brows rose delicately. But she refrained from comment, because Conner’s date had just glided onto the seat next to him. She was model-thin with shiny black hair and long legs exposed by a slit running up the side of her gown. Way up. Aristocratic features, olive skin, a long neck and slim arms dripping with jewelry. The woman oozed class and sophistication.
His father knew him well. She was just his type.
Up until two days ago.
She raised her hand, European style. “Annabella Pruitt,” she said in a cultured voice. “Enchanté.”
He knew he was expected to kiss her hand, but he couldn’t make himself do it. He shook it awkwardly instead, introducing himself, trying to subtly ease his body closer to Vera, who sat primly on the other side of him, maintaining a perfectly blank face.
“Did I hear you say assistant?” Mike queried after he’d climbed in and gotten settled next to Audra. He smiled at Vera when Conner introduced her to him and Annabella. “Just like my little brother to be working a case on a night like this,” he said with good-humored disapproval.
“That’s why he brought me,” Vera said smoothly, the first peep she’d uttered. “So he wouldn’t have to work. Now he can devote all his time to his lovely date.” She smiled genially at the other woman, but Conner knew better than to think he’d been forgiven.
“Now that’s a waste of a beautiful woman,” Mike remarked disgustedly, and Audra smacked him in the arm—but there was no heat in it. “So what kind of case does one work at a fancy ball?” he asked, patently intrigued by the whole situation.
“The confidential kind,” Conner interrupted before Vera could answer. He sat back and folded his arms over his chest irritatedly. This was so not the night he’d envisioned.
Audra hadn’t taken her curious eyes off Vera. “I didn’t know Conner had hired an assistant,” she ventured. “You’re very young. Are you a junior associate in the firm? Paralegal maybe?”
“Confidential informant.” Conner cut off whatever Vera’d opened her mouth to say. “She knows people.”
“You do look familiar,” Mike said with a curious tilt of his head. “Have we met somewhere? At another charity event perhaps?”
Vera’s glued-on smile didn’t waver. “You probably know my sister, Darla St. Giles.”
Mike’s brows shot into his scalp. “Good God. Darla has a sister? How did I not know that?”
“Vera isn’t into Darla’s social whirl,” Conner supplied.
“I prefer to stay out of the tabloids.” She folded her hands in her lap.
And that’s when Mike noticed the fake ring on her finger. His eyes bugged out, and his shocked gaze snapped to Conner.
Annabella apparently noticed it, too. “What an unusual ring you have,” she said. “May I see it?”
“Of course,” Vera said, and held out her hand. Annabella let it rest on her fingers as she examined it. Over his lap. His brother peered at him over their fingers. Conner peered back, grinding his jaw.
“Extraordinary. Where on earth did you get it?” Annabella asked.
“Why,” Vera said innocently. So innocently he knew he was in trouble the second the word left her mouth. “From your date.” Her lips smiled up at him, but her eyes were shooting daggers. “Conner gave it to me earlier tonight.”
Chapter 13
She pretended she was onstage.
That was the only way she could get through this. Being onstage gave her permission to be someone else: a brave, confident woman whose power came from deep within her. Not the terrified, heartbroken, barely hanging on woman she really was.
She could do this.
She had to do this.
The thought of everyone’s shock in the limo when she’d announced Conner had given her the Tears of the Quetzal gave her the boost she needed to pull this off. They’d naturally all jumped to the same wrong conclusion. Oddly enough, Conner hadn’t corrected it. He’d actually glanced at her just as surprised as the others, but she could have sworn she’d seen him hide an amused smirk. Anyway, she’d set them straight herself, five seconds later, by adding, “For the investigation, of course!” in an innocent exclamation. But those five seconds had been glorious.
What. Ever. Now she was on her own, Conner having wandered off with his glamorous date, leaving Vera standing alone in the middle of a huge ballroom full of high-society mucky-mucks. And the uneasy feeling that someone was watching her. Conner had warned her to be on the lookout for the man who’d attacked her on the street. Thank you so much for that.
Damn, she needed a drink.
“Darla?” A surprised male voice assaulted her. “Is that you, babe?”
This one, at least, didn’t sound dangerous.
She turned. Nor did he look like the Hispanic guy from the fuzzy traffic cam photo—but that was fairly useless. He was a raffish man about her own age, all decked out in the latest trendy Eurotrash style, blond hair going every which way.
“No,” she said, taking a breath of relief and putting on her brightest smile. “I’m Vera, her roommate. Have you seen her by any chance?”
“Wow. You sure look like her. I’m Gabe. No, I haven’t…”
And so it started. If she thought she’d be left alone, she’d totally misjudged Darla’s friends. They might be wild and crazy, but they circled wagons for one of their own. She’d met some of them at the apartment already, so she wasn’t totally out to sea. They took her under their wing, pulling her along with the flow as they made the social rounds, laughing, dancing and speculating madly with her over where Darla could have disappeared to this time. No one was worried about Darla. While everyone remarked on her ring, and a few had even read the newspaper reports that linked the ring to Candace Rothchild’s murder, no one seemed overly interested in it other than as a ghoulish souvenir of that tragedy. Unique, expensive jewels with a history were a way of life for these people. And everyone had on their most unique and expensive pieces for tonight’s ball. Hers was just one more fabulous diamond to admire, gossip about, then forget.
And speaking of forgetting…she didn’t think about Conner more than once, all night.
Okay, once a minute, all night.
But she was proud of the fact that she didn’t track him all over the ballroom, keeping tabs on his movements, how many drinks he had, how many times he danced with that bite—er, date, or if he ever looked across the room, searching for Vera.
She so didn’t care.
At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.
Once a minute, all night.
“Ms. Mancuso?”
She almost choked on her drink. Despite the uneventful evening so far, she’d still had the creepy feeling someone had been watching her the whole time. But probably not this guy.
A tall, elegantly dressed man with salt-and-pepper hair, who looked so much like Conner he could only be his father, or uncle, gazed down at her pleasantly.
“Y-yes,” she stammered, all her hard-won poise and confidence vanishing in a fell swoop.
He extended his hand. “I’m Michael Rothchild. I understand you came with my son tonight.”
Oh, God. More than once, she thought with half-hysterical irreverence. And last night, too.
She blinked, frozen by the howlingly inappropriate thought, with her hand in his. The one with the ring on it. His ring. “Um.