The Diamond Bride

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She was barely breathing, certainly not moving, very conscious of how very close they were, the deep cobalt-blue of his eyes so clear to her now—the only thing that was—as her gaze was held mesmerised by his, her face made immobile by the touch of his hand, his fingers warm against the softness of her throat.

She flicked her tongue over her lips again, colour warming her cheeks as she saw his eyes following the movement. She inwardly withdrew, then instantly moved back from the touch of his hand, gratefully drawing air into her lungs at the same time. What on earth was happening to her? She wasn’t that young and impressionable—so how, feeling the way she did about Anthony, had she also felt the pull of this man’s attraction?

She didn’t know herself under these circumstances. But she was sure that, even if the Diamond men weren’t kind, they were both possessed of an attractiveness she would be better off without!

‘Can I go now?’ she said abruptly, wishing he would move away from her—let her breathe a little!

Thankfully, he did, moving back behind the desk, although he didn’t sit down again, merely looked at her from beneath lowered lids. ‘No,’ he finally replied forcefully. ‘We haven’t talked about Jessica’s accident yet.’

Which was one of the things she was here to discuss; how could she have forgotten? This man, that was how; she was finding it difficult to keep up with his lightning changes of mood and conversation, knew she would look back on this time spent in his study with a feeling of exhaustion. She felt as if she had to constantly be on her guard, for one reason or another.

And the subject of Jessica’s accident was no different. She didn’t know how it had happened; one minute the little girl had been in the saddle, the next she had been on the ground. Annie was a novice rider herself; simply managing to stay seated in the saddle was a major feat! She had mastered just sitting on the back of the placid animal she had been given and letting the horse do all the work. She simply wasn’t experienced enough to give any sort of judgement on Jessica’s mishap.

That in itself would probably be a black mark against her in Rufus Diamond’s book!

‘Knowing how to ride a horse wasn’t something that was discussed when I came here for an interview,’ she told him defensively. ‘But it’s something Jessica loves to do, and as she can’t possibly go out on her own—’

‘You had to accompany her,’ Rufus surmised, his eyes suddenly alight with humour, a slight twitch to those sculptured lips. ‘Done much riding before, have you, Annie?’ He raised innocently questioning brows.

Too innocently. He was laughing at her again, damn him!

‘There wasn’t much call for it in the inner London Children’s home I was brought up in!’ she told him sharply.

The stark contrast between her own childhood and Jessica’s was apparent in that one blunt statement. There had never been too much spare cash at the home, certainly not enough to run to riding lessons. Even if she had wanted them. Which she hadn’t.

And after Jessica’s accident she wasn’t sure she ever wanted to sit on a horse again! Jessica had been riding most of her life, it seemed, and still she had been thrown.

‘So you meant it literally when you called yourself Orphan Annie?’ Rufus said.

‘Yes.’ She was on the defensive, unsure of the turn of the conversation. Again!

Rufus took his time, sitting down in the chair behind the desk, his face softening as he looked across its width at her. ‘In that case, I wouldn’t take the Diamond family as a typical example of the species,’ he drawled dryly. ‘It had some sense of normality before my father died six years ago; since then it’s deteriorated into anarchy,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘A group of people who happen to share the same house but who can barely stand the sight of each other!’

‘Surely not?’ Annie gasped in dismay at the tragedy of such a thing. But hadn’t she seen it herself this evening, in the barely maintained civility over dinner? And at the time she had thought Rufus to be the catalyst; she couldn’t remember it having been quite as tense on other evenings when she and Jessica had joined in the evening meal.

‘Surely, yes,’ Rufus confirmed wryly. ‘And as no one else seems to have filled you in on the family history perhaps I should do so,’ he said wearily.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to know, already felt uncomfortable enough with the little she did know. ‘Is it relevant to Jessica that I know?’ She frowned.

His mouth tightened. ‘Before the weekend, I would have said no. Now I’m not so sure...’ He grimaced darkly, then shook off that mood as he smiled across at her. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he chided, at her apprehensive expression. ‘As far as I’m aware, there is no history of axe murderers or serial killers in the family. At least, none that Celia would ever allow to be discussed! Appearances are everything to my dear stepmama,’ he told her wryly. ‘Although she wasn’t always so particular,’ he amended harshly, eyes cold with anger once again.