“That was then. Today I need three million or I’m going to have to find another buyer,” Piper stated, hugging herself and staring at the floor.
Most visitors to his apartment said something about the space or the kickass view. Piper, who instinctively appreciated beauty, didn’t comment. She was so taut she didn’t even notice her surroundings. And that told him exactly how upset she was.
Jaeger slammed the fridge door shut, turned to another cupboard and pulled down a crystal tumbler. He found a bottle of Scotch and poured a healthy two fingers. She looked cold and upset, and whiskey would help for both.
“Take a seat.” Jaeger led her to the streamlined sofa next to the window and gestured for her to sit down. Piper sat and crossed her legs. Jaeger tried not to notice how her skirt rode up, revealing four inches of a very sexy, silky thigh. He handed her the whiskey and sighed when she just held it between her palms.
“It’ll help only if you drink it,” he murmured.
Piper took an obligatory sip, took another and placed her elbow on her knee, her hand on her forehead. Jaeger waited for her explanation. When she eventually lifted her eyes to his, she looked shattered. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be difficult or to go back on my word, but I need to sell those sapphires. Quickly.”
Yeah, okay. But why?
She asked, “Are the stones, right now, worth three million?”
Jaeger sat down next to her and lifted his thigh onto the blocky cushion. “Piper, we suspect the gems are from Kashmir, probably mined in the late 1800s. If this was a back room in Bombay, I’d offer you three million right now and trust my gut. Here in New York, I don’t need to take the risk. Tomorrow a gemologist will test the stones, and in a few days we will have a detailed report, including color, clarity and carats. After I receive the report, I will have a better idea of what to offer. They might be worth three, four times what you’re asking. I like making a good deal, but I don’t want you to be cheated out of the true value because you are in a hurry.”
Piper stared at the toes of her leather boots. “But I need the money...now.”
“Surely a week or two won’t matter?”
“You’d be surprised.” Piper placed her whiskey on the glass-and-wood coffee table and stood up, crossing her arms over her chest. “I need to sell them, Jaeger. If you as the Ballantyne representative won’t buy them from me, then maybe Moreau’s will.”
Of course they would. If Piper walked into Moreau’s tomorrow and asked for three million, James Moreau probably wouldn’t hesitate. And Ballantyne would lose the find of the century.
He supposed he could offer Piper three million for the stones right now and be done with it. Three million and Piper could walk out the door, and he’d never have to see her again...
He wasn’t ready to do that, not yet.
Since his accident he’d been playing it safe, trying to take fewer risks, measuring the reward before charging into a situation. He’d been lucky to escape that accident with his memory mostly intact. He now thought before he acted, sometimes too much.
But Piper tempted him to step out of the safe zone and live a little. She made him feel like the man he’d been when he was younger—fearless and invincible. Interacting with Piper was akin to surfing a sixty-foot wave, incredibly exciting and ridiculously dangerous.
And, he noted with wry amusement, he hadn’t even made love to her yet. He wasn’t letting her walk away until that had happened.
He had many regrets, and he was damned if he would add never slept with Piper Mills to that list.
He would make love to Piper. Of that he was dead certain.
“Jaeger, I’m about to lose my house, the house I grew up in. It’s going up for auction unless I make a substantial offer,” Piper told him, her voice sounding infinitely weary. “That house is my home, Ty’s home. The area has great schools and great amenities, and I don’t want to live anywhere else! Besides, where will I find another place that can fit the four of us, that gives Ceri and Rainn their privacy, but where they are a minute away when I need them?” Piper’s voice rose. “That house is a part of me. It’s mine.”