Chapter 92

Then she felt Nolan's steady arm under her hand. His voice was a low tremor registering beneath the ringing in her ears. He guided her to a chair as he finished the conversation with J.D. in a few curt words.

She squeezed her eyes shut to clear her mind. Of course he had lied about there not being any diamonds here. That’s what her gut had told her earlier. She’d just hoped she was wrong. Now, she tried to narrow her attention past her shock and confusion to focus on Nolan's gaze.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She shook off his touch, even though it seemed the only thing anchoring her down.

“You looked like you were about to faint there for a minute.”

She stifled a derogatory snort. “I don’t faint.” She felt a ridiculous surge of resentment. “Why aren’t you upset? You should be at least as freaked out about this as I am.”

But as soon as she said it, she realized he was just as agitated. He just kept it buried deeply inside. His eyes had narrowed to grim slits, and he’d clenched his jaw so tightly it looked as if it were chiseled from granite. This stony silence of his spoke more than her near fainting.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered, forcing herself to her feet. “You probably want to go back to Messina Diamonds.”

The absurdity of that statement gurgled up inside her, threatening to escape as hysterical laughter. She was sorry for delaying him? If she was going to be sorry, there were a whole lot of other things to be sorry for.

Still, he nodded tightly and placed a hand at her back, guiding her toward the elevator. As the door began to close behind them, he said, “Candace, about your brother…”

“I know. If he’s involved you’re going to have to do everything in your power to find him and have him arrested.”

“If he’s involved?”

“Yes,” she said. “If he’s involved.”

“Candace, you can’t afford to be naive. Not after all of this. Your brother is definitely involved.”

“No. We don’t know that. Not yet, anyway. All we have so far is conjecture.”

“Hey, you’re the one who came to me,” Nolan pointed out.

“Yes. Exactly.” She turned to glare at him, crossing her arms over her chest against a sudden chill. “I came to you because I thought you could help. And you swore to me that the system was unbreakable. That Messina Diamonds had a top-of-the-line system. Andrew wouldn’t be able to steal a pen from the receptionist’s desk. Isn’t that what you said to me?”

He didn’t answer, but his gaze narrowed even further. She sucked in a deep breath as she forced herself to focus. Nolan wasn’t the enemy here. This blow had to be hitting him just as hard. After all, the system he’d staked his honor on had failed. His company’s client had just been robbed. Right out from under his nose.

“I did say that. There must have been someone on the inside,” Nolan said slowly. As if he were just now figuring through it. “He couldn’t have gotten past that system. Someone had to have shut it off for him.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Until I do, everyone is a suspect.”

“Well, that’s not how I see it. Until you can prove otherwise to me, I’m going to assume my brother is innocent.”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

"Andrew is my brother.” She rounded on Nolan. “And I’m not just going to desert him when he needs me most. I’m not going to abandon him like—”

Like you abandoned me.

But she sucked the words back into her mouth without saying them. Some things should never be said aloud. They hurt too much. Revealed too much.

She shifted to face the elevator doors again. “Everyone needs to have someone who believes in them wholeheartedly. Someone who loves them no matter what. For Andrew I’m that person.”

“You’re the one who suspected him in the first place,” he reminded her again. “Just a few minutes ago you believed him capable of this.”

“I believed he could be manipulated into helping.” She could see from the glint of cynicism in Nolan's gaze that he didn’t see the difference. How could she explain to him what she barely understood herself? “Of course I believe it’s possible he’s involved. But still he’s my brother. I have to have faith in him. I have to believe he didn’t do this of his own accord. Until you can bring me proof, hard evidence…”

She never learned what Nolan's reaction might have been to her seemingly blind faith in Andrew. The elevator doors whooshed open, thrusting the two of them out of the quiet into the noisy bustle of a gala in progress. None of the guests knew what had happened yet. She barely knew herself.