The Reef

have anything to say I want to hear. You can consider it a job well done, Tate.” The heat had died from both his eyes and his voice. They were viciously cold again. “You paid me all the way back.”
    “I know what it’s like to hate you. I can’t bear knowing you’d hate me now.” She would have thrown herself at him when he turned for the door. It wasn’t pride that stopped her, but fear that even begging wouldn’t sway him. “I love you, Matthew.”
    It stopped him, sliced at him. “That’s a trick that would have worked even a couple of hours ago. Check your timing, Red.”
    “I don’t expect you to believe me. I just needed to say it. I don’t know what’s right.” She squeezed her eyes shut so that she didn’t have to see his hard, unyielding face. “I thought this was. I was scared.” Fighting for courage, she opened her eyes again. “I was wrong. Before you walk away, before you send me away a second time, there’s something I need to give you.”
    “You don’t have anything I want anymore.”
    “Yes, I do.” She took a quick, shuddering breath. “I have the amulet. If you come with me to my cabin, I’ll give it to you.”
    He turned slowly, completely around “What kind of bullshit is this?”
    “I have Angelique’s Curse in my cabin.” She let out a thin, watery laugh. “It seems to be working.”
    He lunged forward, grabbed her arm. “Show me.”
    She didn’t whimper this time, or complain though his fingers dug painfully into her flesh. Beyond tears now, sheled the way into her cabin. Once inside, she opened the drawer and took out the amulet.
    “I found it this afternoon, shortly after we dug out the monogrammed plate. It was just there, all of a sudden, lying on the sand. I didn’t clean it,” she murmured, rubbing a thumb over the center stone. “There was no calcification, no encrustation. It might have been lying on velvet in a display case. That’s funny, isn’t it? When I picked it up I thought I could feel . . . well, I don’t suppose you’re very interested just now in the tricks a mind can play.”
    She lifted her head, held out her hands with the necklace dripping from them. “You’ve got what you wanted.”
    He took it. Glittering, gleaming, it was as stunning as he’d ever imagined. It was warm, almost hot, he thought. But perhaps his hands were chilled. Of course that didn’t explain the sudden clenching in his gut, or the odd image of leaping flames that jumped into his head.
    Nerves, he told himself. A man was entitled to be nervous when he’d found the treasure of his lifetime.
    “My father died for this.” He didn’t hear himself say it, wasn’t even conscious that he’d thought it.
    “I know. I’m afraid you will, too.”
    Distracted, he glanced up. Had she said something? It had sounded more like weeping than words. “You weren’t going to tell me you’d found it.”
    “No, I wasn’t.” She would face his fury now, his hate, even his disgust. But in doing so, she would make him listen. “I don’t really know what made me keep it from you when we were down, I just felt compelled to.”
    On unsteady legs, she crossed to her dresser, picked up a bottle of water to slake her burning throat. “I started to signal you, then I didn’t. Couldn’t. I hid it in my pouch, and brought it in here. I needed to think.”
    “To figure out how much VanDyke would pay you for it?”
    The fresh barb dug deep. Tate set the bottle down again, turned back. Her eyes were eloquent with sorrow. “However much I’ve disappointed you, Matthew, you have to know better than that.”
    “I know you have ambitions. Ambitions VanDyke could turn into fact.”
    “Yes, I’m sure that’s true. And I admit, for a few minutes sitting in here alone with that, I indulged in speculating just what having that amulet could do for me.” She wheeled away to stand at the small window. “Do I have to be flawless to be acceptable to you, Matthew? I’m not allowed to have any selfish needs.”
    “You’re sure as hell not allowed to double-cross your family, and your partners.”
    “You really are a fool if you think I could. But you’re right about one thing, I was trying desperately to contact VanDyke, to tell him I’d found it. I’d hoped I could arrange to meet him somewhere and give it to him.”
    “Do you sleep with him?”
    The question was so absurd, so unexpected, she nearly laughed. “I haven’t laid eyes on Silas VanDyke in eight years. I