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The secretary nodded. “Yes, now. In his office.”
Not the hotel, his office. Right. That was good. Proper.
It required superhuman effort to keep the smile on her face from fading. “I see.”
“Follow me, please.”
Ophelia followed Artem’s secretary across the showroom floor, around the corner and down the hall toward the corporate offices. They passed the kitchen with its bevy of petits fours atop gleaming silver plates, and Ophelia couldn’t help but feel a little wistful.
She took a deep breath and averted her gaze. At least all this was about to end, and she could go back to the way things were before he’d ever walked in on her scarfing down cake. She assumed the reason for this forced march into his office was to retrieve her portfolio.
Although wouldn’t it have been easier to simply have someone return it to her on his behalf? Then they wouldn’t have been forced to interact with one another at all. He’d never cross Ophelia’s mind again, except when Jewel purred and rubbed up against her ankles. Or when she saw him looking devastatingly hot in the society pages of the newspaper every morning. Or the other million times a day she found herself thinking of him.
“Here you go.” Artem’s secretary pushed open the door to his office and held it for her.
Ophelia stepped inside. For a moment she was so awestruck by the full force of Artem’s gaze directed squarely at her for the first time since the Plaza that the fact they weren’t alone didn’t even register.
“Miss Rose,” he said. For a millisecond, his focus drifted to her mouth, then darted back to her eyes.
Ophelia’s limbs went languid. There was no legitimate reason to feel even the slightest bit aroused, but she did. Uncomfortably so.
She pressed her thighs together. “Mr. Drake.”
He stood and waved a hand at the man sitting opposite him, whom Ophelia had finally noticed. “I’d like to introduce you to my brother, Dalton Drake.”
Dalton rose from his chair and shook her hand. Ophelia had never thought Dalton and Artem looked much alike, but up close she could see a faint family resemblance. They had the same straight nose, same chiseled features. But whereas Dalton’s good looks seemed wrapped in dark intensity, Artem’s devil-may-care expression got under her skin. Every time.
It was maddening.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Rose,” he said, in a voice oddly reminiscent of his brother’s, minus the timbre of raw sexuality.
Ophelia nodded, unsure what to say.
What was going on? Why was Dalton here, and why were her sketches spread out on the conference table?
“Please, have a seat.” Dalton gestured toward the chair between him and Artem.
Ophelia obediently sat down, flanked on either side by Drakes. She took a deep breath and steadfastly avoided looking at Artem.
“We’ve been discussing your work.” Dalton waved a hand at her sketches. “You have a brilliant artistic eye. It’s lovely work, Miss Rose. So it’s our pleasure to welcome you to the Drake Diamonds design team.”
Ophelia blinked, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.
Artem hadn’t forgotten about her, after all. He’d shown her designs to Dalton, and now they were giving her a job. A real design job, one that she’d been preparing and studying for for two years. She would no longer be working in Engagements.
Something good was happening. Finally.
“Thank you. Thank you so much,” she breathed, dropping her guard and fixing her gaze on Artem.
He smiled, ever so briefly, and Ophelia had to stop herself from kissing him right on his perfect, provocative mouth.
Dalton drummed his fingers on the table, drawing her attention back to the sketches. “We’d like to introduce the new designs as the Drake Diamonds Dance collection, and we plan on doing so as soon as possible.”
Ophelia nodded. It sounded too good to be true.
Dalton continued, “The ballerina rings will be the focus of the collection, as my brother and I both feel those are the strongest pieces. We’d like to use all four of your engagement designs, plus we’d like you to come up with a few ideas for companion pieces—cocktail rings and the like. For those, we’d like to use colored gemstones—emeralds or rubies—surrounded by baguettes in your tutu pattern.”
This was perfect. Ophelia had once danced the Balanchine choreography for Jewels, a ballet divided into three parts, Emeralds, Rubies and Diamonds. She’d performed one of the corps roles in Rubies.
“Can you come up with some new sketches by tomorrow?” Artem slid his gaze in her direction, lifting a brow as her toes automatically began moving beneath the table in the prancing pattern from Rubies’ dramatic finale.
Ophelia stilled her feet. She didn’t think he’d noticed, but she felt hot under his gaze all the same. “Tomorrow?”
“Too soon?” Dalton asked.
“No.” She shook her head and did her best to ignore the smirk on Artem’s face, which probably meant he was sitting there imagining her typical evening plans of hanging out with kittens. “Tomorrow is fine. I do have one question, though.”
“Yes, Miss Rose?” Artem leaned closer.
Too close. Ophelia’s breath froze in her lungs for a moment. Get yourself together. This is business. “My inspiration for the collection was the tiara design. I’d hoped that would be the centerpiece, rather than the ballerina rings.”
He shook his head. “We won’t be going forward with the tiara redesign.”
Dalton interrupted, “Not yet.”
“Not ever.” Artem pinned his brother with a glare. “The Drake Diamond isn’t available for resetting, since soon it will no longer be part of the company’s inventory.”
Ophelia blinked. She couldn’t possibly have heard that right.
“That hasn’t been decided, Artem,” Dalton said quietly, his gaze flitting to the portrait of the older man hanging over the desk.
Artem didn’t bat an eye at the painting. “You know as well as I do that it’s for the best, brother.”
“Wait. Are you selling the Drake Diamond?” Ophelia asked. It just wasn’t possible. That diamond had too much historical significance to be sold. It was a part of the company’s history.
It was part of her history. Her grandmother had been one of only three women to ever wear the priceless stone.
“It’s being considered,” Artem said.
Dalton stared silently down at his hands.
“But you can’t.” Ophelia shook her head, vaguely aware of Artem’s chiseled features settling into a stern expression of reprimand. She was overstepping and she knew it. But they couldn’t sell the Drake Diamond. She had plans for that jewel, grand plans.
She shuffled through the sketches on the table until she found the page with her tiara drawing. “Look. If we reset the diamond, people will come from all over to see it. The store will be packed. It will be great for business.”
Ophelia couldn’t imagine that Drake Diamonds was hurting for sales. She herself had sold nearly one hundred thousand dollars in diamond engagement rings just the day before. But there had to be a reason why they were considering letting it go. Correction: Artem was considering selling the diamond. By all appearances, Dalton was less than thrilled about the idea.
Of course, none of this was any of her business at all. Still. She couldn’t just stand by and let it happen. Of the hundreds of press clippings and photographs that had survived Natalia Baronova’s legendary career, Ophelia’s grandmother had framed only one of them—the picture that had appeared on the front page of the arts section of the New York Times the day after she’d debuted in Swan Lake. The night she’d worn the Drake Diamond.
She’d been only sixteen years old, far younger than any other ballerina who’d taken on the challenging dual role of Odette and Odile, the innocent White Swan and the Black Swan seductress. No one believed she could pull it off. The other ballerinas in the company had been furious, convinced that the company director had cast Natalia as nothing more than a public relations ploy. And he had. They knew it. She knew it. Everyone knew it.
Natalia had been ostracized by her peers on the most important night of her career. Even her pas de deux partner, Mikhail Dolin, barely spoke to her. Then on opening night, the company director had placed that diamond tiara, with its priceless yellow diamond, on Natalia’s head. And a glimmer of hope had taken root deep in her grandmother’s soul.
Natalia danced that night like she’d never danced before. During the curtain call, the audience rose to its feet, clapping wildly as Mikhail Dolin bent and kissed Natalia’s hand. To Ophelia’s grandmother, that kiss had been a benediction. One dance, one kiss, one diamond tiara had changed her life.
Ophelia still kept the photo on the mantel in her grandmother’s apartment, where it had sat for as long as she could remember. Since she’d been a little girl practicing her wobbly plié, Ophelia had looked at that photograph of her grandmother wearing the glittering diamond crown and white-ribboned ballet shoes, with a handsome man kissing her hand. Her grandmother had told her the story of that night time and time again. The story, the diamond, the kiss...they’d made Ophelia believe. Just as they had Natalia.
If the Drakes sold that diamond, it would be like losing what little hope she had left.
“Is that agreeable to you, Miss Rose?” Dalton frowned. “Miss Rose?”
Ophelia blinked. What had she missed while she’d been lost in the past? “Yes. Yes, of course.”
“Very well, then. It’s a date.” Dalton rose from his chair.
Wait. What? A date?
Her gaze instinctively flew to Artem. “Excuse me? A date?”
The set of his jaw visibly hardened. “Don’t look so horrified, Ophelia. It’s just a turn of phrase.”
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head. Maybe if she shook it hard enough, she could somehow undo whatever she’d unwittingly agreed to. “I think I missed something.”
“We’ll announce the new collection via a press release on Friday afternoon. You and Artem will attend the ballet together that evening and by Saturday morning, the Drake Diamond Dance collection will be all over newspapers nationwide.” Dalton smiled, clearly pleased with himself. And why not? It was a perfect PR plan.
Perfectly horrid.
Ophelia couldn’t go out with Artem, even if it was nothing but a marketing ploy. She definitely couldn’t accompany him to the ballet, of all places. She hadn’t seen a live ballet performance since she’d been one of the dancers floating across the stage.
She couldn’t do it. It would be too much. Too overwhelming. Too heartbreaking. No. Just no. She’d simply tell them she wouldn’t go. She was thankful for the opportunity, and she’d work as hard as she possibly could on the collection, but attending the ballet was impossible. It was nonnegotiable.
“That will be all, Miss Rose,” Artem said, with an edge to his voice that sent a shiver up Ophelia’s spine. “Until Friday.”
Then he turned back to the papers on his desk. He’d finished with her. Again.
Chapter Five (#u480fde13-6669-5c69-acd7-44a4a02c15ad)
Ophelia looked down at the ring clamp that held her favorite ballerina engagement design. Not a sketch. An actual ring that she’d designed and crafted herself.
It was really happening. She was a jewelry designer at Drake Diamonds, with her own office overlooking Fifth Avenue, her own drafting table and her own computer loaded with state-of-the-art 3-D jewelry design software. She hadn’t used such fancy equipment since her school days, but after spending the morning getting reacquainted with the technology, it was all coming back to her. Which was a good thing, since she clearly wasn’t going to get any help from the other members of the design team.
She recognized the dubious expressions on the faces of the other designers. They looked at her the same way the ballet company members had when Jeremy had chosen her as the lead in Giselle. Once again, everyone assumed her relationship with the boss was the reason she’d been promoted. Except this time, she had no connection with her boss whatsoever.
At least that’s what she kept telling herself.
She did her best to forget about office politics. She had a job to do, after all.
In fact, she’d been so busy adapting to her new reality that she’d almost managed to forget that she was scheduled to attend the ballet with Artem on Friday night. Almost. The fact that she wasn’t experiencing daily panic attacks in anticipation of stepping into the grand lobby of Lincoln Center was due to good old-fashioned denial. She could almost pretend their “date” wasn’t actually going to happen, since Artem had gone back to keeping his distance.
She’d seen him a grand total of one time since their meeting with Dalton. Just once—late at night after the store had closed. Ophelia had stopped to look at the Drake Diamond before she’d headed home to feed Jewel. She hadn’t planned on it, but as she’d crossed the darkened showroom, her gaze had been drawn toward the stone, locked away in its lonely glass case. Protected. Untouched.
She’d begun to cry, for some silly reason, as she’d gazed at the gem, then she’d looked up and spotted Artem watching from the shadows. She’d thought she had, anyway. Once she’d swept the tears from her eyes, she’d realized there had been no one else there. Just her. Alone.
Her day-to-day communication at the office was mostly with Dalton. On the occasions when Artem needed something from her, he sent his secretary, Mrs. Burns, in his stead. So when Mrs. Burns walked into Ophelia’s office on Friday morning, she wasn’t altogether surprised.
Until the secretary, hands clasped primly at her waist, stated the reason for her visit. “Mr. Drake would like to know what you’re wearing.”
The ring clamp in Ophelia’s hand slipped out of her grasp and landed on the drafting table with a clatter. “Excuse me?”
Four days of nothing. No contact whatsoever, and now he was trying to figure out what she was wearing? Did he expect her to take a selfie and send it to him over the Drake Diamonds company email?
Mrs. Burns cleared her throat. “This evening, Miss Rose. He’d like to know what you’re planning to wear to the ballet. I believe you’re scheduled to accompany him tonight to Lincoln Center.”
Oh. That.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Ophelia nodded and tried to look as though she hadn’t just jumped to an altogether ridiculous assumption. Again.
Maybe the fact that she kept misinterpreting Artem’s intentions said more about her than it did about him. It did, she realized, much to her mortification. It most definitely did. And what it said about her, specifically, was that she was hot for her boss. Her kitten-buying, penthouse-dwelling, tuxedo-wearing playboy of a boss.
Ugh.
She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. After all, every woman on the island of Manhattan—and undoubtedly a good number of the men—would have willingly leaped into Artem Drake’s bed. There was a big difference between the infatuated masses and Ophelia, though. They could sleep with whomever they wanted.
Ophelia could not. Not with Artem. Not with anyone. The fact that doing so would likely put her fancy new job in jeopardy was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Miss Rose?” Mrs. Burns eyed her expectantly over the top of her glasses.
Ophelia sighed. “Honestly, why does he even care what I wear?”
“Mr. Drake didn’t share his reasoning with me, but I assume his logic has something to do with the fact that you’re a representative of Drake Diamonds now. All eyes will be on you this evening.”
All eyes will be on you.
Oh, God. Ophelia hadn’t even considered the fact that she’d be photographed on Artem’s arm. At the ballet, of all places. What if someone recognized her? What if they printed her stage name in the newspaper?
Then everyone would know. Artem would know.
She swallowed. “Mrs. Burns, do you suppose it’s really necessary for me to be there?”
The older woman looked at Ophelia like she’d just sprouted an extra head. “The appearance is part of the publicity plan for the new collection. The collection that you designed.”
Right. Of course it was necessary for her to go. She should want to be there.
The frightening thing was that part of her did want to be there. She wanted to hear the whisper of pointe shoes on the stage floor again. She wanted to smell the red velvet curtain and feel the cool kiss of air-conditioning in the wings. She wanted to wear stage makeup—dramatic black eyeliner and bright crimson lips. One last time.
She just wasn’t sure her heart could take it. Not to mention the fact that she’d be revisiting her past alongside Artem. She didn’t want to feel vulnerable in front of him. Nothing good could come from that.
But she didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter, did she?
