Secrets, Lies & Lullabies. Heidi Betts
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it kept her busy enough that she didn’t have time to dwell on the past or nurse a redwood-size grudge against an old enemy the way her cousin obviously did.
“Come on, Jess. Please,” Erin begged. “You have to do this. For the family. We may never get another opportunity to find out what Bajoran is up to, or if there’s some way—any way—to rebuild the business and our lives.”
She wanted to refuse. Should refuse. But the pain in Erin’s voice and in her eyes gave Jessica pause.
She could maybe poke around a little.
“What would I have to do?” she asked carefully. “What would I be looking for?”
“Just … see if you can find some paperwork. On the desk, in his briefcase if he leaves it. Interoffice memos, maybe, or documents outlining his next top secret, underhanded takeover.”
Against her better judgment, Jessica gave a reluctant nod. “All right, I’ll do it. But I’m not going to get caught. I’ll glance around. Keep my eyes open. But I’m not going to rummage through his belongings like a common thief.”
Erin’s nod was much more exuberant. “Fine, I understand. Just look around. Maybe linger over fluffing the pillows if he’s on the phone … listen in on his conversation.”
She wasn’t certain she could do that, either, but simply acting like she would seemed to make her cousin happy enough.
“Don’t get your hopes up, Erin. This has ‘Lucy and Ethel’ written all over it, and you know how their crazy schemes always turned out. I’m not going to jail for you, either. A Taylor with a criminal record would get even more press than one having to work a menial, nine-to-five job cleaning other people’s bathrooms.”
Two
This was insane.
She was a former socialite turned chambermaid, not some stealthy spy trained to ferret out classified information. She didn’t even know what she was looking for, let alone how to find it.
Her cart was in the hall, but she’d dragged nearly everything she needed to clean and restock the room in with her. Sheets, towels, toilet paper, the vacuum cleaner … If there were enough supplies spread out, she figured she would look busier and have more of an excuse for moving all over the suite in case anyone—specifically Alexander Bajoran—came in and caught her poking around.
The problem was, his suite was pretty much immaculate. She’d been cleaning it herself on a daily basis, even before he’d checked in, and the Mountain View’s housekeeping standards were quite high. Add to that the fact that Alexander Bajoran was apparently quite tidy himself, and there was almost nothing personal left out for her to snoop through.
Regardless of what she’d let her cousin believe, she was not going to ransack this room. She would glance through the desk, under the bed, in the nightstands, maybe inside the closet, but she was not going to root through his underwear drawer. Not when she didn’t even know what she was supposed to be looking for.
Business-related what? Compromising … what?
Jessica couldn’t blame her cousin for wanting to find something incriminating. Anything that might turn the tables on the man who had destroyed the Taylors’ livelihood and a few members of the family personally.
But how realistic was that, really? It had been five years since Bajoran’s hostile takeover. He had moved on and was certainly juggling a dozen other deals and business ventures by now. And even if those weren’t entirely on the level, she doubted he was walking around with a paper trail detailing his treachery.
The sheets were already pulled off the bed and in a heap on the floor, so it looked as though she was busy working. And since she was close, she quickly, quietly slid open one of the nightstand drawers.
Her hands were shaking, her fingertips ice-cold with nerves, and she was shivering in her plain white tennis shoes. Sure, she was alone, but the hallway door was propped open—as was lodge policy—and at any moment someone could walk in to catch her snooping.
She didn’t know which would be worse—being caught by Alexander Bajoran or by her supervisor. One could kick up enough of a stink to get her fired … the other could fire her on the spot.
But she didn’t need to worry too much right that second, because the drawer was empty. It didn’t hold so much as a Bible or telephone directory. Mountain View wasn’t that kind of resort. If you needed a Bible or phone book or anything else—even items of a personal nature—you simply called the front desk and they delivered it immediately and with the utmost discretion.
Closing the drawer on a whisper, she kicked the soiled sheets out of her way and shook out the clean fitted sheet over the bare mattress as she rounded the foot of the bed. She covered one corner and then another before releasing the sheet to open the drawer of the opposite nightstand.
This one wasn’t empty, and her heart stuttered in her chest at the knowledge that she was actually going to have to follow through on this. She was going to have to search through her family’s archenemy’s belongings.
The bottom drawer of the bedside bureau held a decanter of amber liquid—scotch, she presumed, though she’d never really been in charge of restocking the rooms’ bars—and a set of highball glasses. The top drawer held a thick, leather-bound folder and dark blue Montblanc pen.
She swallowed hard. Once she moved that pen and opened the folder, that was it … she was invading Alexander’s privacy and violating the employee agreement she’d signed when she’d first started working at the lodge.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes for just a split second, then reached for the pen. As quickly as she could she flipped open the folder and tried to get her racing mind to make sense of the papers inside.
Her eyes skimmed the print of the first two pages, but nothing jumped out at her as being important or damaging. And the rest was just pictures of jewelry. Snapshots of finished pieces and sketches of what she assumed were proposed designs.
Beautiful, beautiful jewelry. The kind her family used to create. The kind she used to dream of being responsible for.
She’d grown up pampered and protected, and was pretty sure her parents had never expected her to do anything more than marry well and become the perfect trophy wife. But what she’d truly aspired to all those years she’d spent primping and attending finishing school was to actually work for Taylor Fine Jewels. Or possibly more specifically their partner company, Bajoran Designs.
Like any young woman, she loved jewelry. But where most of her peers had only wanted to wear the sparkly stuff, she’d wanted to make it. She loved sifting through cut and uncut gems to find the perfect stone for a setting she’d drawn herself.
All through high school her notebooks and the margins of her papers had been filled with intricate doodles that were in reality her ideas for jewelry designs. Her father had even used a few for pieces that had gone on to sell for six and seven figures. And for her sixteenth birthday, he’d surprised her with a pearl-and-diamond ring in a setting that had always been one of her very favorites.
It was still one of her favorites, though she didn’t get many opportunities to wear it these days. Instead, it was tucked safely at the bottom of her jewelry box, hidden amongst the much less valuable baubles that suited her current level of income.
But, heavens above, these designs were beautiful. Not perfect. She could see where the size of one outshone the sapphire at its center. Or how the filigree of another was too dainty for the diamonds it surrounded.
She could fix the sketches with a sharp pencil and a few flicks of her wrist, and her palms itched to do just that.
When she caught herself running her fingers longingly across the glossy surface of one of the photographs, she sucked in a startled breath. How long had she been standing there with a target on her back? All she needed was for Alexander