Donovans 03 - Pearl Cove

her like a nervous gazelle, she lifted out the expensive choker and looked around for a neutral surface to put the necklace on. The best she could do was a cream-colored satin tray she found on Paul’s desk. Instead of leaving the pearls in a neat circle as they had been in the window, she made the necklace into two roughly parallel lines. Pearls that had been separated by the width of a woman’s neck now lay side by side.
    Saying nothing, Archer bent over Hannah’s shoulder. The expression on his face was that of a proud parent watching a beloved child perform. His hand on her butt wasn’t that of a parent. Absently he caressed one sleek, firm cheek.
    “Like it, buttercup?” she muttered.
    “Prime. Really prime.” He squeezed gently, deeply, before he released her.
    When she turned and looked over her shoulder at his eyes, there was laughter and something much hotter in them. Slowly she licked her lips and made a soft, growling-purring kind of sound. Before he could recover, she bent back over the pearls. With a casual, deliberate movement, she slid her butt firmly over his thighs. It was caress, promise, and warning in one: two could play the intimate-couple game.
    Archer laughed softly and wished he had nothing more on his mind but the feel of her taut cheeks nuzzling up close to his crotch.
    “See this one?” Hannah said. “It doesn’t look so hot with this one.”
    “Note the position of the clasp, madame,” Paul said quickly. “When on your neck, the pearls would not be next to each other.”
    Disdainfully she lifted her elegantly outlined eyebrows. “So the deal is, a matched necklace means the pearls only have to match the ones touching them? Is that what the diamond spacers are for—distraction from a so-so color match?”
    Paul’s teeth came together with a muted click. The bitch might have the class of a hooker, but she did have an exceptionally keen eye for color. The pearls were separated by the width of a necklace because they weren’t a truly fine match. Ninety-nine people out of a hundred wouldn’t have noticed that the match wasn’t excellent across the whole strand. Unfortunately, this woman wasn’t one of the ninety-nine.
    “Pearls are as individual as people,” Paul managed. “Just as no two people are exactly alike, no two pearls are exactly alike.”
    “Uh-huh,” she said. “But I’m not asking about a matched-people necklace.”
    Archer snickered.
    “I’m talking pearls here,” she continued, ignoring him and focusing on Paul. “Is this the best color match you have?”
    “The silvery blue semibaroque necklace—” he began.
    “No,” she cut in impatiently. “I told you, I want big, round black pearls with lots of color. So is this the best big, round black pearl necklace you have?”
    “Black pearls are the most difficult to match. The differences in orient are very great, much more so than is the case with white pearls.”
    “Uh-huh. So this is the best you have.” She looked at Archer and jerked her head toward the exit. “C’mon, darling. We’ll just have to tell the Rothenbergs that they were wrong about this shop being the best of the best. It ain’t.”
    “However, we just happen to have an unstrung, triple strand necklace of large, round black pearls,” Paul said quickly. “They are exceptionally colorful, and exceptionally well matched.”
    She froze as the words echoed in her mind. Black. Unstrung. Triple strand. Large. Round. Exceptionally colorful.
    The Black Trinity.
    “Yeah?” Archer said, drawing Paul’s attention away from Hannah. “Where are they?”
    “In the vault.”
    She clicked back into her role. “Well, what are they doing in there? You’ll never sell them that way. God, don’t the French know anything but food and rags?”
    “Excuse me,” Paul said, tight lipped. “I will need assistance.”
    He stalked off to a back room.
    Lazily Archer pulled Hannah close, nuzzled against her neck, and asked very softly, “What bothered you about that other necklace?”
    The hidden, leisurely caress of his tongue against her skin sent heat scattering over her. “They looked like Pearl Cove goods.”
    “What do you mean? They certainly weren’t bows.”
    “I can’t remember every pearl I’ve ever sorted, but I do remember the difficult or special ones. I’d swear I’ve sorted pearls in just that combination of pink-orange orient and deep black background, with the faintest of parallel lines in the surface. They were a