Flirting With the Forbidden Read Free Page B

luck we’ll get the contract to oversee the security, based on your report. But for now, it’s just a couple of days in New York and we have an in with Moreau.’
    ‘When is this meeting?’
    ‘In the morning. I have you booked on a flight leaving in an hour.’
    ‘Why can’t you go? You’re James’s mate, not me.’ Noah groaned. ‘I’m beat.’
    ‘I’ve got a meeting scheduled with another client, and you are far better at security assessments than I am. You’re brilliant at planning operations, getting in and out of places and situations you shouldn’t be, and you can see stuff from a criminal perspective.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Noah said dryly.
    Noah pushed his chair out and stretched his long legs. He linked his hands behind his head in his favourite thinking posture, his eyes on Morgan’s photograph which lay between them on the grubby table. Gorgeous eyes and slanting cheekbones, and she had a wide, mobile mouth with a smile that could power the national electrical grid.
    Noah licked his lips and forced his thoughts away from that dangerously sexy mouth. Slowly he raised his eyes to Chris’s face. He leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. ‘Why don’t you just shoot me now?’
    ‘It’s an option, but then I’d be out of a partner. It’s a few days, Noah, in an exciting city that you love.’
    ‘Clothes?’
    ‘Bag in the car. I went to your flat and picked out some threads.’
    Noah swore and flipped the cover of the folder closed. ‘Guess I’m going to New York.’
    ‘Atta boy.’
    Noah narrowed his eyes at his partner. ‘You’re a manipulative git.’
    Chris just grinned.
    * * *
    Sapphires, rubies, pearls. Diamonds. The usual suspects. And then there were the less common gems that sparked her imagination. Alexandrite that changed from green in daylight to red under incandescent light. Maw Sit-Sit, the same green as her eyes. Almandine Garnet, purplish red and the neon blue of Paraiba tourmaline.
    Having access to the gemstone vaults of Moreau International was a very big perk as a jewellery designer, and it allowed Morgan the chance to offer her very high-end clients one-of-a-kind pieces containing gemstones of exceptional quality.
    Morgan looked up at Derek, their Head of Inventory, and the security guard who’d accompanied the jewels to her airy, light-filled design studio on the top floor of the Moreau Building on Fifth Avenue from the super-secure fourth floor that housed the jewellery vaults. Morgan knew that there was another vault somewhere in the city, and others in other places of the world, which housed more gemstones. Her mother didn’t believe in keeping all their precious eggs in one basket.
    ‘I’ll take the Alexandrite, the tourmaline and both garnets.’ Morgan scanned the cloth holding the jewels again. ‘The fifteen-carat F marquise-cut yellow diamond and I’ll let you know about the emeralds. Thanks, Derek.’
    Derek nodded and stepped forward to help Morgan replace the jewels in their separate bags. She signed an order form as Derek spoke.
    ‘I have some apparently amazing Clinohumite coming in from a new mine in Siberia. Interested?’
    Interested in the rare burnt orange gems that she could never get enough of? Duh . ‘Of course! I’ll owe you if you can sneak a couple of the nicer ones to me before you offer them to Carl.’
    Carl was Head Craftsman for MI’s flagship jewellery store which was on the ground floor of the building. A rival to Tiffany and Cartier, Moreau’s made up the third of the ‘big three’ jewellery stores in New York City. Carl had his clients and so did Morgan, and they shared one or two others. They happily waged a silent war, competing for the best of the Moreau gems that were on offer. And for the clients with the deepest pockets.
    ‘I’ll offer you two per cent above whatever Carl offers for the Clinohumites. Don’t let me down, Derek, I want those stones.’ She might be a Moreau, but her business was separate to the