Page 107 of Charming Deception

As soon as the jeweler’s team clears out, we meet with a man from Jameson’s bank who’s come to his house on a Sunday to go over paperwork with me for the account Jameson is opening in my name.

With two million dollars in it.

My fiancé works fast.

Was he up at four in the morning setting up all these meetings?

After the man from the bank leaves, I don’t follow much of what Jameson says to me. It must be all the ringing in my ears. An allergic reaction to the close proximity of rare diamonds and multimillion-dollar bank statements.

I manage to catch something about how we’ll want to close the joint account I still have with Troy. And how, if necessary, Jameson will fly the manager of that bank out to meet with me in person to take care of it.

Then he mercifully leaves me to reteach myself the ability to breathe for at least the dozenth time since meeting him, when he heads upstairs to get ready for his lunch meeting. He passes me off to Clara, and I gradually get the feeling back in my extremities as she goes over her lists with me. The woman has lists coming out of her ears.

First, she wants to know my “housekeeping preferences” and what I require in the way of personal items, toiletries and the like.

Then she wants to know if I’d like her to make me some appointments with Mr. Vance’s personal trainer and masseuse, and with a hairstylist and manicurist. I say yes to all. Why not? “If it’s okay with him,” I tell her, because I have approximately zero dollars on hand for any of those things.

To which she says, “He’ll be pleased.”

She also wants to know if I need a dentist and a doctor referral in the city. To which I also say yes.

She then passes me along to Chef, who wants to know all my favorite foods, any dietary restrictions or concerns, and my meal preferences. As if I have any. Getting fed by a professional chef on a regular basis so I literally don’t have to think about it sounds like paradise to me.

Then Locke—the behemoth with the neck tattoos—takes over. He wants to go over my schedule with me in detail, though I tell him I really don’t have much of one. And he wants the names and numbers of all my “approved contacts,” for his “security purposes.”

I gather from this that he means to run some sort of security check on my friends and family.

When I ask him if he did a security check on me, he simply says, “Not so far.”

I wonder what that means.

But Locke is clearly finished with me, and doesn’t love questions. He hands me off to a sweaty man wearing work clothes and a tool belt, who introduces himself simply as “the handyman.”

This man walks me down the long hall to Jameson’s private wing, where I’m surprised to find men, some of them delivery guys, moving in and out of a side entrance in a steady stream. Like worker ants, they carry boxes in and pieces of furniture out, under the watchful eyes of two more security staff, one of them Rurik.

I follow the handyman into the sitting room off Jameson’s office, where we toasted our engagement just last night, to find it completely altered.

The attached bar is still there in the corner, as is the fireplace, but the Vance family photos and the furniture have all been removed.

I gape as the workers move around me.

A sleek new desk has been set in the middle of the room, along with a comfy chair that looks like it has incredible lumbar support. A cushy, velvety chaise longue and an ottoman have been set up under the window that overlooks the garden.

Boxes from an office supply store and a bookstore form ever-growing stacks in one corner, and a couple of men are setting up a computer on the desk.

The handyman wants to know where I’d like my bookshelves set up.

They’re in pieces, leaning against one wall.

He shows me the options of where they could go, and I must pick one, because he sets to work.

I watch, stunned, for a long moment.

Then I dip my fingers into one of the open bookstore boxes, peeling back the flap and peeking inside. I lift a few books, glimpsing the titles.

Books on writing and publishing.

Wilderness survival guides.

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