All That Glitters

by Diana Palmer

  Audrey came to the wedding, along with Dee and Tim and his mother and sisters and the rest of the K-M staff. Of course, Ivory designed her own wedding gown, another in the growing Crystal Butterfly Collection, and swanned down the aisle with six of Kells-Meredith’s best models—not including Gaby—as bridesmaids, all dressed in pale pink gowns and big floppy hats. It was a showstopper; the bridesmaids carried crystal baskets to hold their flowers, and Ivory carried crystal roses tied with white satin bows, for a bouquet. The whole theme of the wedding was crystal, and it didn’t lack for press coverage. Curry said later that he’d noticed half the New York media in the cathedral.

  After the ceremony, a reception was held at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and Ivory stood close to her handsome husband with her hand locked firmly in his. When he looked down at her, she felt as if she owned the whole world and everything in it.

  They flew to the Caribbean for their honeymoon and returned to Manhattan after two glorious weeks in a secluded resort in Montego Bay, Jamaica, getting to know each other as they’d never had time to do before.

  Shortly after their return, the Crystal Butterfly Collection won them one of the highest fashion awards and put Kells-Meredith on the cutting edge of couture competition.

  Ivory’s keen insight into the market had made her as valuable an executive as a designer, and in short order, she was promoted to vice president of design.

  She had everything in the world, and on Christmas Eve she gave her husband the most wonderful present of his life: the news that they would be partners in a new enterprise—bringing up their baby.

  EPILOGUE

  FIVE YEARS AND two children later, Ivory and Curry Kells stood outside the boardroom of Kells-Meredith with expansion proposals for the design office tucked into their respective briefcases. It had been a beautifully successful partnership. Ivory had taken over from Harry Lambert when he was promoted into the hierarchy of Curry’s financial empire, and she now had charge of the entire design firm. She still designed occasionally, but the business end of the concern was the most exciting to her. Even more exciting than that was the joy of being able to work from their home in upstate New York, by using the fax and computer hookup via a modem with the office. She needed to spend only two or three days in Manhattan every week. The rest of the time she devoted to her children.

  Marlene still lived in Harmony, Texas. She’d married a local man and surprisingly seemed to be changing for the better since her new husband had insisted that she get treatment for her drinking problem. Sober, Marlene was somewhat different, but Ivory found it more comfortable to keep her distance. Belittling her daughter was a way of life for Marlene, even if she was kinder to her grandchildren. But, like the old axiom, few leopards ever change their spots.

  Ivory and Curry had a relationship that was the envy of all their friends. Even Audrey had started thinking about delegating more so that she and her husband could have a child. It was the influence of her brother and sister-in-law, she joked. Being a corporate giant was beginning to pall next to the wonder of playing with Ivory’s children.

  Curry just drank it all in, glorying in his intelligent, loving wife and his two sons. This forthcoming addition to the family had to be a girl, though, he informed his wife. He wanted an excuse to go into production of a line of couture dresses for little girls.

  They stood hand in hand outside the boardroom, pausing before they went inside.

  “Think we’ll win?” Ivory asked her handsome husband.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” he returned with a chuckle. “When have we ever lost?”

  “There’s always a first time. They look formidable.”

  He pursed his lips and studied her. She was carrying their third child, and she looked like a dream wearing a cream-colored silk maternity suit with her logo—the crystal butterfly—on its pocket. “They’ll melt when they see you,” he remarked lovingly. “They always do.”

  She glowered up at him. “I’m beginning to catch on, you know.”

  His eyebrows lifted. “Catch on to what?”

  “You needn’t pretend to be so innocent,” she chided. “I have noticed that you wait to call board meetings on major issues like expansion projects until I’m visibly pregnant. This is the third time,” she reminded him.

  “Well, we need all the edge we can get,” he defended himself. He grinned. “Besides, I like showing off the new line. Don’t you?”

  She laughed. “Yes. But...”

  The boardroom doors opened. “But, nothing,” he said, taking her arm. “Let’s go in there and persuade them.”

  “Cross your fingers.”

  He smiled with pure delight as he led her toward the waiting board of directors. All it took was one look at their faces to tell him they wouldn’t need to count on luck. Ivory saw that expression on his dark face and smiled softly to herself. As usual, he had the advantage.

  She walked beside him with her eyes twinkling, remembering other meetings, other victories. Her hand tightened in his as she counted her blessings. He’d said once that all that glittered was not gold, and he was right. The real gold was the joy and wonder of loving and being loved. And it grew brighter and richer by the day.

  * * * * *

  Be sure to check out

  Diana Palmer’s next spellbinding romance, UNDAUNTED.

  When innocent Emma Copeland and millionaire Connor Sinclair bump heads, sparks fly—but a deep secret might keep them apart forever...

  Keep reading to get a glimpse of

  UNDAUNTED.

  There’s something about those Wyoming men…

  New York Times bestselling author Diana Palmer returns to the Cowboy State with a brand-new tale of desire and deception in

  Wyoming Winter

  Cultivating his vast Wyoming ranch is all security expert J. C. Calhoun wants. His land is the only thing the betrayed rancher can trust in after discovering his fiancée was pregnant by another man. But all J.C. holds dear becomes compromised when a lost little girl leads him to Colie Jackson, the woman who destroyed his life.

  Colie stops at nothing to protect the people she loves. Years ago she left J.C. for his own good. Now, for the sake of her daughter, she must depend on a hard-hearted man who won’t forgive her. As a band of ruthless criminals tracks their every move through the frozen Wyoming winter, Colie and J.C. will be forced to confront the lies that separated them—and the startling truth that will bind them forever...

  Order your copy now!

  In their quest for true love on the range, are these ranchers bold enough to open their hearts to the women under their protection? Don’t miss any of the stories in the captivating Wyoming Men series!

  Wyoming Brave

  Wyoming Rugged

  Wyoming Strong

  Wyoming Bold

  Wyoming Fierce

  Wyoming Tough

  Add these cowboys to your shelf today!

  “...You just can’t do better than a Diana Palmer story to make your heart lighter and smile brighter.”

  —Fresh Fiction

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  Undaunted

  by Diana Palmer

  One

  Emma Copeland was sitting on the end of the dock, dangling her bare feet in the water. Minnows came up and nibbled her toes, and she laughed. Her long
, platinum-blond hair fell around her shoulders like a silk curtain, windblown, beautiful. The face it framed wasn’t beautiful. But it had soft features. Her nose was straight. She had high cheekbones and a rounded chin. Her best feature was her eyes, large and brown and gentle, much like Emma herself.

  She’d grown up on a small ranch in Comanche Wells, Texas, where her father ran black baldies in a beef operation. She could ride and rope and knew how to pull a calf. But here, on Lake Lanier in North Georgia, she worked as an assistant to Mamie van Dyke, a famous and very wealthy writer of women’s suspense novels. Mamie’s books were always at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. That made Emma proud, because she helped with the research as well as the proofing of those novels in their raw form, long before they were turned over to editors and copy editors.

  She’d found the job online, of all places. A Facebook friend, who knew that Emma had taken business courses at her local vocational school, had mentioned that a friend of her mother’s was looking for a private assistant, someone trustworthy and loyal to help her do research and typing. It wasn’t until she’d applied and been accepted—after a thorough background check—that Emma had learned who her new boss was. Mamie was one of her favorite authors, and she was a bit starstruck when she arrived with her sparse belongings at the door of Mamie’s elaborate and luxurious two-story lake house in North Georgia.

  Emma had worried that her cheap clothing and lack of social graces might put the older woman off. But Mamie had welcomed her like a lost child, taken her under her wing, and taught her how to cope with the many wealthy and famous guests who sometimes attended parties there.

  One of those guests was Connor Sinclair. Connor was one of the ten wealthiest men in the country—some said, in the world. He was nearing forty, with wavy jet-black hair that showed only a scattering of silver. He was big and broad and husky with a leonine face and chiseled, perfect lips. He had a light olive complexion with high cheekbones and deep-set eyes under a jutting brow. He was handsome and elegant in the dinner jacket he wore with a spotless white shirt and black tie. The creases in his pants were as perfect as the polish on his wing-tip shoes. He had beautiful hands, big and broad, with fingers that looked as if they could crush bones. He wore a tigereye ring on his little finger. No other jewelry, save for a Rolex watch that looked more functional than elegant.

  Emma, in her plain black cocktail dress, with silver stud earrings and a delicate silver necklace with a small inset turquoise, felt dowdy in the glittering company of so many rich people. She wore her pale blond hair in a thick bun atop her head. She had a perfect peaches-and-cream complexion, and lips that looked as if they wore gloss when they didn’t. Light powder and a soft glossy lipstick were her only makeup. She held a champagne flute filled with ginger ale. She didn’t drink, although at twenty-three, she could have done so legally.

  She was miserable at the party, and wished she could go somewhere and hide. But Mamie was nearby and might need an iPad or her phone, which Emma carried, ready to write down something for her. So she couldn’t leave.

  From across the room, the big man was glaring at her. She squirmed under his look, wondering what she could have done to incur his anger. She’d never even seen him before.

  Then she remembered. She’d been out on the lake in Mamie’s speedboat once. She loved the fast boat. It made her feel free and happy. It was one of the few things that did. She’d been crazy about a boy in her class at the vocational school where she’d learned administrative skills. When he’d asked her out, all her dreams had come true. Until he’d learned that her father ran beef cattle. They were even engaged briefly.Unfortunately, he was a founding member of the local animal rights group, PETA. He’d told Emma that he found her father’s profession disgusting and that he’d never have anything to do with a woman who had any part of it. He’d walked out of her life and she’d never seen him again. After that, he ignored her pointedly at school. Her heart was broken. It was one of the few times she’d even had a date. She went to church with her father, but it was a small congregation and there were no single men in it, except for a much older widower and a divorced man who was her father’s age.

  Her home life wasn’t much better. She and her father lived in a ranch house that had been in the family for three generations and looked like it. The furniture didn’t match. The dishes were old and many were cracked. Water came out of a well with an electric pump that stopped working every time there was a bad storm, and there were many storms in Texas. Her father was a rigid man, deeply religious, with a sterling character. He’d raised his daughter to be the same way. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was eight years old, and she’d seen it happen. Her father had drawn into himself at a time when she needed him most. That was before he’d started drinking. He’d rarely been sober in recent years, leaving most of the work and decision making on the ranch to his foreman.

  He’d never seemed to feel much for his only child. Of course, she wasn’t a boy, and it was a son he’d desperately wanted, someone to inherit the ranch after him, to keep it in the family. Girls, he often said, were useless.

  She dragged herself back from her memories to find the big man walking toward her. Something inside her wanted to run. But her ancestors had fought off floods and cattle rustlers and raiding war parties. She wasn’t the type to run.

  She bit her lower lip when Connor Sinclair stopped just in front of her. He wasn’t sipping champagne. Unless she missed her guess, he held a large glass of whiskey, straight up, with just a cube of ice in the crystal glass.

  He glared down at her from pale, glittery silver eyes. “I had a talk with the lake police about you,” he said in a curt, blunt tone. “I told them who you worked for and where you lived. Pull another stunt like yesterday’s on the lake, and you’ll find out what happens to kids who take insane risks in speedboats. I’ve had a talk with Mamie, as well.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “I didn’t see the Jet Ski!”

  “You weren’t looking when you turned,” he bit off. “You were going too fast to see it at all!”

  She was almost drawing blood with her teeth. Her hand, holding the flute, was shaking. She put her other hand over it to steady it. “There was nobody out there when I started...”

  “Your generation is a joke,” he said coldly. “Unruly kids who have no manners, who think the world owes them everything, that they can do whatever the hell they please, do whatever they like, without consequences! You go through life causing tragedies and you don’t care!”

  She felt tears stinging her eyes. “Ex-excuse me,” she said huskily, turning away.

  But he took her firmly by one shoulder and turned her back around. “I never make threats,” he said coldly. “You remember what I’ve told you.”

  Tears overflowed her eyes. She couldn’t help it. And it shamed her, showing weakness before the enemy. She jerked away from him, white-faced and shaking.

  He frowned, as if he hadn’t expected her reaction. She turned and ran for the kitchen. She put the flute down on a counter and went out the back door into the cool night air, desperate to get away from him. Nobody knew where she was. Nobody cared. The tears tumbled down over her cold cheeks. She’d grown up without love, without the simplest display of affection after their housekeeper Dolores left the ranch, except for an occasional hug from the women in her church. She’d lived alone, had her dreams of romance shattered. And now here she was, her pride in shambles, hounded out of her home by a relentless enemy who seemed to think she was a juvenile delinquent bent on killing people. All that, because she went a little wild in the speedboat.

  By the time she got herself together and eased back in, Connor Sinclair was nowhere to be seen. She went back to Mamie’s side and stayed there the rest of the night, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t return.

  * * *

  It had been a sobering confrontation. She hoped she never had to see Co
nnor again. Sitting on the dock, she moved her toes in the cool water, laughing softly at the tiny fish still nibbling on them. The lake was glorious in autumn. Leaves were just beginning to turn, in every single shade of red and gold the mind could imagine. There was a soft breeze, lazy and warm, because autumn had come late to North Georgia. Emma, in her long cotton dress, with its brown and yellow and green print, looked like part of the scenery in a postcard.

  “What the hell are you doing on my dock?” a cold, angry voice growled from behind her.

  She jumped up, startled, and grabbed her shoes, too unsettled to think of putting them on. “Your dock?” She’d thought the house was closed up. She hadn’t seen any lights on in it for days and she’d never considered who might own it. The dock had always been deserted. She’d been coming here for several days to enjoy the minnows and the view of the lake.

  “Yes, my dock,” he said angrily. His hands were shoved deep in the pockets of his tan pants. He wore a brown designer polo shirt, which emphasized the muscles in his chest and arms.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, her face turning bright red. “I didn’t think anybody lived here...”

  “Funny girl,” he shot back. “Mamie knows that I’m here three months of the year. You knew.”

  “I didn’t,” she bit off, feeling tears threaten all over again. She moved away from him. “Sorry,” she added. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know...”

  “I come here to get away from people, reporters, telephones that never stop ringing. I don’t want my privacy invaded by cheap little girls in cheap dresses,” he added insolently, sneering at her off-the-rack dress.

  Her lower lip trembled. Tears threatened. But her injured pride wouldn’t let that insult go by unaddressed. “My dress may be cheap, Mr. Sinclair, but I am not.” She lifted her chin. “I go to church every Sunday!”

  Something flashed in the eyes she could barely see. “Church!” he scoffed. “Religion is the big lie. Sin all week, then go to confession. Sit in a pew on Sunday and hop from one bed to another the rest of the week.”