Free Say You Need Me by Kayla Perrin

get the jewelry back. Can you go back to that jeweler friend of yours?”
    “Uh…” Cecil had hedged. “Sure. I’ll see if he knows what happened.”
    Jan had called him days later, asking if he’d had any success finding out what happened to her jewelry. Cecil had told her he was still working on it. Jan had reiterated that Rex could forgive her indiscretion—as long as she got the jewelry back. If Cecil couldn’t retrieve her jewelry, and subsequently Rex didn’t forgive her, he wouldn’t forgive Cecil, either.
    That was a bit of life and death pressure Cecil could have lived without.
    When Cecil hung up with Jan, he had immediately called Eddie. Eddie confirmed what he already suspected: the jewelry had been sold months ago and he had no idea of how to get it back at this point. The best Eddie could do was look into it.
    Cecil had figured he’d had some time—until Rex had called him and promised to break every one of his bones before throwing him into a canal if he didn’t get the jewelry back ASAP. During this time, Cecil had gotten to know Serena, and he knew she had a necklace worth a quarter of a million. Serena was sweet, not like the other women he’d scammed. She was genuine, not flaky like the women who’d come into his life. She was the kind of woman he occasionally daydreamed about settling down with— if he was the type to settle down. But even if he was, deep in hisheart, he knew he didn’t deserve Serena. Still, he liked her, and he didn’t like the idea of hurting her.
    But he’d remembered what Eddie had told him about not letting your emotions get involved. So he’d planned to take Serena’s necklace the moment he could, because it was worth a pretty penny—and that would certainly help him out of his bind with Rex.
    However, after learning that the necklace had been in Serena’s family for aeons and that the history of the necklace had spawned her dream of opening an antiques store, Cecil had decided against taking it.
    But Rex grew more impatient with each passing day.
    As a result, Cecil had given in to temptation and taken Serena’s necklace, offering it to Rex as a replacement. But days after FedExing Rex a picture of the exquisite antique necklace, Rex had called with the shocking news that he didn’t want a replacement. He wanted the jewelry Cecil had hawked because it had sentimental value. He’d given Cecil forty-eight hours to get it back before he taught him a very painful lesson.
    By then, Cecil knew Rex meant business. The only other thing he could figure to do was get enough cash together to buy the jewelry back—provided he could find out who’d bought it in the first place. But forty-eight hours wasn’t enough time to sell any of his swanky properties to get the necessary cash.
    Eighteen hours into his forty-eight-hour deadline, Rex had laughed his head off at Cecil’s offer of ten thousand dollars—the money he’d taken from Serena—as a measure of good faith that he’d get the jewelry back.
    Right on time, Rex had started calling with death threats. Cecil had promptly disconnected all his numbers, exceptfor the one at his condo, which was his main number—and the one only a few people knew. Jan didn’t have that one—at least, that’s what he’d thought, until Rex had left a message for him there. Cecil didn’t return any of the calls, hoping Rex would figure he’d skipped town. But he knew it was only a matter of time before Rex caught up with him. In the meantime, he was hoping to get some money together. However, even if he could sell one of his places in time, he couldn’t show his face at either of his homes without the risk of getting a bullet in his back.
    That’s why he’d tried to reach Darrell, to see if there was any way Darrell could come up with the money. But he’d had to hang up on his brother when he’d realized someone had been following him.
    With that thought, Cecil took another look around. Men, women, and children filtered