Diamonds Are For Lovers: Satin & a Scandalous Affair

“This would have won you the award, just for colour and lustre alone.”

She thrummed with pleasure. “I wanted to enter it. People said it wasn’t high value enough.”

Quinn looked into her eyes and her heartbeat stuttered.

Heat bloomed inside and filled her. She couldn’t look away for the life of her. This close she picked out the fine lines at the corner of his eyes; the scar by his mouth she wanted to trace with her finger to see if it was as smooth as it looked. His eyes were dark and a little perplexed, and then he looked down at her mouth.

“Trust your instincts,” he said softly.

Oh, boy, if he only knew what her instincts were telling her now. He was so close, his breath wafted over her face. She felt her body tighten, sway slightly in his direction. The man was a magnet, her own personalised magnet. The back of her neck prickled and dampened under the rumpled hank of hair she had twisted and last looked at ten hours ago.

Ten hours ago? She stepped back hurriedly, thinking how dishevelled she must look. There was probably broccoli in her teeth, and she remembered now that she had not showered today….

Dani had her pride. She didn’t even know if she liked this man, but if succumbing to an intense attraction was an option, she would at least be clean and fragrant.

“I—I think it’s time for bed.” She groaned inwardly, thinking, You smooth talker, you. Her embarrassment was heightened by how strangely husky her voice sounded.

“It’s only eight.”

She ran her tongue over her teeth. “It’s been a long day.”

Quinn nodded, and in the process, his eyes swept over her chest and lingered long enough to tell her what she already knew, that her nipples were tight and hard, visibly so.

She didn’t dare look down. “You can take the diamond to bed,” she said weakly, then wanted to clap her hands to her head. Verbal clumsiness didn’t sneak up on her often, but she’d made the world team tonight.

Quinn’s mouth twitched.

Her cheeks stung with heat. No doubt his “lady friend” would be so much more sophisticated, never a hair out of place or a word out of turn.

“You look hot, Dani,” Quinn said smoothly, and there was no mistaking his amusement.

She cleared her throat. “You could check the air-con in here. These lights really raise the temperature.”

“They do, don’t they?”

She’d made enough of a fool of herself. “Good night.” She escaped without waiting for his response.

Quinn let his head roll back and stared at the bright lights on the ceiling. “Control yourself,” he muttered, his weakness taunting him. Had she noticed his arousal? He’d sure noticed hers! The sexual charge he got just from being in the same room was beyond a joke, and he was toast once he clapped eyes on her chest.

So despite her snippiness, the lady was interested.

That added a new dimension to the proceedings. He’d not so much as touched her, but he knew instinctively that they were sexually compatible, or more aptly, explosively combustible!

Interesting … He looked down at her empty plate, remembering why he’d come up here in the first place. Quinn was tired of his own company, bored eating alone—which was weird since he was used to it. Preferred it, in fact. His life was a never-ending roundabout of fancy dinners in up-market restaurants, with the added non-bonus of countless airline meals.

But his apartment in Sydney was ordered and peaceful. To his mind, a cheese sandwich in front of the wall-to-ceiling windows that showcased the most beautiful city in the world was far more enjoyable than any two-hundred-dollar meal he had ever eaten.

A throwback, he supposed, to the chaotic mealtimes at home when he was a kid.

Quinn grew up with loving but eccentric parents who filled their huge old Sydney home to overflowing with troubled foster kids. He shared everything as a boy: his parents’ love and time, his room, toys, even his wife, who moved in while they were at university. She was studying to be a social worker and loved helping out with the kids. Quinn shared her right up to the day she died of a brain tumour, aged twenty-six.

These days, he didn’t share so much anymore, but still loved his parents dearly. Although he wished they didn’t keep asking him when he was going to get around to giving them grandkids. Quinn’s response hadn’t changed since he was twenty: “I learned growing up that there are too many unwanted kids in the world.”

He picked up the boxed diamond and took it to his room to lock away. Then he collected her empty plate and the food he’d brought at lunch. His phone rang as he descended the stairs. Matt Hammond calling from New Zealand.

He’d met Matt before since they were both shareholders of several different companies, including Blackstone Diamonds.

“Can we meet up in the next week?” Matt asked. “Among other things, I’d like to thank you properly for bringing the pink diamonds home.”

Last month, Quinn had authenticated four pink diamonds for Matt’s former sister-in-law, Melbourne supermodel, Briana Davenport. Briana found them in her apartment safe after her sister Marise was killed in the plane crash. Quinn was astonished to find they were from the Blackstone Rose necklace, stolen from Howard nearly three decades ago. He told Briana they must be returned to their rightful owner. At her request, he’d delivered the stones to Howard Blackstone’s estate lawyers.

It was well publicised that Howard’s will had been altered shortly before the crash to bestow his jewellery collection to Marise. Quinn was less clear on whether the stolen necklace would be included in the jewellery collection, since it was not specifically named and still listed as stolen. He had to be sure he was not acting illegally. It would pan out better for Briana, his client, that way.

After deliberation, the lawyers declared that the Blackstone Rose necklace was included in the jewellery collection. Since Marise hadn’t changed her will before the accident, the pink diamonds now belonged to her spouse, Matt Hammond.

“I’m holidaying in Port Douglas for the next couple of weeks,” Quinn told Matt now.

“You’re kidding! I’m coming up there myself in the next couple of days. We can catch up then, if you’re agreeable.”

Quinn wondered if Matt was coming to Port Douglas to see Dani. They were cousins, but from what he’d heard, the rift between the Blackstones and the Hammonds included both Dani and her mother, Sonya.

“In the meantime,” Matt continued, “I’d like you to put the word out. I’m willing to ask no questions and pay top dollar for the fifth Blackstone Rose diamond, the big one.”

The centrepiece of the old necklace was a pear-shaped 9.7 carat diamond. The original Heart of the Outback stone was just over one hundred carats in the rough. Stones lost a lot of weight in the cutting, especially if the cutter wanted several diamonds from the one stone. Some cutters went for weight, which did not necessarily correlate to value; fire and brilliance came from the shape the cutter chose.

In this case, the cutter had done a masterful job, realising a creditable thirty-eight carats in total. This, along with the name and the legend, accorded the stones a massive price tag. The last big intense pink Quinn could recall coming up for auction several years ago—an unnamed twenty carat, pear-shaped beauty—fetched six million dollars. The Blackstone Rose diamonds could sell for as much as half a million dollars per carat, more if they were sold together.

Although laser identification wasn’t around when the stones were cut, the Blackstone Rose’s thief must have sold the big stone on the black market for it to have disappeared without a trace. Quinn had extensive connections, and there was always someone who could be persuaded to sell information about less-reputable art and gem collectors. A pink of this size would cause comment wherever it turned up.

Quinn hung up, thinking that his whole existence lately—professional and personal—seemed to be tied up with the Blackstone and Hammond families. First Matt and the pink diamonds, now his enforced cohabitation with Danielle Hammond. His very personal existence stirred again when he recalled the desire in her eyes a few minutes ago, heard the huskiness of her voice. He knew that he was destined to spend another night alone in his bed, dreaming about her intriguing face and lithe body.

He would have Dani Hammond, he decided. It would help while away the hours in this sauna until he could return to civilisation.

He grinned as he stripped and slid between the sheets, allowing himself the uncharitable thought that tupping Howard Blackstone’s little girl would be like thumbing his nose at the old man, dead or not. That would be twice in a month he’d shafted the old goat. Howard must have turned in his freshly dug grave when the Blackstone Rose diamonds came full circle to a Hammond again.

Four

Soon after 6:00 a.m., an ungodly time for her, Dani crept out of the house to watch the sun rise over the beach. The tide was high and the temperature around twenty. Yawning widely, she stumbled through the ten-metre stretch of trees that fringed the beach, then slipped off her sandals and carried them down to test the water.

The physical response she’d had to Quinn in the workroom had played on her mind all night. Her fumbling efforts to gloss over it, knowing he’d noticed her tongue practically hanging out, made it ten times worse.

This man was not her friend. More than that, he already had a woman, a special woman, judging by the value of the gift he was having made for her. But why did he have to be so gorgeous? How was she to exist under the same roof for the next two to three weeks without succumbing to his charms?

She knew how. Remember Nick … remember the humiliation.

The water licked around her toes, a cool surprise, reminding her that winter was on its way. She remembered a cool winter’s day two years ago. On cue, her cheeks burned for no one but her and the breeze as she walked on deserted Four Mile Beach. Nick had nearly finished her.

Dani should have known better, even back then. Twenty-five was hardly wet behind the ears. Nick had wined and dined her, swept her off her feet in an indecently short time. Promised love and marriage and forever. And even though she’d lived all her life in a fishbowl being targeted by the Sydney tabloids, she trusted him.