I pulled out the ring I never thought I’d get to sell. It was big. Shiny. Gaudy, some would say. The commission alone would be enough to buy a decent engagement ring.
I presented the ring to Nik but he shook his head. “I don’t need to see it. She’s probably going to send it back anyway.”
Defeat was not a shade Nik wore well, though he didn’t seem sad as much as he did irritated. My curiosity about his relationship ballooned and I had to bite my lip to stop from asking what the hell this girl’s problem was.
“I’ll ring it up,” I said, grabbing the other ring to return it. “Do you want to toss in the crown jewels while we’re at it? Maybe the diamond that old broad threw into the ocean at the end of Titanic?”
Nik snorted humorlessly.
“I’m glad you seem to be feeling better today, at least.”
Me? How could he be thinking about me right now?
“Better for seeing you,” I admitted, then dropped my gaze in alarm.
How the hell did that slip out?
I didn’t look up at all as I processed the transaction, embarrassed. When I finally glanced up to ask for his credit card he was staring at me, and seemed to be contemplating something.
He handed the card to me, and when I handed it back his hand brushed mine. It was like an electric current weaved through my nervous system, settling into a storm in the pit of my stomach.
“What are you doing after work?” Nik asked.
“Huh?”
I had to have misheard him, right?
His lips curved into a knowing smile.
“You heard me. What are you doing after work?”
“Uh, nothing.” I passed over the bag with his ring. No. Her ring.
“Do you want to grab a coffee?” he asked. “You seem like you could use cheering up.”
I nodded toward the bag.
“I think it’s you who could use a little cheering up.”
Nik chuckled. “Maybe. What do you say?”
Going out for a coffee with a customer, especially one who was doing his best to become engaged, was highly inappropriate. Then again, Nik wasn’t the average customer. He’d seen me cry, after all.
Plus, the thought of going home to Molly and the conversation waiting for me there put a sour taste in my mouth.
“Sure. Coffee would be nice.”
Nik smiled, and it was the happiest I’d seen him in a while.
Chapter 9
Dominik
The sun had just begun to fall behind the looming city skyline when I met Gemma outside Tiffany’s. The air was warm, perhaps a little too warm amidst the bustling after work pedestrian traffic along the avenue. I hailed a cab as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, ushering her toward the door when one pulled up.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“We need to relax a little, and it’s hard to relax around all this.” We slid into the cab, and the driver turned his head, awaiting instructions. “Central Park, please.”
He started driving and Gemma smiled.
“I love Central Park. I used to go there anytime I could when I was a kid. I imagined it as this great, limitless land of adventure, and every time I went I tried to discover something new.”
“I believe it,” I said approvingly. “You seem the adventurous type.”
“Pfft. Really?” She cocked a brow incredulously. “I work in a jewelry store and live in the Bronx. I hardly fit the profile of a globetrotting adventurer.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I’m wrong. I don’t know you that well.” I smiled. “Yet.”
Gemma’s sumptuous mouth lifted into a smile, and for a second I couldn’t see anything else. Then she spoke.
“In the interests of getting to know one another...”
I laughed.
“Go on. What do you want to know?”
“What is it with all this ring business?” she asked. “If you don’t feel like sharing, I totally understand, but I’m deathly curious why your fiancée keeps rejecting them. Has she said anything?”
I laughed. I could tell she’d been keeping that question in for a long time, and it was cute how much it distressed her.
“She’s not my fiancé yet,” I corrected. Odd that I should start with that. “As for the why, I have no idea. She hasn’t said anything to me. Ever.”
Gemma’s brow furrowed in consternation and though I knew discussing my future wife with the woman I’d been lusting after since we first met wasn’t the most solid idea in terms of morality, I couldn’t help myself. Gemma cared. I couldn’t tell why but I knew that she did, and fuck if I didn’t need a little bit of that right now.
“I’ve never met the woman,” I said. “Her name’s Valentina. She’s the daughter of one of my father’s business contacts in Moscow, and the whole thing is a business set up. She probably wants to marry me about as much as I want to marry her.”
Gemma gasped.
“You’re kidding.”
“If only.”
I expected her to launch into a Dexter-esque tirade about free will and not letting my father control my life, but instead a sort of sadness leaked into her eyes and Gemma gave a slow nod.
“That sucks,” she said.
That sucks.
Two simple words, in the plainest of language, yet it made all the difference.
“My best friend thinks I’m crazy,” I told her. “He says I need to throw off my father’s yoke and live my own life. He makes it sound so easy.”
“But it isn’t,” she filled in. “I understand.”
Our eyes met and I could tell she did understand. And I wanted to know why.
“Have you dealt with something similar?”
“Not really.” A steel door slammed down in her eyes and she looked out the front window. “Hey, we’re close.”
The park was alive. Birds wheeling through the air, children laughing and playing, men and women in business suits ambling down the paths and unloading after a long, stressful day. Gemma and I strolled under the shade of some elm trees, making small-talk about the gorgeous weather and how glad we were winter had died.
“I could never complain to my father about the cold,” I said. “He’s lived a privileged life since he was a baby, but makes it seem like he had to brave the Russian cold in a cardboard house with nothing to wear but a threadbare kosovorotka.”
She laughed. “Were you born over there?”
I gave a short nod. “I was, but my father sent me to boarding school in the States almost as soon as I could stand.”
“And your mother?”
I looked at Gemma, at her sunlight-dappled face, and I wished I had something else to tell her. Something happy.
“She died in childbirth.” I cleared my throat and looked ahead. “With me.”
“I’m so sorry,” Gemma said. “That must’ve been very hard growing up.”
“It was,” I admitted, though the topic was one I normally did my best to avoid. “The first of my father’s children and the last. The one who killed the love of his life. Not sure he’ll ever forgive me for it.”
“How could he blame you? It wasn’t your fault.”
I smiled humorlessly.
“The common laws of logic don’t apply to Fyodor Orlov,” I replied. “Anyway, it doesn’t bother me anymore. It used to, back when I still ached for his approval, but these days our relationship is more...” I paused as I thought of the word, brushing aside a piece of her hair without thinking about it, “business-like.”
Gemma froze. It was the first time I’d touched her, minus the odd brushing of hands here and there as we exchanged cards and receipts. And of course that time I’d nearly tackled her on the street.
“Nik,” she murmured, eyes trained on me like I might disappear if she blinked.
“Yes?”
“Do you wanna...” She licked her lips and my cock twitched with anticipation. “Get ice cream?”
The words were like a bucket of freezing water.
&nbs
p; “Ice cream?” I repeated.
She pointed behind me, to where a vendor was handing a woman in a power suit a soft serve cone.
“Sure,” I said, even though the only thing I could think about licking was her delicious body. “Lead the way.”
A few minutes later, swirled cones in hand, we meandered over to a duck pond and sat on the grassy bank. A little boy toddled up to the water’s edge with duck food, parents hovering nearby.
“That like you when you were a kid?” I asked, gesturing to the boy. “Facing down wild animals on one of your adventures?”
She half-laughed, half-snorted.
“Never cared much for ducks. I don’t like the way they look at you from the side like they don’t trust you.”
“That’s because their eyes are on the sides of their heads,” I replied. “And they probably don’t trust you.”
“Their loss,” Gemma muttered. “I’m totally trustworthy. I’ve never even eaten duck.”
“You’ve never had duck?”
She shrugged. “I’ve more of a burger girl. I wouldn’t say that I’m a picky eater, just that I like my food uncomplicated.”
“I like burgers too,” I said. “Sharing a meal with my father is like watching a culinary ballet. An endless rotation of weird colors and shapes, waiters gliding in and out, a different beverage for every course. It’s exhausting.”
“Yeah, screw that.” She smiled. “I’d rather have this.” Gemma wiggled the cone and took a long, happy lick.
It sent a shiver down my spine and a vision of me pressing her to the grass and giving her the same treatment temporarily disabled my sanity. I’d already leaned in halfway before I realized what I was doing. Gemma stared at me curiously. I needed a quick save.
At the last second, just as I felt her breath tickle my nose, I veered down sharply and took a bite off the top of her ice cream.
“Hey!” Gemma cried, laughing.
I sat back and smirked. Her hand shot out to snatch my cone but I held it behind me. Gemma tossed hers to the side and went for a full assault, clambering on top of me, her hand scrambling along my forearm while both of us laughed. I fell back against the grass and Gemma crawled up and seized the ice cream from my closed fist.
“Don’t play with fire unless you’re willing to get burned,” she said, sitting back and taking a victorious lick of her cone.
I saw the moment she realized she was straddling my chest. Her expression flickered from playful and happy to surprised and aroused. I thought about reaching up and grabbing her hips, holding her there, maybe even arching my back to grind her against me. Her short hair was a little messy, like she’d just had a good fuck, and her cheeks were pink with blood.
She blinked and scrambled off, sitting next to me.
“I try to stay away from sugar anyway,” I said, straightening my posture and my expression. Had she seen how much she affected me? Could she read the dirty thoughts on my face?
“Your loss.” She smiled cattily and bit off a chunk of ice cream.
I smiled back. “My loss indeed.”
We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and goofing off like neither of us had an axe hanging over our heads. It was the most I’d let loose in a long time and I didn’t want the day to end.
Unfortunately, life didn’t come with a pause button. Evening darkness began to descend over the park like a black and blue bruise, and the lamps flicked on with an electric hum.
“It’s getting late,” I said.
“I don’t want to go home,” Gemma admitted, pulling me over to a bench under the glow of one of the lights. “Can we sit for a little longer?”
“Of course.” I smiled. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
The atmosphere had shifted, and my carefree Gemma was no longer quite so carefree. She took a deep breath and it seemed to weigh her down.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Why don’t you want to go home?”
It flattered my vanity to think that she was having such a good time with me that she never wanted to leave, but I already knew it was more than that. But would she tell me?
Gemma sighed. “Maybe you’ll understand.” She looked over at me, lips pressed together. “I grew up rich too. Not buying-the-most-expensive-ring-in-Tiffany’s-just-because rich, but we were well-off enough that my parents could afford to send both of my brothers to law school without breaking a sweat. I didn’t get to go to law school. I got an English degree, because my father told me the sciences were unfeminine. My whole life I was groomed to become the perfect society bride. Beautiful, smart enough to make good conversation but not enough to intimidate, and most importantly—obedient.”
She chewed on her bottom lip and wrung her hands together in her lap. I wanted to wrap my arm around her shoulders and pull her close, and it ached to know that wouldn’t be appropriate.
Gemma continued. “My first and only boyfriend was this guy Niles. He was the son of one of my father’s partners at the law firm. Real old money, frat kid kind of guy. When I graduated, he asked me to marry him. I said no. It was the first time I ever stood up for myself, and my family nearly crucified me. My brothers were friends with Niles and they were always on my dad’s side anyway. My mom was so drunk most of the time she didn’t even know what day of the week it was. I didn’t have a single person to turn to. So I left.”
“Why’d you say no?”
She wrinkled her nose.
“Niles and his frat brothers had a reputation for drinking and womanizing. I put up with it because I didn’t think I had any right not to, but when he asked me to marry him I realized I couldn’t spend another second living like that, never mind a lifetime.”
“And then you came to New York?”
She chuckled and shook her head. “That’s the worst part. They live in Long Island. I didn’t even leave the state.”
“You got away from them though,” I said softly. “And you’re forging your own way in life. That’s admirable.”
“Is it, though?” she questioned. “I work at Tiffany’s, which was the only place that would hire me without any experience, and they only did because I’m the ‘right kind’ of person to work there. I’m pretty and can hold a conversation with the highest of high society.” She curled her lip distastefully. “It’s like I didn’t get out of it at all. And the worst part is that one of my brothers is trying to bang my roommate, which brought him back into my orbit, so even though I haven’t talked to my family in years they now all get to see what a failure I’ve become.”
“You are much too hard on yourself.” I couldn’t resist anymore. My hand came around her shoulder and I pulled her into my chest. “Gemma, you’re incredible. You’re funny, sweet, thoughtful. You’re only at the beginning of your journey, I promise you, and you’re going to do and see great things.”
She looked up at me, eyes wide. “How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I’ve met you,” I told her, voice low. “And to meet you is to believe in you.”
She looked so sweet nestled into the curve of my arm, like she belonged there. I couldn’t resist.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to hers. A soft, gentle brush. Birds chirped in the branches above our heads and traffic hummed in the distance, but for a second it all stopped.
I pulled back just enough to feel her nose brush against mine. Our breath mingled in the space, tickling the wetness of my lips, but we didn’t move. If either of us moved, it was over. We became statues, right until the moment I closed the distance again and kissed her properly.
I tightened my hold on her arm to pull her closer, squeezing her chest against mine, and caressed her lips. She moaned in surprise and fire snaked through my veins. Our mouths danced, tongues darting out to meet. She smelled of vanilla and something soft and feminine, and I breathed her in with every quaking breath.
Gemma’s kiss was exquisite. Divine. I sank into her like quicksand, slow and deliberate, and I knew I was in trouble.
Gemma
I’d never been kissed like this. I could taste Nik’s hunger, his primal needs, but there was a tenderness to his touch that made my heart flutter. I was glad we were sitting down because I wasn’t able to stand.
My hands found the front of his shirt and gripped on for dear life, reveling in the heat of his body against my palms. His mouth moved against mine passionately, reverently, and each brush of his tongue sent a bolt of pleasure to my core. The heat burned away all notions of time and space, and I let myself get lost in it. For the first time in a long time I didn’t think. I felt. And I needed that more than I’d ever needed anything.
Nik tilted my face up and I opened wider, let him sink further into my mouth. My heart slammed into my ribs with every beat. His hand found my neck, cupping it lovingly. I wondered if he could feel my pulse against the pads of his fingers.
A vibration against my hip and a loud electric chime startled me out of the moment and I pulled back, practically gasping for breath. It took a moment of staring at Nik to realize the sound came from me. My cellphone.
I could have left it, but the jarring gave me a badly needed dose of reality. Somewhere in my foggy head I knew this wasn’t right.
“Just one second,” I said apologetically, rooting my phone from my pocket. Nik’s arm slid from my shoulder.
Molly’s face filled the screen. I bit the inside of my cheek and answered. “Hey.”
“Hey. Where are you?”
On another planet...
“I’m at Central Park,” I said, standing. “Why?”
“I’m just about to leave for work,” she replied. “I thought you’d be home before I did. I wanted to talk about yesterday.”
Mister Diamond Page 6