His Black Pearl (2 page)

“Bene, bella, bene. Now drop in potion and
watch. This magic. Real magic. And it going to fix you like nothing
have before.”

Despite myself, I half-believed what the old
man was telling me. I dropped the rock, and it thunked against the
ceramic mortar with a splash. We both laughed. He dusted a light
sprinkle of silver powder over top before dousing the whole
concoction with a heavy stream of red wine. I prayed he wouldn’t
ask me to take a sip. God only knows what all he put in there. But
no, after a few turns of his pestle, he sank his fingers into the
mixture and pulled out something dark and glistening.

A pearl.

It was a giant black pearl.

Neither of us spoke. I wasn’t sure if I
should applaud or pull out my wallet. The pearl was nearly the size
of a golf ball, and it was just so beautiful. I’d never been very
interested in jewelry, but for some reason this prize sparked a
need I’d never felt before. I wanted it to be mine. No, it had to
be mine.

I grabbed my debit card. “Look, I know it’s
probably expensive, but—”

“No, no price.” The shopkeeper shook his head
over and over again before he looked up at me with wide eyes.
“Wishing stone always right. It know what make you happy. And
this…this make you happy, si?”

“Yes.” I nodded. “I mean si. Si, it makes me
very happy.”

He chuckled once before his lips curled into
a soft smile. “Then that all that matter.”

He cleaned the pearl with a wet handkerchief
before he pulled open a drawer in the bottom of his counter and
removed a thick leather strap. The tiny belt was beautifully
crafted. Elaborate scrollwork was etched into every inch of its
tanned hide. I just couldn’t understand why he’d need such a thing
until I saw him affixing my pearl to the large silver hoop hanging
from its center.

“Here.” He held the belt—no, the choker—up to
me, and I lifted my hair as he strapped it around my neck.

It felt perfect.

“Take look, bella.” He led me to a mirror in
the corner of the room. “You like?”

The black pearl filled the space between my
collar bones divinely, and the darkly stained leather hugged my
throat just as naturally as my own skin. It was perfect. Oh, God,
it was absolutely perfect. I never wanted to take it off. Just
thinking about loosing it sent a chill through my heart, and once
more I pressed my wallet into the old shopkeeper’s hands.

“Please,” I said. “I know it has to cost a
fortune, but I really want—”

“No.” He pushed my money away. “No cost. Just
wait, bella. Pietro still have more surprise.”

He patted my cheek before he disappeared
through a door in the back of the room. Was this for real? Was this
man, this stranger, actually going to give me such a gorgeous
necklace just because he wanted me to be happy?

I couldn’t understand it.

I heard the shopkeeper tinkering around in
the back of the store, but I hardly noticed anything besides the
flawless beauty hanging from my neck. How could anyone ever part
with something so magnificent? The thought of him giving it up
still baffled me, but I wasn’t about to question my luck any
longer. This necklace was mine. It became mine at 5:42 pm, and it
would stay mine until—

Wait a minute. 5:42 pm?

My heart hammered.

I was supposed to meet Erica at Leonardo’s
Self-Service Ristorante at 5:30, and I was late, so late. What if
she got worried and called Daddy? We’d promised both our parents
that we’d stay together on this trip. God only knows how much he’d
freak out if he found out I was on my own.

I couldn’t wait to thank the old shopkeeper
for his gift. I had to go. Now.

With my purse thrown over one shoulder and my
necklace clasped tightly around my neck, I shouted out a single
goodbye before racing through the door. I thought I heard him call
after me, but I didn’t have time to turn back. I was in trouble,
more trouble than I’d ever been in before, and I couldn’t waste
time with even a single arrivederci.

Chapter Two

Erica wasn’t at the restaurant when I
arrived, and from what I could tell, she never had been, so I
ordered a plate of pesto lasagna, settled down in a booth by the
window, and waited for her to show up.

By 7:30, I finally figured out she wasn’t
coming.

In all my life, I don’t think I’d ever wished
for a cell phone more than I did right then, but of course my
little pay-as-you-go plan didn’t have international coverage. No,
Erica had the phone with all the options. If I could have just
remembered her number, I might have been able to call her from the
restaurant’s pay phone, but as always, I hadn’t thought ahead. I’d
just programmed her digits into my own phone—the one I’d left on my
bedside table back in Texas—and now my only option was to make the
long trek back to our hotel alone.

It was after 8:00 by the time I made it up to
the second floor lobby, and the lady at the front desk just waved
me through before I could ask for our key. Erica must have beaten
me home after all.

God only knew how much she must be freaking
out.

I paused at the door to our room and sent up
a quick prayer. Dear Lord, please don’t let my over-protective
cousin be on the phone with my parents. I really, really don’t want
to deal with a lecture right now, so please, just take a little
pity on me, okay?

With my final request made and my heart still
fluttering, I took one last deep breath and knocked. The door
opened almost instantly.

“Adair?” Erica pulled me inside before I
could even speak. “Oh, God, where have you been? I’ve been looking
for you everywhere. I—”

“Look, Erica, I am so, so sorry. I just found
this little shop, and I guess I lost track of time.”

“Lost track of time? You lost track of time?
Do you know how close I was to calling the cops? Christ, another
hour and I might have even called your parents.”

I sucked in a quick breath. “So you didn’t
call them yet?”

“What do you think?” She held up her silent
phone. “If your dad was on the other line, I’m sure the whole hotel
would be hearing him right now.”

I was so relieved to be in the all clear that
I couldn’t stop myself. I wrapped my arms around my cousin and
squealed “Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you!” over and over again
while I whirled her around the room.

She rolled her eyes when she finally shoved
me away, but at least she was smiling, too.

“You know, Adair, I think you’re the only
person I’ve ever met who’s more worried about disappointing daddy
than getting abducted by serial killers.” She shook her head. “If I
could—hey, where’d you get that?”

Her hands darted to my neck, and before I
could pull away, Erica’s fingers latched around the pearl still
hanging from my throat. After all the excitement over being late
for dinner, I’d half forgotten it was still there.

“Adair?” She looked up at me with wide, brown
eyes. “Is this…is it real?”

“No,” I said. “I mean, I don’t think so. It’s
just some little trinket this shopkeeper gave me. I asked if I
could pay for it, but he just said ‘no price.’”

“More like priceless.”

Silky black hair swayed across her shoulders
as she shook her head. Erica had always been a little princess, and
even after an all day shopping and sight-seeing binge, she still
looked like one. Heavy hoops hung from her ears, while a shawl of
gold necklaces blanketed her narrow neck.

She knew jewelry. If anyone could tell me the
value of this bauble, it was her. Only…I wasn’t quite sure I wanted
to know. I wanted this necklace to be mine. I wanted it more than
anything else in my life. But if it was valuable, how could I ever
justify accepting such a gift from a man I’d barely even met?

When she finally looked up at me, her eyes
were even wider than before.

“It’s real.” Her words were little more than
a breath. “The damn thing’s got to be real.”

“But…” I licked my lips. “But it’s not real
real, right? It’s not like it’s a diamond or anything valuable,
so—”

“Adair, it’s a black pearl. A real black
pearl. These things are rare. Even the little ones you can buy
online go for a fair price, but this…this… I don’t know what to
say. It’s priceless.”

And that’s when my legs buckled beneath
me.

What had I done? Oh, Lord, what was I going
to do? By accepting this one token, I’d as good as stolen more than
my father’s yearly salary. Probably a lot more than that. Erica
launched into some speech about how black pearls were formed.
Something about black lips and Tahitian clams, but I couldn’t
concentrate on what she was saying. All I could think about was how
selfish I’d been.

This necklace didn’t belong to me. It could
never belong to me. And now the only right thing to do was give it
back.

The thought alone nearly made me cry.

“I guess I’ll just go back in the morning and
return it.”

“Return it?” Erica said. “You already said
that guy just gave it to you. Why do you want to return it?”

“Because it’s not mine,” I said. “There had
to be some misunderstanding. No one would give away something like
this. No one sane, anyway.”

“If it was me, I’d keep it.”

“Erica…”

“What?” she said. “He gave it to you fair and
square. If anyone says anything—which they won’t—all you have to
say is you thought it was a gift. You speak English. He speaks
Italian. How were you to know this was some priceless family
heirloom he just let you try on?”

My stomach churned.

All night long Erica tried to convince me to
keep the necklace, but I wouldn’t budge. I knew what I had to do,
and no amount of temptation was going to sway me from taking the
right course.

I just wished the damned thing didn’t have to
be so beautiful.

“Well, if you really are going to take it
back,” Erica finally said, “can’t you at least wait a few days? You
know I’ve got my Sorrento tour tomorrow, and I really, really want
to be here when you go back to that shop. Please?”

Half of me wanted to cave in, but I couldn’t.
Erica was set to leave on a three-day tour of Southern Italy early
the next morning, and I couldn’t wait until she got back. I
probably should have listened to her advice. After all, it was bad
enough we were splitting up for half a week—a fact neither of us
told our parents—but to go to an otherwise empty shop with only an
old man I hardly even knew for company, well, that was just asking
for trouble.

Still, if I didn’t return this necklace soon,
I knew I never would.

I didn’t remove my choker when I went to bed
that night. Wrapped tightly in the sheets, I cupped my pearl in
both hands and prayed that God would give me the strength to give
this little beauty back in the morning.

In a fit of selfishness, I also prayed that I
wouldn’t have to.

But whatever the outcome, I knew I’d do the
right thing. If the shopkeeper wanted it back, then it was his. If
not…

Well, it couldn’t hurt to dream. Could
it?

Chapter Three

The next morning, Erica was gone before I
awoke.

I’d heard her fumbling around to get dressed,
but with a 6 am departure, she’d been up way too early for me to
give her a proper send-off. After I opened my luggage though, I
cursed myself for not telling her goodbye.

Inside was a jumble of tank tops, shorts, and
mini skirts. Several necklaces and a pair of tweezers littered the
bottom.

God, Erica, couldn’t you have at least
checked the bags before taking my only suitcase with you?

I tried to tell myself it wasn’t her
fault—she was in a hurry—but still, that didn’t help me now. Erica
always liked to show a lot of skin, and while many might consider
these clothes questionable on my 5’2” cousin, they’d be down-right
indecent on me. I was at least five inches taller than Erica, and
though my waist could easily fit in her size 5 mini-skirt, the
hemline fell only a few inches below my ass. One miss-step and my
panties were there for the world to see.

Of course, I guess a flash of underwear was
better than the show up top. I ripped two of Erica’s tanks before I
finally found a lace camisole that could hold me, and even then I
had to take shallow breaths just to keep the stitches from popping.
Usually I tried to cover up my chest, but when every shirt at my
disposal was tailored for a B-cup, I had no choice but to settle on
squeezing my double D’s inside whatever top could accommodate
them.

Oh, Lord, Erica’s tight-fitting clothes might
as well have been little black bars for all they covered.

I couldn’t do anything about my bare midriff,
but at least Erica had left behind the dark red pashmina scarf
she’d bought two days ago. I draped it across my exposed cleavage
and prayed no one could tell I wasn’t wearing a bra.

Like it or not, I was definitely going
clothes shopping later today.

With a deep breath and the sole consolation
that at least no one here knew me, I left my room, dropped the key
off at the front desk, and jogged down the early morning streets of
Florence. The town was eerily quiet, but I still kept my fingers
tightly latched around the pearl at my throat.

What if I really had misunderstood that
shopkeeper? What if he thought I was a thief? What if he’d given my
description to the cops, and now every officer in Italy was on the
lookout for me?

Doubtful, but not completely impossible.

By the time I found the leather shop again,
the long run and the constant worrying had worn me out. I panted on
the front step for several minutes before I even tried to open the
door.

When I turned the handle, it was locked.

Oh, no.