The Golden Locket (Unbreakable Trilogy, Book 2) Read Free

through the huge apartment, turning the lights off in the guest rooms and arched corridors that were waiting to be filled with our new life.
    ‘What have I done to deserve all this?’ I murmured as he slid beneath the feather-soft duvet beside me. ‘I can’t believe this nest in the clouds is where I’m going to come home every night!’
    ‘You and the light in those emerald eyes are my Christmas present to myself,’ he murmured into my hair. ‘You will be my princess and I’m going to spoil you and spoil you until you beg me to stop.’
    I pressed my face into his neck, licked at the pulse beating under his warm skin. ‘I’m going to prove myself to you, though, Gustav. I’m happy to be your princess, but I want to earn my keep, too.’
    He lifted my face and started to kiss me. ‘Oh, I know you will, Serena. I have no worries on that score.’
    I belong to him. But he belongs to me, too.
    I’m jerked back to the present. Another burst of fireworks explodes over this side of the park. The display is so bright that I’m dazzled. My vision is streaked with silvery licks of fire and I have to rub them away.
    Behind me, my own eyes gaze mournfully from the oversized self-portrait Gustav has had flown over from London and hung on the wall. The girl escaping on the train from Devon the day that photograph was taken has become the girl on the plane. She’s arrived. She’s up on the wall, keeping watch as her first guests poke around, exploring the new flat. She’s gazing at the fireworks flashing over New York City, gazing out from the top of the world, wondering what the next few months will bring.
    It’s New Year’s Eve and the city is revelling. I was swimming against the tide as the Yellow Cab brought me slowly up Broadway just now after my fruitless trip to the airport, hoping that Gustav would be on the next plane. Everyone else was surging southwards, towards the overcrowded neon oblong of Times Square.
    As the rockets explode like mortars above the building another reflection in the darkened window comes to stand beside mine.
    Pierre presses his mouth against my ear. ‘Such a pity Gustav isn’t here.’

CHAPTER TWO
    The Levi Gallery in central London, two weeks ago. The moment when Gustav Levi came face to face with his long-lost brother.
    You could have heard a pin drop. The five of us were frozen in a tableau, our expressions ranging from bewilderment to shock. Gustav, me, Pierre, Polly, and Gustav’s faithful assistant Crystal.
    It was suddenly very dark in the huge space. The pool of light from the anglepoise lamp struggled against the encroaching shadows and the thick white snow falling over the Embankment outside, which blocked out the remains of the day, closed all escape routes and turned down the volume.
    ‘Pierre! So let me get this straight. My cousin Polly’s new boyfriend turns out to be Gustav’s brother?’ My voice, too shrill, was the first to shatter the silence. ‘You were masked last time I saw you at the Halloween party. No wonder I never put two and two together, just the eyes – but my God, look how alike they are!’
    Nobody replied. Nobody stirred.
    ‘I’m – for once I’m lost for words,’ Gustav stammered at last, his voice creaking up from somewhere so deep inside it could have been buried in a coffin. He had taken one step, but he was still standing behind the gallery desk. I could see a dense stain of colour creeping up his jaw line. ‘I never thought I’d see you again, Pierre. How did you find me?’
    ‘I’ve always known where you were. After all, you haven’t exactly ventured far in five years, have you, despite being an international man of mystery? I thought you might have started afresh, Paris, perhaps. Amsterdam. Tokyo. But I guess you’ve been keeping close to your assets.’
    Pierre’s voice was as deep and dark as his brother’s. There was the same mesmeric, smooth texture to it, except that tonight it was pebble-dashed with bitterness and