Page 211 of To Catch a Sub

“No, I wasn’t hired for that.”

“How much would something like that be worth?” Nana asked.

“The Beggar Pearl would be hard to value, because the story surrounding it could make the bidding more intense, or could scare buyers away. If it were me, I’d value it at sixty million just to be safe.”

“What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever appraised?” Oliver passed out teacups.

Landon hadn’t yet sat, but was instead in the kitchen putting things into the fridge and gathering napkins. Colette watched him from the corner of her eye as she spoke.

“The Centenary diamond. Two-hundred and seventy-three carats, highest grade color, flawlessly cut by a team of experts in Johannesburg. They built a room underground specifically for this diamond, so it could be cut and shaped without fear of mechanical vibrations.”

Landon slowly looked up, then pulled his phone out of his pocket and typed.

“How much is it worth?” It was Nana who asked this time.

“A diamond like that, sometimes it’s hard to value, because they’re rarely sold. The Kohinoor Diamond, which is now set in the Queen Mother’s crown, technically has no price. Not price-less, but no price, because it’s not, and probably never will be, for sale. And it’s only 100 carats.” Colette smiled. “And it’s cursed.”

“Only women can wear it,” Oliver said immediately. “Any king or prince who wears it will be ruined.”

“Exactly.”

“We should go to London together,” Nana announced. “Go see the Crown Jewels again. Colette can tell us all the real things those little plaques don’t say.”

Colette nodded, but she was looking at Landon, who slowly raised his head. He turned his phone to face her. She had to squint, but recognized the picture on the screen.

The image was Gabi Tolkowsky—one of the most skilled diamond cutters of the modern age, great nephew of the man who perfected the round-cut diamond—holding up the Centenary diamond.

If Landon had found that picture, it meant he’d looked up the diamond. And if he looked up the diamond, he knew that its whereabouts were currently unknown. Not exactly missing, but…

DeBeers, who mined and cut the gem, had publicly stated that they no longer had the diamond, but refused to say who did have it. And no auction house had a record of its sale.

Landon shook his phone, eyes wide his expression best described as, are you fucking kidding me?!

“To answer your question.” Colette smiled at Oliver and Nana. “The Centenary diamond is probably five-hundred million euro.”

* * *

Landon’s father sat back, blinking, as if he had trouble imagining anything could be worth that much money.

Landon passed the napkins before resuming his seat beside her. Once more he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

“Colette, do you have a half-billion dollar diamond?”

She kept smiling at his father and grandmother as she whispered her reply.

“With me at the moment? No.”

“If you stole that diamond, I’m going to put you over my knee and spank you so hard you won’t sit for a week.”

Colette swallowed a chuckle and turned so she could whisper into his ear. “What is the American expression? Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

Landon sat up abruptly. “Ah, Nana, you made nankhatai. Here, Colette, you’ll love it. They’re rosewater cookies.”

“Rosewater and cardamon,” Nana said. “And cucumber sandwiches.”

The conversation wandered around the topic of famous and expensive jewelry. When Nana asked how she got interested in it, Colette didn’t say that her guardian had used her as a mule for jewelry thefts when she was a child. That may have been where her exposure began, but her real interest came later.

“Jewelry is how paleoanthropologists determine whether archaic humans were capable of complex thought and relationships.”