Too Hot to Handle

by Nancy Warren

  Grayson was scratching at his face again. He jerked his chin at his wife and then shook his head violently. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Lexy crafted the second necklace. It was enough to fool your henchmen, wasn’t it? When they broke into our suite and stole it. But they tried to finish their handiwork, didn’t they? Shot up the bed where they thought we were sleeping?”

  “What?” his mother gasped, putting a hand to her heart.

  “No.” Grayson jerked the word out. “All I want is my property back. That was the original necklace she was wearing last night. Where is it?” He shot a glance at his distraught wife. “It belongs to me. I want it back.”

  “That necklace is your ticket to jail.”

  “Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred,” Lexy added.

  “Putting your mistress’s body in Lexy’s place wasn’t too smart. The cops will connect the dots easily.”

  “Stop. Please. Ladies present.”

  “Oh, come on, Grayson. Drop the act. You let your girlfriend try on the famous Isabella Emeralds and she took a liking to them, didn’t she? Maybe you got tired of her so she decided to give herself a little goodbye present…is that what happened?”

  “No.” The man was frantic, gesturing to his wife again and again. “This is nonsense. I don’t have a mistress.”

  Lexy took up the interrogation. If they could get Grayson to admit what he’d done in front of witnesses, they had him. “Everybody in town knows about your infidelities. I’m sure your wife’s always known. Wives always do.” She sent Charlie a steely-eyed look. “Which is why I don’t recommend the practice. If you’re interested.”

  His implacable expression softened. “Noted. And not planning on it.”

  Maybe this was a strange time for her to realize she was as much in love with Charlie as he could possibly be with her but the truth hit her with a solid punch. “Good.” Something zapped between them, a spooky unspoken communication that no greeting card could ever duplicate. If she had to put it into words it would be something like, “I love you. Back at you. We’re in this together. We’re going to make it.”

  But of course no words were spoken, the entire exchange took place in a millisecond and then Charlie turned his attention back to Grayson. “The body found in Lexy’s studio, the female body burned beyond recognition? It’s already been ID’d by the cops. It’s Tiffany Starr.”

  Grayson made a strange gurgling sound in the back of his throat, like he’d choked on his own spit.

  “Stop it,” Florence suddenly screamed. “Don’t mention that horrible name to me.”

  She jerked to her feet and to Lexy’s horror, she saw that from her handbag, the woman had taken out a gun. And she was pointing it right at Lexy.

  “Florence, sweetheart, what are you doing?”

  “You’re so stupid you never did figure it out, did you? You’re all stupid.” Her eyes were wet and haggard but also gleaming with madness. “Did you really think I didn’t know? I found your pictures of your little girlfriend wearing my necklace. My necklace! She was naked. It was the most disgusting thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t let her live after that.”

  “You killed Tiffany?”

  “Sure. And I hired my own people to make sure I got the necklace back and that nobody who handled it would live to talk about it.”

  “But—”

  “Quiet. Now, Edward, you and Charlie are going to get the real necklace. If I get it back, then you’re free to go. If I don’t get it back in one hour, Lexy dies.” She glanced at Charlie’s mother. “Sorry, Sarah, but I’ll have to kill you, too. Nothing personal.”

  Charlie was rigid. Ever since the gun had appeared she’d felt his coiled tension, his readiness to spring. All he needed was an opening. But Mrs. Grayson wasn’t giving him one. And Lexy was cursing herself all over the place for being so focused on the husband she hadn’t noticed the wife pulling a gun until it was too late.

  “You don’t want to do this, Florence,” Charlie’s mother said in the soothing voice she’d probably use on a toddler having a tantrum. “You’ll never be able to host another of your lovely Diamond Balls if you kill my son and Alexandra Drake. Why don’t we put the weapon down. I’ll get Sophia to make us a pot of tea and we’ll discuss this sensibly. I’m sure, if the necklace is yours, that Charlie will get it for you, won’t you, Charlie?”

  “Yes, Mother,” he said.

  “I don’t want tea, I want my necklace. And if I don’t get it in one hour, Charlie, I will shoot Alexandra and then your mother! Do I make myself clear?”

  “Florence, please,” her husband begged.

  The gun made a definitive and deadly sound as she released the safety. “Fifty-nine minutes. And with my low blood sugar I’ll start to shake. You really don’t want my trigger finger getting shaky.”

  “No, dear. Of course not.”

  “You try anything, anything at all, and Lexy dies. I’ve killed before. I’ll do it again.”

  Once more Lexy and Charlie shared a glance. He was telling her to stay calm and not try anything to overpower her captor. She was telling him to be careful. Oh, yeah, and that she loved him.

  “I’ll be back,” he said aloud. “Don’t worry.”

  She nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said, turning to Sarah.

  “We’ll be fine,” she assured him.

  Grayson and Charlie turned to the door and Lexy realized that Grayson didn’t have a gun or any kind of weapon. Florence must believe that her threat to kill Lexy and Charlie’s mother was all the incentive he needed.

  And maybe it was, but Lexy had finally found the person who was responsible for destroying her business, her home and who had used her gun to commit a murder. She didn’t intend to stand by and let Charlie walk back into the gun sights of a madwoman.

  Not if she could help it.

  Grayson opened the door and held it for Charlie, as though they were two old friends lunching at their club. The gesture was so automatic, and so absolutely foreign to what was going on in this bright, rose-scented room that she could barely take it in.

  As the door opened, a large bulk in a flak jacket barreled in, a series of dark shadowed figures behind him, all holding semiautomatic weapons.

  “Hold your fire,” Charlie shouted frantically, turning and diving to protect Lexy.

  After the first second of startled realization that the security guys had followed the tracking device in the necklace, she threw herself to the floor, grabbing Florence Grayson’s feet—encased in Chanel pumps—and yanking them out from under her in a move she’d learned years ago from her father.

  The woman screamed with rage. She felt her try to focus her aim, but in a blur, a floral-print angel of vengeance grabbed her gun arm and shoved it upward, so the shot that rang out hit the crystal chandelier.

  A sparkling glitter, like a cache of enormous diamonds, rained down onto Edward Grayson before he could jump out of the way.

  As Florence Grayson fell back onto the sofa, trying to tug the gun away from his mother, Charlie got hold of her wrist and wrested the firearm from her clawlike grasp.

  “My necklace,” she panted. “I want my necklace,” she shouted as a burly guy shoved her arms into handcuffs.

  “You okay, Mom?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes. Fine.”

  He then tumbled to the floor. Cradled Lexy in his arms. “Hey, how you doing?”

  “It’s been quite a day.”

  He kissed her and she clung to him, feeling the emotion pulse between them. She kissed him back, hungry, urgent, knowing how close they’d come to disaster, possibly even death, and celebrating the fact that they were still so vitally alive.

  “It’s not every day I tell a woman I love her,” he said against her lips.

  She smoothed back his hair, looked up into his eyes.

  “It’s not every day I tell a man I love him back.”

  “Really?”

  “Hell, yeah.”


  Epilogue

  THANKS TO THE ISABELLA EMERALDS, the Manhattan auction house was packed.

  After Florence and Edward Grayson’s arrests, it had been determined that, while he had originally hired Charlie to steal the necklace back, it was Florence who had killed Tiffany Starr. Florence had hired the thugs who’d tried to kill them, who’d burned down Lexy’s studio and who’d broken into their hotel suite and stolen the copy of the Isabella Emeralds and once more tried to kill Charlie and Lexy.

  Now, Edward was raising the money for his wife’s defense. In a nice twist of justice, Edward Grayson was auctioning the Isabella Emeralds to pay her team of top-notch lawyers. Ironically the burst of publicity as the story hit the media only upped the estimated value of the ancient jewels.

  Grayson was going to need all the money he could raise, too, since it turned out that Tiffany’s accomplice, the older woman who’d masqueraded as Florence Grayson, had been hiding in Tiffany’s apartment when Florence came by for a visit. The woman’s testimony that her young friend had been kidnapped by a gun-wielding Florence Grayson would go a long way to putting the murderous Mrs. behind bars for a long time.

  Lexy and Charlie didn’t buy the necklace, but they were present at the auction where it was sold. After spirited bidding among collectors from London, Frankfurt, Kuwait and New York, the winner was a museum in Spain.

  “Very appropriate,” Charlie said, as he and Lexy walked home arm in arm. “Now everyone can enjoy the Isabella Emeralds.”

  “And I guess they are home where they belong.”

  “It’s finally over.”

  They hadn’t talked about the future and she felt silly bringing it up. So far they were happy; she’d been spending her days in her new studio and her nights at Charlie’s place.

  Amanda was back as her assistant and, if anything, seemed to be more focused. She was certainly happier than Lexy had ever seen her. She and Healey were an odd couple, but so far their relationship was working. After spending two weeks in the Caribbean, they’d returned tanned and happy. Amanda had removed the ring from her eyebrow, and sported a tiny new tatt: a tiny bird flying above the sailboat, which seemed to have some kind of personal significance since twice she’d caught Healey placing his lips there when he thought no one was looking.

  Lexy liked Amanda’s way with customers, her artistic eye and was already thinking of promoting her to assistant designer and hiring someone else to take over the retail part of the operation.

  Amazingly her business had never been better. She supposed that since her fame had increased due to the Isabella Emeralds and the murder trial, she shouldn’t be surprised that her business was booming.

  Charlie halted her, turned her to face him and kissed her. He did that a lot. As though he couldn’t wait until they were back at his place and had privacy.

  She put a hand to his cheek. How she loved this tough, tender man.

  “Now I’ve got my new studio up and running, I should really think about getting my own apartment.”

  “You could do that.”

  Her heart fell a little. It wasn’t that she didn’t know she couldn’t stay with him forever, but it would be nice to have him argue with her.

  “Or you could marry me.”

  Her jaw dropped. “What?”

  He pulled out a jewelry box. “I know this is kind of strange, since you probably figured you’d design our rings. But this is a family ring. Jeez, I’m totally blowing this already.” He took a breath and she realized he was nervous.

  “Lexy, will you marry me?”

  He opened the box and she saw an exquisite diamond solitaire, an art deco design that she fell in love with on sight. “Oh, Charlie. Are you sure?”

  “Are you kidding me? Ever since I kidnapped you, I’ve known I was never going to let you go.”

  “That pirate blood really does run through your veins, doesn’t it?”

  “I promise that you are the last thing I’m stealing. From now on, I’m an honest businessman. So, will you?”

  “I don’t know. My dad’s a cop. He might freak out that I’m marrying a thief. Even if you are a reformed thief.”

  Charlie wrinkled his face, like he was in pain. “I have to tell you something and you probably won’t like it.”

  “What?”

  “I already asked your father for permission to marry you.”

  She jerked her head up and stared at him in growing wrath. “You did what?”

  “I asked your father for your hand in marriage. A month ago. I told him I used to be a thief. He took the news pretty well, but he made me wait a month and then ask him again. So, I did. Yesterday, when the two of us went for a beer, I asked for his permission to marry you. And he said yes.”

  “You’re just doing this for hot sex, aren’t you?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I know you. You’re getting me mad so then we can have hot makeup sex.”

  Charlie threw back his head and laughed. “Yep, that’s exactly what I’m doing. And after the hot makeup sex, what do you say to trying out ‘will you marry me?’ sex.”

  A sudden lump of emotion clogged her throat but she managed a cocky grin. “I’ve never tried that. I bet it’s hot.”

  “Especially if you say yes.”

  He nibbled her lower lip while she ran her hands up and down his back. Sometimes, she realized, you just knew. In the same spooky way she could look at gemstones and know instantly what their setting should be, so could she realize at this moment that she and Charlie were meant to be together forever.

  “Yes, Charles Pendegraff III, I will marry you.”

  He pushed the ring on her finger and she wasn’t a bit surprised to find it was a perfect fit. “I love you, Lexy.”

  “I love you, too.” They continued on, hand in hand, the diamond sparkling on her ring finger. “So, if I’m going to marry you, I guess I should know what your favorite sexual position is.”

  He grinned. “Let’s get home and I’ll show you.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4977-0

  TOO HOT TO HANDLE

  Copyright © 2010 by Nancy Warren.

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