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By dinner time, the bracelet was still an embarrassing weight on my wrist.

The television was on but muted, showing an overly dramatic soap opera.

I sat on the couch and flipped through a resort magazine full of advertisements, my foot tapping to the distant sound of Latin music coming from the direction of the pool.

On the balcony, William Facetimed with someone.

Multiple notes in Andrew’s handwriting were scattered over the coffee table and Andrew himself was slumped in a chair, his head clutched between his hands, his elbows pressing into his knees.

When Andrew had returned to our suite, he’d asked for a quiet moment so he could concentrate.

That moment had stretched into sixty long, boring minutes as he held my hand while turning the bracelet repeatedly, pressing four stones in different sequences.

Other than his name and profession—and the knowledge that he must have an abundance of money, to offer so much to me for this bracelet—I knew nothing about this stranger.

At some point, he had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, exposing cords of taut forearm muscles.

On his left wrist, he wore a banged-up Swiss Army watch with an age-softened espresso leather strap, its metal bezel and crystal glass showcasing numerous scratches.

It wasn’t enough to know someone, but somehow it made me like him.

I found myself wondering if he was a sentimental man as a fancier wristwatch would have suited Dr. Jones better.

With a groan, Andrew leaned back, tipping his head over the back of his chair and extending his long legs under the coffee table. The fabric of his pants hugged his thighs, outlining firm muscles. Was I ogling? I wasn’t. I was just observing.

“Christ.” He rubbed his face with his hands. “You’ll have to come with me to Colombia.”

WTF? Did he just say Colombia?

One look at his face told me he wasn’t kidding. I bit back nervous laughter. “Excuse me?”

“Please hear me out.” Wide-eyed, Andrew sat up. “It shouldn’t take long. One day there, and one day back. I’ll reserve the best hotel.” His hair was disheveled, making him look boyish. It was cute, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Good, you’re smiling, so you agree.”

“No,” I said, pulling on a serious face. “I don’t care how many days it takes. I’m not going to Colombia. William and I are on vacation, and there are twelve days left to enjoy it before I need to…”— beg for my old job back, fix the burning hole in my savings account, avoid a potential foreclosure and ruined credit, all because I purchased a building and couldn’t afford to make the payments —“face reality.”

“I’ll pay,” Andrew said with a solemn expression.

I snorted. “It would take much more than an extra few thousand dollars for you to convince me to?—”

“Twenty thousand,” Andrew said, dead serious.

William stepped into the room. “Twenty thousand what?”

Paralyzed with shock, I didn’t move or breathe.

“Adriana, what’s he talking about?” William’s gaze ping-ponged between Andrew and me.

“I need her to go with me to Colombia, and I’m willing to pay for the trouble that she created.” He threw me a dirty look. I rolled my eyes.

“Why Colombia?” William rested his butt on the couch’s armrest.

“In Santa Marta, we’ll meet with the director of the Museum of History, Dr. Carlos Garcia, and then, if my assessment is correct, we’ll use the bracelet as a key to unlock a trunk.”

Getting a buttload of money just to go somewhere with a stranger to unlock a chest sounded too easy. And I’d learned nothing came easy in life.

I shook my head. “This is a stupid idea.”

“Shh. Let the man explain,” William said to me. “What’s in the trunk?”

“Don’t shush me.” I glared at my brother. He motioned with his hand for me to shut up.

“A group of archeologists believe the trunk might contain a map to the location where pirate Augustine Pérez hid the Asiento de Padua treasure.”

I swore William’s ears perked up like a cat’s at the sound of a tuna can opening.

“Oh good god.” My head dropped backward as I groaned.

I already knew what the evening ahead held for me—William being a total child, ignoring the stranger-danger red flag and begging to go to Colombia. He would go for free too. When I was at the University of Georgia and he was doing a rotational internship at a hospital, he dragged me on a three-day road trip to Key West so he could visit the Mel Fisher Maritime Museum, home of a sunken Spanish treasure. Nobody else wanted to ride thirteen hours one way in his crappy car with a broken air conditioner, so he trapped me with a guarantee of endless seafood and the Hemingway house tour. It worked.

“In 1757, a ship named the Asiento de Padua set sail from Lisbon to Rome carrying gold, silver, tapestries, and jewels,” Andrew explained. “Two pirate ships attacked the Asiento de Padua near Cartagena, Spain. The first pirate ship, captained by Augustine Pérez, made a clean getaway with most of the treasure. But the second ship was captured and the crew was hanged except for two officers, who were sent to prison. Two years ago, a group of French archaeologists discovered a diary written by one of the officers. In it, he mentioned Pérez had most likely sailed to Santa Marta, Colombia. As a fundraiser for the museum, Dr. Garcia collaborates with several Latin American private antique collectors, and this past weekend, he held an auction at the museum. At the last-minute, a chest that had allegedly belonged to Pérez—who was notorious for hiding his stolen valuables in the most secure places, in large chests with elaborate locking systems—was added to the list of items being auctioned.”

“Who are you?” William asked with awe.

An ATM and Wikipedia page .

“I thought we already established that? I’m a professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, and I also work for the Octavian Global group, a network of wealthy and powerful people devoted to protecting cultural heritage by ensuring irreplaceable artifacts find their way to museums rather than private collections, and preventing the wrong people from getting their hands on them.”

“Jesus.” William’s hand went to his mouth. “Which wrong men?”

“Careless and entitled rich people who don’t know how to care for newly found historical objects and would lock them up in their private homes and not let the rest of the world study and enjoy them,” he said with exasperation.

This favor sounded too risky of a venture, even for twenty thousand dollars. I wasn’t an adventurer or a risk-taker. Look at what had happened to me when I’d taken a calculated gamble with my career.

“That’s very noble of you,” I said, rising from the couch, “but I’m not going. I don’t want to play sidekick to Indiana Jones.”

“Oh, honey.” William turned to me and grinned. “You won’t be a sidekick. You’ll be the leading lady.”

“Still don’t care.” I walked toward our bedroom. “Tonight, I’ll figure out how to take this thing off, and tomorrow morning, you’ll have your bracelet.”

“Give us a minute,” William said to Andrew in his most placating voice, the one he used with fractious clients. He followed me into my room and closed the door.

“Why are you being so stubborn? The man offered you a lot of money for a little trouble. And an adventure.” He pressed his hands together in a prayer, his face showing too much stupid glee for my liking.

I removed my gold hoop earrings and dropped them into a jewelry travel case on the side table. Then I yanked off my hair tie, letting my hair fall down my back. I ran my fingers over my skull, slightly digging my nails into the skin and chasing away some of my tension.

“How do we know he really has the money? What if he’s a criminal who kidnaps us and holds us for ransom?” I gave William a you-didn’t-think-about-that-did-you? stare.

“Who would pay our ransom?” He burst into laughter as if I had told the funniest joke. “A father we haven’t seen since god knows when? Or our mother, who calls only when she needs money?”

William was right. We had no other siblings, and we’d been so busy running like squirrels looking for a nut—aka making a living—we’d neglected to make any close friends. We’d only had each other since we were kids.

“He doesn’t know we’re our entire family.” I point at the closed door. “We are at a fancy resort, after all.”

William pulled his iPhone out of his pocket. “I already looked him up on the university website.” His fingers tapped on the screen with the speed of light. “He’s telling the truth.” He turned the phone for me to see.

The screen had a headshot of Dr. Andrew Oliver Jones dressed in a suit and sporting the smirk I’d now become familiar with. Underneath his name and title were his areas of expertise in Classical Archaeology & Ancient History, Museum Studies, Material Culture, and Cultural Heritage. Had he crammed every possible title into his degree out of boredom?

“Doesn’t mean he’s not a creep.” I rested on my side of the bed, leaning my back against the headboard, and stretched my legs. I was tired of dealing with men and their business propositions.

“Jeff was a creep, and you wanted to work with him.”

I tensed at the memory of Jeff’s hand on my thigh the day we’d celebrated closing on the historical building I’d bought. With his fingers digging into my leg, he suggested we move our party to his hotel room. Battery acid ate through my stomach when I removed his hand and, in a confident tone, explained we were only business partners, and that was all we’d ever be. I thought he’d taken it well, and we’d finished our dinner, talking only about our store. A week later, my sweet dream come true had turned into a total nightmare when he terminated our contract, leaving me in monstrous debt.

“He was…” I tilted my head up and looked at the ceiling, searching for the right word. I sighed. “He was a successful businessman and a tad creepy, but I can fend for myself.”

I wasn’t sure how to win this argument with my older brother. He knew I needed that money. I knew I needed that money. But a sudden change in any plan was never a good sign. Even those carefully outlined over the course of many years could fail. I needed to email my real estate agent and tell her to relist the building. The thought of officially giving up on my dream stung but it was the best way out of my predicament.

“I don’t want to go.” I twisted the bracelet as if it was a fidget toy, its stones faintly pressing under my fingers. “Colombia is nothing but a jungle.”

“You’re in the middle of a jungle right now.” William gestured at the window with a view of the lush green vegetation.

“What about vaccinations?” The excuse sounded weak even to me, and I knew my protests were running out of steam.

“I’m sure what we got to come here covers the whole of South America. Adriana, please,” William said. “It’s only for two days. Let’s go on an adventure. You know how much I love pirate treasures.”

He moved closer to me and took my hand in his. “Please think about it. The hot professor in the next room offered you a stupid amount of money simply to accompany him on some college project. We’ll go together. You won’t be alone. Just think of what you can do with that cash.” He smiled sheepishly. “You can take your time to find a decent job… or better yet, you’ll have money to make payments on the store for several months while looking for a new investor. You’ve talked about this shop for the past four years. Think of all the companies you contacted and already had agreements with. Those women count on your support.”

William could persuade a stranger to do whatever he wanted. I had no chance.

What he wanted most right now was to go on a treasure hunt, and what I wanted most was to own a shop and bar where people could find the best olive oils and vinegar, wines, take pairing classes, and hang out with their friends after work. Somehow, those two goals were aligning today.

Andrew’s offer circled in my mind. The money could only cover four months of loan payments, but it was four months I didn’t have before.

“I don’t know. It’s not enough, but it buys me some time.” I smiled at William. “I could talk to the Small Business Administration again and see if they can help me.”

“There you go.” William squeezed my hand. “And your shop will be fabulous.”

“You’re just saying that because you got excited at the mention of treasure.”

“Not true. I’m excited at the idea that you’ll move out of my place because you’re messy, and I don’t do messy.”

“I’m not messy.” I threw a pillow at him. “You just don’t have enough space to store all my things.” I was untidy, but in my defense, for the past month, my life had been nothing but chaos.

“What about this vacation and the things you have planned?” I asked.

William shrugged. “Meh. It’s just two days out of twelve. Adriana, please,” he pleaded. “If not for you, do it for me. This short pirate treasure trip will be so good for me.”

My phone pinged with a new email. I checked it, and my heart sank when I opened the attached PDF. Four logo proposals for my future shop.

“Aw… these are so eye-catching.” William pressed his face closer to mine, his hand adjusting my phone so he could see the images better. “How can you pick just one? Hun, this is the sign that you must go.”

“ This is the sign I have more bills to pay now.” I released a heavy sigh.

Even if I didn’t find a new investor or secure a business loan, I had to pay for these. Crap. There went a month of loan payment.

“So?” William nudged me with his foot.

My loud sigh morphed into a groan. “I guess we can go. But he needs to send us the money first.”

* * *

Andrew was talking on his phone when we returned to the living room. “I’ll see you soon. I need to go.” He hung up. “Are you coming?” he asked, his voice edged with worry and eyes full of a silent plea. And at that, something broke inside of me, and a stone rolled off my erected defense wall.

“Yes,” William said with way too much enthusiasm. “But I’m going to accompany her.”

“As any good brother should,” Andrew said, with a slight nod.

I folded my arms over my chest and leaned on the balcony door. “Could you please tell us your exact plan?” I asked, hoping my voice sounded more determined than anxious. “Do we need visas? When are we leaving?”

“Well…” Andrew said, his face turned serious.

Oh no . No great plan started with the word well .

“Hold on.” I held up a finger. “Is there a plan?”

“Well, yes.”

That word again. Andrew had no plan. Or he thought he had a plan, but he was questioning it.

“He has no plan,” I blurted out and faced William. “We’re not going.”

“You just said you would,” Andrew said.

I spun back round to glare at Andrew. “That was because I thought you had an actual plan, but you don’t.”

“You didn’t even let me speak?—”

“You started it with ‘ well .’”

“So what?” Andrew’s eyebrows drew together.

With a roll of eyes, William released an exaggerated breath. “My sister has this theory that if someone starts their sentence with ‘ well’ when they explain something, that means they’re bullshitting.”

“Christ. Fine. No more ‘well.’ But the plan is simple. Tomorrow morning, we fly to Santa Marta, meet with Professor Garcia, and hopefully unlock the bracelet?—”

“Hold on,” I said again. “What do you mean hopefully ?”

“Well…” Andrew coughed. “I mean, there is a chance the bracelet won’t unclasp.”

“And then what?” I snapped. “I get to wear this bracelet like a prisoner in handcuffs? For how long?”

“Nobody asked you to put it on.” Andrew’s voice rose an octave.

I was about to tell him to fuck off and fetch me a bolt cutter.

“Hey, guys,” William said in a calm voice, “can we go back to talking about tomorrow’s plan?”

“I’m sure it will come off the second we unlock the chest,” Andrew said, his eyes never leaving mine. “And then you’ll never see me or it again.”

With my hands planted on my hips, I turned away and focused on the indigo skies with orange hues on the horizon, my heart beating faster than it should have been. Going somewhere on the fly, especially to a country I knew next to nothing about, seemed like a bad idea. Was my karma playing a trick on me again? Too soon, even for her.