The Flaw in His Diamond

by Susan Stephens

  She ran a bath and still he was in her head—and it had nothing to do with his incredible body, or the force field of sex that swirled around him. Or even the humour in his eyes. It was the man. Stripped of his wealth and his obvious attractions, Roman was special, while she was too shy, too awkward, too inexperienced, to have a hope of holding his attention. He made her see things differently. He made her want to rush home and hug her sisters, and tell them they must never fall out again—that she must never fall out with them again. He made her see that sometimes it was better to hold back and think things through before rushing off in her usual headstrong way. But she wasn’t the only one with secrets. Roman had his share. She wanted to know him better. She wanted to know his secrets...

  She thought about Roman for so long the water grew chilly. Was there a chance he would come to her tonight?

  There was always a chance...

  There were no sounds in the big house when she padded barefoot into the bedroom. It was so romantic with moonlight streaming into the room and across the covers on the bed. And it was all wasted on her. Awkward Eva had done it again. Drawing the toweling robe a little closer, she firmed her jaw. Tomorrow was another day. And Roman had promised they would talk. Look at it that way, and it was mission accomplished.

  But then she would go home and nothing would change, and the idea of becoming an increasingly embittered old shrew held scant appeal.

  It didn’t have to be this way.

  Padding over to the main door, she opened it a crack, and then a little bit more. It wasn’t exactly an invitation. It could even be taken for a door left open by mistake. But if Roman should happen to notice, and came in...

  Was that likely?

  Throwing back the covers, she climbed in between the cool sheets and stretched out. Closing her eyes, she steadied her breathing. She lay tensely listening for what felt like hours. Once she even heard a door open, but it was somewhere far away and soon closed again. After that, silence mocked her, and, defeated, she fell back on the pillows. Roman had no intention of visiting her tonight—or any other night—and she was a fool to think he might.

  She tossed and turned throughout the endless night, searching for sleep and finding very little, so that by the time she woke it was with surprise that she had slept at all. There wasn’t even time for breakfast—just a quick shower. She made it down into the hall at the same moment that Roman powered through the door.

  ‘Ready?’ he said, already turning to go.

  It took her a moment to reply. She was still reeling from the slam into her senses of seeing him again. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To open your mind, Signorina Skavanga.’

  ‘That sounds interesting.’ And if she didn’t rush he’d be gone.

  They were together again. She couldn’t help a little inward jig, because right now that was enough.

  Striding at speed down the path that led through the gardens, Roman took her through a rose arbour, which was a miracle in itself in such a hot climate, and then on across to a perfectly manicured lawn where sprinklers were on active duty. The tall, arching spray glittered a frame around the outline of a sleek white helicopter. The helicopter was empty. So Roman must be the pilot. Of course he was.

  ‘Duck your head,’ he warned as they approached the long blades. Opening the door, he gestured for her to get in. Once she was settled, he passed her a set of headphones. ‘Put these on. I’ll help you strap in.’

  She braced herself for the moment when his hands brushed her body. It was important that she behaved as if nothing had happened between them—as if he hadn’t seen her naked—as if he hadn’t taken her to the door of paradise and slammed it in her face.

  ‘Problem, Eva?’ he said, standing back.

  Slamming doors was a theme between them? She bit her lip to hide her smile. Everything was happening so fast. ‘I didn’t expect this.’

  ‘The ferry’s too slow for what I’ve got in mind,’ Roman said as he checked her straps.

  He smelled amazing and looked even better. She doubted he ever took the ferry. She doubted she could survive being with him in such an enclosed space.

  He closed her door, which gave her a few brief seconds of isolation in which to collect her thoughts. No chance. There could never be enough time for that while Roman was around. Even the air seemed to jangle when he climbed in beside her. It was charged with his energy, as was she. Just watching him strap in and put his headphones on, before placing a brief call in Italian to some distant control tower, was arousing. His familiarity with the big machine as he flipped switches and made other preparations for take-off was ridiculously sexy. His naked arms, tanned and coated with just the right amount of black hair, were sexy. His strong hands and wrists brought back memories of an extremely sexual nature, while his crisp short-sleeved shirt, tucked into well-packed jeans cinched with a no-nonsense leather belt, only made her remember what his body felt like beneath his clothes. And it tempted her gaze to wander down—

  ‘Are you sitting comfortably, Eva?’

  His voice with its metallic twang as it came through the headphones startled her. Raising her chin just in time, she said, ‘Fine, thank you.’ Mighty fine.

  Roman turned back to his pre-flight checks. His harsh, unyielding profile, with the customary coating of stubble, was incredibly sexy. Roman Quisvada was the most compelling individual she’d ever met, and she had to force herself not to take in any more of him and just stare straight ahead.

  Before she knew it the ground was sinking away through the worryingly see-through panel on the floor at her feet. As she watched, the island became a playroom carpet of bright colours: green, orange, brown and blue.

  ‘Can you hear me clearly?’ Roman checked, bringing her back with relief to the reassuring sight of him in full control of the situation.

  ‘Perfectly, thank you.’

  ‘And you’re not nervous?’

  Tongue in cheek: in what context? ‘Not one bit,’ she confirmed.

  ‘Good. We’ll be in the air around an hour.’

  ‘Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?’

  ‘To one of my facilities on the mainland. And you don’t need to shout. I can hear you perfectly too.’

  ‘I thought your work was cutting and polishing diamonds?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘So that’s where we’re going?’

  Roman didn’t answer. He had started talking to someone on the other end of the radio link, and so she fell silent, frustrated by the lack of information. Roman always contrived to be one step ahead of her, and that was something she had to change.

  Heat rushed through her as, conversation over, Roman turned to glance at her. ‘I’m going to teach you all I know, Eva.’

  About diamonds? There was a suspicious amount of humour, even in the robotic tone of voice coming through her headphones. So long as it wasn’t her klutzy lack of skill when it came to Roman’s advanced class last night.

  ‘Diamonds can do more than buy a woman or ruin a man.’

  ‘That’s a very jaundiced view.’

  ‘Perhaps I have a very jaundiced view of life, Eva.’

  Perhaps he did.

  Her thoughts turned from daydreams to reality as the glittering blue ocean gave way to pristine white seashore and then on to neatly cultivated land where the soil was a rich shade of ochre. It was some time more before she spotted any real signs of habitation other than the occasional farmhouse or barn, but then came increasingly busy roads and small towns, until they were hovering over what looked like a brand new industrial park.

  ‘Welcome to Quisvada Industries, Eva,’ Roman announced as he took them down. He landed the helicopter exactly on the centre of a yellow cross in the middle of a number of immaculately maintained, pristine white buildings. ‘This is where we cut
and polish the diamonds.’ He switched off the engines and signalled that she could remove her headphones now. ‘And where we do a few more things you probably won’t be expecting.’

  Diamonds, always diamonds. Her mind rioted with impatience. Would she never escape them? Why were diamonds so important to everyone but her? Yes, she wanted the mine to survive, but she couldn’t help wishing that Skavanga could be saved by some other means. Couldn’t Roman see she was desperate to get their talks under way? She was grateful to him for taking this time out to show her round, but she was desperate to move on so they could talk and she could go home. There was only so much torture she could take and she was just about at her limit. Being close to him, yet poles apart in their thinking, was unendurable. ‘I know all about diamonds,’ she exclaimed with frustration, ripping the headphones from her head.

  ‘No,’ Roman argued as he dipped his sunglasses down his nose. ‘You only think you do.’

  He was right again. Their visit to his facility was a revelation for her. Everyone had heard about industrial diamonds, though Eva hadn’t realised that the demand for them far outstripped gem-quality diamonds.

  ‘Although the use of synthetic diamonds is on the march,’ Roman explained.

  And he was on top of that too, Eva realised as he took her through another sterile white building. ‘I must admit I wasn’t aware of the many uses of industrial diamonds in medical situations.’ She paused and spoke her next words with care, sensing Roman’s particular interest in this subject as his hand strayed to the gold chain he wore. ‘I knew that diamond dust was used to coat various medical instruments, but I had no idea that it was used to target rogue cells.’

  ‘The list goes on and on,’ he confirmed.

  She had wondered about Roman’s obvious obsession with the medical application of diamond dust, as explained to Eva by one of the technicians working in that particular department. Roman’s eyes had gleamed with fervour as he had stood beside her listening.

  ‘Our boss is one of the biggest supporters of medical research in the world,’ the technician had told her proudly. ‘Without him there would be no progress.’

  ‘It might be slower, Marco,’ Roman tempered, resting his hand on the man’s shoulder, ‘though I appreciate your confidence in me. But I can tell you, Eva, that without people like Marco nothing would be achieved.’

  More surprises were in store when Roman took her for lunch. He chose a low-key beach shack rather than some high-tone restaurant.

  And this was better, she thought as they kicked off their shoes. She could relax and be herself—maybe even forget who she was for a couple of hours, forget who Roman was and their respective roles in life. She could forget the fact that she was having lunch with a billionaire who just happened to have flown her here in his helicopter.

  ‘Is that okay for you?’ Roman checked with her when the handsome young waiter suggested the fresh catch of the day for lunch.

  ‘Perfect,’ she confirmed, resting back in the wicker chair. ‘This is heaven.’ And after the ups and downs of the past couple of days, to be sitting like this with her feet in the sand and Roman at her side, with the lazy surf rolling rhythmically back and forth in between them, this was heaven.

  ‘Have I convinced you?’ he asked in a lazy drawl, leaning back.

  She smiled as his chair creaked. It hardly seemed substantial enough to contain such a significant force. ‘I can see the need for those diamonds now, and it goes far beyond what I thought...’

  ‘But?’ he queried, sensing a question in her words.

  She waited until the waiter had served their cold drinks. ‘I suppose your particular interest in the medical application fascinates me. You seem...’ She hesitated.

  ‘Unusually passionate?’ Roman suggested. ‘That’s because I am.’

  ‘It wasn’t your passion that surprised me. It’s the direction it takes. Is there some particular reason for that?’ she asked carefully. ‘A personal reason, perhaps?’

  He shrugged and finished his glass of water, pouring another before he spoke, and then he just said, ‘Yes.’

  She waited, but then their food arrived and they were both distracted for a few moments. When everything had calmed down, she tried again. ‘So...’

  ‘Eat, Eva. Your food will get cold, and it looks delicious.’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ she agreed, but she didn’t make any move to pick up her knife and fork.

  ‘All right,’ Roman threatened as he shook out her napkin and spread it across her knees. ‘I’ll have to feed you if you won’t eat. You have been warned.’

  ‘No. Seriously. Please tell me—’ She jumped in with both feet. ‘Starting with the gold chain...I can tell it means a lot to you. Why do you wear it?’

  When his eyes flashed she was sure she had gone too far too soon, and wished she could call the words back, but Roman quickly gathered himself.

  ‘It was my mother’s chain. She got sick and died,’ he said briskly, unemotionally. ‘I’m just trying to do some good, Eva. We all have to do what we can, even if it’s all too late. So now you know. Do you mind if we eat now?’

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. It’s just that I don’t know too much about you apart from what I read in the newspapers.’

  ‘And that’s largely lies and exaggeration.’

  She shrugged and smiled briefly as their glances met and held for an instant. ‘I wouldn’t know, would I?’

  A long moment passed, and then Roman said, ‘My adoptive mother died—my blood mother too...of the same illness.’

  ‘Fate can be very cruel sometimes,’ she said gently, treasuring his confidence in telling her what he had.

  ‘I still can’t believe it all these years on.’

  Roman seemed lost to her for a moment. ‘It was a terrible coincidence,’ she said quietly, not wanting to intrude on his painful memories.

  ‘I still blame myself,’ Roman revealed as he stared out across a deceptively placid-looking ocean.

  ‘You can’t blame yourself for their illness.’

  ‘I blame myself for causing them the stress that might have provoked it,’ Roman explained. ‘I grew up the trophy son, praised to high heaven by my adoptive parents, but when I found out the truth about my birth on my fourteenth birthday, all I wanted was to be accepted by my blood family, but when I went to find them, they shut the door in my face.’

  ‘It was too late and your mother had died?’ she guessed.

  Roman’s smile lacked any humour. ‘Worse. It was the day of her funeral, and having her fourteen-year-old son turn up out of the blue was the last thing her grieving family had expected. She bore more children after me, and it was just too much for them, my turning up, and at the worst time possible. They told me to my face I had no place there.’

  ‘So you believed you didn’t belong anywhere.’

  ‘My adoptive parents took me back without question and with open arms.’

  ‘But that was good, surely?’

  Darkness still lurked behind his eyes. ‘They had never shown me anything but love—and how did I repay them? By becoming increasingly cold and unfeeling.’

  ‘But you were so young. You must have been so full of anger and bewilderment.’

  ‘And now it’s too late.’

  ‘It’s never too late,’ she whispered.

  ‘All I wanted was to make them proud.’

  ‘And don’t you think you have?’

  ‘I should have loved them more at the time, and then thought about making them proud of me. My adoptive mother fell ill, but I didn’t even notice I was so self-obsessed.’

  ‘Most teenagers are,’ Eva pointed out. So this was what had put that haunted look in his eyes. Her heart ached for him. ‘You’ve never forgiven yourself, and yet you must have been broken-hearted too. Wh
at a terrible shock for you, and teenage boys don’t deal too well with emotional upheaval—’

  ‘Which of course you know all about,’ he snapped, resenting her intrusion into his hidden world, she guessed.

  ‘I do know, as it happens. I have a brother, Tyr, remember? I only have to think back to remember Tyr rampaging around the house, yelling at everyone when he was young because he had no other outlet for his feelings.’

  ‘So that’s how you learned to shout,’ Roman said, slowly coming out of his black mood.

  In that moment, things changed between them. An understanding grew that hadn’t been there before. ‘My personality has nothing to do with my brother, Tyr—though, like most sisters, I blame him for lots of things, but not that.’

  ‘So you just grew this way?’ Roman suggested, a smile curving his lips.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said, acting menacing.

  ‘I think you do know, Eva.’

  This was too much—too much emotion—too much understanding of what made her tick. She chose not to meet Roman’s penetrating stare, and stared out to sea instead, to where the heat-bleached horizon met the intense blue-green of deep water.

  Perhaps if Tyr had stayed home rather than answering the wanderlust that had always plagued him, things might have turned out differently, but like Roman she couldn’t turn the clock back. She didn’t want to. Things were as they were, and she was as she was, and for once in her life, sitting here next to Roman, that didn’t seem such a very bad thing.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  STANDING UP, HE held out his hand to Eva. She hesitated. Then she smiled and reached out to him. He drew her with him, pausing only at the counter to pay.

  ‘We’ll be back.’ Roman narrowed his eyes when it struck him that the gaze of the smiling waiter taking his money was fixed longingly on Eva’s face.

  His hackles rose. He smoothed them down again. Who could blame the youth when Eva looked as she did—a little bewildered and surprised she could enjoy herself and relax as she had with him? She was endearingly dishevelled from the stiff breeze blowing off the sea, and her face was flushed from the warm sun on her winter pale skin. She looked beautiful. She looked beautiful and vulnerable and desirable, yet strong. She was as strong as he was, maybe. But she was tender too, and sensitive. He had never told anyone the history of the chain he wore, or his backstory. Only the two men in the consortium knew that, and they had known him since school. And though they had hardly known each other long, he trusted her, and for no better reason that he knew his diamonds, and Eva was a pure blue-white in a grimy world. She was everything he had dreamed about as a teenager, and as a man could never find.