His Ballerina Bride

—Harry Winston

Chapter One (#ub9cd4022-5b74-56aa-8dd8-0c45c1f1f085)

They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Ophelia Rose had a tendency to disagree. Strongly.

Not that Ophelia had anything against diamonds per se. On the contrary, she adored them. Just two months ago, she’d earned an entire college degree in diamonds. Gemology, technically. Every piece of jewelry she’d designed for her final independent study project featured a diamond as its centerpiece. They were something of a pet jewel of hers. So naturally, working at Drake Diamonds was her dream job. It was her dream job now, anyway. Now that all vestiges of her former life had pretty much vanished.

Now that she’d been forced to start over.

She still loved diamonds. In truth, only certain diamonds had been getting on her nerves of late. Diamonds of the engagement variety. The level of stress that those particular gems were causing her was enough to make her seriously question their best-friend status. Unfortunately, engagement diamonds were something of an occupational hazard for someone who worked on the tenth floor of Drake Diamonds.

Ophelia pasted on a smile and focused on the glittering jewels in the display case before her and the way they dazzled beneath the radiant store lights. Breathe. Just breathe.

“This is the one. Princess cut. It’s perfect for you...” The man sitting across from Ophelia slipped a 2.3-carat solitaire onto the ring finger of the woman sitting beside him and cooed, “...princess.”

“Oh, stop. You’re going to make me cry again,” his fiancée said, gazing at the diamond on her hand. Sure enough, a lone tear slipped down her cheek.

Ophelia slid a box of rose-scented tissues toward the princess.

In the course of a typical workday, Ophelia went through at least two boxes of tissues. Twice that many on the weekend, along with countless flutes of the finest French champagne and dozens of delicate petits fours crafted to look like the distinctive Drake Diamonds blue gift box crowned with its signature white ribbon. Because shopping for an engagement ring at Drake Diamonds was an experience steeped in luxury, as it had been since 1830.

Her current customers couldn’t have cared less about the trappings, particularly the edible ones. Their champagne flutes were nearly full and the petits fours completely untouched. Ophelia was fairly certain the only things they wanted to consume were each other.

It made her heart absolutely ache.

Six months had passed since Ophelia’s diagnosis. She’d had half a year to accept her fate, half a year to come to terms with her new reality. She’d never be the girl with the diamond on her finger. She’d never be the bride-to-be. Multiple sclerosis was a serious, chronic illness, one that had altered every aspect of her existence. It had been difficult enough to let this uninvited guest turn her life upside down. She wouldn’t let it do the same to someone else. That much she could control.

She couldn’t dictate a lot of things about her new life. But her single status was one of them. And she was perfectly fine with it. She had enough on her plate with work, volunteering at the animal shelter and staying as healthy as possible. Not to mention coping with everything she’d left behind.

Still.

Being reminded on a daily basis of what she would never have was getting old.

“Look at that. It’s a perfect fit.” She smiled at the happy couple, and her throat grew tight. “Shall I wrap it for you?”

“Yes, please.” The besotted man’s gaze never left his betrothed. “In one of those fancy blue boxes?”

Ophelia nodded. “Of course. It’s my pleasure.”

She gathered the ring and the petits fours—which the bride declared were in flagrant violation of her wedding diet—and padded across the plush blue carpet of the sales floor toward the gift-wrap room. After dropping off the diamond ring, where it would be boxed, wrapped and tied with a bridal-white bow, she made her way to the kitchen to dispose of the tiny cakes.

She stopped and stared at the counter and the endless rows of pristine silver plates and champagne flutes. Once her current customers left, she’d be passing out another pair of fancy desserts. Another duo of champagne glasses. To yet another couple madly in love.

I can’t keep doing this.

This wasn’t the plan. The plan was to work in jewelry design, to sketch and create the pieces in those glittering display cases. Catering to the lovesick was definitely not the plan.

She knew she should be grateful. She had to start somewhere. As far as the sales team went, working on the tenth floor in Engagements was the most coveted position in the building. She simply needed to bide her time until she could somehow show upper management what she could do, and get transferred to the design department.

One day at a time. I can do this.

She could totally do it. But maybe all those happily engaged couples would be easier to stomach with a little cake.

Why not? No one was looking. Everyone was on the sales floor.

Ophelia had never been much of a rule breaker. She’d never broken any rules, come to think of it. Funny how being the good girl all her life hadn’t stopped her world from falling apart. Life wasn’t fair. She should have known that by now.

She closed her eyes and bit into one of the petits fours. As it melted in her mouth, she contemplated the healing powers of sugar and frosting. Cake might not be the best thing for the body, but at the moment, it was doing wonders for her battered soul.

Finally, she’d uncovered the one good thing about no longer being a professional ballet dancer. Cake. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a bite of the sweet dessert. Not even on her birthday.

“My God, where have you been all my life?” she whispered.

“Excuse my tardiness,” a sultry male voice said in return.

Oh, God.

Ophelia’s eyes flew open.

Much to her dismay, the bemused retort hadn’t come from the petit four. It had come from her boss. Artem Drake, in the flesh. His tuxedo-clad, playboy flesh.

“Mr. Drake.” Her throat grew tight.

What was he even doing here? No one at Drake Diamonds had laid eyes on him since he’d inherited the company from his father. Unless the photos of him on Page Six counted.

And good grief. He was a thousand times hotter in person than he was on the internet. How was that even possible?

Ophelia took in his square chin, his dark, knowing gaze and the hint of a dimple in his left cheek, and went a little bit weak in the knees. The fit of his tuxedo was impeccable. As was the shine of his patent leather shoes. But it was the look on his face that nearly did her in. Like the cat who got the cream.

The man was decadence personified.

She swallowed. With great difficulty. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

She couldn’t be seen eating one of the Drake petits fours. They were for customers, not employees. Not to mention the mortification of being caught moaning suggestively at a baked good. She dropped it like a hot potato. It landed between them on the kitchen floor with a splat. A crumb bounced onto the mirror surface of one of Artem’s shoes.

What on earth was she doing?

He glanced down and lifted a provocative brow. Ophelia’s insides went all fluttery. Perfect. She’d already made an idiot of herself and now she was borderline swooning over an eyebrow. Her boss’s eyebrow.

“Oh, good,” he said, his deep voice heavily laced with amusement. “Thanks for clearing that up. For a minute, I thought I’d stumbled upon one of my employees eating the custom-made, fifteen-dollars-per-square-inch snacks that we serve our customers.”

Those petits fours were fifteen dollars apiece? That seemed insane, even for Drake Diamonds. They were good, but they weren’t that good.

Ophelia glanced at the tiny cake at her feet, and her stomach growled. Okay, maybe they were that good. “Um...”

“So what’s the story, then? Are you a runaway fiancée hiding in my kitchen?” His gaze flitted to the floor again. “Are those pretty feet of yours getting cold?”

“A fiancée? Me? No. Definitely not.” Once upon a time, yes. But that, like so many other things, had changed. “I mean, no. Just...no.”