The Flaw in His Diamond

by Susan Stephens

  ‘You have a lot to learn about diamonds, Eva.’

  She remained unconvinced. ‘There must be some other way to save the mine.’

  ‘When you find one, let me know. Meanwhile, you’re welcome to use one of the guest suites.’

  ‘But we haven’t finished talking yet.’

  ‘I have,’ Roman said flatly.

  And she was in no position to attract a potential landlady while she was dripping wet with a towel wrapped around her.

  ‘You’ve got twenty minutes, Eva. And then I’m leaving,’ he warned as she jogged past him up the stairs

  ‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting.’

  ‘Please yourself. I won’t wait.’

  ‘Where is this guest suite?’ The palazzo was so huge. She turned back to look at him. ‘Where do you want me to go?’

  Roman’s look suggested he’d like to tell her. ‘When you get to the top of the stairs, turn left, and take the last door on your right. You can’t miss it—it’s got a lion’s head handle. And hurry up, Eva, I don’t have all day.’

  ‘Thank you, Roman.’

  Her attempt at meekness earned her a withering look. Lion’s head handle. No doubt the handle on his door was a fist.

  Building bridges? Not blasting them sky high...

  She felt his gaze following her as she ran up the stairs. Roman was so confident in his masculinity he made her feel awkward and inexperienced, as if all her past failed encounters with men were an open book to him. No doubt he was having a good laugh at her expense. She had left it too long to risk intimacy with a man. She didn’t like to do anything unless she did it well, and intimacy was one skill she didn’t possess.

  ‘Don’t look so worried, Eva.’

  She gasped as he bounded in front of her, taking the stairs two at a time.

  ‘You couldn’t be safer than you are with me.’

  His voice was deep and husky and vaguely amused. He did sense her embarrassment, and he was laughing at her.

  So let him. She shrugged as she reached the landing. ‘I don’t know what makes you think I’m worried. I can handle myself.’

  ‘So I hear,’ he said dryly.

  She hated herself for reacting so violently. All the tiny hairs on the back of her neck lifted, and heat pulsed insistently through her veins. The power emanating from him flowed around her, embracing her whether she liked it or not. Her sisters would be amazed to see her shaken like this—when they’d stopped laughing. What was so special about tall, dark and perfect, anyway? Why was her body insisting on behaving like this? Roman was so not her type. He was autocratic and overbearing. He was the most insufferable man she’d ever met.

  And the most attractive.

  He showed no interest in her as a woman, which was a relief. An absolute relief. But it wasn’t normal. He could at least pretend. That would be the polite thing to do. And weren’t aristocrats supposed to be courteous? Weren’t they all raised to behave differently from other people by ferocious nannies with thick rulebooks on how to behave?

  ‘Turn left, I said,’ he called out to her.

  I knew that. She casually retraced her steps, vowing to keep her thoughts restricted to what she had to do—which did not include fixating on Roman Quisvada.

  She checked each door down the long and airy corridor, longing to be safe behind one of them, and away from him, so she could calm down and cool off. Roman had disappeared somewhere in the opposite direction. Good. She’d had enough of Count Roman Quisvada and his sardonic face to last her a lifetime. But look at it this way: she only had to get through tonight at the wedding party. She would just have to bite her tongue.

  So long as she didn’t bite anything else, that should work.

  * * *

  He groaned with pleasure beneath an ice-cold shower. To his overheated skin the freezing water felt like soothing balm. His senses were heated thanks to Eva. She infuriated him. She attracted him, and that was distracting. There was unfinished business between them. Strength and fire had been his first impression of her at her sister’s wedding. His impression of her hadn’t changed, but Eva was more complex than he had first thought. She was elusive and thoughtful, passionate, and doggedly determined. And he had always liked a challenge. Eva Skavanga needed taming or she would continue to plague his mind.

  Quitting the shower, he grabbed a towel and rang one of his trusted aides in Skavanga. He needed more detail about her.

  ‘Mark? I need a briefing. Yes. Eva Skavanga. She’s here. What do you mean you knew that? Why on earth didn’t you tell me?’

  He listened to some rambling excuse and quickly realised that young Mark had fallen under Eva’s spell. ‘Well, now we both know.’ He cut his aide off impatiently. ‘Yes, of course she’s all right. Which brings me to my next question. You seem to be an admirer of this woman. Why? She seems to me to be more trouble than she’s worth?’

  ‘Don’t write her off,’ Mark advised. ‘Eva’s a hothead and likes to think she’s one of the boys, but she’s got a heart of gold—too trusting, maybe.’

  ‘Not in my case.’

  Mark ignored this. ‘She has her heart set on eco-tourism saving Skavanga. She’s terrified that our mining project will reduce the town to a smoking pile of steel, with panhandlers drinking in the streets and plastic tables and plastic food replacing the cultural traditions of her Arctic home.’ This much Roman already knew.

  His young aide was besotted. The thought almost made him veer away from asking the question uppermost in his mind. ‘Didn’t you explain that our work will cause minimal upheaval, and that any damage done will be repaired?’ And that wasn’t all of it.

  Mark laughed in an admiring way as his mind turned to a woman it was clear they were both interested in. ‘Have you tried reasoning with Eva?’

  ‘Enough.’ His voice came out a roar. So much for subtlety. ‘Tell me about her relationships.’

  There was a silence as Mark considered this. ‘There are none,’ he said at last on what sounded like a very dry throat.

  ‘Why is that?’ He didn’t let up the pressure. His hand tightened on the phone. ‘She’s an attractive woman...’

  ‘Who has half the men of the Arctic Circle racing each other to the South Pole, rather than tangle with her.’

  ‘I thought they bred them tough at the North Pole.’

  ‘They do, but Eva Skavanga is a special case.’

  ‘She has a problem with men?’

  ‘She has an unfortunate attitude with men.’

  Mark was being careful with his choice of words. ‘Explain,’ he insisted.

  ‘The older sister you know—Britt is confident and a great businesswoman. She’s self-confident, decisive and married now. The younger girl, Leila, is a bit of an unknown quantity, because she’s always been overshadowed by Britt and Eva—’

  ‘Eva’s reputation?’ he pressed. ‘I’m not interested in the other two. They’re not out here. She is.’

  ‘Eva’s a loner. Maybe she’s been hurt at some time.’

  ‘But not so hurt and broken she couldn’t turn up here, break into my house and swim in my pool—’

  ‘She broke into your house?’

  Now Mark did sound shocked. ‘She terrorised me,’ Roman said dryly. ‘Until I agreed to speak to her about her beloved Skavanga.’

  ‘That sounds like Eva.’

  Mark’s voice held the same note of admiration that had annoyed him the first time round and that now made him snarl, ‘That’s enough, Mark. She’s a nuisance at best. Forget I even rang you. I’ll sort her out. And I’ll get rid of her.’

  There was a long pause, and then Mark said, ‘She’s staying with you?’

  ‘Don’t worry. She’s not my type. I’m taking her to the wedding, and that’s all.’

  �
��You’re taking her to the wedding?’

  ‘Did I employ a parrot? I’m taking her so I can keep an eye on her.’

  As Mark gave a nervous laugh Roman guessed his young aide was in no way reassured as to the immediate fate of one Eva Skavanga. ‘Relax, Mark. I have no immediate plans for her.’ Later perhaps, he mused.

  ‘If you had allowed me to put her through to you when you were in Skavanga I guess she wouldn’t have made the trip.’

  ‘You sound worried, Mark. Whose side are you on?’

  ‘Yours, of course,’ Mark protested, ‘but—’

  ‘I didn’t avoid Eva’s earlier requests to see me. I ignored them. You should know by now that misguided pleas from emotional women cut no ice with me. Eva’s a small shareholder with no special privileges just because she happens to be a member of the family that gave its name to the mine. I’ll treat her the same as any other small investor, no better no worse.’

  But on a personal front?

  Taming Eva Skavanga held considerable appeal.

  He ended the call, having found out what he wanted to know. Eva was unattached. And doubly intriguing. His thoughts turned to having her passion pinned beneath him. He shrugged and smiled faintly as he ditched the towel. There were sound business reasons for keeping her close. While she was here she couldn’t disrupt work at the mine. Any damage caused by the drilling would be made good, which Eva would have known if she had attended the meetings he’d held in Skavanga instead of picketing them. Now she was trapped on an island with a ferry that operated at his command and he’d send her home when it suited him.

  Slinging on a pair of chinos and a clean shirt, he thought about shaving then parked the idea. As an image of Eva’s body flashed into his mind he reached into a cupboard to find a bottle of suncream. This was no godly act on his part. She lived in the Arctic and the sun was strong here. He didn’t want her too sore to have sex with. Giving his thick black hair one final run-through, he glanced in the mirror and imagined Eva’s defiant face glaring back at him. If there was anything he enjoyed more than a tussle with a hot-blooded woman, he couldn’t think what it was. Eva would be his guest at the wedding, and then, just as she had requested, he would give her his undivided attention.

  * * *

  She had found the door with the lion’s head handle. Thank goodness. This place was like a city. The door was heavy, silky cream, and as she closed her hand around the lion’s head it was a surprising degree of pleasure. Would everything be so tactile here? Including the count?

  Stop with the fantasies. She had around fifteen minutes to shower, change and meet him downstairs. All of which might have been fine if she could only stop gazing round like a country yokel. She had opened a door onto a wonderland of art and luxury, functionality and extravagance combined. Like the rest of the palazzo, the decor was discreet yet obviously expensive. Taupe, ecru, ivory and chalky-white, with a couple of showpiece ornaments and a huge unframed painting, picked up the tints of the throw on the bed—

  Okay...that unframed piece? The homage to Picasso? On closer inspection she discovered it was a Picasso. The last time she’d seen the painting it had been hanging in a gallery in Stockholm, labelled ‘on loan’ from an unnamed benefactor.

  Roman Quisvada lived in quite some style. And grudgingly, she had to admit she liked it. It did surprise her that such a powerful brute of a man lived like this in the home of a discerning connoisseur. The count was an interesting man—in more ways than one.

  Dropping her backpack on what was probably an extremely expensive rug, she tried not to draw unnecessary comparisons between the count’s seductive lifestyle and the seductive count. She scrunched her toes appreciatively in the soft wool as she crossed the room to inspect the balcony overlooking the placid azure sea. The scent of blossom was heavy and intoxicating, and she wished she could remain dreaming a little longer as she leaned over the stone balustrades, but the clock was ticking and she still had to shower and dress.

  Four doors faced her in the room. The first turned out to be a dressing room, for the guest who had everything, and who was only used to the best. Not Eva Skavanga, that was for sure. The second door revealed a gym. The third, a marble-lined bathroom. Her jaw dropped. And stuck. With its sunken bath and shower big enough for two, the bathroom could best be described as sumptuous. There were enough white fluffy towels for an army, and the water pressure was fierce enough to fill a lake. She wandered back into the bedroom, where she couldn’t resist a few bounces on the mega-sized bed where inviting crisp white sheets still held the faint scent of sunshine, and the throw, with its tints echoing those of the fabulous painting on the wall, reminded her of a fading summer sky. How was she ever going to drag herself away from this?

  A sharp rap on the door gave her that answer.

  ‘Eva?’

  She hadn’t even showered yet! ‘Five minutes?’ she yelled back.

  ‘Not a minute more.’ Roman sounded less than amused.

  How would he punish her if she was late?

  She absolutely had to stop thinking like that. Even as a joke! She might forget herself and come on to him. She could act tough back in Skavanga, but she was playing well out of her league here.

  Drying off after her shower, she twisted her hair into a messy up-do on top of her head, securing it with the single hairclip she had retrieved from the bottom of her pack. It was just a boring old plastic thing that came in a pack of six, but there was no time to dry her hair properly. And right on cue the hammering on the door started again. If she left Roman hanging much longer he’d crash the room.

  She was a campaigner not a stylist, so what was she worried about? Eva thought as she viewed her reflection in the cheval mirror in the bedroom. So what if Roman was clad in the finest couture, while the best that could be said for her was that she was clad? He’d asked for this. She wasn’t a fashion guru, either.

  ‘Ready.’ Buoyed with renewed confidence, she flung the door wide.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ he repeated flatly.

  She had been on the point of apologising for her casual appearance, but now she was stoked. Her cheeks blazed red as he stared at her.

  ‘You can’t go to the wedding dressed like that.’

  ‘Well, what do you suggest?’

  What made things worse was the sight of Roman dressed for the wedding. Wearing chinos, cinched with a beautifully tooled leather belt, he had a pale linen jacket slung over his shoulders and a dark shirt underneath. He looked even more amazing than before if such a thing were possible. His thick dark hair was still damp from the shower, and stubble was already shading his disapproving face. It should be illegal to look so hot. If every ruthless entrepreneur looked like Roman Quisvada, it was no wonder they could strip assets faster than Eva could throw a spanner in their works.

  ‘Well?’ she prompted as he continued to narrow his eyes and ponder. ‘I didn’t come here planning to attend a wedding. I don’t even want to go. You suggested it—’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ he admitted thoughtfully.

  ‘Are you ashamed of me?’

  He seemed to come round, as if this genuinely hadn’t occurred to him.

  ‘I have no feelings regarding you at all. I just think you might feel more comfortable if you were dressed differently, that’s all.’

  ‘That settles it,’ she flashed, backing into the room. ‘I’ll wait for you in the village—’

  With whip-fast reactions, he held the door firm.

  ‘Wait for me where?’ He stood belligerently in her way. ‘You’ll come with me—and you’ll come with me now. This isn’t a multiple-choice, Eva. The decision has already been made.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘DO YOU SERIOUSLY think anyone will notice what I’m wearing?’ she said, starting to worry.


  ‘Everyone will notice what you’re wearing.’

  ‘Because I’m with you,’ she scoffed.

  ‘They’ll be curious,’ Roman admitted with a shrug.

  I bet they will. ‘Why don’t you just say I’m an employee who turned up unexpectedly?’

  For the first time he seemed amused. ‘No one will believe that, Eva. They know me too well to think I could be surprised that way.’

  ‘Because all your employees do what you tell them, I suppose.’

  He gave her a sleepy look that suggested everyone did as he told them—with one notable exception. ‘Maybe they’ll think I’m a roadie with the band?’ Lifting her shoulders, she let them drop again.

  ‘Is that what you want people to think?’ Roman’s lips pressed down attractively.

  ‘I don’t care what they think—’

  ‘But I think you do,’ he said. ‘These are good people, Eva. I think you’ll want them to like you.’

  That was the one answer she hadn’t expected—the one answer she didn’t have a smart retort for. Concern from Roman was so unexpected that, quite inappropriately, her eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t used to people other than her sisters showing concern for her. They were generally afraid to in case she bit their head off. She had never been so wrong-footed before. And had never felt quite so out of place.

  ‘I’m just trying to be practical, Eva,’ Roman pointed out. ‘I’m trying to help you. Why can’t you accept that? And we don’t have much time.’

  As he glanced at his watch she knew he was right. It would be rude if the one man who was surely a valued guest arrived late at the party. ‘So what do you suggest?’ she said, shrugging unhappily.

  ‘That belt,’ he murmured.

  ‘What belt?’ she said, frowning impatiently.

  ‘The one you’re wearing on your jeans. It’s very pretty.’

  She was surprised he’d noticed. It was a good belt. She’d bought it when she had bought a few things in memory of her mother who had been über feminine. It was just a slim leather belt inlaid with polished turquoise set in silver.