The Drake Diamonds

* * *

Ophelia had never felt so much like Cinderella. Not even two years ago when she’d danced the lead role in the company’s production of the fairy tale.

As for jewels, from the outrageously opulent selection at Artem’s penthouse, she’d chosen a necklace of diamond baguettes set in platinum that wrapped all the way around her neck in a single, glittering strand. It fit almost like a choker, except in front it split into three strands, each punctuated with large, brilliant cut diamonds. The overall effect was somehow dazzling, yet delicate.

It wasn’t until Artem had fastened it around her neck that he’d told her the necklace had once belonged to Princess Grace of Monaco. Ophelia had been concentrating so hard on not reacting to the warm graze of his fingertips against her skin that she’d barely registered what he’d said. Now, as she sat beside him in the sleek black limousine en route to Lincoln Center, her hand kept fluttering to her throat.

She was wearing Princess Grace’s necklace. How was that even possible?

She wished her grandmother were alive to see her right now. Ordinarily, she never let herself indulge in such wishes. Natalia Baronova’s heart would break if she knew about the illness that had ended her granddaughter’s dance career. But wouldn’t she get a kick out of seeing Ophelia dressed in one of her grandmother’s vintage gowns, wearing Grace Kelly’s jewelry?

She smiled and her gaze slid toward Artem, who was watching her with great intensity.

“Allow me?” he asked, reaching for the bow on her faux fur stole.

Ophelia gave him a quiet nod as he tugged on the end of the satin ribbon. He loosened the bow and opened the stole a bit. Just enough to offer a glimpse of the spectacular diamonds around her neck.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.”

Ophelia swallowed, unable to move, unable to even breathe while he touched her. She’d dropped her guard. Only for a moment. And now...

Now he was no more than a breath away, and she could see her reflection in the cool blue of his irises. He had eyes like a tempest, and there she was, right at the center of his storm. Looking beautiful and happy. Full of life and hope. So much like her old self—the girl who’d danced through life, unfettered and unafraid—that she forgot all the reasons why she shouldn’t kiss this man. This man who had such a way of reminding her of who she used to be.

Her heart pounded hard in her chest, so hard she was certain he could hear it. She parted her lips and murmured Artem’s name as she reached to cup his chiseled jaw. His eyes locked with hers and a surge of heat shot straight to her lower body. She licked her lips, and there was no more denying it. She wanted him to kiss her. She wanted Artem’s kiss and more. So much more.

His fingertips slid from her stole to her neck, down her throat to her collarbone. There was a reverence in his touch, like a blessing. And those words that had haunted her so came flooding back.

A woman needs to be adored, Ophelia. She needs to be cherished, worshipped.

“Mr. Drake, sir, we’ve arrived.” The limo’s intercom buzzed, and the driver’s voice startled some sense back into Ophelia.

What was she doing?

She was letting a silly diamond necklace confuse her and make her think something had changed when, in fact, nothing had. She was still sick. And she always would be.

“I’m sorry.” She removed her hand from Artem’s face and slid across the leather seat, out of his reach. “I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry.”

“Ophelia,” he said, with more patience in his tone than she’d ever heard. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay.

As if she needed a reminder, Lincoln Center loomed in her periphery. Inside that building, dancers with whom she’d trained less than a year ago were getting ready to perform, winding pink ribbons around their ankles in dressing rooms filled with bouquets of red roses. Jeremy, the man who’d once asked her to marry him, was inside that building, too. Only he was no longer watching her go through her last-minute series of pliés and port de bras. He was watching someone else do those things. He was kissing someone else’s cheek in the final moments before the curtain went up. Another dancer. An able-bodied girl. One who wouldn’t have to be carried off the stage when she fell down because she’d lost her balance. One who could do more than three pirouettes before her vision went blurry. One who wouldn’t have to give herself injections twice a week and be careful not to miss her daily 8000 IU of vitamin D.

A girl who wasn’t broken.

Not that she missed Jeremy. She didn’t. She’d confused her feelings for him with her love of dance. If she’d ever had a proper lover, that lover was ballet. Ballet had fed her soul. And now? Now she was starving. Her body needed to move. As did her heart. Her soul.

Artem reached for her hand, but she shook her head and fixed her gaze out the car window, where a group of paparazzi were gathered with cameras poised at the ready.

She couldn’t let him touch her again. If she did, there was no telling what she’d do. She was too raw, too tender, too hungry. And Artem Drake was too...

...too much.

She’d just have to pretend, wouldn’t she? She’d have to act as though the way he looked at her and the things he said didn’t make her want to slip out of her fancy dress and slide naked into his lap right there in the back of the Drake Diamonds limousine.

Artem looked at her. Long and hard, until her hands began to shake from the effort it took to keep pretending she was fine. The driver cleared his throat, and Artem finally directed his gaze past her, toward the photographers waiting on the other side of the glass.

“Showtime,” he muttered.

Yeah. Ophelia swallowed around the lump in her throat. Showtime.

Chapter Six

Artem smiled for the cameras. He made polite small talk. He answered questions about the press release that Dalton had issued earlier in the day announcing the new Drake Diamonds Dance collection. He did everything he always did in his capacity as public relations front man for the company.

It was business as usual. With one very big exception—this time, Ophelia stood beside him.

He’d been attending events like this one for the better part of his adult life, and rarely had he done so alone. Having a pretty woman on his arm went with the territory. Logically, Ophelia’s presence shouldn’t have made a bit of difference. Logic, however, had little to do with the torturous ache he felt when he placed his hand on the small of her back or cupped her elbow as they walked up the broad steps to the entrance of Lincoln Center. Logic certainly wasn’t behind the surge of arousal he’d felt when he’d placed the diamonds around her graceful neck. Logic hadn’t swirled between them in the backseat of the car. That had been something else entirely. Some forbidden form of alchemy.

The fulfillment of what had nearly happened in the limousine tormented him. The kiss that wasn’t even a kiss. The look in her eyes, though. That look had been as intimate as if she’d touched her lips to his. Perhaps even more so.

He could still feel the riotous beat of her pulse as he’d traced the curve of her elegant neck with his fingertips. Most of all, he could still see the glimmer in her sapphire eyes as she’d reached out to touch his face. Eyes filled with insatiable need. Sweet, forbidden hunger that rivaled the ravenous craving he’d been struggling against since the moment he’d caught her eating that silly cake.

God, what was wrong with him? He was a grown man. A man of experience. He shouldn’t be feeling this wound up over a woman he barely knew, particularly one whom he had no business sleeping with.

On some level he loathed to acknowledge, he wondered if what he was experiencing was in any way similar to what his father had felt any of the myriad times he’d strayed. But Artem knew that wasn’t the case. His father had been a selfish bastard, with little or no respect for his wedding vows. End of story. Artem wasn’t even married, for God’s sake. With good reason. He didn’t have any intention of repeating the past.

Besides, this attraction he felt for Ophelia was different in every possible way. She was different.

Maybe it was her vulnerability that he found so intriguing. Or perhaps it was her unexpected ballsy streak. Either way, this strange pull they felt toward one another was without precedent. That much had become clear in the back of the limousine. With a single touch of her hand on his face, he’d known that she felt it, too. Whatever this was.

And now here they were, in the grand lobby of Lincoln Center, surrounded by people and cameras and blinding flashbulbs. Yet for all the distractions, Artem’s senses were aware of one thing and one thing only—the whisper-thin fabric of her lovely dress beneath his hand as he guided her through the crowd. Just a fine layer of tulle between his flesh and hers.

It was enough to drive a man mad.

He somehow managed to answer a few more questions from lingering reporters before handing the usher their tickets and moving beyond the press of the crowd into the inner lobby.

“Welcome, Mr. Drake.” The usher smiled, then nodded at Ophelia. “Good evening, miss.”

“Thank you,” she said, glancing at the ticket stubs as he passed them back to Artem.

Artem kept his hand planted on the small of her back as he led her to the lobby bar. It took every ounce of self-control he possessed not to keep that hand from sliding down, over the dainty, delectable curve of her behind, in plain view of everyone.

Get ahold of yourself.

His hand had no business on her bottom. Not here, nor anyplace else. Things were so much simpler when he could stick to the confines of his office.

Just as Artem realized he’d begun to think of the corner office as his rather than his father’s, Ophelia turned to face him. Tulle billowed beneath his fingertips. He really needed to take his hands off her altogether. He would. Soon.

“I haven’t even asked what we’re seeing this evening. What’s the repertoire?” She frowned slightly, as if trying to remember something. Like she had a catalog of ballets somewhere in her pretty head.

Artem hadn’t the vaguest idea. Mrs. Burns had handed him an envelope containing the tickets as he’d walked out the door at five o’clock. He examined the ticket stubs and his jaw clenched involuntarily.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

“Artem?” Ophelia blinked up at him.

“Petite Mort,” he said flatly.

“Petite Mort,” she echoed, her cheeks going instantly pink. “Really?”

“Really.” He held up the ticket stubs for inspection.

She stared at them. “Okay, then. That’s certainly...interesting.”

He lifted a brow.

“Petite mort means ‘little death’ in French,” Ophelia said, with the seriousness of a reference librarian. She’d decided to tackle the awkwardness of the situation head-on, apparently. Much to Artem’s chagrin, he found this attitude immensely sexy. “It’s a euphemism for...”

“Orgasm.” Artem was uncomfortably hard. In the champagne line at the ballet. Marvelous. “I’m aware.”

What had he done to deserve this? Fate must be seriously pissed to have dealt him this kind of torturous hand. Of all the ballets...

Petite Mort.

He’d never seen this performance. In fact, he knew nothing about it. Perhaps it wasn’t as provocative as it sounded.

It didn’t matter. Not really. His thoughts had already barreled right where they didn’t belong. Now there was no stopping them. Not when he could feel the tender warmth of Ophelia’s body beneath the palm of his hand. Not when she was right there, close enough to touch. To kiss.

He looked at her, and his gaze lingered on the diamonds decorating the base of her throat. That’s where he wanted to kiss her. Right there, where he could feel the beat of her pulse under his tongue. There. And elsewhere.

Everywhere.

His jaw clenched again. Harder this time. Petite Mort. How was he supposed to sit in the dark beside Ophelia all night and not think about touching her? Stroking her. Entering her. How could he help but envision what she looked like when she came? Or imagine the sounds she made. Cries in the dark.

How could he not dream of the myriad ways in which he might bring about her little death? Her petite mort.

“Sir?” Somewhere in the periphery of Artem’s consciousness he was aware of a voice, followed by the clearing of a throat. “Mr. Drake?”

He blinked against the image in his head—Ophelia, beneath him, bare breasted in the moonlight, coming apart in his arms—and forced himself to focus on the bartender. They’d somehow already made it to the front of the line.

He forced a smile. “My apologies. My mind was elsewhere.”

“Can I get you anything, sir?” The bartender slid a pair of cocktail napkins across the counter, which was strewn with items for sale. Ballet shoes, posters, programs.

Artem glanced at the Petite Mort program and the photograph on its cover, featuring a pair of dancers in flesh-colored bodysuits, their eyes closed and limbs entwined. His brows rose, and he glanced at Ophelia to gauge her reaction, but her gaze was focused elsewhere. She wore a dreamlike expression, as if she’d gone someplace faraway.

Artem could only wonder where.

* * *

Ophelia had to be seeing things.

The pointe shoes on display alongside the Petite Mort programs and collectible posters couldn’t possibly be hers. Being back in the theater was messing with her head. She was suffering from some sort of nostalgia-induced delusion.

She forced herself to look away from them and focus instead on the bartender.

“I hope you enjoy the ballet this evening.” He smiled at her.

He looked vaguely familiar. What if he recognized her?

She smiled in return and held her breath, hoping against hope he didn’t know who she was.

“Mr. Drake?” The bartender didn’t give her a second glance as he directed his attention toward Artem.

Good. He hadn’t recognized her. She didn’t want her past colliding with her present. It was better to make a clean break. Besides, if anyone from Drake Diamonds learned who she was, they’d also find out exactly why she’d stopped dancing. She couldn’t take walking into the Fifth Avenue store and having everyone there look at her with pity.

Everyone or a certain someone?

She pushed that unwelcome question right out of her head. She shouldn’t be thinking that way about Artem. She shouldn’t be caressing his face in the back of limousines, and she shouldn’t be standing beside him at the ballet with his hand on the small of her back, wanting nothing more than to feel the warmth of that hand on her bare skin.

And the repertoire. Petite Mort.

My God.

She sneaked another glance at the pointe shoes, mainly to avoid meeting her date’s penetrating gaze. And because they were there. Demanding her attention. One shoe tucked into the other like a neat satin package, wound with pink ribbon.

They could have been anyone’s pointe shoes, and most probably were. The company always sold shoes that had been worn by the ballerinas. Pointe shoes that had belonged to the principal dancers sometimes went for as much as two-fifty or three hundred dollars, which provided a nice fund-raising boost for the company.

She told herself they weren’t hers. Why would her shoes be offered for sale when she was no longer performing, anyway?

Still. There was something so familiar about them. And she couldn’t help noticing they were the only pair that didn’t have an autograph scrawled across the toe.

Beside her, Artem placed their order. “Two glasses of Veuve Clicquot Rosé, please.”

He removed his hand from her back to reach for his wallet, and she knew it had to be her imagination, but Ophelia felt strangely unmoored by the sudden loss of his touch.

He looked at her, and as always it felt as though he could see straight inside her. Could he tell how fractured she felt? How being here almost made it seem like she was becoming the old Ophelia? Ophelia Baronova. “Anything else, darling?”

Darling.

He shouldn’t be calling her darling. It was almost as bad as princess, and she hated it. She hated it so much that she sort of loved it.

“The pointe shoes.” With a shaky hand, she gestured toward the pastel ballet shoes. “Can I see them please?”

“Of course, miss.” The bartender passed them to her while Artem watched.

If he found it odd that she wanted to hold them, he didn’t let it show. His expression was cool, impassive. As always, she had no idea what he was thinking.

And for once, Ophelia didn’t care. Because the moment she touched those shoes, she knew. She knew. If flesh had a memory, remembrance lived in the brush of her fingertips against the soft pink satin, the familiar heaviness of the shoe’s box—its stiff square toe—in the palm of her hand and the white powder that stull clung to the soles from the backstage rosin box.

Ophelia had worn these shoes.

The ones she now held were custom-made by a shoemaker at Freed of London, as all her shoes had been. A maker who knew Ophelia’s feet more intimately than she knew them herself. She remembered peeling back the tissue paper from the box the shoes had come in. She’d sewn the ribbons on them with her own hands. She’d pirouetted, done arabesques in them. She’d danced in them. She’d dreamed in them. They were hers.

She glanced at Artem, who was now busy paying for the champagne, and then fixed her gaze once again on the shoes clutched to her chest. She wanted to see. She needed to be sure.

Maybe she was imagining things. Or maybe she just wanted so badly to believe, she was spinning stories out of satin. Heart pounding, she unspooled the ribbons from around the shoes. Her hands shook as she gently parted the pink material and peered inside. Penned in black ink on the insole, as secret as a diary entry, were the words she most wanted to see:

Giselle, June 1. Ophelia Baronova’s final performance.

The pointe shoes in her hands were the last pair of ballet slippers she’d ever worn.

“What have you got there?” Artem leaned closer, and Ophelia was so full of joy at her fortuitous discovery that she forgot to move away.

“Something wonderful.” Not until she beamed up at him did she notice the intimacy of the space between them. But even then she didn’t take a backward step. She was too happy to worry about self-preservation.

For once, she wanted to live in the moment. Like she used to live.

“I’d ask you to elaborate, but I’m already convinced. Anything that puts such a dazzling smile on your face is priceless as far as I’m concerned.” Without breaking eye contact, Artem slid two one-hundred-dollar bills out of his slim leather wallet and handed them to the man behind the counter. “We’ll take the shoes, too.”

Unlike the kitten incident, Ophelia didn’t utter a word of protest. “Thank you, Artem. Thank you very much.”

He pocketed his wallet, lifted a brow and glanced curiously at the pointe shoes, still pressed lovingly to Ophelia’s heart. “No arguments about how you can’t accept them? My, my. I’m intrigued.”

“Would you like me to argue with you, Mr. Drake?”

“Never,” he said. “And somehow, always.”

She shrugged, feigning nonchalance, while her heart beat wildly in her chest. Part of her, the same part that still yearned to kiss him with utter abandon, wanted to tell him the truth. But how could she possibly explain that the satin clutched to her chest was every bit as priceless as the Drake Diamond itself? Maybe even more so.

The pointe shoes her grandmother had worn for her final performance lived in a glass case at the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, alongside the shoes of other ballet greats like Anna Pavlova and Tamara Karsavina. Ballerinas went through hundreds of pointe shoes during the course of their career. Usually more than a hundred pairs in a single dance season. But none was ever as special as the last pair. The pair that marked the end.

Until this moment, Ophelia hadn’t even known what had become of them. She remembered weeping as a nurse at the hospital removed them from her feet the night she’d fallen onstage. Then there’d been the MRIs, the blood tests, the spinal tap. And then the most devastating blow of all. The diagnosis. In all the heartbreak, her pointe shoes had been lost.

Like so much else.

Jeremy must have taken them. And now by some twist of fate, she’d found them again. Artem had bought them for her, and somehow it felt as though he’d given her back a missing part of her heart. Holding the shoes, she felt dangerously whole again.

The massive chandeliers hanging from the lobby ceiling flickered three times, indicating the start of the performance was imminent.

“Shall we?” Artem gestured toward the auditorium with one of the champagne flutes.

Ophelia took a deep breath, suddenly feeling as light and airy as one of the tiny bubbles floating to the top of the glass in his hand. “Lead the way.”

They were seated on the first ring in private box seats, which shouldn’t have come as a surprise, but somehow did. Ophelia had never come anywhere near such prestigious seating in the theater. When she’d been with the ballet, she always watched performances from the audience on her nights off. But like the other dancers, she’d sat in the fourth ring, at the very tip-top of the balcony. The nosebleed section. Those seats sold for twenty dollars each. She couldn’t even fathom what the Drake Diamond seats must have cost. No doubt it was more money than all the dancers combined got paid in a year.

What exactly did tens of thousands of dollars get you on the first ring of the theater? For one, it got you privacy.

The box was closed in all sides, save for the glorious view of the stage. Ophelia sank into her chair with the ballet shoes still pressed to her heart, and her stomach fluttered as she looked around at the gold crown molding and thick crimson carpet. This was intimacy swathed in rich red velvet.

The lights went black as Artem handed her one of the glasses of champagne. His fingertips brushed hers, and she swallowed. Hard.

But as soon as the strains of Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 21 filled the air, Ophelia was swept away.

The music seemed filled with a delicate ache, and the dancers were exquisite. Gorgeous and bare, in their nude bodysuits. There was no hiding in a ballet like Petite Mort. There were no fluffy tutus or elaborate costumes. Just the beauty and grace of the human body.

Ophelia had never danced Petite Mort. She’d never thought she had what it took to dance such a provocative ballet. It was raw. Powerful. All-consuming. In the way perfect sex should be.

Not that Ophelia knew anything about perfect sex. Or ever would.

No wonder she’d never danced this ballet. How could she dance something called Petite Mort when she’d never had an orgasm? Things with Jeremy hadn’t been like that. He’d been more interested in the height of her arabesque than the height of passion. She’d never been in touch with her own sensuality. She’d done too much dancing and not enough living. And now it was too late.

She watched the couple performing the pas de deux onstage turn in one another’s embrace, legs and arms intertwined, and she’d never envied anyone more in her entire life. Somehow, some way...if she had the chance, she’d dance the hell out of that ballet now.

If only she could.

She felt different about her body than she had before. More appreciative. Maybe it was knowing that she’d never dance, never make love, that made her realize what gifts those things were. Or maybe it was the way the man sitting beside her made her feel...

Like a dancer.

Like a woman.

Like a lover.

Artem shifted in his chair, and his thigh pressed against hers. Just the simple brush of his tuxedo pants against her leg made her go liquid inside. She slid her gaze toward him in the dark and found him watching her rather than the dancers onstage. Had he been looking at her like that the entire time?