Jaeger knew people exaggerated, particularly when it came to gemstones. The stones were probably half that size. He looked at Piper and sighed when he saw the blissful look on her face. If she were anyone else, he would bluntly have told her the gems were probably fake. A cache of sapphires like she was describing would have been well-documented. Unless you enjoyed royal connections, exceptional and important gems were rarely passed down a family line.
Unaware of his skepticism, Piper held her wineglass to her chest, her eyes dreamy. “Oh, Jaeger, it’s beautiful. A deep, dark blue, sleepy and velvety and just, God, gorgeous. I just want to touch it, hold it, look at it.”
“It’s difficult to comment on stones I haven’t seen, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you,” he said, keeping his voice noncommittal.
“I have a photo of them. Could you look at it?” Piper asked.
Jaeger nodded and sighed when Piper bent over to pick up her bag. The cotton robe delineated her heart-shaped bottom, revealed the backs of her thighs. He felt his boxers tighten as his junk moved up to half-mast. The urge to sink into her heat was strong.
Relax. You’ll have her again. Once more, or twice, before they went back to real life.
Piper walked back to him and sat on the arm of his chair, her fingers dancing across the screen of her phone. She passed it to him, and Jaeger looked down at the burst of blue on black velvet.
His heart stopped momentarily and his hand shook as he placed his glass on the table in front of him.
Jaeger enlarged the screen and focused on the biggest of the cut stones. The quality of the photo wasn’t great, but the color was breathtakingly brilliant.
“Where did you say these came from?” he asked. Tell me again that you think they’re from Kashmir because, hell, you may be right.
“Through a great-great-uncle on my mother’s side. He was a soldier in the British army. Family legend says they come from Kashmir.”
Yes!
Be cool, Jaeger told himself. If it sounds too good to be true then it usually is. But the color and her family history suggested there was a possibility of these stones being real.
“What else do you know about the original owner?”
“Just what I told you,” Piper said. She tapped her screen with the tip of her finger. “Well, what do you think? Could they be real? I’ve taken them to other gem dealers who say they aren’t.”
Of course they would say that. She was young and pretty and an easy mark. They’d make her a token offer, resell the gems and make a freakin’ killing. “Stay away from dodgy dealers,” he muttered.
“But do you think they could be worth anything?”
Maybe she’d been in Ballantyne and Company because she was thinking of selling them. If they were genuine, he was definitely interested in buying. He slid his habitual I’m-not-impressed expression onto his face—his excitement tended to inflate prices—and handed Piper a casual smile. “I don’t know. It’s really difficult to tell from a photograph. Let me look at them when we’re back in the States. Can you send me the photo?”
“Sure.”
Jaeger rattled off his number, and within twenty seconds he heard the beep telling him the photo was on his phone.
“I really hope they aren’t real,” Piper stated, her expression glum.
Now there was a statement he’d never heard from a prospective seller before. “Why on earth would you not want to be the owner of a collection of stones worth, potentially, a lot of money?” Jaeger demanded.
“Because then I’d feel morally obligated to sell them to help my...to help someone out of a financial jam.”
“You have people in your life who owe millions?”
Piper wrinkled her nose. “They’re worth as much as that? No, tell me they aren’t!”
“They could be, possibly, if they are Kashmir sapphires. But don’t bank on it,” Jaeger warned
“Maybe I should’ve just taken the first offer I received. A grand a stone.” Piper muttered.
Ten thousand dollars? Jaeger felt sick. Although he was trying to remain calm, trying not to overreact, he knew, somewhere deep inside him, that he’d might’ve made the discovery of a lifetime. If they were real, then hers were special stones.