Chapter 8 - The Clasp That Never Needed Fixing
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Silence dropped over the foyer like a guillotine blade.
Lorenzo unfolded the heavy cream stationery from Laurent & Sons High Jewelry and read the signed certification from Henrik Laurent aloud, his voice shaking with suppressed fury:
"To Mrs. Claire Moretti: Please be advised that the 1928 Cartier Colombian Emerald Bracelet has not been submitted to our Oak Street workshop for clasp repair or maintenance at any time during the current calendar year."
Lorenzo lowered the paper and looked slowly at his son.
"You lied to your wife six months ago to take my mother’s bracelet out of her safe," Lorenzo said, his voice dangerously quiet, "and you just lied to my face thirty seconds ago to cover for this woman."
Adrian’s face went pale beneath the red mark on his jaw. He looked at Sophia in stunned realization—because while Adrian had lied about taking it to the jeweler yesterday, Sophia was the one who had told him six months ago that her friend at Laurent & Sons could clean and tighten the antique setting for me as a "peace offering" when she first moved back to Chicago, only to keep it locked in her own apartment ever since.
"Sophia," Adrian said, turning sharply toward her, "you told me in April that you dropped it off with Henrik’s nephew and that the shop was waiting on platinum wire from Antwerp. You had it at your place this whole time?"
Sophia’s delicate shoulders trembled as she backed toward the elevator doors, her tears suddenly turning genuine as her lie collapsed in front of all four of us.
"I only kept it safe in my wall safe because I knew you’d forget about it at the shop!" Sophia stammered wildly, looking at Adrian with desperate pleading. "And yesterday was our ten-year anniversary from the summer we went to Lake Como, Adrian! You promised me ten years ago that one day I would wear your grandmother’s emeralds when we walked down the aisle! I just wanted to feel what it was like for one night!"
Victoria let out a sound of pure revulsion.
"Get out of this building," Victoria whispered, stepping toward Sophia with such cold authority that Sophia stumbled backward into the open elevator car. "And if you ever set one foot inside a Moretti property again, I will personally have our security detail drag you onto Michigan Avenue by your hair."
"Adrian!" Sophia sobbed as Victoria slapped the ground-floor lobby button on the wall panel. "Adrian, don't let them talk to me like this! Tell them—"
Adrian didn't move. He didn't take a single step toward the elevator, and he didn't look up as the bronze doors slid shut in Sophia’s tear-streaked face.
For the first time since she had returned to Chicago, the spell had cracked—and watching Sophia admit in front of his parents that she had stolen my heirloom for six months to play out a ten-year-old fantasy made him look almost physically ill.
He turned back toward me, holding the emerald bracelet in both hands like a drowning man offering an anchor.
"Claire, I swear on my life, I didn't know she hadn't taken it to the shop," Adrian said, his voice raw as he stepped across the marble toward me. "She told me in April that her friend at Laurent’s could service antique Cartier pieces without sending them to New York, and yesterday in the car she pulled the box out of her purse and told me she had just picked it up for you—and asked if she could wear it for the photos since you weren't there. I was blind, Claire. I was an idiot. I will cut her off completely today. Right now."
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I looked at him—really looked at him—and felt nothing at all. Not anger. Not triumph. Just the vast, peaceful quiet of a room I had already walked out of in my mind twelve hours ago.
"You don't need to cut her off on my account, Adrian," I said calmly, turning toward his mahogany study off the main hall. "Come inside for a minute. There’s something on your desk that I signed last night before I went to bed."
