Page 15 of The Expat Affair

The online gossips are right about another thing. The necklace is not a good look for her. Especially now that Xander’s dead and there are reports of diamonds missing—not from the police, at least not that I’ve seen, but that doesn’t stop the trolls from shouting fully formed opinions of guilt in the comment sections, ticking up likes and views on every social media platform. #americandiamondthief #theexpataffair #blooddiamonds. Everywhere I look, Rayna is trending.

My phone buzzes on the table, an incoming text from Thomas.

Dreadful news. Don’t wait up.

I follow the link to a news site, a brief report that tells me absolutely nothing new. Xander is dead. Diamonds are missing. An American expat is involved. The story is developing.

I fire off a reply that’s filled with platitudes.I’m so sorry. Here for you however you need.

But I don’t ask if he’s seen the picture of Rayna in that necklace. If he hasn’t, he will soon enough.

I cringe when I think of what his sister, Fleur, will say, their father, Willem. Neither is completely on board with the lab-grown line—or rather, they’re on board, but only if the line rakes in the projected profits, which so far it hasn’t done. Thomas is the one who championed the new line. He’s the one who swore it would save the House. He’s been working his ass off for more than a year now, but he hasn’t quite managed to deliver.

One of Willem and Fleur’s stipulations from the very beginning, though, was that the lab-grown pieces have a drastically different look and style, so there’s no crossover with the natural diamond line. No one wants to drop a hundred thousand on a piece of jewelry featuring mined stones only to learn that there’s a lab-grown equivalent for one-tenth of the price. That necklace hanging on Rayna’s neck, the lab-grown twin to the House’s most famous design? Willem and Fleur will see it for what it is: a giant middle finger from Xander.

What the hell was he thinking? Not just that he let Rayna upload that picture to Instagram but that he made the necklace in the first place, that he had it just... lying around his apartment. It was a foolish, cocky move—which now that I think about it, was exactly Xander’s problem. He was always too damn cocky.

For Rayna, though, that necklace is a real problem. That picture of her is still gaining speed on social media, still chugging closer and closer to the wrong screen. If the killer has that necklace, he’llsee her as a witness. If he doesn’t, he’ll see her as a target. Neither scenario is good news for Rayna.

A travel writer, according to a link I find buried in the comment section. I follow the link to her website, a landing page filled with pictures, links to articles she’s written (only a couple dozen at most), invitations to connect on her socials (which she’s since set to private), but it’s too late. Whether she meant to be or not, Rayna is alreadyOut There, a bell that can’t be unrung.

My iPad buzzes with an incoming text, and I flip from the news app to the message string. The unread text at the top is from a Dutch cell, a string of numbers my phone doesn’t recognize. I tap the message with a finger.

Where are the diamonds? You promised.

My head whips up, and I look around the empty kitchen, half expecting the sender to be standing on the other side of the steel and glass windows. But except for the swaying trees, the backyard is empty.

I don’t think too long or hard about it. I tick out a reply.

Who is this?

The dots bounce around almost immediately. Two seconds later, a reply hits my phone.

Don’t fuck with me, Willow. I can bury you. And if you don’t bring the diamonds to me, I will.

A tingling spreads through my body, visceral and intense, not just at the threat, but at the fact it was sent to this number. To this device—an iPad stuffed with Sem’s games and that everyone in thehouse knows the passcode to. Ditto for my phone, and as the two devices are synced, I’m guessing the messages landed there, too. This is why people have burner phones, to intercept messages like these.

I think about my next move. Play dumb? Delete the text string, block the number, wipe both from my memory banks? Then again, what will that accomplish? And while we’re at it,whichdiamonds? The ones dangling from my neck and ears? The ones upstairs in the vault? He’s already got plenty of diamonds, and now he wants more? After Xander, I know what he’ll do to me if I don’t deliver.

The front door swings open, ushering in Martina on a gust of frigid wind. I flip the iPad cover closed and try to adopt the pose of someone who isn’t losing her shit, someone who doesn’t have tension rolling off her like an electrical field, but my muscles are steel under my skin. I stare at a couple of pigeons huddled on a branch outside the kitchen window and force myself to breathe.

Martina bustles down the hallway, a commotion of squeaky shoes and crinkling shopping bags. “I picked up a lovely piece of halibut for dinner. I hope that’s okay.”

I twist around in my chair. “Halibut sounds delicious. Thank you.”

“I thought I’d make that Jamie Oliver recipe that—” She stops at the island, her gaze sticking to my face. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

I wave a hand in the general direction of my iPad and sigh. “I was reading the news about Xander. It’s just so awful. I can’t stop picturing him.”

She heaves the bags on the marble with a commiserating sigh. “I talked to some of the neighbors earlier, and everybody’s spooked. Let’s just hope the police do their job and find the person who did this. We’ll all feel better when that monster is behind bars.”

“I know I will.” I push up from the chair and do my best to shake it off—a problem to deal with later, when I’m alone. “Here, let me help you unpack the groceries.”

November 17th, 10:27 p.m.

“Madame.”

I stare up at Xander standing in the open passenger’s door, and he really is handsome. Backlit from above, the overhead lights hitting his thick hair, broad grin, sparkling brown eyes fringed with impossibly long lashes. He wriggles the fingers on the outstretched arm like he’s an actual gentleman, when we both know he’s anything but.

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