by Teri Wilson
Everywhere.
“Wildfire.” Franco winked, and she felt it down to the toes of her silver Jimmy Choos. “I have something for you.”
He reached into the inside pocket of his tuxedo and pulled out a tiny Drake-blue box tied with a white satin ribbon. It was just like the ones she’d once sold to all the moonstruck couples in Engagements.
Diana stared at it, trying to make sense of what was happening. For as long as she could remember, she’d hated those boxes. But not this time.
This time, the tears that pricked her eyes were tears of joy.
“Franco, what are you doing?” How had he even gotten that box? Or whatever was inside of it?
Her gaze flitted over Franco’s shoulder, and she spotted Artem watching from afar with a huge grin on his face. So her brother was in on this, too? That would certainly explain where the tiny blue box had come from. It also explained his insistence that she stay for the beginning of the gala.
Is this really happening?
“Isn’t it obvious what I’m doing?” Franco dropped down on one knee, right there in the Great Hall of the Met.
It was happening.
A gasp went up from somewhere in the crowd as the partygoers noticed Franco’s posture. Diana could hear them murmuring in confusion. Of course they were baffled. She and Franco were supposed to be engaged already.
Let them be confused. For once, Diana didn’t care what anyone was saying about her. She didn’t care what kind of headlines would be screaming from the front page of the papers tomorrow morning. All she cared about was the man kneeling at her feet.
“It occurred to me that I never asked properly for you to become to my wife. Not the way in which you deserve. So I’m giving it another go.” He took her hand and gently placed the blue box in it.
Her fingertips closed around it, and their eyes met. Held.
“I love you, Diana Drake. Only a fool would walk away from something real, and I don’t want to be a fool anymore. So I’m asking you again, and I’m going to keep asking for as long as it takes.” But there would be no more proposals, because she was going to say yes. She could barely keep herself from screaming her answer before he finished. Yes, yes, yes. “Will you marry me, Diana Drake?”
“I’d love to marry you, Franco Andrade.”
The crowd cheered as he rose to his feet and took her into his arms. Diana was barely conscious of the popping of a champagne cork or the well-wishers who offered their congratulations. She was only aware of how right it felt to be by Franco’s side again and how the tiny blue box in her hand felt like a magic secret.
She waited to open it until they were back at her apartment. The time between his proposal and the end of the party passed in a glittering blur. She needed to be alone with him. She needed to step out of her fancy dress and give herself to him, body and soul.
After they left the gala and finally arrived at her front door, Diana wove her fingers through Franco’s and pulled him inside.
“Alone at last,” he said, gazing down at her as the lights of Manhattan twinkled behind him.
“Sort of.” Diana laughed and lifted a brow at Lulu, charging at them from the direction of the bedroom.
Franco scooped the puppy into the elbow of his uninjured arm and sat down on the sofa. Lulu burrowed into his lap, and he gave the empty space beside him a pat. “Come sit down. Don’t you have a box to open?”
She sat and removed the little blue box from her evening bag. She held it in the palm of her hand, not wanting the moment to end. She wanted to hoard her time with Franco like a priceless treasure. Every precious second.
“Open it, Wildfire.”
She tugged on the smooth satin ribbon and it fell onto her lap, where Lulu pounced on it with her tiny black paws. As the puppy picked it up with her mouth, she fell over onto her back between them, batting at the ribbon with her feet. The comical sight brought a lump to Diana’s throat for some strange reason.
Then she realized why...
The three of them were a family.
She lifted the lid of the box, but the large rose-cut diamond solitaire nestled on top of the tiny Drake-blue cushion inside was unlike any of the rings in the shiny cases of the Engagements section of Drake Diamonds. Jewelers didn’t typically style diamonds in rose cut anymore. This ring was different. Special. Familiar in a way that stole the breath from Diana’s lungs.
“This was my mother’s ring.” She hadn’t seen this diamond in years, but she would have recognized it anywhere. When she was a little girl, she used to slip it on and dream about the day when she’d wear sparkling diamonds and go to fancy black-tie parties every night, just as her parents did.
That had been in the years before everything turned pear-shaped. Before they’d all learned the truth about her father and his secret family. Back when being a wife and a mother seemed like a wonderful thing to be.
Diana had forgotten what it was like to feel that way.
Now, with breathless clarity, she remembered.
“How did you get this, Franco?” It was more than a stone. It was hope and happiness, shining bright. Diamond fire.
“I went to Artem to ask for your hand, and he gave it to me. He said it’s been in the vault at Drake Diamonds for years. Waiting.” Franco took the ring and slid it onto her finger. Then he lifted her hand and kissed her fingertips.
The diamond had been waiting all this time. Waiting for her broken heart to heal. Waiting for the one man who could help her put it back together.
Waiting for Franco.
At long last, the wait was over.
Epilogue
A Page Six Exclusive Report
Diamond heiress Diana Drake returns to New York today after winning a gold medal in equestrian show jumping at the Tokyo Olympics. The win is a shocking comeback after Drake suffered a horrific fall last year in Bridgehampton that resulted in the death of her beloved horse, Diamond. Drake’s new mount—a Hanoverian mare named Sapphire—was a gift from her husband, polo-playing hottie Franco Andrade.
Andrade was on hand in Tokyo to watch his wife win the gold, where we hear there was plenty of Olympic-level PDA. We can’t get enough of Manhattan’s most beautiful power couple, so Page Six will be front row center this weekend when Andrade returns to the polo field as captain of the newly formed team, Black Diamond, which he co-owns with his longtime friend and teammate, Luc Piero.
All eyes will certainly be on Diana, who is returning to the helm of her family’s empire Drake Diamonds as co-CEO. Rumor has it she declined a glass of champagne at the party celebrating her Olympic victory, and we can’t help but wonder...
Might there be a baby on the horizon for this golden couple?
Only time will tell.
* * * * *
Love finds the Drake siblings in the glittering world of jewels and New York City.
If you enjoy IT STARTED WITH A DIAMOND, be sure to check out the first two books in the DRAKE DIAMONDS series, HIS BALLERINA BRIDE and THE PRINCESS PROBLEM wherever Harlequin Special Edition books and ebooks are sold.
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Katrina Bailey’s life is at a crossroads, so when arrogant—but sexy—Bowie Callahan asks for her help caring for his newly discovered half brother, she accepts, never expecting it to turn into something more...
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Serenity Harbor
by RaeAnne Thayne
CHAPTER ONE
“THAT’S HIM AT your six o’clock, over by the tomatoes. Brown hair, blue eyes, ripped. Don’t look. Isn’t he gorgeous?”
Katrina Bailey barely restrained from rolling her eyes at her best friend. “How am I supposed to know that if you won’t let me even sneak a peek at the man?” she asked Samantha Fremont.
Sam shrugged with another sidelong look in the man’s direction. “Okay. You can look. Just make it subtle.”
Mere months ago, all vital details about her best friend’s latest crush might have been the most fascinating thing the two of them talked about all week. Right now, she found it tough to work up much interest in one more man in a long string of them, especially with everything else she had spinning in her life right now.
She wanted to ignore Sam’s request and continue on with shopping for the things they needed to take to Wynona’s shower—but friends didn’t blow off their friends’ obsessions. She loved Sam and had missed hanging out with her over the last nine months. It made her sad that their interests appeared to have diverged so dramatically, but it wouldn’t hurt her to act like she cared about the cute newcomer to Haven Point.
Donning her best ninja spy skills—honed from years of doing this very thing, checking out hot guys without them noticing—she pretended to reach up to grab a can of peas off the shelf. She studied the label intently, all while shifting her gaze toward the other end of the aisle.
About ten feet away, she spotted two men. Considering she knew Darwin Twitchell well—and he was close to eighty years old and cranky as a badger with gout—the other guy had to be Bowie Callahan, the new director of research and development at the Caine Tech facility in town.
Years of habit couldn’t be overcome by sheer force of will. That was the only reason her stomach muscles seemed to shiver and her toes curled against the leather of her sandals. Or so she told herself, anyway.
Okay. She got it. Sam was totally right. The man was indeed great-looking: tall, lean, tanned, with sculpted features and brown hair streaked with the sort of blond highlights that didn’t come from a salon but from spending time outside.
Under other circumstances, she might have wanted to do more than look. In a different life, perhaps she would have made her way to his end of the aisle, pretended to fumble with an item on the shelf, then dropped it right at his feet so they could “meet” while they both reached to pick it up.
She used to be such an idiot.
The old Katrina might not have been able to look away from such a gorgeous male specimen. But when he aimed a ferocious scowl downward, she shifted her gaze to find him frowning at a boy who looked to be about five or six, trying his best to put a box of sugary cereal into their cart and growing visibly upset when Bowie Callahan kept taking it out and putting it back on the shelf.
Katrina frowned. “You didn’t say he had a kid. I thought you had a strict rule. No divorced dads.”
“He doesn’t have a kid!” Sam exclaimed.
“Then who’s the little kid currently winding up for what looks like a world-class tantrum at his feet?”
Ignoring her own stricture about not staring, Sam whirled around. Her eyes widened with confusion. “I have no idea! I heard it straight from Eliza Caine that he’s not married and doesn’t have a family. He never said anything to me about a kid when I met him at a party at Snow Angel Cove or the other two times I’ve bumped into him around town this spring. I haven’t seen him around for a few weeks. Maybe he has family visiting. Or maybe he’s babysitting or something.”
That was so patently ridiculous, Katrina had to bite her tongue. Really? Did Sam honestly believe the new director of research and development at Caine Tech would be offering babysitting services—in the middle of the day and on a Monday, no less?
She sincerely adored Samantha for a million different reasons, but sometimes her friend saw what she wanted to see.
This latest example of how their paths had diverged in recent months made her a little sad. Until a year ago, she and Sam had been—as her mom would say—two peas of the same pod. They shared the same taste in music, movies, clothes. They could spend hours poring over celebrity and fashion magazines, dishing about the latest gossip, shopping for bargains at thrift stores and yard sales.
And men. She didn’t even want to think about how many hours of her life she had wasted with Sam, talking about whichever guy they were most interested in that day.
Samantha had been her best friend since they found each other in junior high in that mysterious way like discovered like.
She still loved her dearly. Sam was kind and generous and funny, but Katrina’s own priorities had shifted. After the events of the last year, Katrina was beginning to realize she barely resembled the somewhat shallow, flighty girl she had been before she grabbed her passport and hopped on a plane with Carter Ross.
That was a good thing, she supposed, but she felt a little pang of fear that while on the path to gaining a little maturity, she might end up losing her best friend.
“Babysitting. I suppose it’s possible,” she said in a noncommittal voice. If so, the guy was really lousy at it. The boy’s face had reddened, and tears had started streaming down his features. By all appearances, he was approaching a meltdown, and Bowie Callahan’s scowl had shifted to a look of helpless frustration.
“If you want, I can introduce you,” Sam said, apparently oblivious to the drama.
Katrina purposely pushed their cart forward, in the opposite direction. “You know, it doesn’t look like a good time. I’m sure I’ll have a chance to meet him later. I’ll be in Haven Point for a month. Between Wyn’s wedding and Lake Haven Days, there should be plenty of time to socialize with our newest resident.”
“Are you sure?” Sam asked, disappointment clouding her gaze.
“Yeah. Let’s just finish shopping so I have time to go home and change before the shower.”
Not that her mother’s house really felt like home anymore. Yet another radical change in the last nine months.
“I guess you’re right,” Sam said, after another surreptitious look over Katrina’s shoulder. “We waited too long, anyway. Looks like he’s moved to another aisle.”
They found the items they needed and moved to the next aisle as well, but didn’t bump into Bowie again. Maybe he had taken the boy, whoever he was, out of the st
ore so he could cope with his meltdown in private.
They were nearly finished shopping when Sam’s phone rang with the ominous tone she used to identify her mother.
She pulled the device out of her purse and glared at it. “I wish I dared to ignore her, but if I do, I’ll hear about it for a week.”
That was nothing, she thought. If Katrina ignored her mother’s calls while she was in town for Wyn’s wedding, Charlene would probably mount a search and rescue, which was kind of funny when she thought about it. Charlene hadn’t been nearly as smothering when Kat had been living halfway around the world in primitive conditions for the last nine months. But if she dared show up late for dinner, sheer panic ensued.
“I’m at the grocery store with Kat,” Samantha said, a crackly layer of irritation in her voice. “I texted you that’s where I would be.”
Her mother responded something Katrina couldn’t hear, which made Sam roll her eyes. To others, Linda Fremont could be demanding and cranky, quick to criticize. Oddly, she had always treated Katrina with tolerance and even a measure of kindness.
“Do you absolutely need it tonight?” Samantha asked, pausing a moment to listen to her mother’s answer with obvious impatience written all over her features. “Fine. Yes. I can run over. I only wish you had mentioned this earlier, when I was just hanging around for three hours doing nothing, waiting for someone to show up at the shop. I’ll grab it.”
She shut off her phone and shoved it back into her little dangly Coach purse that she’d bought for a steal at the Salvation Army in Boise. “I need to stop in next door at the drugstore to pick up one of my mom’s prescriptions. Sorry. I know we’re in a rush.”
“No problem. I’ll finish the shopping and check out, then we can meet each other at your car when we’re done.”
