across it and knew how rare and valuable it was, despite it only being one of a pair.”
Rozalia frowned. “Didn’t she recognize it as her mother’s?”
“She was on my father’s side. My mother is the Karolyi descendant. And yes, Dorika knew immediately it was Cili Karolyi’s. Anyone else would have broken the setting to sell the stones, but she tucked it away as a bargaining chip.”
If she wore pearls, Rozi would have clutched them, she was so appalled by the thought of the setting being broken. But, “What kind of ‘bargaining chip’?”
“Enticement when she arranged my parents’ marriage. She knew my mother would want it. Those earrings should have passed down through the women in our family.”
He was trying to make her feel guilty about her grandmother’s supposed theft, but she was caught by the rest of what he’d said.
“She arranged your parents’ marriage? I didn’t know that was a thing that was done here.”
“This level of success isn’t accidental,” Viktor said dryly, flicking a hand to indicate the car’s leather seats and privacy window, its polished wood grain trim and the touch screen computer mounted for his convenience. “It comes from generations of strategic alliances. Not from handing off priceless family jewels with a marriage promise to dishonest peasant girls.”
Rozalia let her jaw hang open so he could appreciate the full extent of her affront. “Easy to see why your mother had to be bribed into marrying that sort of charm.”
Dang. She hadn’t meant to reveal the temper that got the better of her sometimes. She looked like a pushover, but she wasn’t.
Nevertheless, the way his cheeks hollowed with thinning patience and his gaze frosted over gave her pause.
“What did you hope to accomplish by coming here, Ms. Toth? You’re wasting my valuable time.”
She scraped together her own patience, trying to salvage this trip. “I want to make you an offer for the earring.”
“No.” Flat and unequivocal.
“At least let me see it!”
“No.”
“Why not? Even if Grandmamma had stolen it, which she didn’t, what’s the use in punishing me for that?”
“Why do you want to see it?”
“To take photos.” She searched for her most reasonable, professional tone. “I’d like to appraise it properly.”
His brows went up.
“I’m a fully qualified gemologist and goldsmith.” She had apprenticed with her uncle Ben at Barsi on Fifth, the shop her grandfather had started after arriving in America. “I make custom pieces all the time. I’d like to take the measurements of the stones and grade them, make some sketches. If I can’t purchase the original, I’d like to re-create the earrings for my grandmother. She’s quite elderly.” She also had health problems that had given them all a scare this winter, making it that much more imperative Rozalia succeed in her mission. “If I could give her that much, it would make her very happy.”
“Aside from the fact I have no investment in your grandmother’s happiness, am I to understand you want to make a copy? My mother has considered that several times, but the one-of-a-kind rarity is part of the earring’s value. She’d rather have the authentic match and own the only pair. I’m in the process of acquiring the other one.”
“Are you?” she asked with enough skepticism to turn his expression even stonier.
“You don’t have the other one,” he said with confidence.
She effected a casual shrug. “Not yet, but my cousin is in San Francisco right now.” Probably getting shot down by a man Gisella considered to be her mortal enemy, but Viktor didn’t know that. Rozalia held Viktor’s gaze while the pressure of his simmering anger nearly compressed her blood to a solid inside her veins.
“I suggest you advise him against getting in my way.” His gaze slid to the fabric bag she had been carting around on her shoulder and held slouched in her lap.
“Her,” Rozalia corrected with a blithe smile, not bothering to dig out her phone. She couldn’t move. He would see she was trembling at the intensity of this confrontation. “The women in our family are very persuasive.”
“I’ll bet.”
Hey.
“We’re also very stubborn.” She showed him the point of her chin. “I could call her, but Gisella is as determined as I am. Probably as determined as you are, seeing as she’s Istvan’s descendant and carries Karolyi blood. I’d say that gives her as much right to the earrings as you have.” She blinked with innocence.
“Is she as foolhardy as you? Throwing herself in the way of a man with my resources?”
Rozalia refused to betray the seesaw of fear and exhilaration sending shivers through her whole body.
“If the earring is your mother’s, she ought to be the one who decides whether to sell it to me. I only came here because she canceled our appointment. Why don’t you call her and reschedule our meeting? Us womenfolk can work it out amongst ourselves.” Yes, she assured him with a smile, she was patronizing him.
“My mother had to run to Visegrád. She won’t be back for a week, at least.”
“To see your great-aunt Bella? Istvan’s sister?” Istvan had had two sisters, Bella and Viktor’s grandmother Irenke, who had had Viktor’s mother, Mara, and passed away some years ago. Rozalia had planned to track down Bella if she had time, thinking she might be interested to know her brother’s daughter and granddaughter lived in New York but—
“Do not interfere in my family, Ms. Toth. I will make your
