The Flaw in His Diamond

Until she met the count.

Allowing her backpack to slide to the ground, she rested her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Lifting her head, she weighed up the gates guarding his lair. They were big, but not so big she couldn’t climb over them. Chucking her backpack over first, she followed, scrambling up the ornamental ironwork like a monkey. They’d told her in the village that with the big wedding on it was unlikely that anyone would be home, which was great for her purposes. It gave her a chance to have a snoop around before the count returned.

She quickly spotted some cameras, but no alarms went off. Lots of people had cameras, but very few were switched on, she’d heard. Undeterred, she started to march up the broad, impressive drive. Bottle-green cypress trees stood on parade on either side, providing some welcome shade, while the neatly groomed gravel crunched beneath her feet. The palazzo was framed against a brilliant blue sky, and with its towers and crenellations, the count’s island home looked like something from a fairy tale. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected. Festoons of purple bougainvillea softened the walls and hung in swags around the windows, while more fringed the top of the impressive front doors. Colour was mostly grey in Skavanga, but here the blaze of colour was a huge assault on her senses—not unpleasant, though the count’s home was certainly a confident reflection of his power and wealth.

Even she had to admit his gardens were exquisite. Colour blazed at her from every side, and there was such an amazing variety of planting. How many people must he employ? she wondered as she ran her fingertips across the immaculate white wall. The count probably had homes like this across the world, she concluded, and none of them could mean as much to him as the simple log cabin she shared with her sisters on the shore of a frozen lake. That was where they had taken their holidays for as long as she could remember. There weren’t many luxuries, but she didn’t care. Thinking about the symbols that defined her, and those that defined the count, she realised they couldn’t be more different.

Having reached the entrance, she raised the heavy knocker and rapped forcefully on the door.

Silence.

Shading her eyes, she peered through the window. They hadn’t been exaggerating in the village when they said everyone would be at the wedding. The palazzo appeared to be deserted. Untying her neck scarf, she mopped the grit and sweat from her face as she decided what to do next. Maybe there’d be someone round the back...

There wasn’t a soul to be seen, but there was a fabulous pool...

‘Hello?’

‘Hello? Is anyone there?’

The rhythmical chirruping of the cicadas was her only answer. Her gaze returned longingly to the limpid stretch of cool, clear water. She was melting and dead on her feet. Surely, a quick dip in the pool wouldn’t hurt anyone?

Dumping her backpack, she stripped off down to her underwear and padding to the edge of the pool, she performed a perfect swallow dive.

Oh...the sensation...the indescribable bliss...

She stayed underwater for a whole length, and then, because the feeling was just so wonderful, she relaxed into an easy freestyle stroke.

‘What the hell?’

The roar hit her out of nowhere. Barely recovered from inhaling half the pool, she somehow made it to the side, where she pressed herself against the blue tiles, horribly aware that she was almost naked.

‘Eva Skavanga?’ the same angry male voice roared.

It was Roman Quisvada! After months of her doing battle with a name, he was standing at the edge of the pool glaring down at her.

‘Yes?’ she called back, putting some force behind her voice. Clinging to what little dignity remained to her as she choked on a mouthful of chlorinated water, she shot a combative look up.

Dear God, his shirt was open to the waist. She had never seen so many muscles. Her body responded instantly, and without the slightest regard for Eva’s feelings. Her nipples tightened. A pulse beat insistently between her legs. Pool water that had only been cool and refreshing was suddenly titillating against her heated skin. The sun beating down on her shoulders was a warm caress instead of a punishment, and the count looked even better than she remembered.

Holding a jacket, slung over his shoulder with his forefinger thrust through the loop, his sharply cut formal trousers clung lovingly to a tight butt and hard-muscled thighs. His shirt was crisp and brilliant white, and he was very big. He was also ridiculously good-looking—if you went for the rugged type. He was ripped. He was tan—

He was madder than hell. She could feel his fury washing over her. And why wouldn’t it, when she’d been a thorn in his side for long enough, and now here she was, swimming in his pool? How the hell was she going to get out of this one?

* * *

The girl in his pool was the troublemaker, Eva Skavanga? Incredible! The alarm at the palazzo was connected to his phone and had warned him of an intruder. The cameras had shown the shadowy figure of a girl climbing over his gates. Reason had discounted the possibility that it could be anyone he knew, let alone Eva. Thank God his instinct had got him back here fast. ‘Get out of my pool now!’

Positioning himself between the slight, pale figure in the pool and the towels left for him to use, he was determined to make her suffer for this intrusion.

‘Could you pass me a towel, please?’ she asked as if he were the pool boy at a hotel.

‘I said get out!’ His voice would have sent grown men scuttling for cover.

Eva just stared at him. ‘I heard you the first time,’ she flared, ‘but I can’t—’

‘Can’t what?’ he rapped. ‘Can’t move? Can’t face me? Can’t think up an excuse for why you’re here?’

Putting her small palms flat on the tiles at the side of the pool, she sprang out lithely. He took in the vibrant, waist-length mermaid hair, the fabulous breasts, the trim figure, long, long legs, and tiny feet.

She stared at him in silence for a moment and then tried to reach past him for a towel.

He stood in her way. ‘When I said I didn’t have time to meet with you, I meant it, Ms Skavanga. What the hell are you doing on my island uninvited? We have nothing to discuss.’

‘That’s your opinion. I’ve come here to change your mind.’

‘I wish you luck with that.’ The water had made her underwear translucent. It left nothing to his imagination where her naked body was concerned. And as she stood confronting him pool water cascaded down her body, highlighting every line and curve. It was even trickling down the crack in her butt, he noticed as she turned away to grind her jaw and tap her foot. Maybe she’d think twice about wearing such a tiny thong next time she planned to invade a stranger’s pool.

‘Please pass me a towel,’ she ground out, turning back to him. ‘They’re just behind you,’ she informed him, tilting her chin at a combative angle.

She could wait. He knew the expression in his eyes offered no reprieve. Eva stared back at him without blinking. Somehow she managed not to fold her arms across her chest during this standoff, though he suspected she dearly wanted to. She needn’t have worried. He wasn’t interested.

Seriously?

As he held her gaze with what was supposed to be disinterest, something unique happened inside him: a slight relaxation of his muscles and a fleeting warmth in his empty heart. He pushed the sensation away, but then the desire to laugh, and not in a cruel way, overcame him. She was just so damn cute.

Until she reminded him icily, ‘A towel? When you’re ready, Count Quisvada.’

‘Certainly, Ms Skavanga.’ He reached for one without breaking eye contact.

Eva Skavanga didn’t have the slightest idea of the effect she was having on him, and long might it remain that way. She was defensive because she thought herself unattractive to men, he concluded. That was why she tried to frighten them off rather than wait for them to push her away. She was a refreshing change. He was used to glamorous, confident women whose sole aim was to insinuate themselves into his life. There was only one thing worse in his opinion, and that was the ambitious parents with a daughter to trade. He was interested in neither option. He would rather live and die a single man than endure some fake arrangement.

‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly when he finally gave her a towel.

Failure was not an option for Eva Skavanga, and neither was caution, apparently. He had to admit, he liked her style. Maybe he wouldn’t despatch her on the next ferry home, but would keep her here while it suited him. At least while she was here she couldn’t cause trouble at the mine, and by the time he did send her home the work that needed to be done would have been completed.

* * *

This was not what she had planned. This was not what she had planned at all. Being caught red-handed by the count—swimming in his pool, trespassing on his grounds—confronting the man himself, when she might as well have been naked and he was elegantly clothed. It was hardly the surprise encounter she had envisaged when she set off from Skavanga, but of course that was the one where she seized the initiative, while the count was still reeling from his surprise at seeing her. There wasn’t much reeling going on right now.

‘So, Ms Skavanga?’ he demanded. ‘Do you intend to launch a protest at the side of my pool? Or may I continue on into the palazzo, where I can make arrangements for your immediate removal from the island?’

Not reeling. And definitely not in the mood for negotiations. The count was hostile, and embarrassingly unmoved by her all-but-naked body.

‘You can’t have me removed.’

‘I assure you, Ms Skavanga, I can do anything I want to do.’

‘But I’ve come all this way to see you.’ And, damn it, her voice was trembling. She hadn’t expected him to be so aggressive. She had imagined a man with an aristocratic pedigree would soften for a woman. How wrong could she be? ‘Please—’

‘Please, would you forgive me breaking in to your home? Or, please don’t deport me from the island?’ His voice was wholly mocking.

‘Both,’ she managed, angry at his tone.

‘Begging now, Ms Skavanga?’

‘Hardly. I’m merely appealing to your better nature.’ She raised a brow as she spoke, as if to say she realised now how unlikely it would be that he had one.

He might have expected a trespasser to be mortified to have been caught out, or to beseech him with pleading in her voice, and maybe even a few crocodile tears thrown in, all that was reflected in Eva’s face was challenge. So much hung on this meeting with him, according to her, so couldn’t she even manage a climb down this time? Of course she couldn’t. It wasn’t in her nature. And that was half her appeal, he realised. ‘You have a very high opinion of yourself, Ms Skavanga.’

For the first time her gaze flickered. It reinforced his opinion that beneath the braggadocio she was insecure.

* * *

Eva shifted uneasily from foot to foot. In her world she was confident, because people knew her and knew what to expect. She was never intentionally rude to anyone. She was just forceful. At least, that was how she liked to think of it.

Guilt flashed into her mind as she remembered the much-regretted argument with her sister.

And sometimes she was just plain rude, she accepted, but now she must keep the count listening long enough to convince him that the reason she was here overrode anything she might have done to see him. Extracting diamonds from the Skavanga mine at any cost couldn’t be right. But his expression suggested she would have to eat some humble pie, or there’d be no discussion.

‘I’m sorry,’ she managed to grind out. ‘I realise we’ve made a bad start.’

‘You have,’ he agreed.

CHAPTER THREE

DID THIS MAN get some sort of kick out of humiliating her? Eva wondered as she stood tense and angry by the side of the count’s fabulous pool. She might have learned a lesson in where being reckless led, but she wasn’t about to back down. ‘If it hadn’t been for you accelerating work at the mine, I wouldn’t be here.’

‘Is that what you call recovering the situation, Ms Skavanga? I think you’d better follow me into the house. I’ll decide what to do with you when you’ve had a chance to shower and change into some fresh clothes.’

The last thing she had expected was that he would invite her into his home. ‘Thank you,’ she managed awkwardly.

‘Don’t thank me, Ms Skavanga. Just think of yourself as an inconvenience I don’t intend to suffer much longer. And when I march you out of here, you stay off my property for good. Is that understood?’

Anger flashed through her as the count turned away and started to walk towards the house. She had to stop herself saying something she’d regret. If her concerns for the drilling hadn’t been hanging over her— If the survival of the mine hadn’t been largely dependent on this man—

‘Do you understand?’ he called out.

‘Yes,’ she fired back, scowling.

‘And while you are a guest in my house there will be no door slamming—no temper tantrums of any kind. Do I make myself clear, Ms Skavanga?’

‘Perfectly.’ He was remembering that time at Britt’s wedding when her body had reacted just as violently to him as it was doing now, and because she was so shocked by her response to him she had slammed the door in his face. She’d felt feminine at Britt’s wedding for about five minutes, but the count had changed all that. Fairy-tale bridesmaid into dowdy country bumpkin in no time flat.

‘Please follow me into the house, Ms Skavanga.’

She could play it tough with the guys back home, because they knew her and she knew them, but the count didn’t have the slightest interest in her as a woman, or as a companion. She should be pleased. No. She should be relieved. But being rejected as unfit for purpose wasn’t great.

But if that was how it was going to be, she would keep everything on a business footing. Catching up with him at the door, she offered him her hand. ‘Eva Skavanga—’

He ignored the gesture.

Swallowing her pride, she tried again. ‘I didn’t expect for us to—’

‘Meet like this?’ he interrupted, hostility rippling off him in big, ugly waves. ‘Who would?’

Hostile was far too mild a word to describe the count. And, yes, she’d trespassed on his land, but was that a hanging offence? She’d taken a swim in his pool, but so what? What was the big deal? What was riding the count? What was his problem?

The count exuded power and menace and sex, in more or less equal quantities, and admittedly that was fascinating, but it was also intimidating and she had shivers running up and down her spine. But at least she had accomplished something, if only the fact that she had tracked him down.

‘Well, at least we’re standing face to face,’ she said as he opened the door to the palazzo.

‘Is that meant to be funny, Ms Skavanga?’

‘No. It’s merely a statement of fact.’

‘Well, here’s another fact. Your intrusion in my home is not welcome, and as soon as it can be arranged—’

She pre-empted him. ‘As soon as we’ve talked, I’ll go.’

‘Go where?’ he said, standing back to let her go through the doorway. ‘You really haven’t thought this through, have you? You rushed here to confront me, without any thought at all, because you’ll stop at nothing to get your own way at the mine.’

‘Do you blame me when you will never agree to see me? I had to come here. You might not care about Skavanga or the people who live there, but I do. All that’s at stake for you is your money.’

‘So pumping in my money to keep the town and mine alive, saving people’s jobs along the way, means nothing to you?’

‘You’ll just leave us with a desolate site when you’ve taken what you want.’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ms Skavanga. Now are you coming inside or not?’

She couldn’t risk alienating him. Had she forgotten that?

He led the intruder across his spacious orangerie at a rate of knots. He didn’t welcome unexpected visitors to his sanctuary on the island, least of all trouble-making girls with an agenda.

‘I’m not a whinger or a troublemaker,’ she shouted after him. ‘I’m simply concerned about the speed of your drilling programme.’

He stopped dead. ‘Do you have an alternative suggestion, Ms Skavanga?’

She almost cannoned into him.

‘Maybe...’ Her cheeks flushed red when she realised how close she’d come to touching him. ‘I don’t have an engineering background like you,’ she admitted, surprising him with the speed of her recovery. He was also surprised she had done her research. ‘I don’t have as many academic qualifications, either,’ she added, ‘but I do have local knowledge.’

And a good degree, he remembered, wondering why she had never used it.

‘Let me reassure you, Ms Skavanga, that the finest minds have assembled to make this project a success.’

‘The finest minds, maybe,’ she agreed, growing heated. ‘But no one local is involved at a decision-making level, so you run the risk of applying the wrong criteria to your thinking.’

‘What about your sister, Britt?’

‘Britt is just a figurehead—a sop to keep the locals quiet.’

He drew back his head to stare at her. ‘How sad that you don’t know your own sister.’

‘I know enough,’ she blustered, but there was guilt in her eyes.

‘Your sister is an excellent businesswoman. Decisive and clear-thinking, Britt had led the family business in the absence of your parents and her brother, and now she runs the mine for the consortium—’

‘I know all that.’

And he knew Eva had lost the mother who might have softened her at a critical age. Reports said that she now liked to think of herself as a frontierswoman, happier under canvas than in a bed. Or, as others described her, the sister who was all balls and belligerence and a crack shot with a gun. Britt worked for the consortium on merit alone, while Eva had positioned herself against them. Eva didn’t want things to change, and had made it widely known that she believed the future of Skavanga lay in the type of tourism that would preserve and pay homage to her unique Arctic landscape, rather than mining, which could only scar the land. He believed the two could co-exist.

‘Your sister Britt is a lot more valuable to the future of this project than you seem to think. Perhaps you should speak to her.’

Now she looked thoroughly miserable. He’d found her Achilles heel. Eva cared passionately about her family and the mine, more than she cared about herself.

* * *

She was reeling, both at the shock meeting with the count and him inviting her into his fabulous home. They had crossed the gracious glass-walled building opening onto the pool, and had entered a grand, light-filled entrance hall, complete with a sweeping marble staircase that housed a grand piano beneath its curve.

The fabulous setting and the fact that she was wearing a towel had really thrown her. This wasn’t her debating outfit of choice, and she felt even worse about the fall out with Britt since the count had made a point of talking about her sister. She knew what Britt had achieved at the mine and couldn’t have admired her sister more. Why did everything always come out wrong? Why couldn’t she control her tongue for once? For the sake of the mine, she had to try to make amends. ‘All I’m asking for is the chance to talk to you, and then I’ll go.’

A flash of humour lit his eyes. ‘Do I have your word on that?’

‘The sooner the better, as far as I’m concerned,’ she fired back, unsettled by his worldly, mocking stare.

‘And what am I supposed to do with you until then?’

‘Listen to me?’ she suggested, lashing out again before she could stop herself.

‘I set the terms, Ms Skavanga. I speak. You listen.’

As the count’s lazy gaze washed over her, every part of her warmed. However much she resented him and his autocratic ways, her body remained incredibly impressed.

‘And now, as much as I have enjoyed talking to you, I have a wedding to get back to. So if you will excuse me, Ms Skavanga?’ He moved towards the stairs.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll still be here when you get back.’

‘Oh? Will you?’

She watched in fascination as he ran strong, tanned fingers through his thick black hair. The count was fiercely masculine. He had just enough polish to keep him this side of barbarian, but it was a close run thing. All the designer clothes in the world couldn’t hide his warrior frame. He’d been born to fight, and it was hard to imagine him in some cosy aristocratic setting—

‘Done staring at me, Ms Skavanga?’

She gave a start. She hadn’t realised she was examining him quite so intently. And that smile was back on his mocking lips. Her throat dried. She was used to straightforward emotions: black and white. She was not accustomed to this level of sophisticated banter. ‘Please don’t let me keep you. I’m quite happy to stay here—’

‘In the hall?’ He gazed around with a sardonic expression curving his firm, sexy mouth. ‘I’m sure you are. But if you think for one minute that I’m happy to leave you unattended in my home? I don’t think so, Ms Skavanga. You’re coming with me.’

‘What?’ Shock raced through her body at the thought of an evening with the count.

‘You’re the last person I’d leave alone in my house. Your reputation precedes you, Ms Skavanga. How do I know you won’t change the locks while I’m away?’

Mock all you like, but I’m here and I’m not going anywhere. But...if she did go with him, someone might be able to give her a room for the night. ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘I’ll come down with you when you leave and wait for you in the village.’

‘My same concerns apply,’ he said. ‘I won’t risk you upsetting people. You’re here and I’m responsible for you, which means I’m not letting you loose on any unsuspecting villagers. You’re going to stay close by me where I can keep an eye on you. You’re coming with me to the wedding.’

‘A wedding?’ She laughed. ‘Impossible. I don’t have anything remotely suitable to wear.’

‘Then you will have to improvise. I’m not leaving you here on your own, and that’s final. And I will be leaving the palazzo in half an hour. You need to be ready by then.’

‘But if I could find a bed for the night in the village, surely you would prefer that?’

‘I wish you joy of your search. Every bed is taken for the wedding, and, as I have no intention of letting you out of my sight, you have no alternative but to stay here for the night.’

‘With you?’

‘Well, I’m not going anywhere. Of course, you could return home?’ The count glanced at his watch. ‘If you hurry, you might catch the last ferry.’

‘Do you have any idea how hard it has been to track you down so I can express my concerns to you face to face? Do you seriously think I’m going to leave without doing that?’

The count gave her a look. ‘That is one option to consider.’

‘Not a chance.’

‘In that case,’ he murmured in a mocking tone, ‘my home is your home for the next twenty-four hours, Ms Skavanga. But don’t get any ideas.’ His voice hardened. ‘You leave when I say you leave. And the next item in your diary is a wedding party, and I am never late.’

She flinched at the count’s tone. She wasn’t used to being talked to like that. She drove situations in Skavanga. She did not take instruction. The count’s stare was steady and appraising, and not the least bit amused, when she was more accustomed to good-humoured tolerance of her laddish ways.

‘Roman Quisvada.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ She gazed up, bewildered for a moment as he spoke.

‘Introductions,’ he said. ‘As you’re coming to stay in my home, I think we should at least be civil to each other.’ He took her hand in a firm grip.

The handshake might have lasted no more than a few seconds, but the effect lasted a lot longer.

‘Call me Roman,’ he murmured, staring down at her.