Diamond Girl

She saw a flash of raw emotion in his face. “Were you divorced?” she asked.

“No,” he replied curtly. “She died.”

“Oh. I’m sorry,” she said gently, and meant it.

His hands idly moved up and down on her arms. “It’s been almost three years. I’m older and wiser. But there are nights when...” He let go of her and moved away to light a cigarette, and she realized for the first time that he was, indeed, a lonely man. It was a shock to realize that she cared that he was lonely.

“Life is too short to try living it in the past,” he remarked after a minute. He turned. “And far too short to long for things and not try to go and get them. Isn’t Denny worth a few changes in your life?”

She had always thought so. “Yes,” she said, giving herself a mental shake. “Of course he is.”

“Then let’s see what we can do to get his attention.”

The first stop was the beauty salon. She watched her long, dark hair fall in strands onto the spotless floor while Mr. Andrew snipped and discussed the latest styles and called back and forth to other patrons. Kenna found herself caught up in the cheerful surroundings and the excitement of doing herself over. Perhaps Regan was right. She was twenty-five, and it was time she took herself in hand. It was time she started to live.

When her hair was washed and blow-dried, she stared blankly at the girl in the mirror. She’d forgone makeup that morning, and now she was glad. With her rosy cheeks and full, soft mouth and unadorned eyes, she looked fresh and natural. And the short, beautifully shaped hair framed her face in darkness, making her look like a pixie with her slightly slanted eyes, thin brows and high cheekbones. She grinned at herself wonderingly.

“Is nice, no?” Mr. Andrew chuckled. “Now, miss, you go to makeup counter and have face done and see difference. I promise, you like.”

She did that, finding herself with an extra half hour before she was to meet Regan in the couture department. She watched, fascinated, as the makeup expert did her face like a canvas, outlining her lips in plum and filling them with a deep, rich magenta, then delicately tinting her cheeks and eyebrows, lengthening her lashes, shadowing her eyes and finally enhancing her lovely complexion with the faintest touch of powder.

“Is that me?” she asked after a minute, captivated by the difference, wondering at the girl with the small, straight nose and big, shimmering green eyes and soft oval of a face with its bee-stung mouth.

“Quite a difference,” the makeup expert agreed with a smile. She sold Kenna the right cosmetics to keep the new look daily and waved her off.

Regan was wandering around the mannequins with a dark scowl, sizing up each dress, while the saleslady darted curious glances his way.

“Waiting for me?” Kenna asked from behind him.

He turned, still scowling, and his eyes widened suddenly as he recognized her. “My God.” It was all he said, but the inflection was enough to convey his meaning. He walked around her, staring. “Well, well, Cinderella, you do have something.”

“While you’re trying to figure out what,” she said, “couldn’t we go into the budget shop and look for clothes? I’m going to owe you my soul if we have to buy anything in here. They don’t even have price tags on most of these things!”

“You’re going to a ball, not a beach party,” he said curtly. “I’m not taking you to the Biltmore in a dress off the rack.”

“But...”

“Oh, shut up,” he said impatiently, and taking her arm, he led her to the saleslady. While she stood rigidly, Regan told the tall, thin elderly woman exactly what he wanted for Kenna and then waited impatiently while the saleslady went off to search through her stock.

She came back in a minute with a long, sensuous confection of green-and-gold-and-aqua-patterned Quiana with a low crisscross neckline.

“This is one of our designer models,” the woman said with a smile. “And perfect for a figure like yours, my dear,” she added to Kenna.

“Well, try it on,” Regan said. “Then come out here and let me see it.”

The saleslady sent Kenna into the back, where she tried on the dress in front of the long mirror in the plush dressing room. She stared at herself as if entranced.

“How does it fit, my dear? Oh, my,” the saleslady murmured approvingly as Kenna walked out of the fitting room.

“It fits like a dream,” she said sheepishly, almost afraid to touch the silky material for fear of running it. “Like gossamer...”

“The color is perfect,” the older woman agreed. “Just perfect, with that light tan of yours.”

She led Kenna back out into the showroom and stood with hands folded, while her client moved forward toward the tall, dark man who was waiting for her. Regan was idly watching passersby when he heard Kenna’s step and turned.

He didn’t say anything. His eyes went up and down and up again, and his face hardened.

“Is—is it all right?” she asked, desperately wanting to be told that she looked stunning, that Denny would fall at her feet...anything.

He nodded. “Yes,” he said in a strange, husky tone, “it’s all right. Now see what you can find for the office. A tailored suit, some skirts and blouses that don’t look frumpy and a couple of ensembles for leisure.”

“But...but what for?” she asked.

“Going out with me one time isn’t going to give Denny any hints,” he said curtly. “Or did you expect him to take one look at you and drop to his knees to propose?”

She hated that cynical question. The dress had made her feel like a princess, and now he had spoiled it all. “No,” she admitted. “I didn’t expect that.” She turned, but he caught her bare arm and held her back, out of earshot of the saleslady.

“You look enchanting, is that what you want to hear?” he asked at her ear, his voice husky, his breath warm against her neck. “That dress makes a man want to smooth it away from your body and see what’s underneath.”

She caught her breath at the blatant seduction of his voice.

“Embarrassed?” He chuckled as he let her go. “Well, you wanted to know, didn’t you?”

She rushed off before he could manage anything worse and was surprised at the furious beat of her heart when she went to take off the dress.

It was the most wonderful shopping trip she’d ever been on. She bought a two-piece suit, pink with a plum feather pattern; it had a straight skirt and a long-sleeved V-neck jacket secured by a plum-colored rose at the peplum waist. She bought several skirts and revealing blouses that she wouldn’t have looked at if Regan hadn’t been with her, forcing her to buy them despite her own misgivings. She bought an expensive bra that added at least one size to her small breasts and some lacy lingerie. And as she mentally calculated the cost on the way out of the store, she sighed.

“I’ll be working for you for the rest of my life,” she murmured.

He glanced down at her from his superior height and smiled. “Would you mind? As long as I made the coffee once in a while?”

The tone of his deep voice surprised her into looking up. And when she did, she felt a warm surge of sensation that rippled down to her feet. His eyes, dark and quiet and intense, held hers until the jostling of passersby broke their strange exchanged look and brought them back to reality.

“Thank you for going with me,” she murmured, following him out to his gray Porsche.

“I didn’t have a choice,” he said, glancing sharply at her as he unlocked the door and helped her inside. “Left on your own, you’d have come back with the same clothes you thought looked great on you before.” He went around the car and eased his formidable bulk in beside her. She glared for all she was worth.

“I am not stupid about clothes,” she informed him.

“Your idea of fashion is a gunnysack with arm and neck holes,” he replied as he started the sleek car.

“Well, it’s better than looking like a prostitute,” she tossed back, “and that’s what I’ll look like in some of those things you made me buy! The neckline on one of those blouses is halfway to my knees!”

“Don’t exaggerate,” he said shortly. His dark eyes dropped to her T-shirt. “How many of those damned things do you have, anyway?”

“What things?” she demanded.

“Those shapeless things you hide your body in.”

“I like loose clothing,” she retorted.

“Obviously.” He threw a careless arm over the back of the seat as he turned to back the car out of the parking space. His face was much too close to hers. Involuntarily, her eyes went to his wide, chiseled mouth, and she wondered what it would feel like to kiss him.

He stopped the car to put it in gear, but he didn’t move. She sensed the sudden heavy beat of his heart, the warmth of his body.

“Look at me,” he growled.

She looked up and her eyes were held by his, possessed by his, so that the world was suddenly contained in a pair of intense brown eyes under thick, short lashes.

His gaze dropped to her soft, parted lips, and he moved fractionally, his own lips parting. She waited, and wanted, hardly breathing, and her eyes narrowed to slits as he came closer. She drank in the scent of his cologne, the warmth of his big body, the faintly smoky scent of his breath as she felt it against her lips. And she wanted to kiss him with a longing that had her spinning. She wanted to kiss him hungrily and hard and see if the touch of that chiseled mouth would be as maddening as she was imagining it would...

“Get going, will you!” The loud voice was followed by the equally loud blaring of a car horn.

The dark brown eyes blinked and Regan looked into the rearview mirror with vague curiosity, while Kenna felt herself trembling with hunger for a kiss she wouldn’t get. She wanted to jump out of the car and kick the driver behind them for interrupting. Why she should feel that way when she loved Denny was something she didn’t dare question. She cleared her throat.

Abruptly Regan put the car into Drive and eased down on the accelerator, glancing toward her as he left the irate driver behind them. “Would you mind telling me what that long, soulful look was all about?” he asked, a bite in his deep voice.

She swallowed. “I wasn’t looking at you. I was thinking,” she countered weakly.

“About what?” he asked as he pulled into traffic.

“You mentioned that taking me out one time wouldn’t be enough,” she murmured, nervous with him all of a sudden. “What did you mean? You said we were just going to transform me...”

“It’s going to take more than a haircut and new clothes to do that,” he said flatly. He lit a cigarette while they stopped at a red light. “And going out with me is the best way I know to catch Denny’s attention. Or haven’t you noticed how competitive he is with me?”

“I don’t know if my ego can take more than one date with you,” she said matter-of-factly, glaring at him.

“It will have to, if you really want Denny,” he told her. “And I’m not going to pull my punches. I’m going to teach you how to dress, how to walk, how to flirt, the works. Because what you need most is confidence, and you’re sadly lacking in that commodity.”

“And you think having my appearance torn to pieces is going to give it to me,” she mused ironically.

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