"You never understand."

"Aw, babe. How long did I look for just the right shade of fancy blue diamond for you?"

She rolled her eyes. "I was looking right alongside you."

"Years."

"But we found it, didn't we?" She held her hand out and admired the flash and play of her rings. "Even if it looks a little off in this light. Stupid jewelry stores. Why don't they just use full-spectrum lighting?"

"Admire your rocks outside. We're looking for a pearl necklace in here, remember?" But he grinned and ran his fingertip down her arm in a slow caress to take any possible sting from his words. "You know my policy. Only the best for you, darlin'."

She made a husky, murmurous sound, stood on tiptoe, and brushed her lips against his. "You're such a sweetie."

"For you, I'm pure sugar." He smoothed his hand over her hip and squeezed with the a.s.surance of a man fondling a longtime lover. "Go see if you like something. If not, there are other stores in Hong Kong."

She toyed with the gold chain lying against his furry chest, smiled when he winced at the hair caught in the chain, and sauntered over to the nearest pedestal. After walking around it once, she leaned in and calmly snagged the necklace off its ice-blue satin pillow.

Instantly an alarm chimed, both musical and loud. Monsieur Paul hung up and shot out of his chair, letting loose a torrent of French with a p.r.o.nounced Tahitian flavor.

Ignoring him like dirt under her feet, Hannah kept looking at the necklace. The semibaroque black pearls were beautifully matched for shape, size, color, and l.u.s.ter. They looked like slightly flattened planets with rings around them. Their orient had an unusual silver-blue sheen. There was a scattering of surface pits and a few cloudy spots, all of which were very minor on first inspection. The asking price was major, just under $320,000. A portion of that price was due to the pale blue diamonds set in the platinum clasp.

"What's he fussing about, sugar?" she asked without looking up from the pearl necklace.

"Beats me," Archer said, swallowing his laughter.

She replaced the necklace on its pedestal, which shut up the alarm. Without a pause she headed toward the next display area. This one featured a matinee-length necklace of matched, uniform black pearls. These had a peac.o.c.k-blue sheen and a pigeon-blood ruby clasp.

"Madame," the man said quickly in English, stepping between Hannah and the velvet rope. "I am Monsieur Paul. Please permit me to a.s.sist you. Pearls are like a woman, very delicate. They must be handled carefully."

His accent was island French, legacy of his birth on the Chang pearl farms in Tahiti. His demeanor was that of a slender prince trying to be patient with a thickheaded peon. He wore a suit and tie, both of cream-colored silk. His shirt was also silk, dawn pink in color. Handsome as a soap-opera star, he moved confidently, knowing women of all races would forgive him in advance.

He led Hannah back to the first pedestal and pulled a b.u.t.ter-soft cloth from his inner suit-coat pocket. Deftly he switched off the alarm and wiped down the pearls Hannah had touched. Only when he was satisfied with their gleam did he settle them back into their satin-lined display and reactivate the alarm.

Throughout the whole process, Hannah examined her fingernails. One by one. The hot pink color she had applied on the plane was already showing wear. When it came to nail polish, she was hopeless. Nor did she care whether her nails were perfect or perfectly awful. She was silently, thoroughly, telling the elegant Monsieur Paul that she wasn't forgiving him for anything, no matter how beautifully he pouted.

"If pearls are that delicate, they won't last long, will they?" Archer asked Paul.

"Mais non! With care, they will last for generation after generation."

"Care, huh?" Archer glanced at Hannah. She was still examining the polish she had put on while he slept on the plane. "Maybe you better fill me in. My wife and I are new to the pearl game. She saw some black pearls on a French model at our last party and hasn't let up on me since."

Paul's eyes brightened. Paying celebrities and models to wear Tahitian pearls was a common, very effective way of drawing attention to pearls in a culture such as America's, which was focused on faceted gems.

"Always store your fine pearls in a soft bag," Paul said in the tone of a professor, "separate from your hard gems. But no plastic, you understand. They must breathe. They were created by a living animal. To remain beautiful, they must have moisture."

"Good news, darlin'," Archer said to Hannah. "You can wear them to your aerobics cla.s.s. That should give 'em a good drink."

Monsieur Paul paled. "No, no!" He cleared his throat. "The moisture in the air is best. Perspiration, even from the most, ah, delicate of women, simply will not do. Perspiration has acid in it, which will eventually change the pearls' color."

"Handle like a baby and no sweat. Anything else?" Archer asked, looking impatient.

Ignoring the men, Hannah sidled up to the next display pedestal. She wanted a closer look at the matinee-length pearls.

"Of course, Madame knows not to put on her pearls until after she has applied her perfume or hair lacquer and cosmetics," Paul said, inching away from Archer and watching Hannah with faint horror.

"Don't tell me, let me guess," Archer said, his voice edged with impatience. "Perfume, hair spray, and makeup aren't good for pearls."

"Ahhh," Paul sighed, relieved. "You understand."

"How about swimming in the d.a.m.n things?"

"In the ocean, if you must. In a pool, never. Chlorine "

"I get it," Archer cut in. "Chlorine eats the dainty little things. So how do you keep them clean? Or are they too delicate to take that, too?"

"Use soap, not detergent, then rinse thoroughly and let the pearls dry in the air," Paul said, watching Hannah narrowly. "Never use ammonia or vinegar. It will destroy the pearls. Un moment, madame. I will show you those pearls."

But Archer wasn't ready to let Paul off the hook quite yet. "Sounds easier just to lock pearls in a safety-deposit box and be done with it."

Hannah smiled to herself as Paul muttered something under his breath. It was one of Coco's favorite curses, obscene and blasphemous in equal parts.

"Vaults are often very dry," Paul said with immense patience. "That is not good for pearls. If you must lock them away in a steel box, put with them a damp cloth. Moisture, yes?"

"Darlin'?" Archer called out.

"Yeah?" She leaned in and reached for another necklace.

"Stick to diamonds."

She gave both men a pouty, impatient look. "I want black pearls." An alarm chimed as she lifted the long necklace off its pedestal.

Archer sighed. "Okay, babe. If you scratch them up, I'll get you some more."

She blew him a kiss.

Outrage and greed warred for control of Paul's expression. Greed won. He was, after all, in the business of selling pearls.

Even to swine.

Fifteen.

"So, tell me about this one," Hannah said, running the pearls through her fingers.

Paul saw only her unusual, high-quality diamond, not the skill and care of her fingers as she handled the necklace. "Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars, American."

"Why?" she asked.

"Pardon?"

"Why?" she repeated. "With diamonds you have a fixed color scale and carat weight to determine price. What did you do to price this necklace, pick a number out of the air?"

Paul cleared his throat. "It is a very complex process."

"Uh-huh." Clearly she wasn't impressed.

"Color, shape, presence or absence of blemishes, and size all figure into the price," Paul said stiffly.

She nodded. "Like diamonds."

"Unlike diamonds, pearls are not touched by man. Their shape and polish is as natural as the shine of water. Pearls come to you as they came from the oyster."

And pigs fly, Hannah thought sardonically. There were a hundred ways to make inferior pearls look better than they were. But she wasn't supposed to know about that. She was just supposed to know what she liked.

"Unlike diamonds, which can be cut into many shapes, the shape of a pearl is determined solely by the oyster," Paul said, falling into his sales patter. "These are living gems, very unique, very precious. Especially the spherical pearls. Most pearls are baroque. Do you understand baroque?"

"It means they're not round, doesn't it?" Hannah asked indifferently.

"Each shape has its own beauty, its own mystery, its own admirers " Paul began.

"Round," she cut in.

"Pardon?"

"I want my pearls round. The model's were round and black, but not really black. Lots of color."

"Spherical is the most valuable cla.s.s of pearls. The ones you are holding now are spherical. They also have a peac.o.c.k-blue sheen, which makes them very desirable."

"Not to me," Hannah said, handing him the pearls. "I want reds and greens and golds and pinks along with the blue. Don't you have something with more color?"

"This is a very fine necklace," Paul said through gritted teeth.

She shrugged and wandered off to the next pedestal.

"Like I said," Archer muttered, "we spent years looking for just the right shade of silver-blue diamond for her. That woman is downright persnickety when it comes to color. You have any idea how many shades blue diamonds come in?"

Paul managed a smile. He knew just how much a flawless, vibrant, three-carat, fancy blue diamond cost. That was why he wasn't showing these exasperating peasants to the door.

"What about that little necklace in the window, darlin'?" Archer asked.

"No, thanks," she said casually. "Some of the pearls aren't a very good match."

Paul winced and began wiping down the necklace she had just replaced on its pedestal. "Madame, I a.s.sure you, whether it is a question of shape, color, size, or orient, our necklaces are matched to the highest standards."

"Yeah? Then they're not as high as mine."

"Like I told you," Archer said cheerfully, "we searched for years. My baby has an eye for color."

Paul folded his lips and said not one word.

She stopped at a third pedestal, hesitated, then went still. She would have sworn the pearls in this necklace came from Pearl Cove. Not the experimental rafts, but the ordinary black pearls that were the most profitable part of Pearl Cove's production.

"So, all your pearls come from around here?" she asked.

"Or is that just publicity c.r.a.p?"

Hannah's question pressed the b.u.t.ton marked Sales. Words poured out of Paul like a swift tide. "If you speak of black pearls, you are speaking of Tahitian pearls. Tahiti has many, many pearl farms. Each of them produces a pearl that is superior to any other in the world. There is no need to search farther than my country's own beautiful lagoons for the very finest in black pearls."

"Uh-huh," she said. Her tone said publicity c.r.a.p.

Archer watched her closely. He didn't know what she was seeing in those particular pearls, but the very stillness of her body told him that somehow, in some way, the pearls weren't what she had expected. He eased closer, ready to step in if she forgot her role and started asking too many intelligent questions.

"Sugar, are we going Down Under?" Hannah asked, turning toward Archer. "You know, that place in Western Australia where they have miles and miles of pearl farms?"

"If that's what it takes to get you the necklace you want, that's where we'll go." He smiled at the jeweler. "Good thing they don't grow pearls on the moon. Sure as h.e.l.l, she'd be booking us a shuttle flight."

Paul's smile said he thought that was an excellent idea, and the sooner the better.

"Well," she said, shrugging, "just because blokes er, folks in this store can't tell the difference between a good color match and a great one is no reason for me to have pearls like the ones in the window."

"The black choker?" Archer asked. "The one I liked?"

"Yeah. I could do better than that with my eyes closed." She strolled past Paul, whose tongue was developing red skid marks from being restrained between his teeth.

"Darlin', you're being awful hard on the poor man," Archer said. His eyes said he was enjoying every second of it.

"At more than fifteen thousand bucks a pearl, I haven't even started being hard."

"The cost of any necklace," Paul said in a strained voice, "reflects the difficulty of matching the pearls, rather than the worth of each individual pearl."

"Yeah, matching must have been tough," she said indifferently. "Maybe you'll get it right next time."

"Perhaps Madame would show me which pearls aren't up to her exacting standards?" Paul asked. The disdain in his voice said that he didn't think she could.

Hannah flicked a sideways glance at Archer. He nodded so slightly that she would have missed it if she hadn't been watching closely.

"You sure you want me to?" she said to Paul, but her eyes were still on Archer.

"Quite," Paul said in a clipped voice.

It was Archer's tiny signal, not Paul's urging, that sent her strolling toward the front display window. Ignoring Paul darting around her like a nervous gazelle, she lifted out the expensive choker and looked around for a neutral surface to put the necklace on. The best she could do was a cream-colored satin tray she found on Paul's desk. Instead of leaving the pearls in a neat circle as they had been in the window, she made the necklace into two roughly parallel lines. Pearls that had been separated by the width of a woman's neck now lay side by side.