by Diana Fraser
She looked around. Nothing much had changed which only made it harder. She pretended to be caught up in looking at a painting on the wall. Really she was just buying time. Daidan went up to the group of designers and began talking with them, leaving her to her own devices for a few vital minutes—minutes she needed to settle her nerves. She glanced anxiously at the stairs. She just hoped she’d be able to avoid climbing the polished staircase to her mother’s own studio.
“Taina!” Daidan called. She walked over to him, her boots clicking on the worn parquet floor and greeted the team of designers, all of whom she’d been meeting with in the office tower. “Look.” He showed her some drawings. “We still have these pieces. And Emilia has agreed to construct something similar to the Kielo necklace. And we have the paste replicas we can go with in the meantime.” He nodded to the woman. “Thank you, Emilia.”
He took Taina by the arm. “Come on, let’s go upstairs.”
Taina resisted. There was no way she was going up there. “I’ll stay here. There are a few things I want to discuss with the designers.”
But Taina could see from Daidan’s face that she wasn’t going to get away with it.
“Upstairs, in your mother’s old office. I’d like to talk with you there.”
She didn’t want to be dragged kicking and shouting upstairs by him, in front of everyone, so she did what he wanted. She could do this. So long as the rear door was closed.
He followed her up there and she breathed a sigh of relief. The partition wall was closed and the rear of the office—the part that still remained from the eighteenth-century warehouse that it once was—was sealed off. She immediately went and sat at the window seat that overlooked the wooded park outside. She suddenly realized it was the seat she’d always made a bee-line for as a youngster when she’d been allowed to visit her mother. Old habits died hard it seemed.
“Taina!” She jumped and twisted around. It was as if her father had come back to life.
Daidan was sitting behind her mother’s desk—although in all truth her mother had never used it. It had been something her father had insisted she have. “You’re the director of this company—you should act the part,” he’d barked at her mother. Her nervous, elegant mother had simply shrugged it off and avoided the subject. Her father had got his way in installing the elements of the office, but her mother had never used the desk. And now Daidan sat there, just as her father had.
“It suits you,” she said.
He frowned. “What does?”
“The desk.” She rose and walked over to it, determined not to be undermined by Daidan. “Always wanting to command, eh Daidan?” She leaned against the rough brick wall, the soft wool of her long jacket catching on the rough stone.
“Someone has to, Taina. You’ve been gallivanting about God knows where, with God knows who for over a year.”
“And don’t you wish you knew!”
He shrugged. “I really couldn’t care less.”
“I don’t believe you. I bet you’ve had me followed. I bet even now there are people trying to work out where I was last seen and with whom.”
“Of course,” he said in a bored tone. “But not for any sentimental reasons. I want to know who has the necklace. That’s all.”
“I should have known. Business. That’s all you care about, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. And if you’d tell me where it is, it would make all our lives that much easier.”
She shook her head.
His eyes flashed and he walked over to her and stood too close. “How could you betray your mother like this? Giving away your family heirloom, something your grandfather found, your own mother created? Have you no feeling?”
“I have feelings all right and don’t you dare claim I haven’t.”
“Where were your feelings when you left Antigua then? When I was away I discovered something new about you. One of the last times you were seen—only two months after you left me—was at a party after which you disappeared into thin air. Did you drink too much? Did you flirt and leave with some man?”
She shook her head as the memory of that night came back to her. “It wasn’t like that.”
“I know men, Taina. I know them. You left the party with someone. And then you disappeared. Off the face of the planet for the rest of the year.”
She shook her head again. He was close. Too close for his own good. She had to divert him, make him angry, make him argue, make him do anything except guess the truth. Because she was scared that if he did that he’d react as he’d done in the past and lash out. Except this time the consequence wouldn’t be simply a telling off by the police—it would mean his ruin.
“You hate it when something happens you can’t control, don’t you?” she said, purposely goading him.
He shook his head, grinding his teeth. “You never used to be so hard, Taina.”
“And who do I have to thank for that? My father and you.”
“You knew what you were getting in to. It was your world.”
“The world I wanted to escape from. My father kept me a virtual prisoner on the island for years after my mother died, taught by a series of tutors. Even when I went to university I was escorted there and back by my father’s secretary. I only left the island when either he allowed me to, or when he was away and I took the boat to the city myself. Like I did when I met you. It was only because he approved of you that I was allowed to see you again and I gained some measure of independence.”
“Is that all I was? An excuse for you to escape? Maybe you changed your mind about being with me when you realized it was a world I didn’t want to escape from?”
“There was so much I didn’t know.”
“How could you live in your family and not know?”
“Because I was bloody naïve. And you and my father took advantage of that. I was stuck on the island while this”—she cast her arms around the studio—“was the only place I ever thought about.”
He frowned. “And yet you didn’t want to come here now. Why?”
She made a mistake then and glanced toward the closed door. He saw the direction of her gaze and walked toward the door.
“Don’t!”
“What?”
Suddenly one of the designers came up the stairs. “You wanted to see the lists and drawings?”
She spread them on the wooden trestle table that had been her mother’s work table. Absently, Taina toed the groove in the wood that the stool had made when her mother sat there in her chosen position at the drawing board.
“Oh, we found a box of your mother’s things. Just bits and pieces when we were clearing it out.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure. We put them somewhere.” He went and looked. “Yes, here they are.”
Daidan and the man looked over the drawings while Taina returned to the window seat with the box. There were the initial drawings for the next range, lists and then, at the very bottom, a small sketch of Taina, knees pulled up to her chin, gazing out from the same window seat upon which she now sat.
She held it to her nose and smelled it, irrationally hoping for a residue of the scent of her mother’s Chanel No 5, but of course there was none. It had been over ten years ago, after all. It was dated on the back—a week before her fourteenth birthday. Of all her birthdays, her fourteenth had been the worst and the one she remembered most clearly. It had been the day her father had told her that he and her mother were separating and that Taina had to choose—choose between living with her alcoholic mother or him. Taina had been in shock, not least because her family never discussed any ‘unpleasantness’, such as finding her mother passed out on the bathroom floor. It had always been dealt with in the same way—by ignoring it. Daidan had always described her as being “aloof” and no wonder—from any early age she’d learned to hide all her thoughts and feelings.
Taina slipped the sketch into her bag and rose. Only then did she see that the doors were opened. Inevitably her eyes were drawn t
o the hook that still hung there, from which goods had been hoisted in the olden days from the quay into the warehouse. The hook on which she’d found her mother hanging, dead for days.
She stifled a sob and turned and ran down the stairs and out of the building.
She jumped into the car but she wasn’t quick enough and Daidan followed her.
“Are you going to tell me what the hell that was all about?”
She couldn’t speak even if she wanted to. She was scared if she opened her mouth to speak, nothing but a wail would emerge.
He sat back grimly. “You have too many secrets, Taina. Too many and I will find them out.”
Maybe some, she thought, as they pulled out into the traffic. But not all. Not if they were to have a future together.
CHAPTER FIVE
The private jet joined the stack of planes that coiled above Paris, waiting for their descent into Charles de Gaulle airport.
Daidan looked up as the door to the bedroom opened but it was only an air steward. He sighed and turned back to the computer once more. Taina hadn’t emerged from the bedroom at all on the flight and he’d stayed in the main cabin, working. Or so it would seem to everyone else, he thought as he tried to re-read an email for the tenth time.
In truth he’d been trying to figure out what the hell was going on with Taina. Part of him wanted to barge into the bedroom and force her to tell him. He grunted. Force? That was a laugh. The only time he’d ever resorted to violence was when some guy had kept pestering her before they’d married. He’d seen red and it had cost him dearly. One blow and the man had fallen back and hit his head and nearly died. Ever since then he could see that Taina was worried he’d lose his temper again and risk everything he’d worked for. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t imagine the amount of rage that would be needed to take him over the edge. He only had one weak spot, and that was Taina. And she was here, now, safe with him.
But she was hiding something. And he would find out. He just had to keep alert. She’d give herself away sooner or later and then he’d find his bearings and get them both on track once more.
The door opened suddenly and Taina stepped out, looking like every Parisian fashion designer’s favorite muse. With her drop-dead good looks and flawless style that she’d become known for, the face of Kielo Diamonds would blast the competition out of the water.
“How are you, Taina?”
“Okay. Just a little nervous about the meetings.”
“You’ll be fine. Come, take a seat. We’ll be landing in around five minutes.”
She sat opposite him, clicking her belt into place. “We’re going to La Société first?”
He nodded. “La Société Diamant is our most important potential client.”
“Papa tried for years to work with them but they weren’t interested.”
“They wouldn’t be interested now if we were on our own, but working with the Australian mine, we’re big enough to make them pay attention. And carve a place for ourselves in the Antwerp and Mumbai markets. We couldn’t have done it without Amelia. And Mark,” he added. “Although I reckon she’d be better off without Mark from what I’ve heard.”
Taina turned away suddenly and looked out of the window. “But they won’t be at the meeting, will they?”
“No.”
“Nor at the launch?”
“No. I told you. Taina? Is anything the matter?”
She gave him a quick tense glance and shook her head. “Of course not. What could there be?”
She’d gone from relaxed and interested, to tense and wary in a single moment. What had he said to create that change in her? Not La Société Diamant— she’d brought them up herself. Amelia maybe? “Did you catch up with Amelia while you were away?”
She shook her head. Did he imagine it or did her lips tremble slightly?
He touched her cheek with his finger and turned her to face him. “What is it?”
“Just a little nervous about today. I told you.”
“Is that all?”
“Yes.” The plane landed smoothly and Taina forced a smile. “So, all we have to do is show them that, while we may be small, we’re a well-established, reliable family company and can supply a different type of cachet.”
“Exactly.” But Daidan didn’t smile back. Instead he looked grimly out the window at the city that lay beneath them as he tried to figure out what in their conversation had really unnerved her because it wasn’t the meetings—he sensed her excitement about those. He’d find out, sooner or later. But he knew it wouldn’t be sooner. For now, they were both covering their true thoughts with superficial talk. He turned to her once more. “And with you on my side, I can’t lose. There’s only one thing the French love more than a beautiful woman.”
She cocked her head to one side.
“And that’s a stylish woman.”
Turned out Daidan was correct. The meeting had gone well with the press anxious for shots of the foreign prince and the stylish Finn.
Taina snapped the paper open at another shot of them and passed it to Daidan who sat opposite her in the French café. June in Paris was entirely unlike June in Helsinki, she thought. As much as she adored her home city, the warmth of a summer’s day in Paris was very seductive.
“See,” she said, lifting her chin to the warmth of the summer sunshine. “Everything will be fine.”
He downed a glass of water and shook his head. “You, Taina, could charm the birds from the trees. Monsieur Betrand is as grizzled a campaigner as they come and you had him eating out of the palm of your hand.”
She laughed and replied without opening her eyes. “What can I say? It’s a gift.”
He didn’t reply immediately and she opened her eyes to see his face serious and intense. She had no idea where his thoughts were leading and she didn’t want to know. Her smile faltered.
“Anyway.” She took a sip of her kir royale. “What made you choose this café? A little bohemian for you, isn’t it?”
“I thought it would make a change. We’ve been surrounded with formality ever since you returned.”
“So is that why you dismissed the driver?”
“Partly.” He placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his steepled fingers. “You really don’t remember?”
She looked away. She did. Of course she did. She just hadn’t thought he’d remembered. She looked up from beneath lowered lashes. “Tallin?”
“Of course, Tallin. It was the only holiday—no matter how brief—we had in the year we dated before we got married. Your father always had me tied up with work. But in Tallin we had no chauffeurs, no itinerary, just walking, eating and…” The look in his eyes was positively indecent.
“Um, I remember. And you said next time, it would be Paris.”
“I never imagined that next time would be a reunion of sorts.”
“Reunion,” she repeated thoughtfully. “I guess it is.”
“You know, when I first saw you I thought, what a sweet girl.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Sweet?”
“Yes, sweet. You were wearing a simple t-shirt and jeans.”
“Must have been my rebellious college phase.”
“And thank God for it.” He glanced down at her hips. “I miss those jeans.”
“I don’t know where they are.”
“I do. In your wardrobe on the island.”
There was something about the fact that he knew where this old item of clothing was that touched her. He must have gone looking at some point. She cleared her throat.
“And you, I don’t remember seeing you dressed in jeans for ages. Nor a shirt without a tie.” She reached forward and playfully tugged his tie. “Maybe it’s a part of you now. Clipped to your collar is it?”
He narrowed his eyes playfully. “This, I’ll have you know is an Ermenegildo Zegna silk tie, picked up last time I was in New York.”
She sat back in her seat suddenly. “When were you in New York?”
“Ten months ago.” He paused and took another sip, then looked up at her with a keen glance. “On business. Before you left, you’d agreed to attend the charity ball in New York. I thought you’d be there. But you never showed up.”
She waited for him to ask why she hadn’t.
He shrugged. “So rather than come away empty-handed, I purchased an expensive tie.” He reached over and took her hand. “I’m curious, of course I am, Taina, but you must have good reasons not to tell me so I’m not going to keep asking. Okay?”
She nodded. “So how about we have a date when we get back? Both of us in our jeans. We could go to Storyville. Remember? That jazz place near the Parliament building?”
“How could I forget? Yes, I’d like that. Now drink up. It’s a beautiful evening. Let’s go for a walk along the Seine.”
They weren’t the only strollers out that evening. She slipped her arm through his and they walked along the river bank, below Quai de Montebello, past Notre Dame. Paris was at its best, with the low afternoon light warming the cream-gray limestone buildings. The flowers were in blossom and romance was in the air. They walked over the Pont de la Tournelle to the Île Saint-Louis, and along to the Place Vendôme and then to the Triangle d’Or looking in the various shop windows. Hours passed without notice. They were still discussing the jewelry they’d seen when the rain came. They ran, laughing, into a dark café basement, complete with individual booths and thudding music. Daidan ordered some wine.
He looked around. “I think you’re right about those jeans. Next time I travel I’ll bring them with me. I think we’re the odd couple out here.”