Her fingers convulsed, crumpling the paper, and she threw it back on the counter. Tears of helplessness burned as she stared at the inventory list, taking time to smooth it flat so Opal wouldn't guess how bad things really were.
Her cousin had stepped in to help when Sapphire had been ordered by the medicos to have time off, leaving behind her precious mine to become general dogsbody around here.
She couldn't have kept the place going without Opal's help and had planned on giving her a generous gift—a matching opal ring and bracelet— when her stint finished.
The way things were going, she wouldn't be able to afford the setting, let alone the rare black opals she had in mind.
Her gut twisted as she slid open the top drawer behind the counter and extracted an envelope. She weighed it in her hand, tapping it against her palm, as reluctant to open it now as she had been earlier this afternoon when it had been delivered.
She didn't want to spoil the launch; that had been her excuse then. So what was her excuse now?
Out of options, she slid her finger beneath the flap and ripped, wishing she could tear up the contents before she read it. But disposing of it wouldn't change facts:Seabornwas mortgaged to the hilt and needed a cash injection fast.
The bank's letterhead taunted her as she glanced at the document, the exorbitant figures swimming before her eyes.
She didn't blame Sapphire for mortgaging the title on the showroom and her apartment to pay for their mother’s exorbitant medical bills. She would've done the same if she'd known the truth, anything to buy them time and a chance at saving the business.
Now, with creditors demanding repayments, they were in danger of losing the one thing Sapphire had promised their mother they would save.
Ruby couldn't let it happen. She wouldn't.
There had to be something she could do.
With a heavy heart, she trudged into her workroom tucked away in the far right corner. She couldn't create, not in this bleak mood, but she had sorting to do.
Best she keep busy. She wouldn't sleep tonight anyway.
Chapter 7
Jax opened the door to his apartment, slid his phone out of his pocket, scrolled until he found a techno playlist, and hit play.
He reeled back from a blast of bass. Good. He needed loud. Louder the better to drown out his thoughts.
The noise filled the apartment as he walked along a marble-tiled hallway, the decibels hitting eardrum-shattering levels in the open living room. The beat pounded through him. Hard. Harsh. Hedonistic. Yeah, he needed this, needed to obliterate the tension of the last few hours.
He flung his suit jacket onto the couch, stalked across to the bar, poured himself a double-shot whiskey, and drank it like a shot.
The deafening riffs spilling from a state-of-the-art surround sound system matched his mood. Raucous. Discordant. Abrasive.
He slammed the glass down, the blaring noise a perfect match for his inner darkness. He would've rather flung the glass at the nearest wall and watch it shatter with ascrew you, you stuck up snobs.
Being professionally snubbed by his fellow corporate mining giants tonight had seriously rankled.
Personally, he didn't care what the high society his father had ripped off thought about him, but he needed them to expand his business, and that meant attending functions like tonight.
A major pain in the ass.
He needed to re-enter their business circles, needed to convince them he was nothing like his morally corrupt father. Schmoozing the upper echelon of corporate Melbourne would be a necessary evil for what he had planned with Maroney Mine expanding beyond the west coast.
But the way they'd looked at him earlier, as if he was the worse kind of scum… Damn, how could he score business meetings with a hostile crowd who wouldn't even acknowledge him?
He braced himself against the window sill, oblivious to the million-dollar view of Melbourne many storeys below, tension bunching his shoulders.
He deliberately played techno-punk-grunge when he was this wound up. No lyrics. All noise. Music far removed from his parents' favourites, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi.
Great, just what he didn't need after the evening he had, thinking about his folks. He'd been doing a lot of it lately with Denver's appeal looming and the constant media harassment begging him for any snippets he could provide.
While he told them to shove it—in more polite terms, of course—he half expected his mother to show up to vouch for the old crook.
