“Is Marcus here?” Gabrielle asked. “I’m starving, and I’m feeling omelet-y. Anyone else want an omelet?” she asked her cousin. Then Gabrielle turned and walked away, leaving Kat and Hale standing in the light of the fire and the rising sun, surrounded by dozens of gifts, none of which looked like an Egg of the Magi.
Hale pulled her into his arms again and kissed her forehead, hugged her too hard, and Kat couldn’t help herself. She laughed. Sometimes she couldn’t believe that any aspect of her life—especially the boy—was real.
“So what’s up?” Hale asked. “Is it your dad? Has he decided to kill me? I live in fear he’s going to wake up one day and realize I don’t deserve you.”
“He won’t kill you,” Kat said.
“You’re right. He’ll just…steal me and stash me someplace until you’re thirty.”
“That’s okay,” Kat said, and Hale pulled back, chagrined.
“It is?” he said with mock indignation.
So Kat stood on her tiptoes and kissed him quick and hard. “Yeah. I’d just steal you back.”
The next kiss was longer, softer. Sweeter. And Kat didn’t want it to end, but that wasn’t what had brought her to the Hale country house in the middle of winter.
“So what do you want for Christmas?” he asked at last, and Kat experienced a new flood of worry.
“You didn’t get me something already, did you?”
Hale took her by the shoulders and turned her around the room. “I got you a lot of somethings.”
But Kat managed to pull away and look at him anew. “I mean…you didn’t get me something. Please, Hale, tell me you didn’t…”
Hale pulled away, held her at arms’ length. “Do you need to see the receipts? Because I have the receipts.”
“Hale…” Kat started. It was harder than she’d feared to find the words. “Nick’s mom came to see me.”
It was like watching a light go out, a cloud pass across the sun. Instantly, Hale changed.
“Now, let’s be specific. Did our old friend Nick’s mom come to see you, or did Interpol Agent Amelia Bennett come to see you?”
For a moment, Kat had to consider the answer. “Both. I think. A friend of hers runs a charity in London. The Magi Miracle Network?”
Hale must have heard the question in her voice because he cocked his head.
“Do you know it?” Kat asked, almost hopefully, but hopeful for what she wasn’t sure.
“No,” he said. “Why?”
“Hazel founded it,” she told him.
Hale pulled away, suddenly skeptical. “Hazel founded a lot of charities.”
“You’re on the board.”
“The head of Hale Industries is probably on the board, and these days Miriam is doing most of the heavy lifting. Marcus is her brother and she doesn’t even have time to see him most days.”
“So you aren’t familiar with the Magi Miracle Network?” Kat asked, sounding hopeful.
“No, Kat. I don’t know it.” For the first time in a long time, Hale sounded angry. At her. “Now are you doing to tell me what’s going on?”
Kat took a deep breath. Like diving into a cold pool, it was best to do it in one quick plunge.
“Some English earl gave the charity a Fabergé egg, and they were going to auction it off right before Christmas.”
“And someone stole it?” Hale filled in. He studied her, reading her silence. Kat saw the moment when he guessed the rest. “Wait. You think I stole it? From Hazel’s charity?”
“It wasn’t a regular egg,” Kat said, stopping him before he could get too angry.
“Oh, I didn’t realize there were regular Fabergé eggs!”
Kat looked at him. “It was one of the three Eggs of the Magi.”
For a moment, Hale simply looked at her, anger pulsing, but then recognition began to dawn, much like the light that was starting to stream into the room.
“Like your mom’s egg,” he said, and Kat nodded.
Things were surprisingly unimportant to thieves. It was a strange-but-true fact of their world. After all, things could be stolen or broken, lost or replaced. Things were simply commodities. Jobs. But Kat’s egg hadn’t been stolen—at least by her. And that made all the difference.
Hale knew what that egg meant to her—how much she cherished it. “You think I stole an Egg of the Magi for you,” he said as if the world suddenly made sense again.
“Did you?” Kat had to ask.
“No,” Hale said, and, instantly, Kat believed him.
“Good,” she said, exhaling a breath and leaning closer. But Hale was still holding himself apart, growing cold for a whole new reason.
“Someone stole from one of Hazel’s charities?”
Some people, the madder they get the louder they get, but Hale was the opposite. He just stopped smiling, stopped teasing, and the charisma that radiated from him turned into an energy of a totally different kind.
“Hale—” Kat began, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear her warnings.
“Is Interpol on it?” he asked, and Kat had to think about the answer.
“Hale—”
“Are they?” he asked.
“Yes. No. Kind of,” Kat blurted. “Amelia is the Deputy Director of UK Operations now, but her friend is worried about what might happen to the charity’s reputation if the news gets out.”