Page 6

Chapter Five

I n the morning, I found Andrew on the same restaurant patio where William and I had eaten dinner. A warm sunrise had replaced the breathtaking sunset. I wore a white cotton flared dress with tiny blue flowers on the bottom, whereas Andrew wore the same clothes from yesterday, his previously crisp shirt now wrinkled. His hair was disheveled as if he hadn’t even run his finger through it this morning to make it presentable, but he’d shaved.

A somber expression clouded Andrew’s face, his eyebrows drawn together and his lips turned into a frown. Even his smirk wasn’t happy. He read a menu and sipped his coffee. As I approached the table, he glanced up. His mouth curved into a full-beam smile that reached his beautiful eyes, softening his tired look. A pleasant sensation passed through me at his reaction. My presence had taken him out of a dark place and brought him into the light. I did that. I’ve never seen a man respond to me in the same manner. Should I leave and come back again, just so I could watch it one more time? And then annoyance slammed into me harder than an out-of-control bus. Why was I even enjoying this? He was married. And even if he wasn’t married, I shouldn’t toy with the idea of… Best not even go there.

Maybe the look meant he’d found the pattern so we all could return to our lives.

Me to my mess. Him to his lovely family.

My smile wanted to fail me, but I kept it on.

“Good morning.” I reached the table, and Andrew got up and pulled out the chair for me. “Thank you.”

“How was your night?” He pushed the chair in as I sat and took his spot to my right.

“Fine. And yours? Were you able to get much sleep, or were you up all night breaking into the chest?” I picked up the menu and scanned the English side, seeing no words as my brain struggled to play catch-up. All I saw was Andrew’s expression when he’d noticed me.

“Where’s your brother?”

“He’s on his way. So, what did you find out last night?” I lowered the menu. “Or do you want William to be present so you don’t have to repeat yourself?”

“We don’t have to wait for him. I’ll tell you now.”

A server appeared and hovered over us, pouring coffee for me. Andrew pressed his full lips together, waiting for her to leave so he could speak.

“Could you please bring a mango nectar for my brother?” I said to the young lady, pointing at the empty seat. “He’s running late.”

She nodded and then left. Andrew cleared his throat. “I don’t need to open the chest,” he said, defeat tinging his voice.

“Why not?” I added a splash of cream and a spoonful of sugar to my coffee. Worry burned a hole in my gut. What did it mean for our deal?

“Augustine commissioned several types of bracelets—some for chests and the rest for other purposes. After a further comparison of Dr. Garcia’s research papers and mine, we detected the cryptanalyst’s errors and concluded that they had deciphered the letters incorrectly. Augustine meant ‘a trusted person’ not ‘a secured trunk’ has the treasure. The most trusted person would be his brother, Jorge Pérez. Jorge had enough influence to smuggle and hide all Augustine’s treasure under everyone’s noses.”

“What about the chest? You no longer need it?”

“Augustine and Maria had two sons, Simón and Gabriel. This particular chest was a wedding gift from Augustine to Gabriel. It could contain something from the Asiento de Padua ship, but most likely it’s empty.”

I stirred the coffee, brought it to my lips and sipped. My god. Compared to this heavenly juice, coffee back home was made of NFL players’ sweaty underwear. I closed my eyes and moaned. “This is so good. I could stay in Colombia just for this coffee.”

“I’m glad to hear,” Andrew said, wary, “that you might be persuaded to enjoy it for a few more days.”

I stilled, my mind refused to process the words that had come out of his gorgeous mouth. Did I call Andrew’s mouth gorgeous? No. Not gorgeous. It was just a mouth. My brain had no business adding any adjectives to it. I took another sip of liquid gold. I would happily drink it all day long, even though it might cause me to have a heart attack.

“Adriana, are you paying attention?”

My eyes snapped open, and I gave Andrew an unruffled stare. The face staring back at me was tired but hopeful. “You said something about how you’ll continue your search but will send William and me back home with bags of this coffee so I can enjoy it for a few more days.”

Andrew shifted in his seat, his knee gently bumping into mine. “I know we agreed on two days, but I need more time. Just a couple of days.”

I moved my leg to avoid unnecessary contact, folded my arms on the table, and leaned toward him. “Dr. Jones, you’re breaking our verbal contract. We agreed you’d pay me fifty thousand dollars for two days. And now you want me to stay for a few more?”

He angled toward me, mirroring my pose, his elbow touching mine. “Yes.”

“And if I don’t agree?” I said in a low voice.

“Then I’ll have to press charges against you because you stole the artifact from me.” A playful smile tugged on his lips.

He was bluffing. There was no way he would do it. Would he?

“I’m sure I could convince the jury it was a misunderstanding. I’d play innocent.”

“Are you? Innocent?” He bit his bottom lip, raising an eyebrow.

Starting from the point where our arms met heat raced through my body. Jesus. Were we flirting? This was wrong, but somehow it felt so good.

I was a bad person.

Stop this immediately.

Sometimes, my conscience needed to mind her own business.

“All right,” I said, unable or unwilling to move. “Where would we go next, Dr. Jones?”

“We need to visit San Antonio Church,” he said. “I think it has an undisclosed vault where Jorge might have hidden Augustine’s treasure for his brother.”

“You think ?” I cocked my right eyebrow to mimic him.

He nodded slightly.

“And where is this church?”

“San Sierra. It’s a village about five hours’ drive away. Before you say no, I have a proposition for you. I’ll pay twenty-five thousand for each extra day. It’s not in my interest to lose money, so I promise you, I’ll try to finish my research as fast as I can, and then you’ll never have to see me again.”

For some maddening reason, his last sentence caused a faint twinge somewhere in the vicinity of my heart, but I ignored it.

Wait, did he say twenty-five more? Per day? That was a lot of money for basically nothing.

I had two choices: I could spend another ten days at the posh Costa Rican resort where I would wake up every morning in a cold sweat, freaking out about my failed business because the fifty grand that Andrew paid me for these two days would hold me afloat only for a few months; or I could spend an extra few days pretending to be Short Round from Indiana Jones , enjoying Colombian culture, their wonderful food and coffee, and getting paid a lot more money. If I were to stay here for four more days, I could possibly keep my building, renovate it and purchase—minimal—initial inventory. I could possibly finish what I started but on my own, without a partner or investor.

It was all possible , but it also sounded too good to be true.

We sat in the same position, our faces a foot apart, our eyes not losing contact. This sent my pulse into overdrive. To the outside world, we probably appeared as if we were talking dirty.

“What’s the catch?” I whispered.

Andrew’s smile increased. My heart rate increased, too. Because of the money, of course. Not because of being so close to him, inhaling the scent of his lemon and bergamot soap and noticing how full and long his eyelashes were. Men should pay extra taxes for having such beautiful lashes.

“There’s no catch.” His eyes searched mine. “I work, and you just need to stay near me.”

In such proximity and in the bright morning, his irises were like two mysterious, unexplored planets. One was nothing but a green jungle and the other a bottomless blue sea. I could get easily lost in both unfathomable places.

“Doctor Andrew Jones,” an unfamiliar voice with a British accent boomed next to us.

We straightened in our seats, and Andrew’s grin fell, a bleakness replacing his playful expression.

A middle-aged man with an arrogant face and a cynical twist to his smile stood at our table. He resembled someone who had recently pledged a college fraternity with his blond hair parted on one side and glued to his skull with an overabundance of gel.

“Richard,” Andrew said with so much disgust he might as well have thrown shit at this man.

“We don’t ever run into each other in Cambridge, and yet we meet in Colombia of all places. What are you doing here?” he said, leaning on William’s empty chair.

Andrew’s jaw ticked. “The usual: buying coffee beans at wholesale prices.”

Richard’s gray gaze fell on me, and his smile widened, exposing large and long canine teeth. “Are you going to introduce me to your companion?”

“Adriana Jones, meet Richard Head.” Andrew’s hand gently curled around my right wrist, covering the bracelet and enveloping my skin with warmth. I gave him a quick questioning look but didn’t pull away. Was he trying to hide the jewelry? Or was he grasping at anything just to keep himself from jumping at the man’s throat? I didn’t need to know these men or their history to understand that the tension between them was stretched wire thin.

I sized up the man standing by our table and rested my left hand on top of Andrew’s. “Did your mother dislike you, Richard? She would have to, to give you that name.”

Andrew chuckled quietly.

Richard’s eyebrows pulled together in confusion, but then his eyes dropped to my ring, and his eyebrows shut up.

“Andrew, you finally tied the knot. Holy shit. Brie will be delighted to hear that someone finally made an honest man out of you.”

I opened my mouth to correct the misunderstanding?—

Andrew’s fingers tightened around my wrist. “Too bad the same never could be said about you.”

Was he fake marrying me at this moment? What about his actual wife?

“Don’t tell me you’re on honeymoon?” Richard narrowed his eyes at Andrew. “And shame on you. You can afford a much bigger stone than that.”

“Congratulations, Richard,” Andrew bit off, “you have ruined our breakfast. You can leave now.”

“So much for a friendly hello. Does he treat all his old friends like this?” Richard turned his attention to me.

“No. Only dickheads.” I grinned and leaned my head on Andrew’s shoulder.

A human Barbie doll, only about five feet four, with dirty-snow-blond hair walked up to Richard and snaked her arm around his. She wore a tight white shirt and cream-colored satin pants. I sat up straighter. Dr. Jones wasn’t my man, but the way this blue-eyed doll gazed down at him, I instantly wanted to yank her high ponytail.

“Andy, so good to see you,” she said with a posh (you guessed it) British accent on a half-sigh, her mouth turning into a bright smile.

She was a happy-go-lucky ray of fucking sunshine, but Andrew’s face went ashen as if he had seen an image of his own death.

“What is Brie doing here?” he asked, a bitter edge to his voice.

I had so many questions now. Why did he go pale at the sight of this woman? Who is she? Why didn’t Andrew like this guy? And why was Andrew pretending to be married to me?

“I’m standing right here. You can ask me directly,” she said. “Spanish is one of the six languages I speak. I’m here to help.” She focused on me with a squint of annoyance. “Are you also working at Octavian Global? Is that how the two of you met?”

If I were going to play along pretending to be Charlotte, it was best to stick to the truth as much as I could. How many years would it have been since Andrew and I met and got married? I tried to calculate how old Lulu was. Six. Maybe seven years old.

“No. We met on vacation. Eight years ago,” I said.

She peered at Andrew, her face awash with confusion. “Is that true, Andy?”

Andrew stared at me with a perplexed expression and mouthed. “What?”

Perhaps I’d made a mistake in my calculations. Sweat started to build up under my knees. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

Andrew let out a heavy sigh. “Is there something you two need from us? We would like to get back to our breakfast.”

A sneer spread across dickhead’s face. “Come on, darling, the car is probably ready.”

“See you later, Andy,” Brie said, wiggling her fingers over her shoulder as they strode across the patio and disappeared through the open doors. Why did she keep calling him Andy? That sounded so personal, so touchy, so clingy. I didn’t like it.

The smile slipped off my face and I tugged my hand away at the same time Andrew relaxed his grip.

“Next time, let me do the talking,” he said, picking up a glass of water and taking several gulps.

My earlier warm protective feeling had twisted into irritation. “Next time, give me a briefing on our marriage.”

Andrew’s jaw muscles spasmed as he clenched his teeth. I waited for him to explain who those people were and what had crawled up his ass.

William sauntered onto the patio just then wearing a Cuban collared shirt peppered with pink cocktails and beach umbrellas and white shorts that matched his wide, bright smile. He waved to us.

“Cheer up, love, it might never happen,” William said with a bad English accent as he slipped on a chair across from Andrew. “Isn’t that what you chaps say in the UK to everyone who looks like… well, like you right now?”

When neither of us said anything, he leaned back in his seat, rubbing his chin. “What did I miss?”

“I got married,” I said.

“WTF? And I wasn’t invited? Who’s the lucky guy?”

I nodded to my right. “Apparently he is.”

“I approve.” William removed a decorative red flower from his mango juice and dropped it into his glass of water. When had his drink appeared? Was I so fixated on Andrew’s face I’d missed the server? “Now, tell me all the dirty wedding night deeds.”

Andrew rubbed his face and gave a tired groan. “I apologize about Richard.”

“Who is Richard?” William asked.

“Andrew’s rival stopped by,” I said, “and Andrew pretended we were married and politely told him and his… wife?”—I glanced at Andrew—“to go squat in a cactus patch.”

“Draaaama.” William smiled and expectedly gawked at Andrew for clarification. “Come on. Give up the good stuff. What happened?”

“Dr. Richard Head and I?—”

William burst out a loud laugh at the name, his head thrown back. I smiled and watched a ghost of a smile pass over Andrew’s face. William waved his hand. “I’m sorry, go on.”

“Richard and I worked together and then…” Andrew looked where Richard and Brie had disappeared inside the restaurant. “We had a disagreement, and our interests ran in opposite directions.”

“That isn’t the good stuff,” William said. “It’s a summary. What. Happened?”

“We met in Cambridge. Worked together. Now he’s a black-market antiques dealer who works for private collectors and always tries to beat me in getting to what shouldn’t be his in the first place.”

“And has he?” William asked.

Andrew’s teeth grazed his lower lip, his gaze remained pinned at the same spot. “Once.”

“So, he’s after Augustine’s treasure too?” I said.

“Yes.” Andrew glanced at me, his eyes full of apology. “I’m sorry I touched your wrist. I had hoped to hide the bracelet. Only a few people know about it.”

I brushed my thumb over the spot where Andrew’s heat penetrated my skin. “That’s fine. I knew that’s what you were doing.” Of course, I did. He had a wife; there wasn’t any reason for him to be so touchy. Unless he was a pig. And I had a strong feeling he wasn’t. “Why did you pretend to be married to me? You could have just said the truth.”

“I was going to, but you interrupted.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care what they think.” Really? What if someone told his petite, blond wife that they ran into Andrew, and he was with a tall, chestnut-haired, green-eyed wife? Sometimes, I truly didn’t understand men’s logic. “Not now I know Richard works for Nicolai Kolesnikov.”

“Kolesnikov?” My jaw hit the table. “ The Nicolai Kolesnikov? The second wealthiest oligarch in Russia?”

Working for Salzburg Distributing had allowed me to learn a lot about wealthy people around the world, since they often hunted for the best or rarest bottles of wine. Some utilized professionals like myself, and some traveled personally to auctions and exhibitions. On several occasions, I’d sat at the same table with people whose weekly spending equaled my yearly salary. Side note: my salary was great. Like six figures great. Damn it! It was dumb of me to quit my job.

The server returned with coffee for William. We placed our order, and she collected menus and left.

“And how do you know Richard works with Kolesnikov?” I asked.

“Two weeks ago, Nicolai approached me, wanting my help to lead his team for a new exploration. I turned him down. He must have turned to Richard.”

“Why did you turn him down?” William asked.

“Artifacts belong in a museum and not on some asshole’s private yacht.”

“Very Indiana Jones-y,” William marveled.

“If that’s how you feel, why are you okay with the chest going to the private collector?” I asked.

“I have to focus on saving the irreplaceable ones.” Andrew rubbed his eyebrow. “Since Richard is already here, there’s a slight change in our plans. We need to leave immediately.” He stood up. “Have your breakfast and let’s meet”—he glanced at his watch—“in thirty minutes in the lobby.”

“Oh, yes.” I turned to William. “Something else you missed. I’m staying with Andrew for a few more days. You don’t have to. You can go back to Costa Rica.”

I hated for William to miss his luxurious vacation, and I was sure he’d have fun without me. He was an expert at finding someone special anywhere he went.

“And miss all the fun?” William pointed his glass of juice at me. “Besides, you need me for security. I go where you go.”

Warmth spread in my chest, pulling my lips into a smile. William was always protective of me. When he was about to start university, he considered not going on my account. He didn’t want to leave me alone with my mother and her constant revolving door of men. But after a serious talk, he changed his mind. At fifteen, I knew how to take care of myself. I was the only girl in our twenty-trailers dreamland neighborhood, and the boys taught me many quick ways to bring someone down to the ground. When William finally moved out, there were only a few nights when I had to push my bed against my bedroom door as one extra layer of protection from my mother’s here-today-and-gone-tomorrow boyfriends.

“Andrew, you should eat breakfast,” I said. “A few minutes won’t change much.”

“You’d be surprised,” Andrew mumbled but returned to his seat.

“So.” William leaned back in his chair. “What did you find out last night about your pirate?”

“The next logical place to visit is at Iglesia San Antonio, the church where Jorge Pérez was a priest and is buried. For a ruthless pirate, when it came to his family and friends, Augustine was kind and loyal. As long as they were loyal to him, of course. Augustine’s right hand was his brother, Jorge, and some notes hint that Jorge temporarily stored Augustine’s treasure in his church. We don’t know when and for how long. It might be still there.”

I thought of every movie I’d seen where people had to break into the floors in old churches and crawl among skeletons. Shivers ran down my arms. I wouldn’t want to do that. It was creepy and disrespectful to the dead.

William’s phone dinged, and he fished it out of his pocket. Frowning, he pushed his chair out and got up. “It’s my clinic. I’ll need to call them back.”

“Don’t you think by now someone would have read their letters and notes, and found the treasure?” I said after William disappeared into the restaurant’s indoor dining room.

“It’s not that simple. Anything important, Augustine wrote in hieroglyphs. While you received the bracelet, I received an unfinished chart and a few other items which I might be able to use to partially decrypt any additional messages we come across.”

“Who are these Octavian Global people anyway? Have you met any of them?” I pressed my elbows on the table and cupped my chin, curiosity rising inside of me as if I was getting excited about this journey. I wasn’t, I told myself. I was simply making a conversation. Only the prospect of getting paid excited me.

Andrew leaned closer. His eyes sparkled with mischief. “If I tell you, I’d have to kill you.”

I shifted, making the space between our faces even shorter. “I’d like to see you try.”

A smile tugged at a corner of his lips, and his gaze did this slow sweep over my face, carefully lingering on my lips for several heart beats and finally returning to my eyes, but not before a pleasant feeling spread through me, making my toes tingle. I shouldn’t have, but I enjoyed that look.

I should stop. Starting now.

“OMG.” William returned to his spot, pulling us apart. My face was on fire as if I’d swallowed ghost pepper. I picked up the glass of cold water and pressed it against my cheek. “I just ran into the most gorgeous man with a sexy accent. Maybe Australian? We only had a brief chat, but he was so cute.” He twisted in his chair and glanced over his shoulder at the restaurant. “Shoot, I didn’t catch his name or where he was from.”

“You should go catch him,” I said.

“Nah, he was in a rush leaving. If it’s meant to be, we’ll run into each other.”

Everything I tried at breakfast was out of this world good. The sausage had unique spicy seasoning, sweet bread rolls melted in my mouth, and the small, orange, round berries were so remarkable I moaned when their tart, tangy flavor exploded in my mouth.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment. “What are these?”

“Physalis peruviana or golden berries,” Andrew said. “They’re native to Colombia.”

“From now on, this is my favorite fruit,” I said.

“Every fruit is your favorite,” William said. “Adriana spends most of her money on wine and fruit.”

“Don’t forget cheese and bread.” I pierced the last berry on my plate.

“How could I?” William chuckled. “The key to this woman’s heart is to shower her with superb wine, cheese, and fresh bread.”

“Noted.” Andrew pushed his chair out, dropping the napkin on the table. He’d only eaten an omelet and fruit, leaving his sweet dessert rolls untouched. “I’ll see you in the lobby in twenty minutes.”

“Wait,” I said, and he turned to face me, “I only brought clothes for two days. I need to go shopping.”

“We can find a store later. Right now, we need to keep moving.”