It Started With A Diamond. Teri Wilson
a moment, her gaze dropped to his mouth. She let out a tremulous breath, and Franco could have sworn he heard a kittenish noise escape her lips.
Her reaction aroused him more than it should have, which he blamed on his newfound celibacy.
This lifestyle was going to prove more challenging than he’d anticipated.
But that was okay. Franco had never been the kind of man who backed down from a challenge. On the contrary, he relished it. He’d always played his best polo when facing his toughest opponents. Adversity brought out the best in Franco. He’d learned that lesson the hard way.
A long time ago.
Another time, another place.
“You two are breathtaking,” the photographer said. “Diana, open the collar of your blouse just a bit so we can get a better view of the sapphire.”
She obeyed, and Franco found himself momentarily spellbound by the graceful contours of her collarbones. Her skin was lovely. Luminous and pale beside the brilliant blue of the sapphire around her neck.
“Okay, I think we’ve got it.” The photographer lowered her camera.
“We’re finished?” Diana asked.
“Yes, all done.”
“Excellent.” She started walking away without so much as a backward glance.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, mi cielo?” he said.
She spun back around, face flushed. He’d seen her wear that same heated expression during competition. “What?”
He held up his wrists. “Your cuff links.”
“Oh. Um. Yes, thank you.” She unfastened them and gathered them in her closed fist. “Goodbye, Mr. Andrade.”
She squared her shoulders and slipped past him. All business.
But Franco wasn’t fooled. He’d seen the tremble in her fingertips as she’d loosened the cuffs of his shirt. She’d been shaking like a leaf, which struck him as profoundly odd.
Diana may have pretended to forget him, but he remembered her all too well. There wasn’t a timid bone in her body, which had made her beyond memorable. She was confidence personified. It was one of the qualities that made her such an excellent rider.
If Diana Drake was anything, it was fearless. In the best possible way. She possessed the kind of tenacity that couldn’t be taught. It was natural. Inborn. Like a person’s height. Or the tone of her voice.
Or eyes the color of violets.
But people changed, didn’t they? It happened all the time.
It had to. Franco was counting on it.
Diana was running late for work.
Since the day of the mortifying photo shoot, she’d begun to dread the tenth-floor showroom with more fervor than ever before. Every time she looked up from one of the jewelry cases, she half expected to see Franco Andrade strolling toward her with a knowing look in his eyes and a smug grin on his handsome face. It was a ridiculous thing to worry about, of course. He had no reason to return to the store. The photo shoot was over. Finished.
Thank goodness.
Besides, if history had proven anything, it was that Franco wasn’t fond of follow-through.
Still, she couldn’t quite seem to shake the memory of how it had felt when he fastened that sapphire pendant around her neck...the graze of his fingertips on her collarbone, the tantalizing warmth of his breath on her skin.
It had been a long time since Diana had been touched in such an intimate way. A very long time. She knew getting her photo taken with Franco hadn’t been real. They’d been posing, that’s all. Pretending. She wasn’t delusional, for heaven’s sake.
But her body clearly hadn’t been on the same page as her head. Physically, she’d been ready to believe the beautiful lie. She’d bought it, hook, line and sinker.
Just as she’d done the night she’d slept with him.
It was humiliating to think about the way she’d reacted to seeing him again after so long. She’d practically melted into a puddle at the man’s feet. And not just any man. Franco Andrade was the king of the one night stand.
Even worse, she was fairly sure he’d known. He’d noticed the hitch in her breath, the flutter of her heart, the way she’d burned. He’d noticed, and he’d enjoyed it. Every mortifying second.
Don’t think about it. It’s over and done. Besides, it wasn’t even a thing. It was nothing.
Except the fact that she kept thinking about it made it feel like something. A very big, very annoying something.
Enough. She had more important things to worry about than embarrassing herself in front of that polo-playing lothario. It hadn’t been the first time, after all. She’d made an idiot out of herself in his presence before and lived to tell about it. At least this time she’d managed to keep her clothes on.
She tightened her grip on the silver overhead bar as the subway car came to a halt. The morning train was as crowded as ever, and when the doors slid open she wiggled her way toward the exit through a crush of commuters.
She didn’t realize she’d gotten off at the wrong stop until it was too late.
Perfect. Just perfect. She was already running late, and now she’d been so preoccupied by Franco Andrade that she’d somehow gotten off the subway at the most crowded spot in New York. Times Square.
She slipped her messenger bag over her shoulder and climbed the stairs to street level. The trains had been running slow all morning, and she’d never be on time now. She might as well walk the rest of the way. A walk would do her good. Maybe the spring air would help clear her head and banish all thoughts of Franco once and for all.
It was worth a shot, anyway.
Diana took a deep inhale and allowed herself to remember how much she’d always loved to ride during this time of year. No more biting wind in her face. No more frost on the ground. In springtime, the sun glistened off her horse’s ebony coat until it sparkled like black diamonds.
Diana’s chest grew tight. She swallowed around the lump in her throat and fought the memories, pushed them back to the farthest corner of her mind where they belonged. Don’t cry. Don’t do it. If she did, she might not be able to stop.
After everything that had happened, she didn’t want to be the pitiful-looking woman weeping openly on the sidewalk.
She focused, instead, on the people around her. Whenever the memory of the accident became too much, she tried her best to focus outward rather than on what was going on inside. Once, at Drake Diamonds, she’d stared at a vintage-inspired engagement ring for ten full minutes until the panic had subsided. She’d counted every tiny diamond in its art deco pavé setting, traced each slender line of platinum surrounding the central stone.
When she’d been in the hospital, her doctor had told her she might not remember everything that had led up to her fall. Most of the time, people with head injuries suffered memory loss around the time of impact. They didn’t remember what had happened right before they’d been hurt.
They were the lucky ones.
Diana remembered everything. She would have given anything to forget.
Breathe in, breathe out. Look around you.
The streets were crowded with pedestrians, and as Diana wove her way through the crush of people, she thought she caught a few of them looking at her. They nodded and smiled in apparent recognition.
What was going on?
She