“And then what?”
“What do you want?”
“Everything.”
“Well,” she said after a moment, “Aussie had a way about him. He’d been places and done things. He had a genial way of taking life as a big adventure. It was all a game to him. I’d taken the cruise with a feeling of tragic frustration in my heart, a sense of tension, a feeling that I’d been wronged, that love was a mess, and marriage a mockery. I...”
“I don’t want all that,” Mason told her. “I’ve seen you and I’ve seen Cullens. I’ve seen the bitter side of married life as a lawyer sees it. You don’t need to give me all that.”
“What do I need to give you?”
“The gems.”
“Oh, those,” she said.
Mason smoked in silence. Then, after a moment, as she continued to study the tinted tips of her fingers with downcast eyes, Mason said, again, “Those.”
She raised her eyes to his. “Well,” she said, “I don’t know much about those myself.”