Luca bent down and picked up the ring. He held it to the light for a long moment, then walked to his wineglass, lifted the heavy crystal goblet, and brought it down hard on the stone.
The glass didn’t break. The diamond did — shattering into dull, cloudy fragments of cheap cubic zirconia.
“My grandmother’s diamond survived a house fire in 1942,” Luca said quietly. “It doesn’t shatter under a wineglass.”
The color drained from Vanessa’s face. The real two-million-dollar heirloom was gone — and Daniel’s eyes had seen far more that evening than she ever intended. Before dinner, he had watched her hand the genuine ring to a man in the hallway. A man with a silver cane.
And the dining room went entirely still.