It Started With A Diamond

Franco leaned languidly against the window while the photographer tousled his dark hair, ostensibly for styling purposes.

“Excuse me.” Diana held up the cuff links—18-carat white-gold knots covered in black pavé diamonds worth more than half the engagement rings in the room. “I’ve got the jewels.”

“Excellent,” the photographer chirped. “I’ll grab the camera and we’ll be good to go.”

She ran her hand through Franco’s hair one final time before sauntering away.

If Franco noticed the sudden, exaggerated swing in her hips, he didn’t let it show. He fixed his gaze pointedly at Diana. “You’ve come to dress me?”

“No.” Her face went instantly hot. Again. “I mean, yes. Sort of.”

The corner of his mouth tugged into a provocative grin and he offered her his wrists.

She reached for one of his shirt cuffs, and her mortification reached new heights when she realized her hands were shaking.

Will this day ever end?

“Be still, mi cielo,” he whispered, barely loud enough for her to hear.

Mi cielo.

She knew the meaning of those words because he’d whispered them to her before. Back then, she’d clung to them as if they’d meant something.

Mi cielo. My heaven.

They hadn’t, though. They’d meant nothing to him.

Neither had she.

“I’m not yours, Mr. Andrade. Never have been, never will be.” She glared at him, jammed the second cuff link into his shirt with a little too much force and dropped his wrist. “We’re finished here.”

Why did she have the sinking feeling that she might be lying?

Chapter Two

Diana Drake didn’t remember him. Or possibly she did, and she despised him. Franco wasn’t altogether sure which prospect was more tolerable.

The idea of being so easily forgotten didn’t sit well. Then again, being memorable hadn’t exactly done him any favors lately, had it?

No, he thought wryly. Not so much. But it had been a hell of a lot of fun. At least, while it had lasted.

Fun wasn’t part of his vocabulary anymore. Those days had ended. He was starting over with a clean slate, a new chapter and whatever other metaphors applied.

Not that he’d had much of a choice in the matter.

He’d been fired. Let go. Dumped from the Kingsmen Polo Team. Jack Ellis, the owner of the Kingsmen, had finally made good on all the ultimatums he’d issued over the years. It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Franco knew he’d pushed the limits of Ellis’s tolerance. More than once. More than a few times, to be honest.

But he’d never let his extracurricular activities affect his performance on the field. Franco had been the Kingsmen’s record holder for most goals scored for four years running. His season total was always double the number of the next closest player on the list.

Which made his dismissal all the more frustrating, particularly considering he hadn’t actually broken any rules. This time, Franco had been innocent. For probably the first time in his adult life, he’d done nothing untoward.

The situation dripped with so much irony that Franco was practically swimming in it. He would have found the entire turn of events amusing if it hadn’t been so utterly frustrating.

“Mr. Andrade, could you lift your right forearm a few inches?” the photographer asked. “Like this.”

She demonstrated for him, and Franco dragged his gaze away from Diana Drake with more reluctance than he cared to consider. He hadn’t been watching her intentionally. His attention just kept straying in her direction. Again and again, for some strange reason.

She wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Then again, beautiful women were a dime a dozen in his world. There was something far more intriguing about Diana Drake than her appearance.

Although it didn’t hurt to look at her. On the contrary, Franco rather enjoyed the experience.

She stood at one of the jewelry counters arranging and rearranging her tiny row of cuff links. He wondered if she realized her posture gave him a rather spectacular view of her backside. Judging by the way she seemed intent on ignoring him, he doubted it. She wasn’t posing for his benefit, like, say, the photographer seemed to be doing. Franco could tell when a woman was trying to get his attention, and this one wasn’t.

He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was about her that captivated him until she stole a glance at him from across the room.

The memory hit him like a blow to the chest.

Those eyes...

Until he’d met Diana, Franco had never seen eyes that color before—deep violet. They glittered like amethysts. Framed by thick ebony lashes, they were in such startling contrast with her alabaster complexion that he couldn’t quite bring himself to look away. Even now.

And that was a problem. A big one.

“Mr. Andrade,” the photographer repeated. “Your wrist.”

He adjusted his posture and shot her an apologetic wink. The photographer’s cheeks went pink, and he knew he’d been forgiven. Franco glanced at Diana again, just in time to see her violet eyes rolling in disgust.

A problem. Most definitely.

He had no business noticing any woman right now, particularly one who bore the last name Drake. He was on the path to redemption, and the Drakes were instrumental figures on that path. As such, Diana Drake was strictly off-limits.

So it was a good thing she clearly didn’t want to give him the time of day. What a relief.

Right.

Franco averted his gaze from Diana Drake’s glittering violet eyes and stared into the camera.

“Perfect,” the photographer cooed. “Just perfect.”

Beside her, Artem Drake nodded. “Yes, this is excellent. But maybe we should mix it up a little before we lose the light.”

The photographer lowered her camera and glanced around the showroom, filled with engagement rings. You couldn’t swing a polo mallet in the place without hitting a dozen diamond solitaires. “What were you thinking? Something romantic, maybe?”

“We’ve done romantic.” Artem shrugged. “Lots of times. I was hoping for something a little more eye-catching.”

The photographer frowned. “Let me think for a minute.”

A generous amount of furtive murmuring followed, and Franco sighed. He’d known modeling wouldn’t be as exciting as playing polo. He wasn’t an idiot. But he’d been on the job for less than an hour and he was already bored out of his mind.

He sighed. Again.

His eyes drifted shut, and he imagined he was someplace else. Someplace that smelled of hay and horses and churned-up earth. Someplace where the ground shook with the thunder of hooves. Someplace where he never felt restless or boxed in.

The pounding that had begun in his temples subsided ever so slightly. When he opened his eyes, Diana Drake was standing mere inches away.

Franco smiled. “We meet again.”

Diana’s only response was a visible tensing of her shoulders as the photographer gave her a push and shoved her even closer toward him.

“Okay, now turn around. Quickly before the sun sets,” the photographer barked. She turned her attention toward Franco. “Now put your arms around her. Pull her close, right up against your body. Yes, like that. Perfect!”

Diana obediently situated herself flush against him, with her lush bottom fully pressed against his groin. At last things were getting interesting.

Maybe he didn’t hate modeling so much, after all.

Franco cleared his throat. “Well, this is awkward,” he whispered, sending a ripple through Diana’s thick dark hair.

He tried his best not to think about how soft that hair felt against his cheek or how much her heady floral scent reminded him of buttery-yellow orchids growing wild on the vine in Argentina.

“Awkward?” Diana shot him a glare over her shoulder. “From what I hear, you’re used to this kind of thing.”

He tightened his grip on her tiny waist. “And here I thought you didn’t remember me.”

“You’re impossible,” Diana said under her breath, wiggling uncomfortably in his arms.

“That’s not what you said the last time we were in this position.”

“Oh, my God, you did not just say that.” This was the Diana Drake he remembered. Fiery. Bold.

“Nice.” Artem strode toward them, nodding. “I like it. Against the sunset, you two look gorgeous. Edgy. Intimate.”

Diana shook her head. “Artem, you’re not serious.”

“Actually, I am. Here.” He lifted his hand. A sparkling diamond and sapphire necklace dangled from it with a center stone nearly as large as a polo ball. “Put this around your neck, Diana.”

Diana crossed her arms. “Really, I’m not sure I should be part of this.”

“It’s just one picture out of hundreds. We probably won’t even use it. The campaign is for cuff links, remember? Humor me, sis. Put it on.” He arched a brow. “Besides, I thought you were interested in exploring other career opportunities around here.”

She snatched the jewels out of his hands. “Fine.”

Career opportunities?

“You’re not working here, are you?” Franco murmured, barely loud enough for her to hear.

Granted, her last name was Drake. But why on earth would she give up a grand prix riding career to peddle diamonds?

“As a matter of fact, I am,” she said primly.

“Why? If memory serves, you belong on a medal stand. Not here.”

“Why do you care?” she asked through clenched teeth as the photographer snapped away.

Good question. “I don’t.”

“Fine.”

But it wasn’t fine. He did care, damn it. He shouldn’t, but he did.

He would have given his left arm to be on horseback right now, and Diana Drake was working as a salesgirl when she could have been riding her way to the Olympics. What was she thinking? “It just seems like a phenomenal waste of talent. Be honest. You miss it, don’t you?”

Her fingertips trembled and she nearly dropped the necklace down her blouse.

Franco covered her hands with his. “Here, let me help.”

“I can do it,” she snapped.

Franco sighed. “Look, the faster we get this picture taken, the faster all this will be over.”

He bowed his head to get a closer look at the catch on the necklace, and his lips brushed perilously close to the elegant curve of her neck. She glanced at him over her shoulder, and for a sliver of 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.

Chapter Three

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 was accustomed to being recognized at horse shows. On the riding circuit she’d been a force to be reckoned with. But this wasn’t the Hamptons or Connecticut. This was Manhattan. She should blend in here. That was one of the things she liked best about the city—a person could just disappear right in the middle of a crowd. She didn’t have to perform here. She could be anyone.

At least that’s how she’d felt until Franco Andrade had walked into Drake Diamonds. The moment she’d set eyes on him, the dividing line between her old life and her new one had begun to blur.

She didn’t like it. Not one bit. Before he’d shown up, she’d been doing a pretty good job of keeping things compartmentalized. She’d started a new job. She’d spent her evening hours in Dalton’s apartment watching television until she fell asleep. She’d managed to live every day without giving much thought to what she was missing.

But the moment Franco had touched her she’d known the truth. She wasn’t okay. The accident had affected her more than she could admit, even to herself.

There’d been an awareness in the graze of his fingertips, a strange intimacy in the way he’d looked at her. As if she were keeping a secret that only he was privy to. She’d felt exposed. Vulnerable. Seen.

She’d always felt that way around Franco, which is why she’d been stupid enough to end up in his bed. The way she felt when he looked at her had been intoxicating back then. Impossible to ignore.

But she didn’t want to be seen now. Not anymore. She just wanted to be invisible for a while.

Maybe she wouldn’t have been so rattled if it had been someone else. But it had been him. And she was most definitely still shaken up.

She needed to get a grip. So she’d posed for a few pictures with a handsome man she used to know. That’s all. Case closed. End of story. No big deal.

She squared her shoulders and marched down the street with renewed purpose. This was getting ridiculous. She would not let a few minutes with Franco ruin her new beginning. He meant nothing to her. She was only imagining things, anyway. He probably looked at every woman he met with that same knowing gleam in his eye. That’s why they were always falling at his feet everywhere he went.

It was nauseating.

She wouldn’t waste another second thinking about the man. She sighed and realized she was standing right in front of the Times Square Starbucks. Perfect. Coffee was just what she needed.

As soon as she took her place in line, a man across the room did a double take in her direction. His face broke into a wide smile. Diana glanced over her shoulder, convinced he was looking at someone behind her. His wife, maybe. Or a friend.

No one was there.

She turned back around. The man winked and raised his cardboard cup as if he were toasting her. Then he turned and walked out the door.

Diana frowned. People were weird. It was probably just some strange coincidence. Or the man was confused, that was all.

Except he didn’t look confused. He looked perfectly friendly and sane.

“Can I help you?” The barista, a young man with wire-rimmed glasses and a close-cropped beard, jabbed at the cash register.

“Yes, please,” Diana said. “I’d like a...”

The barista looked up, grinned and cut her off before she could place her order. “Oh, hey, you’re that girl.”

That girl?

Diana’s gaze narrowed. She shook her head. “Um, I don’t think I am.”

What was she even arguing about? She didn’t actually know. But she knew for certain that this barista shouldn’t have any idea who she was.

Unless her accident had somehow ended up on YouTube or something.

Not that. Please not that.

Anything but that.

“Yeah, you are.” The barista turned to the person in line behind her. “You know who she is too, right?”

Diana ventured a sideways glance at the woman, who didn’t look the least bit familiar. Diana was sure she’d never seen her before.

“Of course.” The woman looked Diana up and down. “You’re her. Most definitely.”

For a split second, relief washed over her. She wasn’t losing it, after all. People on the sidewalk really had been staring at her. The triumphant feeling was short-lived when she realized she still had no idea why.

“Will one of you please tell me what’s going on? What girl?”

The woman and the barista exchanged a glance.

“The girl from the billboard,” the woman said.

Diana blinked.

The girl from the billboard.

This couldn’t be about the photos she’d taken with Franco. It just couldn’t. Artem was her brother. He wouldn’t slap a picture of her on a Drake Diamonds billboard without her permission. Of course he wouldn’t.

Would he?

Diana looked back and forth between the woman and the barista. “What billboard?”

She hated how shaky and weak her voice sounded, so she repeated herself. This time she practically screamed. “What billboard?”

The woman flinched, and Diana immediately felt horrible. Her new life apparently included having her face on billboards and yelling at random strangers in coffee shops. It wasn’t exactly the fresh start she’d imagined for herself.

“It’s right outside. Take two steps out the front door and look up. You can’t miss it.” The barista lifted a brow. “Are you going to order something or what? You’re holding up the line.”

“No, thank you.” She couldn’t stomach a latte right now. Simply putting one foot in front of the other seemed like a monumental task.

She scooted out of line and made her way to the door. She paused for a moment before opening it, hoping for one final, naive second that this was all some big mistake. Maybe Artem hadn’t used the photo of her and Franco for the new campaign. Maybe the billboard they’d seen wasn’t even a Drake Diamonds advertisement. Maybe it was an ad for some other company with a model who just happened to look like Diana.

That was possible, wasn’t it?

But deep down she knew it wasn’t, and she had no one to blame but herself.

She’d stormed into Artem’s office and demanded that he find a role for her in the company that didn’t involve Engagements. She’d practically gotten down on her knees and begged. He’d given her exactly what she wanted. She just hadn’t realized that being on a billboard alongside Franco Andrade in the middle of Times Square was part of the equation.