by Kennedy Fox
Velvet, like the one Persephone handed me earlier, but heavier.
I scramble upright and crash into him. Cole doesn’t shift, doesn’t bounce away, he only slides his arm around me and pulls me close. He’s partially clothed, and my hip meets the nice fabric of his pants.
“Cole—what—”
“Open it.”
I did ask him to be in charge, so with shaking fingers I pull open the tie at the top of the bag.
I—can’t. There must be twenty diamonds at the bottom. They must be relatively light individually but I feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. I steal a glance at Cole and find him looking thoughtfully down at the bag in my palms, head slightly bowed. His lips, kinglike and full, turn up at the corners.
“You’re showing me this....” My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
“I’m giving you this.” He closes his hand around mine, around the velvet bag, and meets my eyes. “Fly away.”
A cold wash of anxiety drips down my spine. “No.”
Cole’s hand doesn’t unfold, doesn’t waver. “Yes. I’ve saved up every bonus, and every Christmas gift since I got here.”
“How long have you been here?”
“A long time.” I blink, and runaway comes into clearer focus. Cole can’t be much older than I am, which means he came here when he was practically a child. He didn’t just seek out a job—he grew up here. “Long enough to know you can’t stay. Pack your bags and find those open skies.”
He lets go of my hand then to free both of his. Cole takes my face in his hands and pulls me in close for a last, lingering kiss, and before I can beg him to stop, to stay, he’s at the door of the bedroom. He’s past it.
He’s gone.
Chapter Eight
What the hell?
I sit stunned on the bed, the velvet bag in my hands, mouth slightly parted. I was going to call his name, I swear I was, and now—
Now I’ll never see him again.
The ridiculousness of the thought is an open-handed slap to the face and it jerks me out of the bed and onto the floor. I don’t care what my clothes look like now, only that I have some on, and at the last moment I grab for the bag and hold it tight while I shove my feet back into my shoes.
I have to find him, before he disappears into the mines. Before he hides from me forever. I thought I was a long-term hire, but my experience in the mountain has been nothing compared to his.
I’m desperate to know about it.
And I’m desperate to tell him something else.
I take the stairs down to the street two at a time and the space by the landing is empty when I get there. No one in the street, except one end of the long table. Voices rise above it, laughter threading through the conversations. We haven’t been gone very long.
I rush back out into the street and search for him.
He’s almost at the other end of the table—how?—and I run without a second thought. Without a backward glance. Without looking for Sarah or anyone else. I don’t care about making a fool of myself now.
I chase the white shirt down until he turns the last corner. Fear grips my throat—what if he wasn’t real, what if none of it was real, it was just a holiday fantasy that seemed real? Stress can do that to a person. Surely, it can, but—
I round the corner, and there he is, hands in his pockets, still walking.
“Cole. Stop.”
He does, instantly, turning back toward me. “You’re supposed to be getting out of here.”
I rush up to him in case he is an apparition and brush my fingertips over his sleeve to be absolutely sure. It’s a struggle to catch my breath. “Are you kidding?” I fan my face with my hand and straighten up. “Do unto others.”
“You keep saying that.” He laughs a little, but I can tell from the way he stands that he expects me to back away.
I don’t back away. “I’m not going anywhere,” I insist.
“Leona—”
“Without you.”
Cole’s eyes narrow, then go wide. “Oh, for god’s sake. I handed you a bag full of diamonds to leave this place, to follow your wildest dream, and you want company?”
All at once, I see it—his own fear, lurking deep behind his eyes. The pieces fall neatly into place. A runaway. Years of bonuses and holiday diamonds. Years and years. This is the only place Cole has ever known. “I want your company. And only yours. When is your contract up?”
He looks at the ground, and for a dizzying moment I think he’ll say never. “It’s been up for a while, but I keep signing up for three-month gigs.”
Hope, bright and clear, fills my chest. “When?”
“January,” he says. “Right after the holidays.”
I see it—I see it. Open skies and Cole’s hand in mine. A lifetime’s worth of conversations. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“You don’t know me.” Another flash of fear, and it’s obvious now, obvious out here in the strange lights of the mountain, that this man, this confident, beautiful man, has a weakness. And it’s the thought of stepping outside this mountain only to discover that there’s no one left for him. “You might not like what you find.”
I laugh, a real, genuine laugh, for the first time since my mother died. I’ve been certain about two things in life. One was that I had to take the contract here to pay for her care. The other is that my body sings for Cole. Sings. Every nerve on fire, all of my skin sensitive, my very bones wanting to reach for him. Is it weird to say I’ve been obsessed with him for three long years? I have been. On a cellular level. And now that he’s been inside me—
New blush heats my cheeks and this time, when I reach for his hand, it’s not by mistake. It’s not thoughtless. It’s with all the intention I should have used three years ago. “I’ll love what I find. I think I already do.”
He pulls me to him then, kissing me long and deep, and his mouth is still on mine when a voice breaks in.
“Lee-Lee! What are you—oh.” I pull myself out of the kiss, but Sarah has a hand in the air, warning me not to speak. “Don’t say anything, because you cannot ruin dinner with the news that you’re leaving.”
“How would you know that?” Unbelievable. Truly.
“I said don’t tell me. Are you two coming to dinner?” Sarah’s eyes shine with glee and perhaps a little sadness. I’ll ask her later. “I’ve been saving seats. You’re taking forever.”
Cole squeezes my hand—yes. “Of course we are. Right now.”
The two of us follow Sarah back to the table and take seats in front of still-pristine plates. Sarah puts her arm around me and leans in, and for a moment, I’m certain that all this happened exactly the way it was supposed to.
It’s not until later that night—much later—that the dinner seems like a dream. I dreamed of open skies, and I still do, but now I see the mountain for what it is. A haven. A haven with its own holidays and a long table where there’s room for everyone. A long table I could come back to, if I needed.
Cole turns over in the bed next to me. He came here wordlessly after dinner and the two of us fell into bed, rolling over one another again and again until we were tired enough to sleep.
Now, the clock on my bedside table glows midnight. In front of the clock, a small velvet bag rests in the light of those numbers. Diamonds at midnight. Midnight diamonds. They’re everything we need to buy ourselves a new future.
They’re everything we need to find open skies.
Right after Christmas.
Thank you so much for reading Midnight Diamonds! Need more of this world? It’s waiting for you in my dark romance King of Shadows. Trust me—you want more of Hades. King of Shadows is available now on all retailers!
About the Author
Amelia Wilde is a USA TODAY bestselling author of steamy contemporary romance and loves it a little too much. She lives in Michigan with her husband and daughters. She spends most of her time typing furiously on an iPad and apprec
iating the natural splendor of her home state from where she likes it best: inside.
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Chapter One
“Oh, look, it’s snowing.”
I turned from where I was busy wrapping packages on the kitchen island. My husband and I had a small mountain of them this year—that’s what happens when you have two kids under five and two other half-siblings living in your house, plus a small army of family and friends descending on December twenty-third. It was a far cry from childhood holidays, which were a mishmash of Hanukkah and my bubbe’s half-attempt at Christmas festivities as a conservative Jewish woman. My husband, a lapsed Catholic who had grown up with next to nothing, had his own ways of dealing with that past. In Brandon’s characteristic way, he tended to go way, way overboard for the holidays. Which left me here warring with tinsel and scotch tape.
Jane, my best friend, sighed. “It never looks the same in New York, you know? There’s something about snow and Boston that’s just fucking magical.”
She stood under the windows of the solarium, gazing at the small orchard of apple trees quickly accumulating a bright white trim on their branches. Sometimes I found myself doing the same thing. Sometimes I really couldn’t believe that I, a lonely girl from Brooklyn, had ended up on one of the most beautiful properties in Boston.
Which was probably why I responded the way I did. With a loud, sardonic snort. “Snow is snow. We get it for about eight months, and then it’s blazing hot until it comes back again.”
“Since when did you become such a cynic?”
Jane returned to the breakfast bar, where she took a seat next to me as I wrestled with a long strip of ribbon. Every year, it was a constant joke in our house that I could never manage to tie a bow correctly. I was determined to prove them wrong this year.
“Sometime between two kids and a job that never ends,” I replied before snipping the ribbon. Shit. Too short. Again. I swore, maybe a little more than was strictly necessary.
“Damn, Sky. Is it really that bad?” Jane gestured around the house. “I thought this was the love den, you know? Eric and I hold the you and Brandon responsible for giving us a solid example these days.
I sighed. I didn’t mean to sound so cynical, especially given the fact that my friend and her husband hadn’t exactly had the easiest first year of marriage.
And the truth was, my life was pretty great. It had all started one snowy night in law school, when I had landed in the living room of a reclusive billionaire during a blizzard. Seemingly overnight, Brandon Sterling became the love of my life. With his gorgeous blue eyes and otherworldly persistence, the man transformed everything I thought I knew about love. Swept me off my feet and then some, for most of the past seven years.
Now I was married to a brilliant Adonis who adored me. We had two perfect children whose laughter and general hilarity was contagious and a beautiful home in Brookline that was the envy of most of my friends. Add a successful legal practice where I helped women escape marriages that were actually terrible and a slew of family safe and close…I was the luckiest person on earth.
Most days.
I glanced over Jane’s shoulder at the falling flakes. Snow had made this life happen. But the thrill of magic I usually felt whenever it started was tinged with something else these days. I wondered if the very thing that brought Brandon and me together had the potential to drive us apart.
“Snow means you’ll probably need to get back to Boston tonight, then, won’t you?” I said, not even bothering to hide my disappointment while I yanked on a new bit of ribbon. “Eric won’t chance you being stranded here over the holidays.”
It was December twenty-third. Jane had come up to Boston from New York for the week to Christmas shop with me and the kids and basically do best friend stuff together we wouldn’t actually spend Christmas together.
“Probably,” she agreed. “Although it’s more that he won’t chance being stuck alone with my mother when she arrives tomorrow morning.”
I yanked at the new ribbon with the blade of my scissors, then scowled at it when it failed to curl correctly around the knot.
“Let me do that.” Jane took the scissors from me, shaking her head. “You’re going against the grain, Skylar. Crafty shit never has been your forte, has it?”
Instead of swearing again the way I wanted, I allowed her to take over and collapsed one of the other counter stools. “Don’t act like you aren’t dying to go home anyway. Your husband worships the ground you walk on. You know it, and I know it.”
“Perhaps,” Jane said, winking through her cat-eyed frames and looking very much like an actual feline preening in the sun. “But that’s something we have in common, isn’t it? I’m sure the second I leave, Brandon’s going to run through those doors and sweep you off for some magical night since the kids are with your grandma. It is Friday, so what do you think it will be this week? Symphony tickets? Maybe a trip to Vermont for the weekend?”
I didn’t reply as I grabbed one of the rolls of ribbon and tried not to look at my tired reflection in the big mirror hanging over the side board across the room.
“Sky?”
I looked up. “Hmmm?”
Everything I was thinking must have been showing on my face because Jane immediately dropped the scissors atop the box.
“What’s wrong?” she demanded.
I sighed. No use hiding anything now. “I think…I don’t know…” I toyed with a ribbon, wrapping and unwrapping it around my fingers. Just spit it out. “I think Brandon might be having an affair.”
The words sounded ridiculous the moment they came out of my mouth.
Jane, to her credit, didn’t tell me I was crazy. She sighed and rubbed my shoulder. “Well, shit. You mentioned this the last time you came to see me. About things being off.”
I nodded, suddenly blinking back tears. It was one thing to think this. Another to say it out loud.
“I thought at first it was just tunnel vision. You know how he gets with his work projects. The kids.” I shook my head. “Once upon a time, that attention was on me too. But for the last few months, I don’t know. He’s been so distracted. He comes home late, sometimes not until ten or eleven o’clock at night. And our Friday dates…”
I could barely even stand to say it. It was pathetic, but Fridays were our nights, like Jane said. For the last four years, ever since having our daughter, Jenny, Brandon and I had set aside that night, once a week, to be together. And for most of it, Jane was right. My husband shamelessly spoiled me the way I had once refused to let him. There had been multiple trips to Paris for the night. London. Madrid. Tickets for the West End, or a surprise midnight tour of Lisbon. Not every week was such a massive affair—sometimes we just stayed in together too—but they were always special. Whoever said romance dies in marriage had never been married to Brandon Sterling.
Or so I’d thought.
I tipped my head and grimaced. Were those new frown lines? Maybe a gray hair shining in my natural red and not just a trick of light? Maybe I wasn’t the beauty anymore that he always said I was.
Maybe the magic really was dying.
“Is that all, though?” Jane tipped her head. “A few late nights? Some minor distractions? It is Christmas, Sky. He could be out of it for a lot of reasons.”
I shook my head. “I—ugh, I can’t believe I’m going to say this. But he left some receipts on the nightstand a few weeks ago. Two receipts—one for this ridiculously expensive lingerie shop on Newbury, another for The Martin.”
Jane whistled. “That fancy restaurant downtown?”
I nodded sadly. “The one he where he used to take me. You remember. When he didn’t want anyone to see us.”
I couldn’t help but snarl at the recollection. For a short period of time, I was a dirty little secret in Brandon’s glamorous life. It was only for a matter o
f months, but the memory still stung.
Jane frowned, clearly trying to sort this out. “Look, you also said he used to take business meetings there. And the lingerie—Christmas is in two days, babe. That could just be a gift for you.”
“There was also a card for a real estate agent,” I whispered. “Jane, don’t you remember the first thing he ever asked me? It wasn’t for a date.”
Jane cringed, clearly remembering with me Brandon’s first horrible attempts at courtship.
“‘No strings. No sleepovers,’” I quoted. “‘Nothing to get in the way of both of our very busy lives…An apartment near campus, your office, a car, whatever you need. The idea is to make this as convenient as possible.’”
Jane’s black brow arched over her glasses. “That was an admirable impression. You even got the South Boston accent right.”
But I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. “Jane! He has never once broken our Friday night date. But here we are, almost five o’clock, and we haven’t heard from him at all. He’s obviously doing something behind my back! What if it’s another woman?”
“Then you’ll take his ass to court and take him for half his billions, like the kickass divorce attorney you are.” Jane grabbed me by the shoulder and shook me a little. “Stop freaking out. And don’t forget! You’re a force to be reckoned with, too, my dear friend. This weepy act doesn’t suit you, and you know it. If you think Brandon’s messing around, hold his ass to the fire. Don’t wait to get burned yourself, because you never have in the past. I know you won’t start now.”
“That was different,” I whispered.
She let me go. “Different how?”
“Because,” I said. “Back then, I didn’t have as much to lose.”
Before she could answer, the sound of her cell phone ring—the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah”—burst through the air. Which meant it could only be one person.
“Go ahead,” I said ruefully. “You know he won’t stop until you answer.”
