“Go get her.”
Cole sputtered for a moment. “I will not go get her. Grandma, she ditched me in a hotel room to go and make a deal.”
“I’m sure she had a perfectly logical explanation.”
“Yeah. It was logical, all right. She wanted to steal the Thunderbolt out from under us.”
Grandma waved away his words.
“I waited five hours,” he explained. “I took the address from the trash bin. I followed her, and caught her and her partner red-handed, bribing some black market criminal.”
The color drained from Grandma’s face.
Cole was sorry to disillusion Grandma, but Sydney had to be stopped. She wasn’t a good person. She was a thief. “I saw them through the window. The three of them.”
“Cole.” Grandma’s voice turned to a hoarse whisper.
“I’m sorry, Grandma.” Nobody wished more than Cole that things had turned out differently. The fake Sydney was one of the most compelling women he’d ever met. Even now, even after everything she’d done to him, he still remembered her laughing voice, her gentle caresses and her emerald-dark eyes. His stomach contracted with regret.
Grandma blinked at him. She gripped the jewel case against her chest. Then she squared her shoulders. “Sit down, Cole. There’s something I have to tell you.”
Perched on the couch, Cole listened with growing incredulity to his grandmother’s confession.
His grandfather?
His grandma?
When she got to the part where she’d taken Sydney into her confidence, he jerked up and paced across the room.
With every word, with every passing second, his muscles tightened into harder balls of anger.
He didn’t blame Grandma, and he didn’t blame Sydney. He blamed his grandfather. And he blamed himself. It was their job to protect the family, to keep them safe.
“She bought it from your half-uncle,” Grandma finished. “Then she didn’t explain it to you, because I’d sworn her to secrecy. She kept my secret, Cole. She let you hate her, and she kept my secret.”
Cole stopped in front of the fireplace mantel, fixing his furious gaze on the picture of his grandfather.
The man was grinning.
Grinning.
Before he was even aware of the impulse, Cole slammed his fist into the wood paneling next to the picture, cracking the veneer, putting four deep dents into the grain.
Strangely, he didn’t feel the slightest pain.
“Did I miss something?” came Kyle’s voice from the foyer.
A deafening silence swept the room.
“Cole and Sydney had an argument,” said Grandma.
“You never punched a wall over Melanie,” said Kyle.
As Cole stared at his grandfather, everything inside him turned to stone. Then his chest swelled with an ache, and his throat went raw.
He was just as bad as the old man.
He’d failed.
He wasn’t there for Grandma, and he’d sent Sydney packing when he should have been down on his knees thanking her.
She’d done his job for him.
“Cole?” Kyle’s voice seemed to come from a long way off. “Any news on the Thunderbolt?”
“It’s here,” said Grandma, holding out the case.
“Isn’t that mission accomplished?” asked Kyle. “So what’s wrong?”
What was wrong? Everything was wrong.
A family crisis had unfolded right under Cole’s nose, and he hadn’t even noticed. And he’d destroyed the woman of his dreams. She was back in New York right now, shutting down the Viking show and killing her career. She didn’t deserve this. She’d stepped in to help, and what did she get in return?
He cringed remembering the insults he’d hurled at her on the sidewalk. He’d actually threatened to have her arrested.
And she hadn’t said a thing. She’d kept his grandmother’s confidence in spite of everything. Everything.
“Cole?” Kyle repeated, moving into the room, all humor gone from his tone.
Cole ignored his brother, slowly turning to meet Grandma’s eyes.
When a man could no longer trust his own judgment, what was left? “I don’t know what to do,” he said.
Grandma took a step forward. “Give her the Thunderbolt.”
He shook his head. It was too late. Sydney was canceling the show, and she’d never speak to him again.
“I thought you were marrying her,” said Kyle, glancing from one to the other.
“They had a fight,” said Grandma. “Get on the next plane, Cole. Go to New York and fix it.”
“I can’t fix it.”
“Yes, you can.”
Could he? Would an abject apology help at all? Would the Thunderbolt help, even now?
There was only one way to find out.
Cole straightened.
He filled his lungs.
“What the hell happened?” asked Kyle.
Cole turned on his heel and brushed past his brother. Grandma could tell Kyle, or not tell Kyle about the forgery. Cole would respect her decision. But right now, he had one thing to do, and one thing only.
He banged his way out the door and practically sprinted to the pickup truck.
In her cramped office on the mezzanine floor of the Laurent, Sydney hugged her arms around her chilled body.
“You fell for him, didn’t you?” asked Gwen as she perched herself on the window ledge.
Sydney closed her eyes and nodded. At least there was one area where she could be honest with her friend. “I couldn’t tell Cole what was really going on, either, and then Bradley showed up…”
“And Bradley’s the reason Cole thinks you tried to steal his brooch?”
Sydney nodded again, struggling against the overwhelming weight of defeat. How had Cole found her? How in a city the size of Miami had he happened on that little coffee bar?
She’d thought she was home free. She would have come up with a story, any story. But when she placed the brooch in his hands, he would have known she was on his side.
Instead. Instead…
She groaned out loud. “I wish I could tell you more.”
“Hey.” Gwen gave a sad laugh. “It’s really okay. I don’t need to know. But what are you going to tell the boss? He’s pretty upset, what with your promises and my promises…”
“That they wouldn’t lend it to me, I guess.” She shrugged. What did it matter? Her career was over. They were already scrambling to book another show for the front gallery.
Sydney had broken a cardinal rule. She’d made a promise she couldn’t keep. She should have called her boss as soon as the brooch went missing. No. She should never have offered it in the first place.
She should never have offered up an item she didn’t already have in her hand. But she’d trusted Cole. She knew that if he said he had the Thunderbolt, and he said he’d give her the Thunderbolt, it was as good as done.
Not quite, as it turned out. Not that it was Cole’s fault. It was her fault. All her fault.
“Maybe we can replace the Thunderbolt,” Gwen suggested. “Use one of the ruby necklaces.”
“There’s not enough public interest. It had to be a new piece. It had to be a fantastic piece.”
“It’s not fair that you should get hung out to dry.”
Sydney gave a hollow laugh. “It’s official. Life’s not fair.” She knew she should care a lot more about the demise of her career, but she couldn’t seem to get past losing Cole.
Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him in the Miami hotel room-the sympathy in his blue eyes when she talked about Nanny and Papa, the twinkle when he fed her a strawberry, and the dark passion when he reached out to touch her hair and pull her in for a kiss.
Stop. She had to stop-
“For the record,” came the voice that was haunting her brain, “I gave you the benefit of the doubt.”
Gwen’s eyes went wide. She quickly slipped down off the window ledge.
Sydney pivoted to see Cole, big as life, lounging against the jamb of her office door.
“I’ll…uh…” Gwen quickly brushed past Cole to exit the room.