The Flaw in His Diamond

‘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.

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.