The Diamond Affair Read online

"This is as far as we can go and still listen into their conversations."

  "Oh."

  He unbuckled his seat belt, hopped out of the car then climbed into to the back seat. He opened a heavy-duty silver case and fiddled with some knobs and wires attached to an electronic device. A voice crackled out of the speakers—the housekeeper telling Sonya what was on the menu for dinner. The conversation stopped and the only sound was the turning of pages. A magazine? Jake fiddled some more then shook his head. "No other conversations going on anywhere in the house," he said.

  "Maybe they don't talk to each other much."

  "Nothing unusual about that," he said darkly.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Families. Conversations are usually rare in my experience. Civil ones anyway."

  She blinked at him. Did he truly believe that? But there was no expression on his face that gave away his thoughts. There was no expression at all. He was all hard angles, a brick wall with a barbed wire fence surrounding it.

  "Your experience with families is obviously very different from mine," she said.

  A heartbeat passed before he said, "Probably." He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a black leather diary. "Unfortunately I didn't get left alone upstairs so I couldn't get anything off the computers. But I did manage to take this when Sonya wasn't looking."

  "You mean she took her eyes off you long enough?"

  He flipped open the diary and read a few pages. "She has a manicure appointment today at three. There are no addresses or phone numbers kept in here."

  "Maybe you should have tried to get her phone. That would be where all her contacts are."

  He tossed the book at her and she just managed to catch it. "Thanks for the tip, I'll remember that next time."

  "That was sarcasm, right? And what ‘next time'?"

  "I plan on going in again while this gas leak story still holds."

  "Great," she said. "I think I'll sit it out."

  "My thoughts exactly. One thing I did learn. Beauvoir told his wife about the Florentine. So that's one person we know who's aware of it."

  "I don't think his daughter knows," Ruby said. "He didn't mention it to her when she asked what was wrong."

  Jake nodded. "That narrows it down. Now all we need to find out is who Beauvoir or his wife might have told."

  The bugging equipment crackled again and a voice came through the speakers. Beauvoir's. "I'll get it back," he said in a hushed whisper. "Don't worry." There was silence and then he added, "The diamond will be in my possession again before our meeting on Monday, you can count on it." More silence. "Harry—. Harry—." A sigh as he listened to whoever was on the end of the line. "Whatever you do, don't let onto your client about this minor problem. The sale will still go ahead as scheduled on Monday."

  Ruby and Jake exchanged glances. Sale?

  Silence greeted them once more from the equipment. Beauvoir had hung up.

  "He was going to resell it all along," Jake said. He rubbed a hand over his five o'clock shadow. "And his wife wasn't aware of the fact. She mentioned having it made into a necklace."

  "That would make one very angry wife if she found out he never planned to keep it."

  "Adds up to a good reason to steal it."

  Ruby, sitting sideways in the front seat so she could see Jake in the back, leaned against her door. "Harry." She frowned.

  "You know him?" Jake put the case aside, climbed out of the car then back into the driver's seat.

  "Possibly. There's a dealer called Harry Sinestri. He's a major distributor of precious stones here in Melbourne. He imports a lot of raw gems, has them cut and polished by his jewelers then resells them."

  "Doesn't sound all that lucrative. The markup can't be that high on resale, surely?"

  "It's not. But rumor is, he has some shady contacts in the African diamond mines and he gets the gems cheaply. It's an incredibly volatile area politically."

  Jake nodded. "Several mates of mine and Matt's now do security for some of those mining companies. The pay is good, the life expectancy lousy. Don't see the difference between working there and doing a tour in Afghanistan personally."

  Ruby hugged herself, suddenly feeling cold. Matt. If he didn't come home safely... If anything happened to him...

  "Hey, sorry, I wasn't thinking." Jake leaned over and took her hands in his own big ones. His thumbs rubbed her knuckles, the movement soothing in one way but disturbing in another. Disturbing in the way it distracted her, made her want that touch all over her body, made her want Jake. And he'd made it clear he didn't want to be wanted by her.

  "If anyone will be safe it'll be Matt," he went on, apparently unaware of the turmoil he'd stirred up inside her. "He has a knack for keeping his nose out of trouble. I think it has something to do with his boyish charm and the amount of favors everyone else owes him."

  She managed a watery smile. "Why do you owe him a favor? It must be a big one for you to go to all this trouble."

  He removed his hands but the desire still coiled through her, taking hold of her insides and tying them up in knots. "That's between me and Matt."

  "Does it have anything to do with you quitting and coming back to Australia on a permanent basis?"

  He started up the car. "You're just like your brother," he muttered.

  "Intelligent? Good looking?"

  "Nosy."

  "In that case, you won't be surprised if I ask you where we're going now."

  "And you won't be surprised if I tell you I'm taking you back to my place."

  No, she wasn't surprised. Nor did she mind. The further she was from Beauvoir the better. "Then what?"

  "Then we look up the address for your mutual pal, Harry Sinestri, and I pay him a visit."

  "A visit? Is that code for breaking and entering?"

  "You catch on quick."

  "Another disguise?"

  "Not this time. I'm going to wait until tonight then I'll break into his office. You got the address?"

  "It's in my phone. But I don't get it. Why would Sinestri steal the Florentine from Beauvoir when he was going to broker a deal with another buyer?"

  "To sell it to someone else for more. To sell it to the same buyer, anonymously, for more." He shrugged. "There could be all sorts of reasons for an inventive man."

  "And Sinestri is nothing if not inventive." She shook her head, disbelieving. "I always suspected he was dealing on the black market, but I couldn't be sure. I'm out of the loop when it comes to things like that."

  "I'm not surprised."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  They stopped at traffic lights and he looked across at her. "Don't get all huffy on me. It simply means that you're not the sort of girl who gets mixed up in this kind of thing. You're a good person, Ruby. Good people don't know what happens in the underworld. It's a whole other life down there."

  "You hardly know me. What makes you think I'm not head of the local mafia branch?"

  He laughed. Actually threw his head back and laughed. It was contagious and despite her irritation, Ruby found herself smiling.

  "The fact that you came to me in the first place," he finally said when he'd calmed down. "And the fact I know Matt like a brother. You're a lot like him."

  "You think of me as a brother?"

  He grinned. "Now you're pushing it. What I meant is that he's one of the good guys too." He concentrated on the road for a while. "Honest. Loyal." He spoke quietly, a hint of sadness touching his mouth which only moments ago had been laughing. "He thinks in terms of black and white, good and evil."

  "And you see the gray?"

  "Something like that."

  They traveled in silence until they reached the underground parking lot at his apartment block. They caught the elevator and Jake hit the buttons for both the twenty-first and ground floors.

  "There's nothing to eat at my place and I'm starving. There's a little deli not far from here that sells fresh produce. I'll buy enough for lunch and dinner tonight."<
br />
  Ruby's stomach growled at the mention of food. It was mid-afternoon and neither had eaten anything since breakfast. "Why don't we just go to a café?"

  He hesitated a beat. "I'd feel happier if you stayed out of the public eye."

  "It didn't bother you last night when we met at the pub."

  "I didn't know what you'd got yourself into last night."

  The elevator doors slid open at the ground floor and he stood, half in, half out with his hand pressed against the doors to stop them closing. "You head on up." He dangled the apartment keys from one finger and she took them. Then he let go of the doors and they closed.

  Up in his apartment, Ruby found a box marked "kitchen" and opened it. She unpacked two plates, glasses and cutlery and set them out on the table. Then she changed out of her business clothes and into knee-length yoga pants and a tank top. She washed her face, tied up her hair and moved the coffee table in the lounge room to one side so she could sit on the rug laid over the floorboards. She stretched and did a few standard yoga moves to loosen up. After ten minutes she felt better, clearer. She was about to do some more complicated moves when the doorbell rang. She peeped through the spy hole. Jake waved at her and she opened the door.

  His hooded gaze immediately slipped down her body, lingering on the curves accentuated by her tight-fitting outfit. "You got changed," he said huskily.

  "This is more comfortable."

  "Right." He pushed past her and hefted two shopping bags onto the bench. "I didn't know what you'd like so I got a bit of everything." He proceeded to assemble a platter of salad greens, cold meats and other foods while Ruby buttered the bread.

  They sat at the small table and ate. The silence was broken only by munching but it wasn't uncomfortable. In fact, she was surprised at how comfortable she felt with Jake in such a domestic situation. He also seemed unfazed at having to share his personal space with a virtual stranger.

  "So did my brother annoy the hell out of you with his practical jokes when you were on tour with him?"

  Jake chuckled. "He had his moments. But I'm sure you know what he's like. Big brothers aren't always kinds to little sisters."

  "Speaking from experience?"

  He shook his head. "Not this time. No siblings."

  She'd guessed that. He had ‘loner' stamped all over him. "Parents?"

  "Those I had. Two of them."

  She gave him what she hoped was a withering look then she realized what he'd said. "Had?"

  "My mother died a few years ago."

  "And your father?"

  He stabbed a piece of ham with his fork. "He's still around."

  "Here in Melbourne?"

  He nodded. "He had a stroke last month and has been in a rehabilitation center ever since. The doctors aren't sure he'll ever leave."

  And yet he'd hung up on his father earlier. Hardly the sort of thing a good son did to a loving father. "Bad time to move to Sydney." The words just slipped out. It was none of her business why he was moving interstate, away from his closest relative.

  She regretted saying it as soon as his face closed up. He'd been open with her up till then, discussing something she'd guessed was sensitive, but now she'd gone too far. The lines around his mouth flattened and a muscle in his jaw twitched. She wasn't going to get any more out of him.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "It's not my business."

  "Like I said, you're just like your brother. Nosy."

  She laughed. At least he wasn't too mad at her.

  But the comfortable atmosphere had evaporated. Jake stood, collected the plates then headed out, back to the Beauvoir residence.

  Ruby spent the next two hours worrying. When she wasn't worrying, she was trying to find out more about Jake Forrester by going through the few open boxes. They contained very little that couldn't be found in everyone's packing boxes—sheets, towels, unmatched dinner set.

  Did that make her nosy? Definitely. She'd always been curious about people, but the mystery surrounding this man drove her nuts. She wanted to know everything about him—what he liked to drink on a night out, what he liked to do on his days off, who was his favorite superhero when he was a boy, what he wore to bed.

  She'd lay money on him sleeping naked.

  The two hours dragged but he finally returned. In one piece. For the first time in two hours, Ruby felt like she could breathe again. "Well?" she said. "Any luck?"

  "Only the housekeeper was home and she was too busy to follow me around." He pulled out two memory sticks from his shirt pocket. "The contents of two computers are on these. Unfortunately I only have one laptop so we'll have to go through one at a time."

  He powered up the laptop and sat on the couch, the computer on his knees. Ruby sat next to him, leaning in to see the screen. At first, only their arms touched. His muscled one against her lean one. But as they looked through file after boring file taken from Guy Beauvoir's home computer, their knees touched. Then their hips, their thighs. He was warm and solid and smelled faintly of the cologne he'd splashed on that morning. She didn't mind nestling into him, like two lovers on the couch. It made her feel safe.

  He didn't push her away either. Whether that meant he desired her or it meant he couldn't be bothered moving over, it didn't matter. Her body responded. Heat swirled through her, curled its way down her limbs, teased every nerve, spread across every last inch of skin until she felt like she was going to combust.

  She snuggled closer, trying to touch more of him. His body tensed. The computer's cursor hovered over the next file but he didn't click. Nothing happened. She glanced at him. He was staring at the screen as if he saw something important, but there was nothing except the Desktop and a couple dozen icons.

  "You going to open that file?" she asked.

  He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Sure. Sorry, I got...distracted."

  The thought made her dizzy. She'd distracted the man of steel!

  He clicked on the last icon on the desktop but it proved to be a folder full of images of Beauvoir and his daughter, Penny, taken over a few years. They were smiling in all of them.

  "They look happy," Ruby said.

  Jake simply grunted. "There's nothing work related on here. All the sensitive files must be on his office computer."

  Damn. All that effort for nothing. "What's on the other memory stick?"

  "It's from the computer in Penny's room."

  "Should we even bother looking?" she said. "She didn't know about the Florentine."

  He pocketed both memory sticks. "I don't think I want to know what's going on in a teenage girl's mind."

  "It can be messy," she said. "And a little frightening."

  He shut down the laptop but neither of them moved. She certainly wasn't ready to break the contact. "When are you going to pay a visit to Sinestri?" she asked.

  "After midnight."

  Ruby checked her watch. Ten past seven. Midnight was a long time away. A lot could happen in five hours between two people who want each other.

  "I need a shower." Jake stood suddenly, removing his body and Ruby's prop. She nearly toppled over onto the couch.

  He placed the laptop on the coffee table and headed for the bathroom.

  She frowned, wondering what she'd done wrong. It was clear she'd been mistaken about him. He hadn't felt any tiny bolts of electricity zinging between them like she had. He didn't desire her the way she desired him.

  She sighed. Just her luck to want the one man who didn't want her back.

  While he showered, she helped herself to the bottle of wine he'd bought from the deli earlier and sliced off some cheese. She was only half way through her glass of red when Jake came out of the bathroom.

  "All yours," he said.

  She blinked. Twice, just in case he was a mirage. He wore nothing but a dark expression, a lot of muscles, and a white towel slung low around his hips. His damp hair clung to his ears and stuck out on top where he'd rubbed it. Tanned skin stretched over a broad chest sprinkled with dark hair, still gl
istening from the shower. Ruby fought back the urge to lick him dry.

  "All mine?" She couldn't take her eyes off his chest. It rose and fell in a steady rhythm, the dark nipples hard and begging to be sucked.

  Oh boy. The temperature in the apartment ratcheted up several notches. Her skin felt hot all over. And moist. Very, very moist.

  "The bathroom," he said.

  "Huh?" What the hell was he talking about bathrooms for?

  "The bathroom's all yours if you want it." The corners of his mouth lifted as he turned away.

  The back view was just as delicious as the front. All that bare skin looked made for fingernails to rake down it. And then there was his butt. The damp towel molded to it in the most interesting way.

  She didn't want the bathroom before but she definitely needed it now.

  A long, cool shower later, Ruby stepped back out into the large lounge/kitchen/dining area. The smell of spices filled the air. Jake stood at the stove dressed in black T-shirt and jeans, a wooden spoon in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

  "You cook?" she asked, toweling her hair. She felt better. Fresher. Her libido was under control too. Definitely under control. The sight of him in his tight T-shirt and jeans wasn't going to send her off again. No way.

  "I do," he said without looking up from a pot boiling on the stove. "I enjoy it actually."

  Not fair. He looked amazing in a towel and he cooked. The universe was not being kind sending this man into her life—a man who didn't want her the way she wanted him.

  "I don't suppose you have a shirt I can borrow?" she asked him. She hadn't packed too many changes of clothes and needed to save them for wearing during the day.

  "What do you want my sh—?" He looked up and his mouth snapped shut when he saw she was dressed in nothing but a towel that skimmed her thighs.

  Two could play at this game. At least she now knew he noticed her in a way that had nothing to do with her being Matt's little sister.

  "I'll get you one." He disappeared into his bedroom and came back with a very large T-shirt. "It's the biggest I could find."

  To cover up as much of her legs as possible?

  She took it and changed in her room. When she came out, he glanced up from the stove. His eyelids drooped but she could see him focusing on her bare shoulder. The problem with big T-shirts is that they tended to be big everywhere, not just in length. She couldn't get both sleeves to cover her shoulders at the same time. She'd lift one up and the other would slip down.