Page 44 of Midnight Torment

I had booked us in here for a few days so if anyone was watching, they would genuinely think we were on holiday. I had all the documents scanned and on my phone, including the maps of the diamond mines. Xavier had reached out to a few contacts and I would start meeting them tomorrow to establish what was going on here.

Members of the Council had been bringing in diamonds and other precious stones and I needed to know the source. If they knew the location of the diamond mine and that no one had claimed it, then they could have an operation ongoing to smuggle them into the country.

I wouldn’t put it past the greedy fuckers.

Since I’d put an update on our general chat group, I slid my phone into my back pocket.

“What do you think?” Megan asked, pointing to a necklace in the display cabinet. “Do you think Kerri would like it?”

Honestly, I doubted that woman would like anything. A smile might make her face crack. “Sure, and it’s lightweight to have to carry on the next part of our journey.”

Megan pouted. “I happen to be married to a very wealthy man who can afford the excess fares allowance on our return home.”

I laughed. “I’ve heard those fees are steep, so I’m sure he would want something in return.”

Her eyebrow cocked up suggestively, but she returned her attention to the cabinet, bending over to give me a view of her ass in tight denim. Yeah, I was fucking lost right now because I was definitely thinking with the wrong head. She was the only person who made me lose focus.

“Huh?” I realised too late that I was staring at her ass when she was talking to me.

Megan straightened, her hands landing on her hips. “I said, do you need to get a gift for your secretary?”

My brow furrowed. “What the hell for? I pay her an excellence wage because she keeps people away from me.”

Megan laughed and shook her head. “The poor woman deserves a raise putting up with your moods.”

I narrowed my eyes at her insult. “I am a generous boss and I’m sure she’s happy in her position.”

“Just you keep believing that,” Megan replied with a smirk. “She looked harassed the last time I saw her.”

I shrugged. “Her emotions have no place in the office.”

“Dick,” she said, and I rolled my eyes.

“Considering that you claimed him in our fake divorce settlement, that is no longer an insult.”

“We’re getting her a gift,” Megan said, overruling my objection and waving the assistant over from behind the counter. She handed her the armful of baby clothes she had and pointed at the items in the cabinet.

There was a pair of deep sapphire earrings on the expensive shelf at the top of the cabinet. I normally didn’t buy items in tourist traps, but something about their cut attracted me.

“We’ll take those earrings as well,” I said, pointing to them.

“We have a bracelet that matches,” the assistant replied, obviously sensing lucrative tourists. She lifted a tray of sapphire jewellery displayed on velvet from a cupboard behind her and set it on the counter, a pleasant smile on her face.

Megan’s expression was guarded, all her shutters coming up as she glanced between the earrings and the tray. Even though I’d told her that I loved her, she was still waiting for the moment I left her as everyone had before, as I had before.

“Pick what you want,” I said. “The earrings are for you because they match your eyes.”

The assistant turned her expectant gaze to Megan, but she was still watching me.

I shrugged. “Xavier has given Cassandra a jewellery collection.” Megan never asked me for anything. Her friend had been given a mansion and everything her heart desired, and yet all Megan had asked for was a treehouse for a squirrel.

“But—”

I stopped her objection with a wave of my hand. We both knew I hated sentiment. “Chose what you want. Grampa once told me that you should take a trinket home from every place you visit in the world. Let’s make your memories from jewels.”

She blinked once and I knew she was holding back tears. I lifted one of the bracelets and held it up. “Try it on.” I placed it on her wrist and turned her arm from side to side. “I think we can do a little better than this. Do you not have something of a better quality?”

The assistant almost fell over herself as she retrieved a tray from a safe on the wall. It contained a smaller selection, but there was no doubt of the quality compared to what had been on display. I took the bracelet off Megan and replaced it with another. There was a matching set of earrings and a necklace that consisted of a sapphire in an intricately woven golden cage.

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