Stolen with Style by Carina Axelsson Page A

he said as he leaned into me, dark eyes smiling.
    He was right, and I couldn’t help smiling back—this time genuinely. “Maybe what you take for a contradiction is simply the truth.”
    â€œNot bad.” He pushed his thick, nearly black hair off his face with one swift movement and smiled. “I’ll accept that.”
    Misty suddenly called to Brandon from across the table, asking him about his photography. (During lunch he’d told me that he took photos too.) He tried to ignore her, but she only called his name out again—louder. I felt him tense up. He told her that he’d be with her in a minute, and then he turned back to me.
    â€œI was wondering if you’d…” He stopped to fiddle with his jacket cuff. Then he turned his coffee-colored eyes back to me and simply gazed at me for a moment, that smile still tugging at the corners of his lips.
    I swallowed hard. The way he was looking at me was raising a lot of questions. Was he on the verge of asking me out on a date? Or was it simply something work-related? He’d been about to ask me something this morning too, so whatever it was, it had to be that, right? Or…?
    But once again, he didn’t get any further, because at that moment two slim hands, their short nails painted glossy black, placed themselves on his shoulders. It was Misty. And while she seemed quite breezy and light in her manner, I could feel the tension between her and Brandon. Her beauty was dazzling, I thought as I watched her chat with him. Her full lips and slim neck, her heart-shaped face crowned by a mass of golden hair.
    But the longer she stayed, the angrier Brandon seemed to become. After a minute, his fists were clenched tightly by his sides. Why? She was only asking him about his photography… Or was something else creating the tension?
    Whatever Brandon had been about to ask me was quickly forgotten.
    A few moments later, I was called back to Trish and Tom’s area. They wanted to quickly refresh my hair and makeup before they started getting Misty, Rafaela, and Chandra ready for their cover try. Before leaving the lunch table, however, I quickly checked my emails and found the following:
    You’re getting in the way. I know you know what I mean—even though you’re trying to hide it.
    Pull back now.
    From someone who’s watching you.
    I felt a creepy shiver run through me as I read it. The likelihood that someone there had sent me this email during our lunch was unnerving, to say the least. I was clearly being warned off the case, and presumably by the person who had the diamond. I didn’t recognize the address it had been sent from. In fact, it wasn’t even a proper name—just a short sequence of numbers and letters. I quickly replied, but whoever had sent the message had already closed the account. My email was unable to be delivered.
    Funny how whoever it was had sent me an email, but they’d sent Cazzie text messages. Then again, maybe they didn’t want us thinking they were one and the same person… But how did they even know she’d asked me to find the diamond? Or had my lunchtime observations been as obvious to everyone as they’d been to Brandon? If the thief was indeed present, maybe the news of my sleuthing in Paris, coupled with my sudden presence here, had been enough for them to guess the truth. In that case, the thief could be fairly certain that I was working for Cazzie. Again, a shiver ran through me.
    I briefly wondered how they’d found my email address. But if they were able to open an unrecognizable email account and shut it down that quickly, getting hold of my email address wouldn’t be much of a challenge.
    Thoughts were still whizzing through my mind as Tom and Trish tweaked my hair and makeup, and then suddenly Cazzie was in front of me. “Axelle,” she said, “I have to dress you for your next shot. Peter is getting ready.”
    Composing