Page 45 of Temptation at His Door

It was obviously expensive, terrifyingly rare and undeniably breathtaking.

Ronan ran the tip of his finger along the edge of the frame. “So, as I’m sure you know, Carl Fabergé, along with his brother Agathon, took over their father’s jewelry business. They couldn’t manage all their commissions themselves, so they employed goldsmiths who managed their own workshops. Those goldsmiths produced a lot of items under Fabergé’s name. This was made by a guy called Michael Perkhin.”

“It’s exquisite.” Joa couldn’t take her eyes off the frame, fascinated by the intricate detail.

Ronan gently removed the frame from her hand and gave her another parcel. “A world-renowned collector decided to thin out his collection of Fabergé and wants us to sell these items for him.”

“Why would he want to sell something as beautiful as this?” she asked, holding up an earthenware container partly covered by silver scrolls and flowers. She found the silver lid and placed it on top of the bulbous container. “I don’t even know what this is?”

“It’s a ceramic tobacco humidor. It’s special because it’s by Fabergé himself and has the imperial seal.”

Joa stepped away from the table and held up her hands. “I’m scared to touch it.”

“Don’t be. It’s only worth more than three hundred thousand dollars.”

Joa squealed and took another step back. “I’m not touching another thing!”

Ronan smiled and quickly unwrapped another parcel, sliding the tiny object into his hand before she could see what it was. Ronan clenched his fist and told her to hold out her palm. When she did, Ronan dropped the small object into her hand and Joa gasped at the miniature egg, festooned with diamonds and rubies, and edged with gold. It was designed to be worn as a pendant.

“Circa early 1900, marked as Fabergé, but accredited to one of his more experienced goldsmiths.”

Joa examined the egg, running the tip of her finger on the bands of diamonds. “This takes my breath away.”

Ronan took the pendant from her and placed it back in its box. “There’s been a rumor circulating that one of the imperial eggs might be coming up for sale. We think that’s why this collector is moving these items on, and if it does come up, he wants to liquidate some cash to bid on that egg.”

“What would an egg be worth?” Joa asked.

“However much a collector would be prepared to pay for it,” Ronan replied. “Ten, fifteen, thirty million? More? We won’t know until it comes up for sale.”

Joa spent the next twenty minutes inspecting each of the twenty lots, completely intrigued by the artistry of the objects. She took the loupe Ronan handed her and examined the diamonds, the emeralds, the fine detailing in the enamel. Then she went back and looked at some of the items again.

“I used to read about the Romanovs and the royal court, and about Rasputin and Fabergé. This world, for most of my fourteenth year, was my escape. I spent many hours imagining that I was an aristocratic Russian with a powerful father and a loving mother, cossetted and protected.” She sent Ronan a quick smile. “I didn’t have a great childhood. I spent most of my life in the system. Then I was a teen runaway.”

Joa felt Ronan’s hand on her back, but she couldn’t look at him. She didn’t want to see the pity in his eyes. “I find it so strange that I landed with Isabel, who surrounded herself with all the trappings of a wealthy, artsy world. That I’m standing here, looking at these objects, some of which I could, maybe, afford to buy.”

Ronan walked around the table and placed his back to the table to face her. “How did you end up in foster care?”

She’d opened the door. She couldn’t slam it in his face. She wanted to keep her past private, but she also wanted to tell him, show him who she really was. “Young, addicted-to-meth mother, father unknown. She tried to keep me. I have some very vague memories of bouncing between her and the system.”

“Your dad?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know who he was. She probably didn’t, either. But he had to be of Indian descent because my mom was a blue-eyed blonde.”

Ronan picked up a strand of her hair and rubbed it between his fingers. “How did you end up with Isabel?”

Joa picked up the egg pendant again and rolled it around her hand, focusing on the massive ruby at the bottom of the egg. “A foster mother who worked nights, a foster father who was losing the battle to keep his hands off me. I used to put a chair under the doorknob. One day I came home from school and the chair was gone and the lock to my bedroom was broken. I knew I had to get out.”

She saw the anger in his face and it warmed her that he could feel rage on behalf of her teenage self. “I ended up at the shelter Iz funded, and she found me there. Two days later I was living with her and Keely. For the longest time, I thought of myself as Princess Anastasia, someone who’d escaped death.” She shrugged. “I had an active imagination.”

Ronan linked her hand in his. “I think you are amazingly brave. And incredibly resilient.”

Joa finally lifted her eyes to his, grateful not to see any pity. “Thank you for not uttering any platitudes,” she murmured.

“Yeah, I hate pity, too.”

Of all the people who’d understand, Ronan would do it best. He seemed to accept that her past was in the past, unable to be changed.

It simply was...

---