Hearts in Vegas. Colleen Collins
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a luxurious restaurant, feeling awkward. Maybe she wouldn’t have thought twice about the decor and champagne on ice if her dad hadn’t been so insistent that Charlie had a thing for her.
Did he?
She’d never picked up on any signals from her boss, but then she’d always related to his professional role, not the man behind it.
Something about Charlie she’d always picked up on loud and clear, though. He wasn’t a gambler. His every action had a plan and a purpose. Nothing with him was ever simple or spontaneous.
Which meant his reasons for selecting this restaurant were more convoluted than his setting up a date. Eventually, he’d tell her what they were.
“Hope the bubbly wasn’t too expensive, Charlie,” she said, setting her smartphone on the table, “because I won’t be drinking any. Way too early for me.”
He flashed his Gordon Gekko smile. “It’s almost noon.”
“It’s a few minutes after ten.”
“Frances, as always, you are enmeshed in the minutiae. Observe, document, categorize.”
“If everybody saw the forest instead of the trees, nobody would know how to plant a seed.”
Charlie did a slight double take, but didn’t say anything as the waiter appeared at their table. He wore a white jacket with Chez Manny stitched in blue on the pocket and gave them a practiced smile. After setting a basket of “hand crafted” rolls and butter on the table, he gestured toward the champagne. She noticed initials inked on the inside of his ring finger, which made her wonder why people got tattoos with personal messages, as though anything in life were that permanent.
“Now that your guest is here, shall I pour the champagne?” he asked.
She held her hand over her glass. “No, thank you.”
The waiter bent his head in understanding and poured the bubbly into Charlie’s crystal flute.
Her boss had wanted to meet at this restaurant last night, too, but she’d canceled, explaining she felt drained after the odd undercover-cop escort and limo meeting.
She was glad she’d gone straight home last night, because her dad had been worrying himself sick since their aborted phone call. He’d also thought he’d failed her because although he’d left messages for Charlie, he didn’t know if Charlie had heard them, so her dad fretted about her possibly being behind bars with no one coming to her aid.
Wanting to ease her dad’s concerns, she’d glossed over what had happened during their dinner of Spam sandwiches and leftover Chinese food. Said the undercover cop had pulled her over for a broken taillight and let her go with a warning. That she would have called her dad after that but had been pulled into a last-minute meeting at a downtown coffee shop with a Vanderbilt client.
After dinner, she wrote an email to Charlie filling him in on all the details, including that she’d be conducting a delivery in the morning for the Russian, after which she could meet Charlie. He wrote back later that he’d be at Chez Manny by ten.
“Would you perhaps like a Baby Bellini, a nonalcoholic drink made with peach nectar and sparkling cider?” the waiter asked her.
She ordered one, plus an omelet. Charlie ordered the cedar-plank-roasted salmon special.
After the waiter left, Charlie lifted his glass of bubbly. “To my star investigator.”
“Hardly a star. All I did was talk to the Russian.”
He took a sip of champagne, set the glass back on the table. “But he trusted you enough to invite you into his inner sanctum, Frances, which is a coup. You’ve been an investigator long enough to understand the significance of that.”
She caught an edge of apprehension in his tone.
“Pass the bread?” she asked pleasantly, studying his face, wondering what was going on with him.
He held out the basket and she helped herself to a “hand crafted” roll. She spread some of the butter—which the waiter had mentioned was “lavender laced”—on the warm roll and took a bite, savoring its herb-infused, yeasty taste.
For several moments they said nothing, listening to a gentle violin played over other diners’ murmured conversations.
“I have good news and bad news,” he finally said, “or possibly good news and good news, depending on how successful you are in this case, Frances.”
“I’m not sure I like how this sounds,” she murmured.
“I shouldn’t call it bad news. More correctly, it is potentially good news for both of us.”
“But you said this depends on how successful I am, so apparently my actions dictate how this...whatever it is...will affect both of us.”
“Correct.” He drew his lips into a tight, reflective grin. “I’ve been interested for some time in opening my own antiquities insurer company, but haven’t found enough interested backers. Fortunately, the CEO of Vanderbilt—an old friend of mine, we attended Cornell together—has offered me the helm of a new Vanderbilt division that will handle all high-end antiquities insurance policies. I’ll be building an elite team of appraisers, underwriters and fraud investigators whose focus will be to reduce claims fraud on our more valuable jewelry and antiquity items. Frankly, I haven’t been happy with most of our investigators—their sloppy work has resulted in Vanderbilt paying extraordinarily hefty claims without recovering insured items. But you, Frances, have a solid track record of solving cases. I’d like you to join my team as my first investigator, but...”
But what? He was giving her high praise one moment, then seeming critical of her the next. She held his gaze for an awkward moment or two, watching the sparkle go out of his light brown eyes until they reminded her of dead leaves.
“Spit it out, Charlie.”
She’d never spoken like that to her boss, but it was grating on her nerves he didn’t just speak his mind. She might tell white lies to her dad so he wouldn’t worry, fabricate stories and identities in the course of her investigative work, but sometimes the best way to deal with an issue was to put it out there.
As the violin music trilled in the background, Charlie stared hard at her, finally saying, “You can’t fail at this case.”
“Because you want to show Vanderbilt I have what it takes to be part of your elite group.”
“Correct.” He took another sip of champagne.
“I know how much Vanderbilt wants me to find those coins, Charlie, but there are never any guarantees. You know that.”
“I do. Just bring your A-game, Frances. That’s all I’m asking.”
Which brought up the issue she’d tossed and turned over last night. Sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m., she’d finally dozed off, still torn about whether or not to make this request.
“I’m not sure I should investigate this one,” she said.
He frowned. “Why not?”
“It’s out of my league. I can bring my A-game, but it’s like asking a—” she listened to the violin warble “—a small-time fiddler to play first violin in an orchestra. You want me to find coins worth millions of dollars...but, Charlie, you seem to forget I was a teenage pickpocket who later lifted a few pieces of jewelry. My biggest theft was a diamond-and-ruby necklace worth eighteen grand retail, and I got caught.”
Charlie obviously saw her concern because his expression turned soft, almost apologetic. “Let’s table that discussion for a minute.”
She nodded.
“Speaking of that eighteen-grand necklace, you’ve almost paid off the restitution, right?”
“Almost.”
“I’m proud