“Which snap-happy local gallery assistant and which hunky Australian cousin to Sioux Falls’ most powerful family are reported to have spent the last weekend in a luxury Kentucky hotel suite? It might have been snowing outside but we hear things between this gorgeous couple are hot and heavy…and not for the first time.”
She paused, as if to consider this line, and when she resumed reading there was a different quality to her voice, a choked thickness that could have been due to outraged anger or to intense disillusionment.
“Our source tells us they were once young lovebirds but our local beauty chose marriage to a wealthy Hollywood producer. Some girls get all the luck—especially when they’re the daughter of Broadway stage royalty.”
Her voice trailed off but Max knew she’d read silently on to the end.
“At least this explains some things,” she said evenly.
“What things?”
“Oh, things such as the number of people who popped in to the gallery this morning ‘just to have a look around.’ The odd comments, the curious looks. I kept checking to see if I had smudged toner on my face.” Her small smile held not a grain of humor. “I guess I can kiss Diana Young goodbye. I am now officially Diana Fielding again.”
“Is that so bad?” Braking at an intersection, he shot her an assessing look. “You told me once that it’s only a name. You said you were the same person.”
“Diana Young is a name. Diana Fielding is, I quote, the daughter of Broadway stage royalty.”
Okay, so she didn’t like the notoriety or the label, but he sensed that wasn’t the only thing lining her forehead with worry. He only had to wait another half-block before he discovered what else bothered her about the piece.
“All my life I’ve been the good girl, the boringly sensible sister in a family of artistic and rebellious spirits. Until I married so quickly and so young, the scandal sheets couldn’t find a single interesting thing to write about me. I move to Sioux Falls to escape all that and this happens!”
“It doesn’t say anything that’s not the truth,” Max pointed out. “We’re both unattached. It isn’t hurting our families. Do you think it’s worth fretting over?”
“That’s not the point,” she countered in a rush. “It happened out of state and I didn’t tell anyone I was going. They shouldn’t have even known about you and me going to Lexington, let alone printing the news!”
Still several blocks from her house, he pulled over and killed the engine. The last notes of her indignation still steamed through the vehicle. I didn’t tell anyone. They shouldn’t have even known.
Eyes narrowed, Max turned to face her. “Is there any reason you were so set on keeping this a secret?”
“Because I don’t like being stared at. I don’t like being a curiosity. I don’t want people talking about my private business. And I hate that I’m going to go to sleep tonight worrying over how this got in the paper.” She lifted her hands in entreaty. “The only person I spoke to from Kentucky was Eliza. She wouldn’t tell a columnist knowingly, but now I wonder if she told someone who told someone. I can’t think of any other primary source.”
“Case has a theory.”
“I didn’t know he was back from his honeymoon. You spoke to him this morning?”
“I went around to his office after I left your house. He showed me the paper—” he gestured at the copy she’d let slip to the floor “—and he suggested that the ‘source’ might be someone on the Fortune’s staff.”
“At Dakota Fortune?”
“At the estate, on the household staff. Apparently Nash’s second wife…Tina, is it?”
“Trina Watters. Blake and Skylar’s mother.”
Max nodded, confirming the woman’s identity. “According to Case she has a way of finding out snippets of information she shouldn’t have access to. This same column hinted at Case’s engagement plans before he’d popped the question to Gina. That’s when he started suspecting someone on the staff of eavesdropping on conversations and picking up phone extensions.”
“Spying for Trina?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know if it’s true and Case has no proof.”
“From what I’ve heard of Trina, it’s possible. And I suppose someone could have picked up an extension when I was talking to Eliza or when she called Jeffrey to pass on my message. It makes more sense than anything I can think of.”
They sat in silent contemplation, the jeweler’s box a heavy presence in his pocket since she’d asked about his visit to Case’s office. Short on time, he’d needed his cousin’s local knowledge and recommendation. With everything else going on today, the timing sucked but he didn’t want her retreating again. He didn’t want her thinking about the partnership and every other reason she had to stay in Sioux Falls.
He had no intention of leaving without her and he had to up the ante.
The possibility of rejection made him antsy, the need to get this over and done with prickled like an impatient itch in his spine. He could start the car, take her home as they’d agreed downtown, but that would give her the advantage of home territory. He liked it better here, the location neutral, the perimeter enclosed. She couldn’t walk away. The advantage was his.
“We need to finish that talk.”
“Yes, we do.” She drew an audible breath, as if sucking up purpose or courage or strength, but her eyes remained fixed on her lap where she folded her hands in carefully staged composure. “I can’t come to Australia, Max.”
“Because of that partnership proposal?”
She looked up sharply, alerted by the disparaging tone of his question. “Is there something I should know about Jeffrey’s offer? Something I don’t know?”
“Have you considered that it may be more than a business partnership?”
“We are friends, we are business colleagues. That’s all.”
“Maybe that’s true. Or maybe he’s been circling, nice and patient, waiting for the right time to move in.”
“No.” She shook her head, discounting that option without hesitation. “You’re wrong.”
“You don’t think the timing of this offer is significant? You don’t think he saw me cutting in with the gifts last week? That he’s had to signal his intentions by offering you a bigger prize?”
“Is that how you see me? As a prize to be won? Because if that is the case,” she said slowly, each word enunciated with chillingly clear enunciation, “it would appear that you won the big prize last weekend.”
“Now hang on, Diana.” Max raised his hands, intent on halting that train of thought. “I was attempting to point out the suspect timing of this proposal. Your boss wants to tie you to his business, with a legal partnership and with your capital, right at a time when you might be contemplating leaving. To me that smacks of the very kind of manipulation you would want to avoid in business, given the family background you mentioned downtown.”
Color flushed her skin and her eyes glimmered with what looked like rising indignation. “Three things. Firstly—” she held up her index finger “—Jeffrey was going to make the offer last week until I cancelled the dinner meeting on Wednesday night. He knew nothing about you, in my past or my present, that might have instigated his offer at that point. Secondly—” she ticked that off with her middle finger “—I don’t accept your reason for his proposal. I know I’m a good photographer. I know I will make a valuable partner.”
It sounded as though that was a done deal. Icy disquiet flickered through Max’s skin as he asked, “The third thing?”
She raised a third digit. “And why might I be contemplating leaving Sioux Falls? To go on an extended holiday to the other side of the world? To give up everything I’ve fought so hard to establish for myself? My home and my life and the first rewarding job I’ve had in my whole life…and for what? What exactly are you offering me, Max?”
“Whatever it takes, Diana.”
Her chin came up, unimpressed. Her eyes glittered with something that may have been
pride and may have been anger. “Whatever it takes to close the deal? To get what you want? Is that what you mean, Max?”
“Whatever it takes to prove that we belong together. Commitment, a proposal, a ring.” He counted those off with his fingers, clear and concise, so there was no misunderstanding. “All the things you told me you wanted last time, Diana, before you walked away without giving me a chance to consider. That’s my partnership proposal.”
For a long moment their gazes clashed, the connection fraught with the magnitude of his offer. Max held himself rigid, unable to embellish, unprepared to beg, incapable of putting out any more. When he’d gone to see Case, when he’d told him of his plans, when he’d shaken his hand and accepted his best wishes along with a jeweler’s recommendation, conviction had coursed through his veins and firmed the set of his jaw and the strength of his handshake.
He’d known he wanted this.
Now, with the initial burst of shocked hope dimming to wariness in her grey-green eyes, his certainty nosedived. Even before she moistened her lips, while she studied her folded hands and straightened the pleats of her skirt in a gesture of nerves and uncertainty, he knew that he was about to drive away with a pair of airline tickets and an unwanted diamond ring in his pocket.
Exactly the same as the last time.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she said, and the pained expression in the eyes she turned to meet his almost convinced him that she really was sorry. “That’s just not enough.”
“What else can I offer? What the hell else do you want?”
“To be loved.” Tears shimmered briefly in her eyes before she looked away, but he heard the rough edge of that moisture in her voice when she continued. “That’s all I ever wanted from you.”
He stared at her, perplexed. “What do you think I’m offering? Weren’t you listening?”
“I heard your words. I heard your offer. I just don’t believe the reason behind it.”
His stark one-word oath cut through the cold interior of the vehicle and she lifted her hands to rub at her arms. Max knew that feeling, that bone-deep cold of frustrated hopes. He could feel it frosting his own veins and setting hard and tight in his gut. “You want reasons? How about this last weekend? How about last night? How about those marks on your arm and the fact that you need a keeper to protect you from—”
“I don’t need you for that, Max.”
“What do you need me for, Diana? Sex? Another dirty weekender out of town that you’d prefer to keep secret from your friends?”
Her eyes widened to dark pools of shock in her pale face. “That’s not true. That is not—”
“No? You talk about what you want from me, about my reasons. Maybe you need to examine yours, Diana. Maybe it’s time to be honest with yourself about what you really want.”
She didn’t answer and he felt the crippling blow of that silence strike midchest. He was right. She had no answer because he’d called it right.
She had only relented and slept with him because it was out of town. No one would even have known about their extended one-night stand but for the newspaper column. She’d returned to Sioux Falls expecting to kiss him goodbye, until Gregg Young’s reappearance and the gossip piece and his unwanted proposal complicated matters.
Removing one of those complications was easy. He reached for the ignition and turned on the engine. “I’ll take you back to work,” he said coldly. “I assume that’s what you think you want.”
Yes, she’d lied, that is what I want. The only other place she could have asked him to take her was home, and after the events of the past week her home was no longer a comforting haven. Like her arms it bore the tainted bruises of Gregg’s intrusion.
Like her heart it bore the bruising imprint of Max.
Kitchen, sunroom, living room. The guestroom and her own bedroom and bath. Everywhere held a memory, the flash of his smile, a raw lick of his heat, his sleep-tousled head on her pillow.
His proposal of all she’d ever wanted, if only the gift had come wrapped in his love.
All afternoon and through the long, restless night she’d held her shattered emotions together with the fire of righteous anger. How could she love a man who equated a marriage proposal with a business contest, who saw her as a prize to be won? A man who, when it looked like he was losing, turned the argument around by accusing her of not knowing what she wanted?
She knew. She’d told him as much. He chose not to listen.
And that left her to consider her other choices, starting with Jeffrey’s expansion plans. It didn’t matter what Max thought about her boss’s motivation in proposing a partnership. She knew the offer was sincere. She knew she had talent and that she wanted to make a career out of photography.
What she hadn’t yet decided was whether she wanted to start that career as a partner in Click.
That still occupied her mind as she drove out to the Fortune Estate the next morning. Thinking about the business kept her from dwelling on the two items in her coat pocket, two items she’d chosen to return in person…or as close as her courage would allow her to in person.
One was a check she intended handing back to Nash Fortune.
The other was the prettiest charm bracelet she had ever seen.
In the five minutes she’d stood in the foyer of the Fortune’s home, waiting for the housekeeper to return with Nash Fortune, Diana had rattled through a ten-month collection of emotions. Impatience, fear, dogged determination, annoyance, fear, worry, dread, fear, and two dozen others too confusing and complex and maddening to label.
Right now, as she listened to the sound of approaching footsteps, she would have chosen any one of them over her present state of jittery, heart-jumping nerves. She knew it was Max striding down the gallery. The confident cadence of the footfalls, the syncopated thump of her heart, the cold sweat in the palms of her hands.
When Nash Fortune came into view, she did a double take of surprise and, perversely, disappointment. Luckily he seemed lost in his own private worries, his shoulders slumped forward, his dark brows knit in a frown, and didn’t notice her until after she’d reassembled her poise.
“Diana. What can I do for you?”
“I want to talk to you about the photos you bought. From the gallery. Click,” she added when he showed no sign of recognition.
“Ah, yes. Of course.” He smiled then, and she realized that he’d been distracted and lost in his frown-inducing thoughts. “Come through, we’ll have coffee.”
“No, thank you, Mr. Fortune. I only called in to thank you, personally, for choosing my work. I am honored to think that my photos may be hung somewhere in this fabulous home.” She reached into her pocket and withdrew the check. “Also, I wanted to return this.”
For a second he gazed blankly at the slip of paper. “What’s this, Diana?”
“It’s your check, sir. I know you agreed to a sum with Jeffrey, but I don’t feel comfortable accepting your money. I was very grateful for the chance to take the pictures of the estate and Sky’s horses. I had intended giving the whole collection to your family when the exhibit ended, as a sign of that gratitude.”
“I’m sure they will love to have them,” he said, still ignoring the check.
“Please. Will you take the payment back?”
“No,” he said after a moment’s deliberation. “I appreciate your gesture and I understand why you are making it, Diana. But that check is fair payment for your talent in producing such outstanding images.”
She acknowledged the compliment with a dip of her head. “In that case, I hope you don’t mind if I donate the money, in your name, to the Children’s Center charity fund.” The return of his frown gave her pause. “Unless there is another charity you would prefer…?”
“I can’t allow you to donate in my name,” he said after a beat of hesitation. “That wouldn’t be right.”
“It’s your check. Of course it’s right.”
“It’s my check,” he said slowly, “but it’
s not my money. It’s Max’s.”
Unprepared for the mention of his name, Diana’s heart crashed hard. Then it resumed its beat in time with the clank of the puzzle pieces coming together. “You bought the pictures on Max’s behalf?”
Another attempt to impress her, no doubt, and she wondered when he’d planned on springing this surprise ploy. After she’d agreed to his no-love proposal? Or did he intend using this as a last ditch means of proving his affection?
The manipulative hound.
“I see,” she said evenly to Nash. “Do you happen to know where I can find him?”
Diana left the house mad—so mad she decided to tramp the long curving drive to the stable block in an attempt to cool down. She didn’t want to fire another round of bitter hurting accusations. For once she wanted an honest discussion with direct answers.
With every icy scrunch of her boots another question fired through her mind. By the time she strode through the arched entryway of the central barn, a dozen different points lay poised for delivery. She didn’t pause to look around or ask directions this time. She sensed she would find him where she’d found him the first time.
This time she didn’t need to remember her mother’s lessons in poise and presence. Her insides trembled up a storm but her stride remained confident and certain. She knew what she wanted and she was in exactly the right frame of mind to let Max know.
She had just turned the corner of the U-shaped alleyway, when he came out of the second to last stable. He took a few seconds to close the door behind him and then to rub a big hand down the face and under the jaw of the Kentucky beauty inside. He wore the cowboy’s suede jacket and a hat dipped low on his forehead, and Diana’s heart responded with the same sweet abandon as the first time she’d watched him crooning to this beautiful horse.
The same as it had always done and would always do.
“Hello, Max.”
Two simple words, yet they ached with the misery of loving him and knowing that would never be enough without proof that he felt the same.
He looked up, his expression flat and unsmiling, but from the shadow of his wide-brimmed she caught the gleam of green fire. Surprise, yes, and more. “Diana. What are you doing here?”
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