‘I thought that first vault you showed me was incredible, but this is something else,’ she murmured as he led her forward.
He started the tour by explaining the difference between a diadem and a tiara. ‘The tiara is more of a semicircular headband, while the diadem is like a crown.’ And when Leila expressed her preference for an elaborate diadem set with removable emerald pendants, he suggested she try it on.
‘Will you help me?’
‘It would be my pleasure.’
‘Mine too, I’m sure.’ She laughed as he pushed back her hair and settled the priceless masterpiece on her head.
And somehow her clothes found their way to the floor and the sight of Leila, naked, seated on one of the display tables, wearing only a diamond crown, was a sight he knew would be branded on his mind for ever. It certainly added a frisson to their lovemaking, as she had to sit very straight and still, so the crown didn’t fall off her head.
‘What happens when I—?’
‘No extravagant movements,’ he warned.
‘I’m not sure about that,’ she wailed.
‘You have to keep still, Leila, or I’ll have to stop—’
‘Don’t you dare stop!’ she warned him as he moved steadily back and forth.
Basking in sensation, he watched her closely, listening to her breathing quicken so he knew exactly when to hold her still.
‘Thank goodness you caught the crown,’ she panted out a good time later.
‘No problem,’ he said, settling the priceless diadem back on its stand.
‘This is your playroom, isn’t it?’ she challenged him as she slipped down from the table and moved to inspect the next display case in line.
‘But you’re the first playmate I’ve brought in here. And the last,’ he assured her when she shot him a mock-warning look.
‘I’m pleased to hear it,’ she murmured as she leaned over the glass. ‘What do we have in here?’
‘Some of the world’s most valuable coloured diamonds,’ he said, more interested in stroking the lush curve of her buttocks as he moved behind her.
‘They’re amazing—’ She gasped as he moved in close and his hands found her breasts.
‘Pale blue diamonds like your eyes,’ he murmured, weighing her breasts appreciatively. ‘And bright pink diamonds like your nipples—’
‘Just don’t suggest canary yellow like my teeth,’ she warned him, starting to laugh.
‘I don’t generally deal in pearls, except that link I showed you, but if I did, your teeth would certainly compare.’
‘Cheese—’
He silenced her in the most obvious way. ‘Lean over a little more,’ he coaxed. ‘Take a closer look inside the case.’
‘A much closer look,’ Leila agreed, gasping with pleasure as he settled deep.
‘Hold on,’ he warned. ‘The display case is bolted to the floor, so it can take some hammering,’ he added reassuringly.
She laughed, but was eager to do everything he asked to increase her pleasure.
‘The diamonds light up the room,’ he murmured, continuing to move steadily. ‘Would you like me to tell you where some of the most famous pink diamonds in the world are found?’
‘Are you kidding me? I couldn’t concentrate if you offered me a dozen on a plate.’ Standing on tiptoe, she gasped for breath as she thrust her buttocks towards him, giving him better access.
‘East Kimberley in Western Australia—Leila, I really don’t think your mind’s fully on this tutorial—’
‘Oh, it is,’ she assured him, arching her back so he could see what he was doing.
Forget the diamonds. Taking firm hold of her buttocks, he enjoyed her, and, from the sounds she was making as he moved fast and hard, Leila was enjoying him too.
‘So? What did you think of the visit?’ he asked when they finally left the facility.
‘Thrilling,’ she admitted dryly.
Linking his fingers through hers as they strolled to the car, he pulled her close. ‘One day the Skavanga mine will produce diamonds as fine as those I just showed you.’
‘Then I’d better make sure the display cabinets in the museum are securely bolted to the floor.’
His gaze warmed with amusement. ‘It would be a wise precaution,’ he agreed.
‘Can we display some of those treasures you just showed me in the museum?’
Raffa narrowed his eyes. ‘We are still talking about the diamonds, bad girl?’
‘Of course we are. I’m not sharing you with anyone.’
He was as sure as he could be that he had overcome all Leila’s arguments when it came to the birth of the baby. The way she was resting her head on his shoulder, the way her arm was locked around his waist. He’d never felt closer to anyone, and Leila was giving every signal that she felt this way too. It wasn’t a triumph, it was an enormous relief for him, and when they reached the car, he pressed her back against it and whispered in her ear, ‘I want you again.’
‘What shall we do about it?’ she said, pretending surprise.
‘Get home fast?’ he suggested.
‘Why not here?’ she challenged, glancing around.
‘Because everyone will be pouring out of work soon, and I don’t want to frighten them.’
‘Here in the shadows quickly?’ She was looking over her shoulder at a handy covey of trees.
‘Better still, in the car quickly. I love an element of danger, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do,’ Leila agreed with her mouth very close to his lips. ‘It’s far more exciting.’
‘And you’re the quiet sister?’
‘That’s what they call me.’
‘Then they are mistaken.’
‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, shooting him a wicked look as she climbed into the car.
He followed and knelt in the footwell, pulling Leila forward to the very edge of the seat.
* * *
The next week was highly charged at night, and hectic by day. They shared bed, bath and every available surface in his apartment at the castle, while in their working hours he took Leila through each department in turn so she could understand the process of turning polished gems into priceless works of art. She was an able student on both sides of the divide, and inevitably they grew even closer, sharing humour, facts and preferences, and learning more about each other every day. He was confident she’d stay on. Why would she leave the island when she had everything she could possibly need right here?
He was feeling upbeat when he went to collect Leila for supper, and when he knocked on the door of her turret room, she called, ‘Come in...’
‘What the hell?’ There had been nothing in her voice to give him the slightest clue that he would find her packing a suitcase.
‘Your grandmother rang to say she was taking the jet to London tomorrow,’ Leila explained cheerfully, shaking out a dress. ‘She asked if I’d like to hitch a lift with her.’
‘She did what?’ he interrupted softly.
‘She didn’t tell you?’
‘What do you think, Leila?’ Impulsive trips were right up his grandmother’s street, but why had she asked Leila along? And why the hell had Leila accepted her invitation. Why was Leila leaving?
‘Why didn’t you tell me? When were you going to tell me, Leila? When you got back to Skavanga?’
‘Don’t be angry with me, Raffa. We both knew I couldn’t stay here for ever.’
‘That’s news to me.’
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I always said I’d be going back to Skavanga to have the baby. I never misled you. I told you several times.’
She had, but he had thought she would come round—that she had come round.
‘I need to get back before I’m too far down the
road with this pregnancy, so I can start planning the exhibition.’
‘The exhibition?’ he echoed with disbelief. ‘Can’t you leave that to someone else?’
‘No. You know how I feel about the museum and I thought you would be keen for me to get on with the work as we’d planned.’
‘Without telling me first that you were going?’
‘I knew you were busy today, so I was going to tell you tonight.’
‘In bed or out of it?’
‘That’s not fair, Raffa. I was going to tell you as soon as I saw you. It was a last-minute thing—I had no idea your grandmother was going to London, and the connections to Skavanga are excellent from there.’
He was beyond fury, beyond words. He shook his head as he struggled for control. ‘You could at least have done me the courtesy of speaking to me before leaving the island with our unborn child. But then I suppose you’ve got everything you want out of me now, so it’s time for you to go—’
‘No!’ Leila’s face was a mask of outrage as she interrupted him. ‘That’s never been the type of relationship we have. Please be reasonable, Raffa.’
‘Reasonable?’ What place did reason have to play where the birth of his child was concerned? ‘You’re not going anywhere, Leila.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ she said as he moved to bar the door. ‘You can’t stop me leaving. Short of locking me in and making sure I miss that flight, I’m going home tomorrow. It’s time for me to leave. You won’t share your hang-ups with me, so we’ve gone as far as we can. I told you everything, Raffa.’ Looking disappointed in him, she shook her head. ‘And you’ve told me precisely nothing. You want to control everything without giving me any reason for why you must do so—and if I can’t understand you, what chance have we got? I wouldn’t just walk out without saying anything. I was going to thank you before I left—’
‘You were going to thank me?’ he echoed, leaning back against the ancient door. ‘Am I supposed to be grateful for that?’
But everything Leila said was right. He couldn’t open up to anyone, not even Leila, but he had been utterly convinced that she would stay.
‘Raffa, please,’ she said, closing the lid of her suitcase. ‘It’s all arranged. My onward ticket’s booked. It’s not as if I’m disappearing as you and my brother so often do. You know where I am. You can come visit any time you want.’
Leila was dictating terms now? ‘Dios, Leila! You’re having my baby. You can’t just walk out like this.’
‘Were you planning to hold me prisoner on the island until I gave birth?’
The silence hung between them and then she laughed without humour. ‘You were,’ she whispered incredulously.
‘I only want to keep you safe.’
‘There you go again—I don’t understand why this obsession with keeping me safe when I’m just as safe in Skavanga. You can’t micromanage the birth, as if it were a business, Raffa.’
Leila couldn’t know the depth of his fears for her, and as he couldn’t tell her they had reached stalemate.
‘I’m leaving the country, Raffa,’ she stated firmly. ‘But I’ll only be a plane ride away, so please don’t be angry with me.’
‘Am I to suppose my grandmother called you up out of the blue?’
‘Well, yes, she did, actually.’
He had to confess, it would hardly be the first time his grandmother had acted impetuously. She was probably visiting her own doctor in London when she thought of Leila, and had wanted some company on the flight.
There was a wistful look in Leila’s eyes that told him she wished things could be different, almost as if she wished he would beg her to stay. He had been so fixated on the birth, he hadn’t given much thought to the future. He supposed now he had imagined Leila getting on with her life as he got on with his after the birth of their child. They would live separate lives, and only meet up when they handed their child over for a visit—
Dios! Just the thought of that made him sick. The idea of handing a child back and forth, like a parcel—
Leila’s eyes were full of tears as if she was waiting for him to say something that would make things right between them, but his life had been built on objectivity, not emotion, and he didn’t have any answers she’d want to hear.
‘You always knew we had to get on with our lives at some point, Raffa. I haven’t even had my first scan yet.’
‘Well, you can have that here.’
‘I’ve already booked one in Skavanga. I could send you a photograph.’
Shaking his head, he said a flat, ‘No.’ Why bother? What use was a photograph to him?
Leila deserved stability, security and a storybook ending with a man who could feel emotion. He couldn’t offer her that. As always when emotions threatened, ice had already closed around his heart. And even if he let her go, he could still control every aspect of the birth, but from a distance.
‘Bon voyage, Leila,’ he said coolly. ‘As you so rightly say, you’ll only be a short plane ride away.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE HELD OUT until Raffa left the room and then she crumpled. So much for self-determination. Someone should have warned her how much it sucked. Did Britt feel like this after one of her storming tirades? Did Eva fold like a wilting leaf with ice flowing through her veins instead of blood? When her sisters acted steely, was it all a sham?
The temptation to return to being the quiet little mouse was overwhelming. She might have done, had it not been for the child growing inside her, the child who depended on her to get things right. There was never going to be a good time to leave Raffa. And she’d learned a lot while she’d been here. She’d changed, discovered her own seam of strength. Maybe it had always been there, but quietly.
Raffa, with all his talk of the ‘top men for the job’, wanting to control every element of the birth, had put everything in perspective for her. She had grown to love him, and now she couldn’t love him more, but she had no expectation of him loving her back. She doubted Raffa even had the capacity to love. His reaction when she had offered to send him a photograph of the scan had been proof enough of that.
It was that thought that broke her, and, like a wounded animal, she buried her head in her arms and bayed her frustration into the empty, uncaring room. But even that was an indulgence. She had to be strong for the baby, and so standing up she faced the brutal truth. Would an aristocrat like Don Rafael Leon seriously consider progressing a relationship with Leila Skavanga, a small-town girl who worked in a mine beyond the Arctic Circle, whose father had been a drunk and whose mother had been his punchbag?
* * *
The thought of her mother made her cry again. Be bold in all you do. Was she being bold, or was she being stubborn?
It wasn’t always easy to be strong, Leila concluded, even with a baby to consider. There were times when she missed her mother with a huge aching pain, and this was one of those times, but she wasn’t going to throw her mother’s wishes to the four winds. She was going to take them and make them count for something. She would turn the Skavanga Diamond exhibition into a talking point around the world. And she would write Raffa a note before she left, setting him free, and at the same time promising not to cut him out of their baby’s life. It had taken two to make this precious child, but she would bring it up, and she would give birth in Skavanga, without fuss or the ‘best man for the job’ standing over her.
* * *
At last the call connected. By which time he was almost jumping out of his skin with frustration. ‘Grandmother. What the hell are you doing?’
‘Why, Rafael,’ his grandmother tempered, slowing down his heated oratory at a stroke. ‘This must be a serious call for you to give me my Sunday title.’
‘You know it’s serious. How could you do this to me?’
‘How c
ould I do this to you, Rafael?’ There was a pause. ‘Maybe I’m saving you from yourself by taking Leila with me.’
He gave a short dismissive laugh. ‘Destroying me would be closer to the truth. Don’t you know how much it means to me to keep her here so I can supervise the birth?’
‘Don’t you know how much I love you, Rafael?’
He let the silence hang. ‘You know I do,’ he growled at last.
‘Then trust me, Rafael. I do know what I’m doing.’
‘I hope so.’ It was a fight to keep the anger from his voice, but he had always respected his grandmother too much to lose control when he was speaking to her.
‘I know you think you should be doing something more, Rafael, but you can’t control everything.’
‘I can try.’
‘You certainly can’t force Leila to obey you. She has a mind of her own, that one.’
‘There’s no need to sound quite so pleased about it.’
‘If you trap a wild bird, Rafael, it will die.’
‘And if you set it free?’
‘Time will prove me right or wrong,’ his grandmother insisted calmly. ‘Well? Aren’t you going to wish me bon voyage, grandson?’
Gritting his teeth he managed, ‘Safe journey, and a speedy return home, Abuelita.’
* * *
Being on the private jet with Raffa’s grandmother was informal and fun—or it could have been if the aircraft hadn’t been taking Leila away from the man she loved.
‘There’s no shame in a little fear when the plane takes off,’ Raffa’s grandmother said briskly, handing over a wad of tissues.
Leila had no fear of flying. Her only fear was losing Raffa, who had brushed her off so easily.
‘Better now?’ the dowager enquired once they were airborne.
Tipping her head with a wry smile, Leila nodded. ‘Much better, thank you.’
‘We’re survivors, you and I, Leila. Nothing gets us down for long. We’re like corks that bob up again, and we learn from setbacks, don’t we?’
The Purest of Diamonds? Page 12