The Drake Diamonds: His Ballerina Bride

Tender and vulnerable.

As her breathing grew quicker, she wrapped her willowy legs around his waist and reached for him. “Please, Artem. I need you to...”

“I promise.” He slid his hands over her back and pulled her close. Her thighs spread wider, and she began to stroke him. Slow and easy. Achingly so.

She felt delicate in his embrace. As small and fragile as a music-box dancer. But it was the desperation in her voice that was an arrow to his heart.

It nearly killed him.

Which was the only explanation for what came slipping out next. “I’m not really a Drake, Ophelia.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than he realized the gravity of what he’d done. He’d never confessed that truth to another living soul.

He should take it back. Now, before it was too late.

He didn’t. Instead, he braced for her reaction, not quite realizing he was holding his breath, waiting for her to stop touching him, exploring him...until she didn’t stop. She kept caressing him as her eyes implored him. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m a bastard,” he said. “In the truest sense of the word.”

“Don’t.” She kissed him, and there was acceptance in her kiss, in the intimate way she touched him. Acceptance that Artem hadn’t even realized he needed. “Don’t call yourself that.”

His father had used that word often enough. Once he’d found out about Artem’s existence, that is. “My real mother worked at Drake Diamonds. She was a cleaning woman. She died when I was five years old. Then I went to live in the Drake mansion.”

Dalton had been eight years old, and his sister Diana had been six. Overnight, Artem had found himself in a family of strangers.

Wouldn’t the tabloids have a field day with that information? It was the big, whopping family secret. And after keeping it hidden for his entire life, he’d just willingly disclosed it to a woman he’d known for a fortnight.

“Oh, Artem.” Her lips brushed the corner of his mouth and her hands kept moving, kept stroking.

And there was comfort in the pleasure she offered. Comfort and release.

Artem didn’t know her story. He didn’t have to. Ophelia was no stranger to loss. Her pain lived in the sapphire depths of her eyes. He could see it. She understood. Maybe that was even part of what drew him toward her. Perhaps the imposter in her had recognized the imposter in him.

But he couldn’t help being curious. Why the secrecy?

Slow down. Talk things through.

But he didn’t want to slow down. Couldn’t.

“Kitten,” he murmured, his breath growing ragged as he moved his hands up the supple arch of her spine.

She was so soft. So feminine. Like rose petals. And she felt so perfect in his arms that he didn’t want to revisit the past anymore. It no longer felt real.

Ophelia was the present, and she was real. Nothing was as authentic as the way she danced. Reality was the swell of her breasts against his chest. It was her tender voice as she whispered in his ear. It was her warm, wet center.

Then there were no more words, no more confessions. She was guiding him into her, taking him fully inside. All of him. His body, his need, his truths.

His past. His present.

Everything he was and everything he’d ever been.

* * *

He didn’t know what time it was when he finally heard the buzzing of his cell phone from inside the pocket of his tuxedo jacket, still in a heap on the floor. Pink opalescent light streamed through the windows, and he could hear police sirens and the rumble of taxicabs down below. The music of a Manhattan morning.

Artem wanted nothing more than to kiss his way down Ophelia’s body and wake her in the manner she so deserved, but before he could move a muscle the phone buzzed again. Then again.

And yet again.

Artem sighed mightily, slid out of bed and reached for his tuxedo jacket. He fished his phone from the pocket and frowned when he caught his first glimpse of the screen. Twenty-nine missed calls.

Every last one of them was from his brother.

Bile rose to the back of his throat as he remembered the last time Dalton had blown up his phone like this. That had been two months ago, the night of their father’s heart attack. By the time Artem had returned Dalton’s calls, Geoffrey Drake had been dead for more than four hours.

He dialed his brother’s number and strode naked across the suite, shutting himself in his small home office so he wouldn’t wake Ophelia.

Dalton answered on the first ring. “Artem. Finally.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked, wondering why Dalton sounded as cheerful as he did. Artem wasn’t sure he’d ever heard his brother this relaxed. Relaxing wasn’t exactly the elder Drake’s strong suit.

“Nothing is wrong. Nothing at all. In fact, everything is right.” He paused. Long enough for alarm bells to start sounding in the back of Artem’s consciousness. Something seemed off. “You, my brother, are a genius.”

Now he was really suspicious. Dalton wasn’t prone to flattery where Artem was concerned. Although he had to admit genius had a better ring to it than bastard. “What’s going on, Dalton? Go ahead and tell me in plain English. I’m rather busy at the moment.”

“Busy? At this hour? I doubt that.” Artem could practically hear Dalton’s eyes rolling. At least something was normal about this conversation. “I’m talking about the girl.”

Artem’s throat closed. He raked a hand through his hair and involuntarily glanced in the direction of the bed. “To whom are you referring?”

The girl.

Dalton was talking about Ophelia. Artem somehow just knew. He didn’t know why, or how, but hearing Dalton refer to her so casually rubbed him the wrong way.

“Ophelia, of course. Your big discovery.” Dalton let out a laugh. “She’s not who we think she is, brother.”

So the cat was out of the bag. How in the world had Dalton discovered her real name?

“I know.” But even as he said it, he had the sickening feeling he didn’t know anything. Anything at all.

“You know?” Dalton sounded only mildly surprised. “Oh. Well, that’s good, I suppose. Although you could have told me about her connection to the Drake Diamond before I had to hear about it from a reporter at Page Six.”

Artem froze.

The Drake Diamond? Page Six? What the hell was he talking about?

“I can’t believe we’ve had Natalia Baronova’s granddaughter working for us this entire time,” Dalton said. “You did a good thing when you recommended her designs. A really good thing. Like I said, genius.”

Baronova. No wonder the name had rung a bell. “You mean the ballerina who wore the Drake Diamond back in the forties? That Natalia Baronova?”