by Teri Wilson
A curator. She smiled at her image in the mirror. At the Louvre. She had security clearance at the most prestigious art museum in the world. If anyone could walk off with that egg, she could. She’d organized this entire exhibit. It wasn’t as if she was an art thief.
Like Maxim?
No. He wasn’t a thief. She refused to believe it. He’d stood right there and pretended not to be a Romanov to save the art. To save her. Whoever . . . whatever . . . he’d been in the past no longer mattered.
Unless he’s telling the truth and he’s really not Anastasia’s grandson.
Finley took a deep breath. Maxim was a Romanov, and she was about to prove it. If only to herself. She needed to know she’d been right about him.
She needed to know she hadn’t been a fool.
She ran her fingertip along the gold chain around her neck, drawing the cardkey up and out of the bodice of her gown as she moved closer to the egg. On the far side of the room, Madame Dubois was deep in conversation with the head of the Egyptian antiquities department. Good. He was a talker. Finley had chatted with him once at a cocktail party and had been unable to extricate herself from his presence for almost half an hour. He was sure to keep Madame Dubois busy long enough for Finley to borrow the egg, see if the tiny crown fit, and then return it to its proper place.
The only things she needed to worry about now were the soldiers. And the security officers. And the other one hundred or so people gathered in the ornate room.
She pretended it was any ordinary day at work and slid the cardkey into the electronic lock on the display case. The tiny light in the corner of the lock changed from red to green, and the front panel of the glass popped open.
Take it. Just reach inside and pick it up.
Her hands hung limply at her sides. She seemed to have forgotten how to move. Or breathe.
He’s getting away.
If she didn’t make her move now, she might never catch up with Maxim. He was leaving Paris. He might never come back.
The thought was enough to propel her into motion. She reached inside the display case and plucked the egg from its twenty-four-carat stand.
This was happening.
She could feel her heartbeat in her throat. Her hands were trembling so hard she was afraid she’d lose her grip on the egg, drop it, and be forced to scramble after it while it rolled across the floor.
With both hands wrapped around it, she turned around to head straight to the ladies’ room, for lack of a better place. But a man in a dark suit was standing right behind her, blocking her getaway. Finley immediately recognized him as one of the security officers she’d hired for the event.
Why, oh why had she enlisted such competent help?
“Miss Abbot?” Brow furrowing, his gaze flitted from the empty display case to the bejeweled egg in her grasp. “What are you doing?”
Breathe. Just breathe. You’re basically his supervisor.
She lifted her chin and looked him square in the eyes. “I noticed a smudge on this piece. It needs repolishing.”
The security guard shifted from one foot to the other. “But according to the written instructions you gave us, we’re supposed to prevent the removal of any and all artwork from the display cases.”
“Right.” She nodded. “And now I’m changing those instructions. The media is scheduled to arrive any moment. The Rosebud egg is one of the most priceless objects in this exhibit. I can’t allow it to be photographed in anything less than pristine condition. I’m sure you understand.”
The furrow in his brow deepened. He looked confused. Confused, and more than a little suspicious.
“I’ll be back momentarily,” she said with as much authority as she could muster. “Stay here and guard the display case while I’m gone.”
She brushed past him in a swish of tulle and chiffon before she lost her nerve. With her head down and the egg cradled tightly against her chest, she wove through the crowd. She didn’t dare make eye contact with anyone. Nor did she look back. If there was an army of security guards behind her, she didn’t want to know.
The door to the ladies’ room was tucked away in a corner at the far end of the grand foyer, practically invisible among the heavy brocade and gold leaf that covered the walls from floor to ceiling. When the doorknob was within arm’s reach, Finley finally glanced at the mirrored wall to see if anyone was following her.
By some miracle, no one had.
She pushed through the bathroom door, locked it behind her, and tried not to collapse into a heap of exhausted relief. In the mirror above the sink, Finley’s reflection looked back at her, wild-eyed and flushed.
What am I doing? This is insane.
It was too late to back out now. Insane or not, she’d just stolen a Fabergé egg right out of its display case during a major art opening.
Borrowed. You borrowed it, remember?
The difference didn’t really matter at this point. She could kiss her promotion good-bye, and possibly her job as well. Her priorities had undergone a monumental shift. Now she just needed to see if the crown and the ruby on her charm bracelet fit inside the rosebud or not.
She set the egg down on the bathroom counter, and it sparkled beneath the light of the gilt wall sconces, casting red kaleidoscope shadows on the creamy white walls. It was gorgeous. Breathtaking, really. And even though she’d touched it before, this time felt different.
This time, it wasn’t simply a piece of priceless Romanov art from her exhibit. It was a radiant, ruby-red piece of Maxim’s history. If he’d lied . . . if she was right . . . it had been a present from Maxim’s great-grandfather to his great-grandmother, the very first of all the Easter egg gifts.
Finley knew she was right. She’d never been so sure about anything in her life.
Heart pounding hard against her rib cage, she unfastened the bracelet and laid it on the counter so the charms lined up side-by-side in a neat row. Then she lifted the yellow rosebud from the center of the egg by its tiny green stem.
It looked so real that Finley could almost smell it—velvety sweet, like a Provence garden. She turned it over in her hand and found the discreet gold clasp hidden in the spot where the yellow petals ended and the enamel stem began. Breathless, she popped it open.
The inside of the rosebud was lined in deep, dark velvet. Two small places had been carved into the lining so the egg’s surprises would fit firmly inside and couldn’t roll around. Peter Carl Fabergé himself had cut the niches to perfectly match the shapes of the diamond crown and ruby egg pendant.
The spaces somehow looked smaller than Finley remembered. For the first time since she’d seen the bracelet, she wondered if she’d made a mistake. Maybe it didn’t have anything at all to do with Anastasia.
It does. This was Anastasia’s bracelet.
And Finley was about to prove it.
It didn’t matter if no one else knew who Maxim was. She would. He would. They would.
Finally.
She picked up the small diamond crown. The rest of the bracelet dangled beneath her fingertips, tinkling like a bell. But right as she was about to drop it inside one of the hollowed out spaces, someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Finley? It’s Marian Dubois. Let me in.”
The bracelet slipped through Finley’s fingers and fell to the floor. Before she could stoop and pick it up, Madame Dubois banged on the door again.
“Finley, if you don’t open the door right this instant, I’ll call one of the soldiers over here to beat it down.”
“Oui. I will.” What choice did she have?
It was over. She’d been caught.
She picked the bracelet up off the floor, gathered it in her fist, and unlocked the door. She didn’t bother trying to hide the egg. Her boss obviously knew what she’d done. Denying it would only make things worse.
Tim
e slowed to a stop as the door creaked open. Finley had to remind herself to breathe as Madame Dubois stepped inside the small gold bathroom. The older woman seemed calmer than she’d expected. Eerily so. It was the kind of calm that only came before a dark and terrible storm.
Her gaze traveled from Finley’s face to the luminous red egg sitting on the counter and the bright yellow rosebud beside it. “One of the security guards just interrupted a conversation I was having to inform me that my assistant curator removed the Imperial Rosebud egg from its display case and fled to the bathroom with it. I assured him he was mistaken. No one on my staff would do such a thing.”
She turned her eyes on Finley, no doubt waiting for some kind of explanation. As if there could be a reasonable excuse for stealing a Fabergé egg, even temporarily.
This was the moment to grovel. Or lie. Or fake temporary insanity. Anything to prevent Madame Dubois from firing her.
But Finley didn’t feel like doing any of those things. Getting fired suddenly didn’t feel like the worst thing that could possibly happen to her. She’d already lost something far more precious than her job.
She’d lost Maxim.
“What do you have to say for yourself, Finley?” Madame Dubois crossed her arms. Her left eye had begun twitching.
Finley closed her fist tighter around the bracelet and hid her hand in the folds of her dress. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry? Is that seriously all you have to say for yourself?”
“No, it isn’t. I’m sorry and also, I quit.”
She couldn’t stay at the Louvre. Not after this.
I quit.
The words echoed in Finley’s head, words she’d never imagined she would say. Yet they’d slipped so easily from her mouth.
Because time was running out. If she stayed at Palais Garnier to defend herself, she might never see Maxim again. She had a choice to make—the Louvre or Maxim.
But it wasn’t really a choice, was it? She didn’t even have to think about it. She chose Maxim.
She’d been choosing him all along.
Finley had let herself believe she’d been following him down a crazy rabbit hole for the past few days because she cared about the Romanovs. But the Romanovs didn’t have anything to do with what had happened between them the night before. And they had nothing to do with the way she’d touched his broken, beautiful body in his kitchen and wanted to weep inside. She’d made her choices because she cared about a man, not a royal family that had died out over a century ago.
She cared about Maxim, even after the things he’d told her about what he remembered. Which could only mean one thing . . .
She’d fallen in love with him.
Oh God.
She was in love with Maxim. The realization hit her like an arrow straight to her heart.
But she’d known him less than a week. People didn’t fall in love that quickly, did they? It was crazy.
She’d just stolen a Fabergé egg and quit her job at the Louvre, though. So she was either in love or she’d lost her mind. Probably both.
“You quit?” Madame Dubois laughed. “You can’t be serious. No one resigns from the Louvre.”
Finley shrugged. “I just did.”
Madame Dubois gaped at her. Finley couldn’t have cared less. She gathered the skirt of her ball gown in her hands, sidestepped her boss—correction, her former boss—and pushed the bathroom door open.
Finley half-expected to be detained on her way out of the grand foyer, but Madame Dubois had apparently given the all-clear because the soldiers stayed put. She ran the full length of the glorious room, beneath the watchful gaze of the colorful Paul Baudry murals on the ceiling overhead.
The crowd at the gala had tripled in size since she’d last seen Maxim. Guests clogged the doorways and spilled into the hallway. Finley squeezed her way between clusters of elegantly dressed patrons, hoping against hope that Maxim hadn’t yet made his way out of the building.
The farther she got from the grand foyer, the thinner the crowd became. When she reached the grand staircase, it was completely empty. Her stilettoes echoed against the cool white marble as she flew down the first flight of stairs toward the massive landing with its Baroque statues perched in each corner.
Maxim wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
You’ll find him. You have to. Don’t panic.
Too late. She was most definitely panicking. Why had she wasted time trying to fit the charms into the rosebud? If she never caught up with Maxim, she’d only have herself to blame.
She rounded the corner to sprint down the final sweeping set of stairs, gripping the railing so she wouldn’t trip over her high heels. That was the last thing she needed.
She’d made it nearly halfway when someone called her name. “Finley?”
She froze. “Maxim.”
He stood at the foot of the staircase, beneath an enormous archway dripping with opulent marble swirls and floral reliefs. Finley’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. He looked so perfect standing there, brooding and tragic, like a literary figure she’d known on paper for years and longed to meet.
They stood staring at one another for a beat before she could make her legs move again. Maxim’s eyes glittered with the same dark determination that had been there when he’d announced he wasn’t a Romanov. But somewhere in their sapphire depths, she could see something else.
Hope.
It propelled her forward, even as fear fluttered through her. She had no doubt about who Maxim was, but that didn’t mean he could forget who he’d been.
She came to a stop on the last step, but still had to look up at him since he was so much taller than she was. It was the closest she’d been to him since she’d kissed him good-bye the morning after they’d slept together. A five-o’clock shadow lined his chiseled jaw, and there were worry lines on his brow that hadn’t been there before.
He looked utterly exhausted.
“You should be at your party. What are you doing?” His gaze moved beyond her, in the direction of the grand foyer.
Finley had to stop herself from placing her hands on either side of his face and forcing him to look at her. “Following you.”
When he didn’t react, she added, “Again.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. It wasn’t quite a smile, but she’d take it. “So I see.”
His gaze met hers again, and this time, she could feel it deep in her center. She loved it when he looked at her like that. Like she was royalty instead of the other way around.
“What do you want, Finley?”
I want this. I want you.
She lifted her chin. “I want you to tell me why you lied.”
His mouth straightened into a flat line, and he sighed. He was braced to argue with her, but she wouldn’t let him stand there in this beautiful place that had been the sparkling centerpiece of Paris since before Tsar Nicholas II sat on Russia’s throne and let him disavow his identity. Not again. “Don’t even try to deny it. I know who you are, Maxim.”
She opened her hand. The bracelet sparkled in her outstretched palm.
“This belonged to Anastasia. The charms are the lost Fabergé treasures. See the little diamond crown? It fits perfectly inside the Rosebud egg. I checked.” She was faking it, obviously. She was taking a leap of faith, but she’d never been less afraid to fall. “It was a perfect match.”
The quiet between them grew heavy with implication.
“Finley.” He reached for her hand, closing her fingers around the bracelet and hiding it from view. “Don’t. Please.”
Despite his words, it felt so good to have him touch her again, she could have wept with relief. “Show me. Let me see the DNA results.”
She jammed a finger at his solid wall of a chest, right at the spot where he’d tucked the envelope into the inside pocket of
his suit jacket. “I just quit my job so I could chase you down. You owe me this.”
His gaze softened, and Finley had to look away.
He tipped her chin with a light touch of his fingertips and forced her gaze back to his. This time when she looked at him, she saw him through a veil of tears.
“Don’t cry, love.” With a bittersweet smile, he reached into his pocket, pulled out the envelope and handed it to her.
She opened it with trembling fingers, blinked back her tears, and tried to focus on the paper in her hands.
The words DNA Report were typed in block lettering at the top of the page, followed by columns of numbers under the headings Maxim Laurent and Philip Mountbatten. Finley wasn’t sure what to make of any of it until she followed the trails of figures and mysterious abbreviations to the bottom of the page.
Interpretation: 299,578,200,170,722
Probability of Relation: 99.99999999996%
The subject is not excluded as a great-grandnephew to the tested individual. Based on testing results obtained from analyses of the DNA loci listed, the probability of relation is 99.99999999996%.
It was the most definitive proof they could have hoped for.
Maxim was a Romanov. He was the Grand Duchess Anastasia’s grandson.
Finley peered up at him, bashful all of a sudden. “I knew it all along, you know.”
“You did.” He reached to brush a tear from her cheek, but let his touch linger, cupping her face.
“Why did you lie?” she whispered.
“I didn’t want you to think I was trying to take advantage of you. I don’t care about the treasures, Finley.” He held her face very still and fixed his gaze with hers. There was no mistaking the seriousness in his eyes. “Maybe I did once, but I’m not that man anymore. I tried to put a stop to things weeks ago, and it nearly cost me my life. The truth could hurt you, too. I won’t let it.”