Page 6 of The Next Mrs. Parrish

“Who can I say is calling?”

Amber closed her eyes and inhaled. “Mrs. Amber Parrish.”

“Hold on.” The flat New York accent had an impatient edge.

She watched the traffic light change while she held, and when finally a deep voice said hello, it startled her. “Mr. Stones?”

“Yes.”

“This is Amber Parrish. Stefan Becker gave me your name and number. He said you might be able to help me.”

“Mr. Becker contacted me. If you’d like to discuss the items you have, come to my office.”

Amber hesitated. She didn’t know jack shit about this guy. “Well, what I’m wondering is if you can give me an appraisal and then sell some—”

“Mrs. Parrish,” he interrupted her. “Any business you wish to conduct must be done in person. Do you understand?”

Amber was the last one to let impropriety stand in the way of what she wanted, but this seemed a little dangerous. “I understand. How soon can we meet?”

“Right away if you’d like. My office is just two buildings from Mr. Becker’s,” he said, and gave her the address.

—

The building wasn’t as grand or as new as Stefan Becker’s, and when Amber reached Mr. Stones’s suite on the sixteenth floor, her eyes swept across the room. She was struck by its cold minimalistfeel, the gray walls and carpet a backdrop to geometric furnishings that looked stiff and unyielding.

“You Amber Parrish?” an older man sitting at the desk asked.

“Yes, I’m here to see Mr. Stones.”

“Mrs. Parrish, welcome.” She turned toward the voice. He looked as if he’d been spawned from this very room, a six-foot figure dressed in a stark three-piece gray suit that was tailored to his exact measurements. A starched white shirt and gray silk tie, expertly knotted, completed the ensemble. His white-blond hair was closely cropped and his eyes, an icy blue, were without warmth. A slight aroma of fresh citrus met her as she approached him.

“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” she said, ready to shake his hand, but Stones put no hand forward, instead giving a slight nod in acknowledgment.

“Certainly. Why don’t we go into my office where we’ll have privacy.”

She followed him into a room that looked much the same as the outer one, and they sat opposite each other at a slim metal table.

“Mr. Stones. Is that your real name?” Amber said.

“The less you know about me, the better it is for both of us, Mrs. Parrish.” He looked at her and smiled. “Now let’s get down to business. I understand you have some gems you’d like me to look at.”

Amber didn’t like this guy. He was too full of himself, so superior and acting like he was in some kind of jewel heist movie. She said nothing as she took the folded paper from the pouch and placed it on the table, watching as he unwrapped the stones and with his tweezers picked up each one to examine through his eyeglass.

When he finished, he sat back in his chair and, rubbing his chin with an index finger, said. “The red diamond is superb. The pink too. And the white diamond is excellent quality—perfect color and clarity. As Stefan Becker told you, they are extremely valuable. And sellable. I will have no trouble moving these for you if you wish.”

“How valuable? How much will I get?” Amber was already counting the zeros.

“That’s an interesting question. The value varies, depending upon where you are in the chain.”

She was really getting irritated now. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“To a buyer at full price, your one carat red diamond could easily fetch over two million dollars. The value for you would be 25 to 30percent of its wholesale value, considerably less than two million. Somewhere between $500,000 and $600,000.”

Amber shot up from her chair. “Excuse me? That’s ridiculous. Who’s making all that damn money? You?I’mthe one with the diamonds.”

“Quite true. ButI’mthe one with the connections. If you can prove where these diamonds were legitimately obtained, you are perfectly welcome to sell them directly.”

She glared at him and sat down again, then reached into her handbag and took out her phone. “I have more. Three pink. One large blue, and several yellow and white. Here,” she said thrusting the phone toward him. “Here are photos of the others. Can you up my percentage since there are so many?” If Amber hadn’t been watching him carefully, she would have missed the quick flash of excitement cross his face when he looked at the first picture of the blue diamond.

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