Read Chapter 13: A Slip of the Mask

The gala’s string quartet slid into a waltz, the notes swallowed by crystal chatter and the low thrum of the yacht’s engines. Camille had drifted toward a marble balustrade overlooking the glittering dark of the Mediterranean, pretending to study a necklace on a passing guest’s throat while actually cataloging the security camera blind spots along the aft deck.

Victor appeared beside her with two flutes of champagne, his tuxedo immaculate, his smile a practiced mask. “The man in the burgundy velvet owns three African mines,” he murmured, leaning close. “The woman with him is his fourth wife. She’s wearing a genuine Graff. If we need a distraction later, knock over her drink.”

“You’ve been studying.”

“I’ve been listening.” He handed her a glass. “You’ve been staring at that pendant around the blonde’s neck for four minutes. Trying to spot the laser grid protecting the display case behind the bar?”

Camille took a sip, letting the bubbles settle. “They’ve got a pressurized case, dual locks, and a guard who rotates every forty minutes. But the HVAC vent above it—there’s a gap.”

“Good.” Victor’s voice dipped lower. “There’s a maintenance crawlspace behind the port-side galley. I mapped it from the deck plans. If we can get Bellamy’s pendant into the air duct, we could—”

A waiter passed. Victor’s hand found Camille’s elbow, steering her gently toward the shadow of a potted palm. His thumb brushed her bare wrist, a light touch meant to redirect her path.

She felt it. The spark. That old electric hum she’d buried six years ago in the ashes of a Paris workshop. Her pulse jumped before her brain could stop it.

She yanked her arm back as if burned.

“Don’t,” she hissed, eyes flashing.

Victor’s expression flickered—surprise, then a careful blankness. “Camille, I was just guiding you away from the laser sweep above the display case. You were about to step into its beam.”

“And you chose that moment to play the gallant.” She kept her voice low, venom threading through it. “You always had a gift for theatrics. A touch here, a whisper there. Make the mark believe you care, and they’ll hand you anything.”

Something tightened in his jaw. For a heartbeat, the mask slipped, and she saw the man beneath—not the charming grifter, but the exhausted, restless one who had shown her a dead man’s notebook and asked for her help.

“The ring,” he said quietly.

“What ring?”

“The one I gave you. Before the theft.” He didn’t look at her. He looked at the dance floor, at the oblivious couples swaying. “The silver band with the worn engraving inside. You still wear it on a chain under your dress.”

Camille’s hand went involuntarily to her collarbone, where the thin chain lay hidden beneath the bodice of her borrowed couture. She’d told herself it was a reminder of her own stupidity, a talisman against ever trusting again.

“What of it?” Her voice was stone.

“It was my mother’s.” Victor turned to face her, and his eyes were tired, stripped of charm. “She gave it to me the night she died. Said it was the only thing she had left from the man who loved her enough to ruin himself for her. She was a waitress. He was a banker’s son. They were never meant to happen.” He swallowed. “I never told anyone that. Not Falk. Not anyone.”

Camille’s throat tightened. She remembered the ring’s worn smoothness, the faint etching of a date she’d assumed was sentimental nonsense. Nineteen eighty-seven. The year before Victor had been born—that much he’d once confessed, a rare slip about his age.

“You’re lying,” she said, but the words came out weaker than she intended.

“I’m not.” He held her gaze. “I gave it to you because I thought—I hoped—that if there was one thing I could give you that was real, you’d keep it. And I knew you would. Because you keep everything, even the things that hurt you.”

The music swelled. A woman’s laugh cut through the murmur a few feet away. Camille felt the weight of the ring against her sternum, felt the ghost of the girl she’d been—the one who’d believed in craftsmanship, in honesty, in Victor Bellamy’s crooked smile.

“You used me,” she said, each word deliberate. “You used my grief for my father’s reputation. You used my trust in what you called our partnership. And now you want me to believe the ring was your mother’s?”

“Believe what you need to.” Victor’s gaze didn’t waver. “But the night I gave it to you, I told you it belonged to someone I’d lost. I didn’t say who. You never asked.” He stepped closer, and she didn’t retreat. “You never asked, Camille. You just put it on and said you’d keep it safe.”

She opened her mouth to answer—to scorch him with every accusation she’d bottled for six years, to demand he stop twisting the past into a weapon—

But a voice sliced through from behind Victor. Polished, feminine, laced with amusement.

“Causing trouble already, I see.”

Lidia Vasquez stood at the edge of the balustrade, her emerald gown catching the deck lights, a thin smile on her lips. She held a coupe of something pale and raised it in a mocking toast.

“You two make a lovely pair,” she said. “Pity about the lies between you.”

Camille felt the heat drain from her face. Whatever confession she might have wrung from Victor would have to wait. Lidia’s eyes flicked from Camille to Victor, and Camille saw it—the calculation, the certainty.

Lidia knew.

And she was enjoying it.