Page 62 of The Expat Affair

“No, Thomas.No.You do not get to turn this around. Who did you buy the necklace for? Whose bike did you hang it on?”

A mottled shadow darkens his face like a bruise. “Jesus, Willow, seriously? Youwerefollowing me. I can’t believe this. I can’t believeyou.”

I give an angry shake of my head. “Whose bike, Thomas?”

He steps to the sink and rummages through the drawer for the toothpaste, squirting a neat line of blue goo onto his brush. “No one’s. The necklace was a piece of junk. I don’t know who the bike belonged to. I chose it at random.”

“You chose a random person to give a cheap necklace?”

“I figured somebody would want it. It would be a shame to just throw it away.”

The frugality is so very Dutch. Thomas has all the money in the world and yet he can’t bear wasting a single penny.

“That makes no sense! Why buy a necklace and hang it on a rusty bike?” Frustration rises in my chest, spilling over intomy voice. “If there’s someone else, Thomas, if you’ve... changed your mind about me—about us—just say it. Because I’m not one of those women who tries harder when there’s a challenge. I’m not attracted to someone who’s not attracted to me.”

Especially when I’m pretty sure you never loved me the way a man is supposed to love his wife. These are the words I can’t quite force over my lips, no matter how much I need to know the answer.

It’s a question I should have asked ages ago, back when his workdays first started to extend into the evenings, back when this chasm between us was still barely a crack. Before I let the hurt pile up and up and up, so high I can no longer see a way to glue us back together. Long before I decided to find solutions in a man like Xander.

But what the hell do I know about marriage? About love? What do I know about commitment? My father took off before I was born. My mother was too focused on the parade of worthless men to pay a lick of attention to me, her only child. Sixteen is an awfully early age to learn that you’re barely a side note in your own parent’s life, but this is the legacy of my upbringing, that I crave stability. When Thomas dropped to his knee, offering a life as a Prins and all that entails, I grabbed on with both hands—not just for me, but for Sem.

But it was my mother, with her fickle nature and endless supply of men waiting in the wings, who taught me to always have a backup plan.

Thomas flips on the water, holding his toothbrush under the stream. “No, Willow. There’s no one else. I already told you. And I haven’t changed my mind.”

“I saw you, Thomas. Coming out of the Conservatorium.”

He pauses, barely a split second, but long enough that I see it. “When? Which day? Because I’m working on a line of lab-growns exclusive to the boutique there. I’m in that building once a week, sometimes more.”

“Tuesday. The day you were supposed to be in Antwerp for the conference.”

“Iwasin Antwerp. I took the helicopter.” He shoves the toothbrush in his mouth, speaking around the bristles. “Should I have my assistant forward the receipt?”

Yes.I sigh. Fold my arms across my chest. “And the necklace?”

“The necklace.” He does a lightning-quick brush of his teeth then spits into the sink, rinsing his toothbrush and chucking it in the drawer with a huff. “The PI told me that store was a front. He said they have a back room where they deal in black market diamonds. I went there to... I don’t know, take a look around.”

It takes me a couple of seconds to switch gears and then a few more to rearrange the puzzle pieces in my head. The PI, the private investigator Thomas hired after the Cullinan theft, when the police had hit their last dead end. All those leads that led to nowhere, no closer to finding the Cullinans after months of investigation than they were when they vanished into thin air. The cops volleyed the case back to the insurance company, where it’s stalled out yet again.

The insurance company is already being difficult enough, Willem said at last Sunday’s supper.He was talking about Xander’s death, insisting Thomas make sure it not get tied up in the theft.The last thing we need is another reason for them to delay the payout.Those Cullinans were insured for hundreds of millions of euros, money the family still hasn’t seen.

“You thought Rive Gauche would sell you a Cullinan?” I say.

“I thought they’d sell mesomething, but the saleswoman either didn’t know about the back room or she was playing me. When I said I was willing to pay for a piece with real stones, she gave me the address for a store down the street. A legit store. I know the owner.”

“Maybe the saleswoman recognized you.”

It’s certainly possible. Asscher, Coster, Gassan, Prins. These are the names that dominate the diamond market here, and Thomas’s picture is plastered at least once a week on a newspaper, a website, a social media post. Especially if it’s true that Rive Gauche is selling stolen diamonds in back rooms, that saleswoman would have clocked Thomas as a Prins the second he walked through the door.

“I thought of that, too. But I’m not the only one who tried. Everybody I’ve sent over there has struck out, too.”

“So the PI was wrong?”

“Sure looks like it. Anyway, can we talk about this tomorrow? I have a meeting at the factory at nine.”

A short six hours and some change from now.

Thomas disappears down the hall, back through the closet and into the bedroom. I flick off the lights and follow behind.

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