“If anything happens, Marcus will save you. Won’t you, Marcus?” Hale asked, looking up at the man, who nodded.
“It would be an honor, miss.”
“Let’s try not to let it come to that,” Kat said, bravely making her way across the deck and gently lowering herself into one of the chairs at the table. She gripped the arms of the chair a little too tightly as Marcus poured her a cup of tea and placed a chocolate croissant on the plate before her.
The motion was so smooth, so effortless, that Kat had to think—not for the first time—that Marcus would have made a most excellent thief. But Marcus was the one person Kat knew who had the skills but not the heart. It was only one of many reasons she liked him.
“I trust the lady slept well?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah,” Hale asked, grinning. “How did the lady sleep?”
“I asked for a hotel, Hale. Not a penthouse. Not even a suite. Just one little hotel room on dry land.”
“Call me crazy, Kat.” Hale held his arms out wide. “But I thought this was better.”
Beyond him, Kat saw the white yachts that bobbed up and down in Hercules Harbor, and the tall stone cliffs that formed the rocky barricade between Monaco and France. To her right, she could see all the way to Italy. To her left was Saint-Tropez. The W. W. Hale was two hundred and twenty feet of highly polished luxury, and Kat sat surrounded by blue waters and clear sky and the infinite possibility that comes with almost limitless wealth.
But Kat had far more pressing matters on her mind when she turned to Simon. “What do we know?”
“I think you should apologize to my ship first,” Hale said before Simon could answer.
“Hale…”
“She’s a very nice yacht, you know. I won her from a Colombian coffee baron in a game of high-stakes poker.”
“Your grandfather gave it to your father for his birthday.”
Hale shrugged. “Same difference. You still need to apologize.”
“Hale!” Kat cried, but the boy only stared at her. “Fine,” she conceded. “I love your boat.”
“Ship.”
“Ship…Your ship is beautiful.”
He smiled as if to say he approved, then reached for the pastries, broke off a corner of a pain au chocolat, and plopped it into his mouth.
“So what do we know?” Kat asked again.
“What do you think?” Hale smirked and picked up a nearby newspaper. The pages crackled as he turned them.
“I think first they’re going to have to get it authenticated,” Kat said.
“Give the lady a prize.” Hale took a long sip of orange juice. “Right, Simon?”
The smaller boy nodded and settled as far under an umbrella as he could get. “The best I can tell, they’ve got a bunch of experts flying in—a lot of the same people Kelly just used in New York. Two antiquities experts from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The gemologist from India, and a handful of others.”
“Is that a party we can crash?” Kat asked.
Simon shrugged. “Maybe. They’re being really…careful.”
“I’m sure they are,” Kat and Gabrielle said at the same time.
“There’s just one problem.” Hale stood and strolled to the serving area and poured himself a cup of steaming coffee. “These experts that Simon’s talking about, don’t you think that one of them will notice that this long-lost, world-famous emerald is exactly like the other world-famous emerald they just examined?”
Gabrielle lowered her sunglasses and studied Kat, the two cousins sharing an Oh, isn’t he adorable look.
Hale dropped back into his chair, blew on his coffee, and said, “What?”