Page 81 of Royally Romanov
The difference didn’t really matter at this point. She could kiss her promotion good-bye, and possibly her job as well. Her priorities had undergone a monumental shift. Now she just needed to see if the crown and the ruby on her charm bracelet fit inside the rosebud or not.
She set the egg down on the bathroom counter, and it sparkled beneath the light of the gilt wall sconces, casting red kaleidoscope shadows on the creamy white walls. It was gorgeous. Breathtaking, really. And even though she’d touched it before, this time felt different.
This time, it wasn’t simply a piece of priceless Romanov art from her exhibit. It was a radiant, ruby-red piece of Maxim’s history. If he’d lied... if she was right... it had been a present from Maxim’s great-grandfather to his great-grandmother, the very first of all the Easter egg gifts.
Finley knew she was right. She’d never been so sure about anything in her life.
Heart pounding hard against her rib cage, she unfastened the bracelet and laid it on the counter so the charms lined up side-by-side in a neat row. Then she lifted the yellow rosebud from the center of the egg by its tiny green stem.
It looked so real that Finley could almost smell it—velvety sweet, like a Provence garden. She turned it over in her hand and found the discreet gold clasp hidden in the spot where the yellow petals ended and the enamel stem began. Breathless, she popped it open.
The inside of the rosebud was lined in deep, dark velvet. Two small places had been carved into the lining so the egg’s surprises would fit firmly inside and couldn’t roll around. Peter Carl Fabergé himself had cut the niches to perfectly match the shapes of the diamond crown and ruby egg pendant.
The spaces somehow looked smaller than Finley remembered. For the first time since she’d seen the bracelet, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. Maybe it didn’t have anything at all to do with Anastasia.
It does. This was Anastasia’s bracelet.
And Finley was about to prove it.
It didn’t matter if no one else knew who Maxim was. She would. He would.Theywould.
Finally.
She picked up the small diamond crown. The rest of the bracelet dangled beneath her fingertips, tinkling like a bell. But right as she was about to drop it inside one of the hollowed out spaces, someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Finley? It’s Marian Dubois. Let me in.”
The bracelet slipped through Finley’s fingers and fell to the floor. Before she could stoop and pick it up, Madame Dubois banged on the door again.
“Finley, if you don’t open the door right this instant, I’ll call one of the soldiers over here to beat it down.”
“Oui. I will.” What choice did she have?
It was over. She’d been caught.
She picked the bracelet up off the floor, gathered it in her fist, and unlocked the door. She didn’t bother trying to hide the egg. Her boss obviously knew what she’d done. Denying it would only make things worse.
Time slowed to a stop as the door creaked open. Finley had to remind herself to breathe as Madame Dubois stepped inside the small gold bathroom. The older woman seemed calmer than she’d expected. Eerily so. It was the kind of calm that only came before a dark and terrible storm.
Her gaze traveled from Finley’s face to the luminous red egg sitting on the counter and the bright yellow rosebud beside it. “One of the security guards just interrupted a conversation I was having to inform me that my assistant curator removed the Imperial Rosebud egg from its display case and fled to the bathroom with it. I assured him he was mistaken. No one on my staff would do such a thing.”
She turned her eyes on Finley, no doubt waiting for some kind of explanation. As if there could be a reasonable excuse for stealing a Fabergé egg, even temporarily.
This was the moment to grovel. Or lie. Or fake temporary insanity. Anything to prevent Madame Dubois from firing her.
But Finley didn’t feel like doing any of those things. Getting fired suddenly didn’t feel like the worst thing that could possibly happen to her. She’d already lost something far more precious than her job.
She’d lost Maxim.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Finley?” Madame Dubois crossed her arms. Her left eye had begun twitching.
Finley closed her fist tighter around the bracelet and hid her hand in the folds of her dress. “I’m sorry.”
“You’resorry? Is that seriously all you have to say for yourself?”
“No, it isn’t. I’m sorry and also, I quit.”
She couldn’t stay at the Louvre. Not after this.
