The Diamond Secret. Ruth Wind

it before, but only when they mentioned your father was Gordon Montague did I realize that I could protect myself from Paul’s wrath.”

      I raised an eyebrow. “How will I protect you?”

      “Sylvie, think,” he said. “Why choose you? He won’t kill me as long as you are with me.”

      “Why would I care if he kills you?”

      “It does not matter what you think. It matters that he will do nothing to endanger you. You are the most precious of all creatures to him, did you know that?”

      I snorted. “We haven’t spoken in five years.”

      “That may be,” he said quietly, and lifted a hand to my face to capture a strand of long hair that had escaped my braid. He smoothed it back. “But it has not changed his feelings for you. He’s very protective of you.”

      Luca’s fingers were graceful and delicate on my cheekbone, and as I looked up at him warily, I spied something in his blue eyes. Surprise, perhaps. A tendril of awareness unfurled on my spine as he took a step closer.

      From behind us came a shout, “Hey, Sylvie! Is that your new boyfriend?”

      I turned, instinctively, and the flashes went off, pop, pop.

      “Shit.” I whirled away, putting my back to them. “C’mon,” I said to Luca. “Let’s get out of here.”

      He had not moved, his hand still circling my arm. He appeared to be confused as he stared at the photographers, and I’m sure they caught very flattering, open-mouthed pictures of him. They’d run with some appropriately awful headline about shocking secrets or something appropriately comic-bookish.

      The flashes from the cameras lit up the night, and Luca scowled. “Who—?”

      “Fucking paparazzi,” I said, striding away. “Where’ s the car?”

      He hurried to catch me. “Language, language,” he said with a chuckle in his voice.

      “You try having sleazy photographers taking your picture every time you’re about to kiss someone.” I was still stinging from an encounter in New York last spring, when the doggedness of a pair of photographers had cost me a developing relationship with a man I’d really liked. Joseph had been a professor at Berkley. He’d found the attention daunting, and dumped me.

      “Were we about to kiss?” Luca asked.

      I glared at him. “Don’t be arch.”

      He grinned. “The car is here.” He pointed toward a car park near the train station. Behind us the photographers strolled along, shooting photos lazily, their cigarette smoke carried invisibly toward us on the night.

      He led the way toward a tiny Ford Mini. White. I raised an eyebrow. “Could you possibly have chosen anything less cool?”

      He made a face, brushed the question from the air with a wave of his hand, and opened the passenger door for me. There was that one moment of disorientation when I looked down and there was no steering wheel on the left. I started to duck into the car, but Luca captured my arm. Stopped me.

      And before I knew what was happening, he slid his hand into my hair, tilted his head toward mine and kissed me.

      Even as I was falling into it, I knew exactly what he was doing—for some reason he wanted our photos in the tabloids. He wanted something passionate and sexy. Under ordinary circumstances, I’d never be famous enough to make the covers, but with the news of the drug dealer’s stash, and the sexy possibility of a lost gem, and the excitement over my father’s current wins on the circuit, chances were excellent—especially with Luca’s good looks—that we’d be plastered over them all tomorrow. For a split second, I wondered who he wanted to see us.

      I started to pull back, half offended, but who was I kidding? I was using him, too. It wouldn’t exactly kill me to have my ex-husband see photos of me kissing some dashing foreigner. For a single long moment, I felt a ripple of satisfaction at the idea of Timothy standing in line in some grocery store, and the tabloids emblazoned with me and Luca kissing.

      That was where I was in one minute.

      The very next second, he lifted his head slightly, his hands cupped around my face, and he looked faintly puzzled. “Well,” he whispered, and before I could gather my senses enough to move away, he’d bent his head again, claimed my mouth, and something shifted with both of us.

      Just that simple. He tasted exactly right. There are people you know are bad for you and you let them get away with murder for all kinds of physical reasons. That’s all I can tell you about Luca. His mouth was as luscious as it looked, the lips full and delicious and somehow elegant. That scent of oranges, sharp as freshly grated peel, swept through me, made my hips soft, and I lost my head for three seconds.

      Or maybe it was thirty.

      I know my head fell back into his palm, that his thumb was on my cheek, that he might have been mugging for the cameras at first, but it shifted for him at the same instant it did for me, and there was nothing pretend in the sudden thrust of his tongue, the sparking electricity that ran in blue rivulets between us. That tendril of unfurling awareness on my spine moved trough my body, twining around those places our bodies touched—chest, knees, lips.

      I very nearly let go. His fingers slid down my neck, traced my collarbone—

      Some internal alarm screamed my name. I shoved him away. “Stop!”

      For one long second, he didn’t release me, only hovered there a moment, eyes sharp and hot, one hand still tangled in my hair. His lips were slightly parted. I forgot there were photographers hovering. Forgot that I had a giant diamond stashed in my bra. Forgot I was in Scotland for a good reason and I needed to protect my integrity.

      Then his nostrils flared and he abruptly dropped his hands, moved away from me.

      “Get in,” he said.

      Chapter 6

      Diamonds were worn by aristocratic families to ward off the plague during the Middle Ages. The poorest people always died first, since they lived closer to the docks, where the ships often brought the plague from other countries. The rich had an idea that since the poor went first, that displaying their wealth (diamonds) would keep them from infection.

      —Margaret Odrowaz-Sypniewski, B.F.A.

      When I climbed into the car, he slammed the door and came around to get behind the wheel. He did not look at me as he turned the key in the ignition. I noticed that his hands were shaking slightly.

      “Where is your room?” he asked gruffly.

      I gave him directions. He nearly turned the wrong way out of the parking lot, and cursed left-hand drive before he corrected his turn. “When will Britain catch up with the rest of the world on traffic?”

      “Never.”

      “It’s idiotic.”

      I shrugged. “Probably.”

      It took longer to get out of the parking lot than it did to get to the hotel, and we pulled up into the lot there. Lamplight glowed at the windows stacked up into the darkness.

      Would I invite him in? Under other circumstances, I might have. But I would not do it tonight. There were too many volatilities built into it. Too much at stake.

      I got out. He followed me, keys in hand, to the back of the car. Without speaking, he opened the trunk, let me grab my bag, and slammed the top down again.

      “Thanks,” I said, and headed toward the door of the hotel, rolling the case behind me. He followed.

      I stopped. “What are you doing?”

      “Coming with you.”

      “Why?”

      “What are you going to do, Sylvie?” He scowled. “Turn it in to the authorities?”