Was this a setup? Had Naldo roped some friend of his into pretending to be a jeweler? Was he going to provide a false, low valuation so he could buy the gems back on the cheap?

Suspicious thoughts crept around her mind as she climbed the wide, deep steps of the house, her polka-dot skirt draping around her knees.

The man in the white suit ushered them into a cool, shady drawing room filled with Victorian antiques and offered them iced tea. Naldo refused, but Anna accepted a glass, then wished she hadn’t when more wary thoughts sneaked over her.

Is it poisoned? Drugged? Is this part of Naldo’s cunning plot to be rid of me once and for all?

The increasingly lunatic direction of her thoughts, and the fact that she was wearing what amounted to a fancy-dress costume, suddenly struck her as hilarious. She was struggling not to laugh out loud when a tall, slim, elderly man in a brown pinstripe suit walked into the room, leaning lightly on a cane.

“Mr. De Leon.” He shook Naldo’s hand. “Good to see you again.”

“This is Anna Marcus.” Naldo indicated Anna, who stepped forward to shake his hand.

“The future Mrs. De Leon?” The elderly man smiled.

“No.” Both Anna and Naldo spat the reply at once. Anna felt a flicker of irritation that he was so quick to dismiss the possibility. Then she was mad at herself for wishing he hadn’t.

“Oh. I beg your pardon. How may I help you?”

Naldo glanced at Anna’s lap, where she still held the box in a vise grip. “We’re seeking valuation for some family jewels. We would like to know the correct market price.”

“I see. Bring the gems to my desk, please.” He walked stiffly to a large, leather-topped table with several vintage-looking pieces of equipment on it.

Anna crossed the room, clutching the box. She laid it on the leather surface. She hovered, apprehensive, as he raised the lid.

A frown crossed his weathered face. “I’ve seen these pieces before.” He looked up at Anna, who felt her eyebrows shoot up. She heard Naldo shift in his chair, behind her. “The late Mr. De Leon brought them to me seeking appraisal some years ago.”

“For insurance?” Naldo frowned. “He never believed in it.”

“I don’t know the reason, but I gave him a detailed appraisal at that time. Let me get my notes.”

The man who’d opened the door brought a thick file, and the appraiser proceeded to read from a detailed report he’d prepared a few years earlier.

Anna’s jaw was in her lap by the time he’d finished going over the pieces one by one-lamenting the careless storage and admonishing Naldo, who he assumed to be the owner, for tossing them in a crude box. Three of the pieces were over three hundred years old. One necklace contained a famous diamond known as the Star of the Sea, once owned by an Indian maharaja and brought to the States by one of Naldo’s merchant ancestors. The Victorian pieces the other jeweler had scoffed at were the work of an idiosyncratic but respected American designer whose work now fetched a premium at auction.

When all was said and done, the combined value of the twelve pieces in the box was “priceless.” A “fair market value” was determined to be somewhere between two and three million dollars, with unlimited upside potential at auction, depending on the bidders.

“Why weren’t they mentioned in the will?” breathed Anna, as she stumbled down the front steps. Naldo was carrying the box. She didn’t feel worthy to even touch it any more. He was right, they were his family treasures.

“Perhaps he didn’t intend for her to keep them.” Naldo’s expression was stony as he opened her car door.

She buckled in, unease trickling through her, as she waited for him to walk around to his side and climb in.

“So if he just gave them to her, and there’s no paper trail…” She tried to make sense of it.

“The gift wouldn’t be legal. Taxes must be paid on a gift of this size.”

“Oh.” Her mother hadn’t paid any taxes on a gift like this. She’d done her mom’s tax returns for the last ten years.

The gems weren’t hers. She wondered if she should feel upset, but she didn’t. She’d never had any real right to them.

Naldo had placed the box in the trunk of the car.

He’d repossessed it. And she didn’t have the energy to protest.

“I’ll have to do some digging around. Find out who they really belong to.”

She relaxed a little as he started the engine. As he reversed out of the parking space, he shot a hot, dark glance in her direction.

After they’d driven a couple of blocks, he looked at her again and his eyes skimmed lower, to the plunging neckline of her bold dress, to the cinched-in hourglass of her waist.

Taking possession. He did that well. Already her body responded with a shivery flush of warmth that spread over her skin and deep inside her.

Damn him.

She fixed her eyes on the windshield, only to gasp when he swung the car to the side of the road, threw it into Park and captured her lips in a warm, wet kiss.

Her mind fought back for a split second, but her body capitulated instantly as the stirring male scent of his warm skin crept over her, and his penetrating and forceful kiss plundered her mouth and stole her senses.

She writhed against the pleasurable pressure of the harness seat belt, her nipples humming with arousal. She wriggled in her seat, arching and straining as his big, broad hands roved over the front of her dress, cupping her breasts and stroking her belly.

He lifted the skirt of her dress with one swift movement of his hand, baring her thighs. With her legs splayed against the seat, parted by his hand, she felt wanton, desirable and ready for anything.

Naldo unfastened her seat belt and helped her ease her arms out of it. He hiked her dress up over her waist and dove into her panties, tugging them down as his eager tongue reached for her swollen sex.

As his broad back filled the distance from his seat to hers, she lifted her hips and gave herself to him, mentally begging him to lick and suck her all the way to heaven.

Then she remembered the jewels.

And how Naldo had used sex to get what he wanted.

“Stop!”

If he heard, he showed no sign of it. His tongue slaked her inner thigh, hot and wet, as his fingers roved between the buttons on the front of her dress to press her eager nipples.

She wriggled under the pressure of his lips and fingers, wanting to give herself over to the sensual pleasure of his touch.

He’s doing this to distract you. To use you somehow.

“Naldo!”

“What?” His throaty moan was half buried in her thighs.

“Stop this right now! I know what you’re up to.”

“Driving you…” He broke off, losing his mouth in her chest.

“You’re not driving.” Her words came out kind of squeaky and breathless as he nipped at her nipples though the polka-dot fabric.

“Wild with desire,” he murmured, trailing his face over her breasts.

Well, yes, that and-“Getting my mind off the jewels.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He nibbled at her neck, sending delicious shivers of arousal over her skin.

“Stop, I mean it.”

Something in her voice caught his attention because he did stop. He looked up at her, his big dark eyes shining with desire. He levered himself off her and pulled back, brows lowering.

“I want to get out.”

“We’re in St. George.”

“I know the town. I had a job here during the summer in high school. I’ll get a cab back.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll drive you.”

“Drive me home, or drive me wild with desire?”

A wicked gleam shone in his dark eyes. “Both, if you like.”

“I’d rather take a cab. You can take the jewels, they’re probably yours anyway, but I don’t want any more of your kisses.”

“Why not?”

His simple question made her pause.

Because you’re stealing my heart.

“Because there’s no future between us and I don’t need to be used right now. I just got divorced and I’m feeling fragile and-”

And you’re Naldo De Leon, the one man I’ve always wanted, but knew I could never have.

“Relax. I’m not trying to cheat you. I’ll make sure you’re fairly compensated.”

There he was again, offering her money.

Nothing but money.

He had no intention of giving her anything of himself. Ever.

“If you have fifty dollars,” she said shakily, “I’d like to take a cab.”

He looked at her for a moment like she’d lost her mind, then leaned his head back on the head rest, his hard jaw jutting out. The thick bulge in his pants caught her attention before she yanked her gaze away.

He reached into his back pocket and tugged out his money clip. He peeled off four fifty-dollar bills.

“I’ll never take you anywhere you don’t want to go.”

“Just one will do.” Her face was hot with the humiliation of having to ask him for cash. She lifted one bill from his hand, and he let go of all four so the other three fluttered to his knees. One fell on the floor.

Anna pulled on the door handle and maneuvered her way out of the car, tugging down her skirt. The bright afternoon sunlight stung her dilated pupils. “Thanks,” she rasped, clutching the crisp banknote. “I’ll pay you back.”

Naldo emitted a low growl, which was silenced by her car door as it closed with an expensive-sounding click.

She set off down the sidewalk, feeling Naldo’s eyes on her as she flounced away in her polka dots, his fifty-dollar bill crumpled into her hand.

Maybe her mother couldn’t resist the De Leon charm and had settled for being a kind of secret mistress, but she sure wouldn’t make the same mistake.

The morning shadows shrank as the sun rose high on yet another day in the cottage. Anna had stopped packing completely. The stuff didn’t want to be packed. She didn’t have anywhere pressing to go. What was the rush? She’d taken a couple of pieces of her mom’s modest china collection to the jeweler/pawn shop owner in town and raised enough to live on for a few days.