She pushed away from Mickey. “I love David.”
Mickey’s jaw stiffened. “Stop lying to him, Iris. Better yet, stop lying to yourself.”
“How dare you accuse me of lying!”
“As the saying goes, ‘Your lips may say no, no, but there’s yes, yes in your eyes.’”
“Stay out of my personal life.” She shouldered past him, desperate to wrap her hands around another cup of coffee. Anything to prevent her fingers from burrowing into his damp hair.
Mickey grabbed her upper arm. “I’m all over your personal life. Do you want to see Cosmo alive again or not? Cuz I could do without another trip to the morgue.”
Iris stilled, her jaw slack. “What?”
“Whoever masterminded this theft has been killing off everyone in the pipeline.”
“Yeah?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you still alive?”
He threw her one of those devilish smiles. “I’m not part of the pipeline. I’m more of an errand boy.”
“Errands as in delivering things?”
“More like dispatching things.”
That irritated-and frightened-her enough to walk away from him toward the kitchen. “Did you really hold Cosmo at gunpoint and threaten to kill him?” She turned to see his eyes had widened. Hell, he’d done it. Disappointment crashed upon her.
Mickey followed her so slowly it amounted to a creep. “When did you talk to him?”
“Who?”
“Come off it.” His syllables were clipped and flippant, a far cry from the purring sensuality that normally poured out of him. “Cosmo-no one else was there.”
“Edgar was there.” Iris raised her brows at him.
“Yeah, like you’re getting the four-one-one from a rabbit. For the record, threatening and killing are two very different things. I never intended to kill Cosmo.” He refilled his coffee cup before stalking back out of the kitchen. “I’m going to get dressed.”
About time. But she didn’t say it out loud. She stood alone and waited, the air-conditioned tile chilling her bare feet until she pulled her bathrobe more closely around her. She hated this feeling of being strong, completely independent, self-reliant to a fault. It was so solitary, so final. But she wasn’t about to look to a man like Mickey to help her out.
After a minute he returned, mostly dressed, though his fly was still unzipped as he buttoned his shirt.
“Mickey, I’m not cut out for espionage. I hate lies and secrets. I’ve got it bad enough with Cosmo, I don’t need to look for more trouble. I think you should find someone else to help you track down your missing gems.”
Mickey’s fingers stopped buttoning, leaving his shirt open from his ribcage up, revealing that broad muscled chest that made her mouth salivate, her eyes want to weep, and her inhibitions start to pack their bags.
But life wasn’t about fantasies. It was real. Concrete. She intended to stay grounded, not fly off on some fool’s errand that could potentially derail her carefully mapped-out future. She wanted reliable David, so sane and sensible. Someone she could count on, someone who understood her and looked out for her interests. Someone safe. Mickey might be more colorful, more passionate, but how could she expect anything but heartache from a man who practically brandished a sign proclaiming My Middle Name Is Danger.
He’d fallen silent. She stole a glance, expecting to see him brooding in that moody way of his.
He’d cast all artifice aside. Before her stood a man who appraised her with the most open, honest clarity in his blue eyes. Finally, he frowned. “I’m sorry you want out, Iris, because that’s impossible. Like it or not, you’re integral to this deal. You have the answers.”
“To what?” she asked in exasperation.
“That’s the trick. We have to find the right questions.” He tugged some folded papers from his back pocket. “Last night I didn’t know what kind of gems had been stolen, but after talking with you, I was able to check with some sources-”
“What sources?”
“I can’t tell you, but trust me, these people know their business. We don’t mean Cosmo any harm-in fact, we hope to help him. But he didn’t give us much information. Did you know he’d flown to Russia?”
“Cosmo? To Russia?” Iris’s heart listed and sank.
“Moscow and St. Petersburg. He met with a man named Konstantin Vanislav, who’s well connected with the Russian mafia. Ever heard of him?”
She shook her head, unable to speak. Apparently, she knew even less about Cosmo than she’d feared.
Mickey unfolded the papers and held them out to her. “Tell me what that is.”
Gingerly, she accepted them. The top one showed a badly photocopied color picture of what appeared to be a crown. Beneath it was a sketch of the same crown with handwritten notations scribbled upon it.
The handwriting was Cosmo’s.
She turned back to the picture. A royal crown, cast in gold, lay on a blue velvet pillow. Built to fit a man’s head, the intricate spires rose in filigreed elegance. Around the base, jewels encrusted the brim. The copy only showed them as a dark blood red, so she referred to her father’s notes, while her stomach rolled uneasily.
Cosmo’s notations confirmed her worst suspicions. She dared to look at Mickey. He’d seated himself in an overstuffed chair to don his boots, but even as he tugged them on, he watched her with barely concealed expectation. He wanted her to congratulate him, she could tell from the raised brow, the badly hidden smile. It would serve him right to get a dose of reality.
“There’s no proof this crown was ever made. No one’s even sure whether these stones exist.”
“But your mother believed they were real,” he said, sitting up. “Tell me the whole story, Iris.”
Sinking onto the sofa, she ran a hand through her messy curls, her gaze fixed on the picture. Her mother’s lovely contralto voice, rich with its native Russian accent, played from her memory banks. She knew the story by rote.
“Alexandrite was first discovered when Alexander II was the prince of Russia, the son of the current czar. By the time he came to power in 1856, the original vein of alexandrite was already depleted. Count Perovskii, who helped identify this new stone and name it, gave some large stones to the Romanovs. But it’s also said that for Alexander’s coronation, a special crown was forged from rose gold and platinum then inlaid with ten alexandrite gems with a total carat weight of over a hundred carats. While the stones weren’t uniform in size or cut, they all came from one single stone, so they matched each other flawlessly in clarity and color. They belonged together, like a family.” That message sank into her today. She lifted her eyes to meet Mickey’s steady gaze.
“Was the crown worn? Displayed? Anything?”
“No one knows. Its very existence is doubtful. The story goes that the crown was commissioned, the stones were cut, but no photo archives of Alexander’s coronation show him wearing a crown that matches this description. Apparently, tradition won out over the beauty of these new gems and crown design.”
Mickey frowned. “Then where did Cosmo get this photo of the crown?”
“It’s pretty easy to doctor a photo these days, especially for a master of illusion.” Iris raised her brows at him.
Mickey cursed softly. “Any idea where the crown is today?”
She let out a controlled breath. “According to the myth, the crown no longer exists. My mother told me the Romanovs were a picky lot. When Alexander II’s grandson Nicholas took the throne, he dismantled the crown and had the gems reworked in a necklace for his wife Alexandra. The necklace was a gift to celebrate the birth of their son in 1904.”
Mickey rubbed his temples as if his head ached. “Okay. So, we’re not looking for a crown. We’re looking for a necklace.”