The Electric Rose. After Paulina’s death, Alan had put it back in the vault. It was never spoken of, all but forgotten about. When her father died, his obituary made a brief mention of the stone. Still, it wasn’t on Elodie’s radar.

But then, the cash crunch. What was the point of having a treasure like that locked in a vault? It was no use to them hidden away.

“I think we should sell the Electric Rose,” she said to her mother.

“Oh, yes,” Constance said. “I wish your father had done that a long time ago.”

“Good,” Elodie said. “The business needs the money.”

“What? Oh, no no no. If we sell the ring, the money has to go into a trust for Gemma. Paulina intended for her to have it some day.”

Elodie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. The ring belonged to the company—it was, at best, loaned to Paulina as a publicity stunt.

But there was no use trying to rationalize with her mother. And so she went around her.

The jewelry trade was a business of secrets. It was ingrained in the culture, both on the part of the sellers and the buyers. Still, the sale of a stone as significant as the Electric Rose would be nearly impossible to keep quiet. But there was another way to wring money from it aside from selling it outright.

For one whole year, she devoted most of her time to planning the 2010 holiday collection she called Pink Rapture: understated pink diamond pieces set in gold and platinum, none any more than two or three carats’ worth of stones. It was one of their most successful campaigns; the sales were pure profit because Pavlin & Co didn’t purchase any of the diamonds.

The collection was cut from a diamond they already owned: the Electric Rose.

Now, years later, she knew how this would look to Celeste: like a crime. She’d chopped up one of the jewelry world’s great treasures. And certainly, Gemma would have a fit and cause god knows what kind of trouble if she knew the truth.

It was one thing to sell it, to let someone else other than their spoiled sister enjoy its beauty. But to chop it up like a used car, selling it piece by piece?

She watched her sister pass the contract to Gemma, who then tossed it to the ground.

“You had no right to sell that ring,” she said.

Sloan Pierce slowly and with great deliberation stood from her chair and retrieved the papers from the ground.

“Celeste, Elodie—thank you for coming today. But I’m wondering if it might not be best for me and Gemma to have some time to talk in private?”