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The Flaw in His Diamond
‘What do you want most, Eva?’
She exhaled shakily at the sound of Roman’s voice and had to bring herself back to a reality that had expanded beyond her wildest imaginings.
‘I hardly know what I want,’ she admitted honestly. ‘I don’t even know what I can have.’
‘Try to tell me,’ Roman coaxed. ‘Search your deepest fantasies and tell me what you’d like me to do.’
They were standing by the bed. Roman was holding her with his chin resting lightly on her head.
‘You have to spell it out, Eva.’
‘You like to hear it?’ she guessed.
‘Maybe,’ he admitted.
‘Touch me,’ she whispered.
‘I am touching you, Eva.’
Yes, and her bones were melting. But it wasn’t enough. Roman knew that—just as she knew there was more … if she could only bring herself to ask. But for once in her headstrong, outspoken life she couldn’t find the words.
SUSAN STEPHENS was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Mills & Boon® Modern™ Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)
Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon® author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.
Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside.
Visit Susan’s website at www.susanstephens.net—she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!
Recent titles by the same author:
DIAMOND IN THE DESERT* TAMING THE LAST ACOSTA** THE MAN FROM HER WAYWARD PAST** A TASTE OF THE UNTAMED**
*linked to the Skavanga family. Visit their website at: http://www.susanstephens.com/skavanga/index.html ** all linked to the Acosta family.
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
The Flaw in His Diamond
Susan Stephens
To everyone in the wonderful team at Harlequin Mills and Boon who make writing so much fun
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
‘SO. WHAT DO we know about him?’ Leaning her hands, palms flat, on her no-nonsense scrubbed pine table, Eva glared, first at her older, married sister, Britt, and then at her younger sister, Leila.
Leila’s cheeks flushed pink, though she was used to Eva ranting. Leila’s middle sister was strong. And that was a polite way of putting it. Eva was also one hell of a pain in the neck when she was in one of her campaigning moods as she was now. Leila adored both her sisters, though she sometimes wished Eva could find a man and move out of the family home, taking her emotional pyrotechnics with her. How tranquil would life be then? Leila could only dream. But would anyone take Eva on? Both Leila and Britt had tried to interest the available men in Skavanga in Eva by extolling the many virtues of their firebrand sister, but none of the men had been interested in taking Eva anywhere, unless it was for a game of pool or darts. They had countered Leila and Britt’s glowing recommendations by reminding them about Eva’s famous temper and how loud she could shout, before turning their attention to quieter, more amenable companions.
‘Come on!’ Eva rapped, standing straight and planting her hands on her hips. ‘I need answers here. It’s all right for you, Britt—married to the Black Sheikh, one of the leading lights in the consortium. I don’t expect you to compromise your loyalties by having an opinion. But you, Leila? Shame. On. You. I’m surprised you can’t see that, if we allow them to, the consortium will happily rampage over our polar landscape and then move on. And don’t tell me I’m overreacting. That’s what will happen if one of us doesn’t make a stand.’
That was the thing about Eva, Leila mused as she removed herself to a quiet place in her head. Eva could have an argument all by herself without anyone else even taking part.
‘I won’t let the consortium have everything its own way, even if you will,’ Eva continued heatedly, ‘and before you say a word, Britt, let me make this quite clear. I might have seen our family business stolen from under our noses by three unscrupulous men but, unlike you, I have no intention of sleeping with one of them to make me feel better—’
‘That’s enough,’ Leila cut in with unusual fire. ‘Have you forgotten your sister is married to Sheikh Sharif?’
Shaking her head, Leila smiled an apology on behalf of Eva to Britt, who shrugged. Both sisters were accustomed to Eva’s tirades. What Eva needed was a curb on that temper. Her heart was in the right place, but their sister rarely thought before she spoke—or acted. And that was far more worrying, as far as Leila was concerned.
‘Well, you two are utterly useless,’ Eva exploded as her sisters continued sipping their coffee and reading their newspapers, and generally concentrating on other things as they waited for Eva’s tirade to burn itself out.
Tossing back her flame-red explosion of waist-length curls, Eva picked up the newspaper, her frown deepening as she scanned the latest developments at the mine, spearheaded by the man she had had her knife into since her nemesis, Roman Quisvada, had first shocked her into silence at Britt’s wedding with his swarthy good looks and inflexible manner.
‘Count Roman Quisvada?’ she intoned scathingly. ‘Well, that’s a ridiculous name to begin with.’
‘He’s Italian, Eva,’ Britt murmured patiently as she carried on reading her newspaper. ‘And he’s a bona fide count. It’s an ancient title—’
‘Count? My foot!’ Eva scoffed. ‘He can count how many pickets I’m going to assemble at the mine. That should keep him busy counting!’
‘And I believe he’s quite strong-minded,’ Britt observed mildly, flashing a glance at Leila.
‘He’s the same guy I slammed the door on at your wedding?’ Eva peered at Roman’s image in the press. ‘As I remember it, he didn’t take much scaring off on that occasion.’
‘You can stop rubbing your hands with glee at the thought of taking him on again,’ Leila warned. ‘When you met him at the wedding, it was the door to the bridal suite you shut in his face, so you could hardly expect him to stick his foot in and demand entry.’
‘Anyone would think he’d made an impression on you, Eva,’ Britt remarked as she laid down her newspaper. ‘We’re certainly wasting a lot of time and energy on him if he didn’t.’
Eva gave a scornful huff. ‘I just can’t bear being pushed around, that’s all.’
‘We need the money, Eva,’ Britt calmly pointed out. ‘We must keep the consortium on board. We cannot afford to upset this man. The mine would have gone down without the consortium’s investment, throwing hundreds of people out of work. Is that what you want?’
‘Of course not,’ Eva protested. ‘But there has to be another way—a slower way, a careful way. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve asked this wretched man to meet with me so we can discuss my concerns about the speed of his drilling programme?’
‘Discuss? Or lay down the law?’ Britt demanded, cocking her chin to give her sister a look. Neither Britt nor Leila was frightened of Eva’s outbursts, though, like Leila, Britt did dream of the day when Eva found a man who could provide an alternative channel for her passionate nature.
‘He has to hear the truth from someone,’ Eva stormed. ‘And I speak Italian. So he’d got no excuse not to meet with me.’
‘I believe the count speaks six languages,’ Britt murmured mildly, which resulted in a contemptuous huff from Eva.
‘Well, if you two won’t take a stand, I will.’
‘I knew we could rely on you,’ Britt murmured wryly.
‘Fresh coffee, anyone?’ Leila, who always played the peacemaker, offered. She skirted round her middle sister as if Eva were a stick of dynamite waiting to blow.
But Eva wasn’t finished yet. ‘Just look at this,’ she said, spreading out the local newspaper on the table. The centrefold featured a large photograph of Count Roman Quisvada, while the banner headline shrieked: COUNT RESCUES SKAVANGA in extra bold type. ‘It makes it sound as if he saved us from disaster single-handed.’
‘That’s pretty much what he did do,’ Britt observed, lifting her chin to shoot a stare that curbed her sister’s flow. ‘Quisvada, Sharif and the third man, Raffa Leon, have saved Skavanga. And if you can’t see that—’
‘You don’t even get a mention, Britt,’ Eva pointed out. ‘And you’re supposed to be running the mine.’
‘I am running the mine,’ Britt confirmed. ‘And the only reason they’re making a fuss of the count is because they interviewed him when he visited the mine to see for himself how his orders were being carried out—’
‘When he was too busy to see me, do you mean?’ Eva demanded.
‘He was obviously very busy seeing me,’ Britt confirmed with a shrug and a wry glance at Leila.
‘I’m sure the count was far too busy for distractions on that occasion,’ Leila added gently.
‘Oh, well, thanks a lot.’ Eva chewed her lip as she stared at the photograph of her nemesis in the newspaper. ‘Nice to know I qualify as a distraction. From what I can see in this article, the Skavanga family has been written out of the story altogether. All this female journalist wants to write about is Mr High and Mighty, Count Roman Quisvada.’
‘Maybe because she was interviewing him?’ Leila ventured.
‘Maybe because she was in bed with him,’ Eva countered sharply. ‘I really don’t care. To a man like that any woman is just another notch on his bedpost.’
‘You wish,’ Britt murmured.
‘What was that?’ Eva snapped, rounding on her older sister.
Shaking her head, Britt pressed her lips down, adopting an innocent expression as she exchanged a look with Leila, who was careful to show no emotion at all, in case it fuelled Eva’s fire.
‘He’s a dangerous-looking individual, if you ask me,’ Eva remarked, pushing the newspaper aside.
‘Fortunately, we didn’t ask you,’ Britt said mildly.
‘All hair grease and designer clothes, with a good helping of arrogance and entitlement,’ Eva muttered, sliding a disparaging look at the count’s photograph.
‘Definitely no hair grease,’ Britt argued. ‘I would have noticed that. And secondly, if Sharif trusts the count with his life, then so do I.’
Eva narrowed her eyes as she contemplated, the conflict ahead of her. ‘Well, I, for one, can’t wait to meet up with him again.’
‘I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about you,’ Britt commented, tongue in cheek.
‘I’m sure Eva will see sense, and reason with him,’ Leila put in, clearly eager to calm things down.
‘Reason?’ Britt pulled a wry face. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it. But just before you apply your version of reason to your exchanges with Roman, Eva, may I remind you that without his money and the money from the other two men in the consortium both our mine and the town would have died by now?’
‘I haven’t forgotten anything,’ Eva assured her older sister. ‘I just can’t understand why he hasn’t stayed here to see things through. Oh, I forgot,’ she added acidly. ‘He prefers to swan around on his private island.’
‘He’s on the island for the wedding of his cousin,’ Britt pointed out.
‘He could still have seen me before he went when I asked him to,’ Eva insisted. ‘If he had explained things clearly, perhaps we could all understand what’s happening at the mine.’
‘Perhaps if you had listened instead of protesting,’ Britt suggested, but gently this time, because no one doubted Eva’s genuine concern for the pristine landscape the new drilling was putting under threat. ‘You can’t expect him to drop everything to attend a meeting with you. He has a life, as well as all his other business interests. There are huge sums of money involved—’
‘Oh, yes, it always boils down to money,’ Eva observed with a dismayed shake of her head.
‘I’m afraid it does,’ Britt agreed calmly. ‘We like to keep people in jobs around here.’
‘That’s all I care about,’ Eva assured her sister. ‘But I also care deeply about a land that has remained unchanged for millennia.’
‘Why don’t you talk to Roman face to face instead of discussing it with us?’ Leila suggested.
‘I’ve tried that.’ Eva pulled a face. ‘He won’t see me.’
‘For all the aforementioned reasons,’ Britt said. ‘But there’s nothing to stop you trying again,’ she pointed out, exchanging a hopeful look with Leila once she was sure Eva wasn’t looking. They had both noticed the chemistry between Roman and Eva at the wedding as they fired angry glances at each other from opposite sides of the aisle. ‘You never know, you might even get on better with him when you meet him again.’
‘That’s hardly likely,’ Eva scoffed, tugging angry fingers through her tangle of red-gold hair. ‘He’s about as ready to listen to a woman like me as he is to eat tacks for breakfast.’
‘You’ll never know unless you try,’ Leila pointed out as Britt got up to give Eva a reassuring hug.
‘Come on,’ Britt cajoled as she drew Eva into her arms. ‘Don’t get so upset about everything. Even you can’t save the world single-handed.’
‘But I can try.’
‘That’s right, you can—at least, your tiny bit of it,’ Britt agreed.
‘Then that’s what I’m going to do,’ Eva mumbled, her face buried in the shoulder of her older sister.
‘What are you going to do?’ Britt said suspiciously, holding Eva at arm’s length so she could stare into her sister’s eyes. ‘Should we discuss this first?’
‘No. I don’t think we should,’ Eva said, sniffing loudly as she took a pace back. ‘No more coffee for me, thank you, Leila. I’ve got a trip to make.’
* * *
He never drank. He chose not to lose control. Ever. He had seized the opportunity during the champagne reception following the wedding ceremony to slip away. Everyone would be getting ready for the party in the evening, which gave him a chance to shower and change, and maybe take a refreshing dip in his pool.
He stopped where he always stopped on the cliff path. It was a place of particular significance to him, for it was here on his fourteenth birthday he had contemplated throwing the gold chain he wore around his neck into the sea. And then maybe he would follow, his youthful infuriated self had seethed impotently.
Thankfully, he had proved stronger than that, and had resisted the teenage impulse to vent his grief in a way that would hurt others as much as himself.
It was a hot day for a wedding. Shrugging off his formal jacket, he opened the neck of his shirt. His hand stole to the slim gold chain. His adoptive mother had given him the necklace on his birthday. That was the same day she explained to him haltingly that his real mother had died, and had wanted Roman to have her only decent piece of jewellery.
That was the first time he heard he had a ‘real’ mother. What else was the woman sitting in front of him? He could still remember his shock and the pain. Discovering his father was not his father, any more than the woman he adored was his mother, had been life-changing. His adoptive father had been furious to discover Roman had learned the truth about his birth, but the damage was done by then. His adoptive father had believed Roman would crumble now he knew the facts. His adoptive mother had argued with this, knowing how strong he was. He was her son just as much as he was the son of his blood mother, and she knew him.
He had stood here on the cliff, fierce as a lion on that day, full of the passions of youth, and then he had stormed home and demanded they tell him the truth—all of it. And so he had learned about his blood father, the count, the drunken gambler who had sold his son to the childless wife of a mafia don in settlement of his gambling debts.
‘You’re not blood so you can’t take over the family business,’ his adoptive father had thought it timely to explain while Roman was still reeling from these facts. ‘But I couldn’t love you more if you were my blood and so you will inherit my island and all my property, while your cousin takes over the business after me. Your job is to protect him—’
It was only then Roman had realised how fast he could turn off his emotions. He couldn’t have cared less about owning an island, or inheriting a vast property portfolio. All he cared about was his life up to now having been a lie. He’d changed on that day. His adoptive mother accused him of becoming distant and aloof. Unreachable, his adoptive father had raged with frustration, hating to see his wife devastated by Roman’s treatment of her.
Roman still carried the guilt to this day and wondered if his behaviour had hastened her death. He would never know, but sometimes he could still hear her gentle voice in his head, insisting that his blood mother had no choice, and that in those days, in their society, women had no choice but to do what the men told them.
Now he thought of those two women, his mother and his adoptive mother, as sisters beneath the skin, looking down on him. His only desire was to make them happy and proud of him.
An alarm on his phone jolted him back to the present. Scanning the screen, he pressed a key. Watching for a moment, he felt a surge of anger. It would take him half an hour to reach the palazzo from here if he stuck to the path, but not if he took a short cut.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE HAD NEARLY reached her destination and paused for a moment to catch her breath. She could see the count’s magnificent home on the top of the cliff, a citadel of power glittering white and menacing in the heat haze. The steep path she was climbing snaked up a white cliff overlooking an azure sea. It might be someone’s idea of a heavenly walk, but she was hot and sweaty and had to keep her mind firmly fixed on her goal and her reasons for coming here so that anger powered her steps.
Having researched the fastest route from Arctic Skavanga to the count’s island, she had unfortunately given rather less thought to local topography, let alone the climate. And a hill was a hill was a hill, anywhere but here, it seemed, where the path to the count’s eyrie was treacherous and packed with slippery shale.
Throwing herself down on a prickly bank, she threw her arm over her face. The sun was like a flaming torch and she hadn’t even thought to bring a bottle of water with her from the plane. There had been very little forward planning. She had rushed into the trip after a furious row with Britt, during which she told her caring older sister to butt out and mind her own business—something she now felt sick and wretched about. Why did she always shoot off her mouth and then spend the rest of her time regretting it?
She had left without apologising, jumping on the first flight out of Skavanga. She caught a connecting flight to the Italian mainland, and from there a ferry to the count’s private island. It was a ferry packed with exuberant wedding guests, all of whom were in a very different mood from her, though they’d got round her in the end. They were all so happy as they headed for what they described as the wedding of the year. She had ended up playing a round of darts with a group of older men, and had scored the winning double. She was one of the boys, they had assured her, patting her on the back as she glowed with pride.
Now she just glowed. All over.
Getting up, she brushed herself down and started determinedly up the cliff again. The closer she got to the palazzo, the faster her heart was beating. She wasn’t frightened of anything or anyone, but just to herself she would admit she was a little bit scared of the count—mainly because she had never met anyone like him before. He’d towered over her at Britt’s wedding, his face tough and battle-hardened. He was older than she was, and Roman centurion rather than Roman effete. She remembered the lips of a sensualist. She’d thought of little else since. His hair was glorious—too long, too thick, too black. Perfect. And his eyes were keen, dark and dangerous. He had a ridiculous amount of stubble on his swarthy cheeks, considering it couldn’t have been long since he shaved when she met him. But it was that something behind his watchful eyes that had intrigued her, because that had hinted at something hidden and dangerous in his past.
She had to stop this. Was she trying to psyche herself out before she had even confronted him? Think fail and you would fail. That was Eva’s motto. Think success, and at least you stood a chance.
He was strong. She was too. She did stand a chance of convincing him to slow down the drilling programme. Quisvada was also obscenely rich, and, though she disapproved of ostentatious displays of wealth, she couldn’t deny a certain curiosity in seeing how the other half lived. All in all, safe had never been an option for her. She needed a challenge like this. She needed to leave the Arctic Circle and test herself in the wider world, and she cared so passionately about the mine this was her chance to prove it. There was no doubt in her mind. She would make Quisvada listen.
Shifting her backpack into a more comfortable position, she continued on up the path, wondering about the fluttering in her chest. What did she have to worry about? She was in no danger from the count. He was hardly her type—
No man is your type.
Having run out of things to argue with herself for the moment, she stopped again. It didn’t help that she was overdressed. Her hectic decision to come here had ruled out sensible planning, so she was pretty much wearing what she had in Arctic Skavanga: boots, jeans, and the thermal vest she had stripped down to. There was even a heavy parka strapped to her backpack. Great, when what she needed here was a pair of shorts, a flimsy top, and an extra large tub of sunblock.
She wouldn’t have had to come if the count had been more reasonable. And was that the real reason, or was this the last-chance saloon for Eva Skavanga as far as men were concerned?
‘Meaning?’ she flashed out loud, then glanced around guiltily to make sure no one had heard her talking to herself. She really was wound up. Meaning, she reasoned as she plodded on, Count Roman Quisvada threw off the sort of confidence that said he would be very good in in bed... Now she had to take a moment to think about that.
Planting her hands in the small of her back, she was forced to accept that she wouldn’t know too much about being good in bed. She wasn’t completely innocent. She wasn’t exactly experienced, either. She’d had a few fumbles, none of which had encouraged her to try the experience again. She frightened men off. If they weren’t limp to begin with, they certainly were by the time she’d finished with them. And then somehow the time for experimenting passed her by. She got too old for it. She missed the boat. She told herself it didn’t matter. She just wasn’t interested in sex.
