Deserving of His Diamonds (4 page)

mother, Nell Baker, chosen which baby to keep and which one to give

away? Had she done it willingly or had she done it for the money? A little

dagger of guilt pierced Gisele as she thought of what she had led Emilio to

believe she would do for money. He thought he could pay any amount to

have her back in his life and back in his bed but he was in for a big surprise.

She gave a grimly determined smile as she pressed down on the suitcase to

snap the locks closed.

Once the month was up Emilio would be just as glad to see the back of her

as he had been the last time. She would make sure of it. Emilio was waiting

in the hotel bar when Gisele came. He felt the jolt of awareness hit him like

a punch to his abdomen. He had met hundreds of beautiful women but no

one had that powerful physical effect on him just by walking into the room.

And yet she hardly seemed to be aware of how every male head turned and

looked at her. Her simple but elegant cream dress was nipped in at the waist

with a black bow at the front that drew attention to how slim she was. He

suspected he could now span her waist with his hands. Her silver-blonde hair

was pulled back in a smooth knot at the back of her head, showcasing the

swanlike grace of her neck. She was wearing make-up but it was so skilfully

applied it looked entirely natural. She had subtly highlighted the grey-blue

of her eyes with eyeliner and a brush of smoky eyeshadow, and her lush lips

were shiny with pink-tinted lipgloss. It made him want to lean down and

press his lips to hers to see if she still tasted the same. He could smell her

perfume, her signature summery honeysuckle scent that had clung to his skin

for hours after making love with her. He had missed that fragrance. It never

smelled quite the same on anyone else. He stood to greet her, and even

though she was wearing shiny patent black killer heels he still towered over

her. ‗Did you bring your passport?‘ he asked. She gave him a churlish look

from beneath her lashes. ‗I almost didn‘t, but the thought of two million

reasons why I should made me see reason.‘ Emilio allowed himself a small

smile of satisfaction. She

was here under duress but at least she was here. He led her to a quiet corner

in the bar with a gentle hand at her elbow. He felt her bare skin shiver in

response to his touch and an arrow of need staked him in his groin. Her skin

was so soft and creamy, like silk against his fingers. ‗What would you like to

drink?‘ he asked. ‗Champagne?‘ She shook her head. ‗I‘m not celebrating

anything,‘ she said, shooting him another look. ‗White wine will do.‘ Emilio

ordered their drinks and, once they had been served, he leaned back in his

seat to study her icemaiden features. He knew he deserved her ire. He had

thrown her out of his life with a callous and ruthless disregard for her

feelings. He had been so convinced she had betrayed him. The red mist of

anger he had felt had blinded him to anything but what he believed she had

done. The image of her with that man taunted him and had done so until he

had found out about the discovery of her identical twin. Seeing her in the

flesh again had brought back all the reasons he had wanted to marry her in

the first place. It wasn‘t just her natural beauty or grace or poise. It wasn‘t

just her softly spoken voice and the way she nibbled at her bottom lip when

she was feeling uncertain, or the way she sometimes twirled a loose strand

of hair around one of her fingers when she was concentrating on something.

It was something in her eyes, those incredible were-theygrey-were-they-blue

eyes that had warmed and softened the first time she‘d looked at him. What

man didn‘t want the woman he had chosen to be his wife to look at him like

that? As far as he had been concerned, Gisele had been perfect wife material,

sweet and gentle, biddable and loving. The fact that he hadn‘t been in love

with her was irrelevant. For his whole life love had been an emotion he

had never been able to rely on. In his experience, people used the words so

freely but their actions rarely backed them up. The sex tape scandal had

reinforced to him how pointless it was to love someone, for people always

let you down. But in the end he had been the one to let her down. He had

destroyed her love with his lack of trust in her. But he was determined to get

her back. He would make it up to her in a thousand different ways. He

couldn‘t allow a failure like this to blot his life. It felt like a giant ink stain on his soul. He had made the error and it was up to him to do whatever it

took to fix it. And he would do whatever it took. He knew she still wanted

him. He had seen it that first day in her shop, the way her body spoke to him

in its own private language. His own intensely visceral response to her had

sideswiped him. He had thought he had put his desire for her behind him,

but it was back with a vengeance as soon as he had laid eyes on her. It was

an aching, pulsing need to feel her in his arms again. He couldn‘t wait to

take her upstairs and prove to her they still had a future, that the past could

be permanently put aside, erased as if it hadn‘t happened. She was playing

coy with him but he was sure once he kissed her she would melt, just as she

always had in the past. He could not tolerate any other outcome. Failure was

not an option. ‗I have arranged a flight for tomorrow,‘ he said. ‗We leave at

10:00 a.m.‘ Gisele gave him a brittle look. ‗You were that certain I‘d come?‘

He returned her look with measured calm. ‗Let‘s say I know you well

enough to be quietly confident,‘ he said.

‗You don‘t know me any more, Emilio,‘ she said with another hardened

look. ‗I‘m not the same person I was two years ago.‘ ‗I don‘t believe that,‘

Emilio said. ‗I know we all change a bit over time but you can‘t really

change who you are deep inside.‘ She lifted a slim shoulder in a devil-may-

care manner. ‗Maybe in a month you‘ll change your mind,‘ she said and

took a sip of her drink. ‗Is your sister still here in Sydney?‘ Emilio asked.

‗No, she flew back to London ten days ago,‘ she said, looking into the

contents of her glass with a little frown. ‗The press were hounding her. They

were hounding us both. I found it a little scary …‘ She bit her lip and

drained her glass as if she wanted to stop any more words coming out of her

mouth. ‗It must have been a very difficult time for you both,‘ he said. She

lifted her gaze to his; her eyes were like stormy greyblue ice cubes, hard,

cold and resentful. ‗I‘d rather not talk about it if you don‘t mind,‘ she said.

‗I‘m still trying to sort it out in my head. So is Sienna.‘ ‗Perhaps you can

invite her to stay at my villa for a few days,‘ Emilio said. ‗I would like to

meet her.‘ She gave another shrug of indifference. ‗Whatever.‘ Emilio

signalled for the waiter to refresh their drinks. He sat back in his seat and

observed Gisele as she tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind her ear,

another one of her I‘m-out-of-my-depth-and-trying-not-to-show-it

mannerisms. She was not as immune to him as she tried

to make out. He had seen the flare of female interest in her gaze. He had felt

the shiver of reaction on her skin when he had touched her. One kiss would

prove he could have her back where he wanted her. ‗Tell me about your

shop,‘ he said. ‗How did you come about buying the business?‘ She dropped

her gaze to the drink the waiter had just set before her. ‗When I came back

… from Italy I … I wanted a secure base,‘ she said. ‗I liked the idea of

working for myself. Having more control, that sort of thing. I‘d sold some

items to the owner in the past and she gave me the first option of buying.‘

‗It‘s a big commitment for a young woman of just twentyfive, or twenty-

three as you were then,‘ Emilio said. ‗Did your parents help you?‘ Gisele put

her glass down. ‗At first, but then things got a bit tricky after my father got

sick. He had a few debts we didn‘t know about until after he‘d died. Bad

business decisions, a bit of gambling with the stock market that didn‘t pay

off as well as he‘d hoped. I had to help my mother … I mean Hilary out.‘

Emilio put his drink down on the coaster on the table between them. ‗I‘m

sorry I didn‘t send a card,‘ he said. ‗I‘d heard he was terminally ill. I should

have made contact to offer my condolences. It must have been a very

difficult time for you and your mother.‘ She looked back at the contents of

her glass; the grip of her fingers was so tight around the stem he wondered if

it would snap. ‗He took eight and a half miserable months to die,‘ she said.

‗Not once in all that time did he ever say anything about me having a twin

sister.‘ She looked at him at that point, her grey-blue gaze blazing with

anger. ‗Both my parents knew our relationship had broken up

because of that sex tape but still neither he nor my mother said a word. I can

never forgive them for that.‘ Emilio carefully removed the wineglass from

her stiff fingers and put it to one side. ‗I can understand your anger towards

them but our relationship broke up because I didn‘t trust you,‘ he said. ‗If

anyone is to blame it is me.‘ Gisele met his gaze in the long silence that

ensued. ‗You know what really upsets me?‘ she asked. ‗Tell me,‘ he said,

still holding her gaze. ‗How did they choose?‘ she asked. ‗You mean who

got which twin?‘ he asked. Gisele blew out a hissing breath. ‗I can‘t get it

out of my mind,‘ she said. ‗How did they do it? How could my mother, my

biological mother, give me up? And how could my father ask it of her? And

not only that, what was my adoptive mother thinking by agreeing to bring up

her husband‘s love child? Did she have no self-respect?‘ Emilio bent his

forearms on his thighs so he could reach Gisele‘s tightly knotted hands. He

took them both in one of his, stroking the tension away as best he could.

‗Have you asked her about it?‘ he said. She looked at him with flashing

eyes. ‗Of course I‘ve asked her,‘ she said. ‗She said she did it to keep my

father happy. She spent their whole married life trying to make him happy

but it never worked.‘ ‗From what you told me, your family always seemed

so perfect to me,‘ Emilio said, still stroking her hands. ‗You never said

anything about them being unhappy together.‘

Gisele looked down at their joined hands and hastily pulled hers away. She

sat straighter in her seat, ramrod straight, angry straight, keep-away-from-me

straight. ‗I never liked admitting it to anyone but I always felt I wasn‘t good

enough for either of my parents,‘ she said. ‗I tried my best but nothing I did

or achieved seemed to please them. My mother wasn‘t the maternal type.

She never liked cuddling me or playing with me. She employed a nanny to

do that. Now I understand why. I wasn‘t her child.‘ She drew in another

painful-sounding breath and continued, ‗My father was just as bad. Deep

down, I think he really wanted a son. My mother certainly couldn‘t give him

one, but then his mistress gave him two daughters so he chose one. But I‘ve

often wondered if he thought he‘d chosen the wrong one or whether he

wished he had just walked away from both of us. He was stuck in a loveless

marriage until the day he died, out of guilt presumably. All of those long

stonewalling silences between him and my mother over the years suddenly

made a whole lot of sense.‘ Emilio frowned. He had never heard Gisele talk

so honestly about her childhood. He had thought she had come from a

reasonably happy and stable home. He had envied her background, given the

bleak misery of his. It made him realise how little he had known her, even

though he‘d been days off marrying her. He had been struck by her beauty

but had given little thought to who she was, what she valued and how she

wanted her life to run. He had swept her off her feet, dazzled her with his

wealth and charm, and yet had not known for a moment how deeply insecure

she really was. It was like looking at her for the first time. The same beauty

was there but so too was a fragility that he had not seen the first time around.

But then she had been devastatingly hurt and he, to his shame, had done that

to her, even more so than her parents. He wasn‘t sure how he could ever fix

that terrible mistake but he was determined to try. ‗How is

your sister dealing with this?‘ he asked. Gisele let her stiff shoulders drop.

‗She‘s a lot more chilled about it than me,‘ she said. ‗I guess growing up

with a single mother who was known to be a bit of a tearaway has toughened

her up rather a lot. It sounded like Sienna was the parent rather than the child

most of the time. She told me there were always a lot of men coming and

going in her mother‘s life. It can‘t have been an easy childhood but she just

made the best of it.‘ ‗Is she disappointed she didn‘t get to meet your father?‘

‗Yes and no, I suppose,‘ Gisele said, frowning a little. ‗I think she would‘ve

given him a serve for what he did. She‘s a bit of a straight shooter. I think I

could do with some lessons from her, actually. It‘s about time I learned to

speak up for myself.‘ ‗I think you‘re doing rather a good job of it,‘ Emilio