Diamond (12 page)

And the way she sang was proof enough for him that she could write her own ticket in Nashville, given half a chance. The way Al looked at it, that was what Jesse was trying to do—give her that chance. If something else developed between Jesse and his singer, it was no one else’s business.

“Mornin’, Jesse…Miss Houston,” Al said. “Everyone’s here but Tommy.”

Jesse nodded. “He’ll show up on his own time. But we don’t need him to start recording. He can’t sing worth a damn.”

Al laughed and then shared Jesse’s joke with the rest of Muddy Road while Mack sauntered out from the lounge with a steaming cup of coffee in his hand.

Mack watched until he was certain that Jesse was out of earshot and then headed for Diamond, unwilling to give up on his quest to follow in Jesse’s footsteps.

“Hey, baby,” Mack said, lowering his voice, “want some coffee? It’s good and hot, just the way I like it—if you get my message.”

Diamond shivered as Mack’s eyes raked her body, lingering on her breasts and then lower, below her belt. Although the blue and white striped slacks and the blue silk blouse she was wearing were not revealing, she felt naked.

“I don’t want anything from you, mister,” she said softly, unwilling to let Jesse overhear. “Not now, not ever. Not if I had to do
without
for the rest of my life. Do you get
my
message?”

Diamond met Mack’s stare and didn’t blink as he absorbed her intense anger. And it was Mack who was the first to look away, cursing softly beneath his breath as he downed the coffee and slammed the empty cup into a trash can.

“What’s going on?” Jesse asked as he watched Mack stomp away. The expression on Diamond’s face was fixed, almost angry.

“Oh, nothing,” she said. “Mack just offered me some…coffee.” She could sense Mack listening but would not give him the satisfaction of tattling. “I told him I didn’t want any.”

Jesse sensed that he wasn’t being told everything, but he was too focused on the session that was about to begin to delve deeper.

“Okay, honey.” He reached out and touched her arm gently, wishing he could do more than touch, but he’d promised to be discreet. “I’ve got a seat waiting for you up there.” He gestured to the glassed-in area where the sound engineers were waiting for them to begin recording. “I know you’d rather be singing than watching, but give yourself a chance. It’s an education I’d have given anything for when I started trying to make it in the business. I was doing everything wrong before Tommy got hold of me. I’d hate to think of where I’d be today if it weren’t for him.”

“You’d still be Jesse,” she said, and entered the sound booth without looking back.

His dependence on Tommy was the last thing she wanted to hear about. It told her, as nothing else could have, that no matter what happened between herself and Tommy, Jesse could never know how she was being treated by his manager and Mack. She didn’t want to put him in the position of having to choose between them and her.

But Diamond’s words had started Jesse thinking. And for the first time in his life, he began to realize how much sense they made. Tommy
was
good. In fact, he was one of the best in the business, but he was only as good as Jesse made him. And no one was indispensable, not even a good personal manager. And so the week began.

“It’s a wrap,” Jesse said. He was tired, but satisfied that the cuts for his new album were some of the best he’d ever done.

“Sounds good, Jesse, real good,” the producer said. “When we’re through with the mix, I think you’ll have yourselves a winner. In fact, I can smell those Grammys and CMA awards as we speak.”

Tommy rolled his neck and rubbed at the ache at the base of his skull as he patted his pocket, needing a cigarette to calm his nerves.

It had taken days to complete the last songs on the album—days in which he’d had to smile and be nice to the tall blonde who hovered just at the edge of his vision. Everywhere he looked, she was there, listening to and watching what went on inside Jesse’s world. If he didn’t believe the background check he’d had done on her himself, he’d suspect that she was some kind of spy sent by a tabloid to get the inside scoop on Jesse Eagle.

Tommy saw the weariness on Jesse’s face and wanted to blame it on sleepless nights with that damned woman instead of the hard work they’d put in on the album. Right now he’d be willing to blame her for anything. He slapped Jesse on the back and grinned. “I told you the stuff you had was good.” He’d played a big role in choosing some of the songs to record on the album. “You know me, I can always pick the winners.”

“Not always,” Jesse said, glancing toward Diamond, who was inside the booth and out of range of their voices. “Sometimes you’re way the hell off the mark.”

Tommy flushed, suppressing the anger that shot through his gut. Jesse’s taunt was nothing more than a reminder that he still had to deal with Diamond Houston. But, he thought, how he dealt with her would be his little secret.

He walked out into the lobby and lit a cigarette, inhaled, and then slowly exhaled, squinting his eyes against the twin spirals of smoke that drifted upward from his nostrils.

“Thought you’d quit,” Al said as he walked past, heading for home.

Tommy shrugged and took another pull, relishing the nicotine filtering through his system. He had quit until that woman had come on the scene and shot his nerves all to hell. His relapse was just another thing he could blame on her, and not on the weakness of his own resolve.

Jesse slipped his arm around Diamond’s shoulder and hugged her gently. It was the first intimate move he’d made toward her during the entire recording session. It felt good. It felt right. After this, he had no intention of letting her call the shots about their public relationship again. It had been too difficult to be within touching distance of her and not be able to do anything except return her smiles.

“What did you think?” he asked.

“That I have a lot to learn.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” he said as they crossed the lobby and headed toward the exit.

Tommy glared as the pair walked past him. “Don’t forget tomorrow night,” he yelled. Jesse stopped, and Tommy got exactly what he’d wanted—Jesse’s attention.

“What’s tomorrow night?” Jesse asked.

“The Charity Ball. You don’t have to perform, just show up and be your natural, smiling self,” Tommy said.

“You didn’t tell me,” Jesse said. The anger was thick in his voice as he glared at his manager. Tommy knew good and well that he hated that kind of affair.

Tommy shrugged. “I have now,” he said.

“So get me another ticket and I’ll go.”

Tommy rocketed out of his chair. He knew what Jesse was angling for and had no intentions of aiding him in his single-minded intent to include Diamond Houston in every facet of his life.

“I can’t get another ticket at this late date. It’s already planned,” he said.

“Then give me yours,” Jesse said. “I’m not going without her.”

Diamond’s heart sank. She knew that she was a bone of contention between these two men, and for the life of her she could think of no way out of the situation other than to disappear. She took one long look at Jesse, remembering the way they laughed and kissed and made love, and decided that disappearing was out of the question.

“Jesse, I don’t have to go with—”

He turned that dark, angry stare toward her, and the look on his face silenced what she’d been about to say. She sighed and walked away, leaving the two men alone to finish the argument. She had no stomach for the situation.

“Goddammit, Jesse,” Tommy said, flinging his cigarette into a potted palm. “Have you completely taken leave of your senses? Okay! Granted she’s a knockout, but there’s a hundred more just like her out there waiting to meet the great Jesse Eagle. And,” he continued, holding up his hand to silence whatever Jesse had been about to say, “supposing she
can
sing. I’m the first to admit that she’s better than good. That still doesn’t mean that every step you take, she has to be in your hip pocket. For the love of God, get a life! And get her out of your fuckin’ bed!”

Jesse had never wanted to hit a man as badly as he wanted to punch his manager. Tommy blatantly refused to face what Diamond’s presence in his life represented. But common sense overrode Jesse’s need for justice, and he settled for a threat instead.

“Don’t you ever—and I mean
ever
—speak of her in this way again. She’s not just another woman, Tommy. She’s special to me, and you damned well know it.”

“Special?” Tommy spit to rid himself of the word’s taste, ignoring the fact that he was still inside the lobby of the recording studio. “What’d she do that’s so special? Come on, man. Let me in on the details. Does she do it with one hand tied behind her—”

Jesse’s fist shot out, connecting with Tommy’s nose and flattening it against his face. Blood spurted as Tommy slid across the polished floor on the seat of his pants.

“Send the godammed ticket, or make my excuses,” Jesse said. “And you open your mouth to me like that again, and you can go find yourself another singer to peddle.”

Tommy clasped his hand across his face, closing his eyes against the pain and the sight of fresh blood pouring through his fingers. If he’d had a gun, he would have pulled the trigger and worried about the consequences later. He’d never been so incensed in his entire life. It was just as he’d figured.

All the years that he’d spent building Jesse Eagle into what he was today, and one woman had stepped in and changed everything. He couldn’t believe that Jesse had actually threatened to fire him. Even though his contract prohibited it, he was still pissed that it had come to this.

“You bitch,” he said softly, watching Diamond through the plate-glass window as Jesse drove past in his car. “I’ll get you yet.”

Tommy couldn’t see that it was all his fault. That if he’d given Diamond Houston half a chance he’d not only have Jesse, but he’d have another client as well that could very well make him the rich man he so desperately wanted to be. At that moment he couldn’t see anything but the blood running down onto his favorite shirt.

“Tommy doesn’t approve of me,” Diamond said as Jesse shoved the car into reverse and drove out of the parking lot.

“He doesn’t have to,” Jesse said. “He just has to do what I say. It’s in his damned contract.”

He pulled out into traffic and headed downtown.

“Where are we going?” Diamond asked as she realized that they weren’t heading toward Jesse’s ranch.

“To find you something to wear to the gala,” he said.

“But I thought Tommy couldn’t get a ticket,” she said.

The hard-edged smile he sent her way made her shiver. “He’ll get the ticket,” Jesse said. “You don’t have to worry about anything but finding the right gown. And get that look off your face,” he warned. “This isn’t the first argument Tommy and I have had, and it won’t be the last. He’s my manager, not my mother. Sometimes he just…forgets, that’s all.”

Her stomach tightened as Jesse sped through the streets. Something told her that this was only the beginning of trouble, not the end. She knew men. Tommy Thomas was the kind who held grudges, and he had quite a grip on the grudge he was holding against her. Diamond just didn’t know what to do to make him turn it loose.

In the end, Diamond chose the dress for the ball. When she’d seen the look in Jesse’s eyes as she’d modeled it for him, she knew that this was the one. He’d looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time—and she wished it had been so.

If Diamond could have taken away the tawdry business of her life before Jesse Eagle came into it, she would have in a minute. If only he’d never seen the pitiful house in which she’d lived, if only he’d never seen the inside of Whitelaw’s Bar—but he had. And he’d heard her singing for tips like a beggar on the street corner.

Jesse had seen the look on her face when she’d examined herself in the mirror. This was the one! But when she began to search the dress for the price tag, Jesse bolted from his chair and waved to the saleslady.

“We’ll take it,” he said.

“It doesn’t have a price tag,” Diamond whispered. “Shouldn’t we ask how much it—”

He smiled once and shook his head twice. “No, darlin’. We shouldn’t. It doesn’t matter how much. It only matters that it was made for you.”

The saleslady gushed and began to write out the sales slip. Diamond shrugged and went to change her clothes. She hadn’t known Jesse long, but already she recognized that look on his face. He’d cornered the market on determination.

Diamond smiled as she pulled the gown from its hanger and laid it upon her bed the next afternoon. She had four hours in which to get ready for tonight’s affair, and she was going to use every minute to her fullest advantage. She’d warned Henley that she wasn’t going to eat and told Jesse to leave her alone. Both were necessary if she was ever going to get into that dress.

Eating would make zipping impossible. And if Jesse tried to help, it would preclude her ever getting dressed. Her excitement surged as she realized that finally she was going to get a chance to see how the other half lived.

She locked her door, stripped off her clothes, and headed for the bathtub. First thing on the list was a long, hot soak in a mountain of bubbles.

“Oh, my!” Henley’s exclamation did not do justice to her appearance.

Jesse turned, caught his breath, and swallowed as Diamond walked down the stairs to him.

The sea-green sequins covering the entire surface of her dress caught and reflected the light. Two narrow bands of the same sequins served as straps, but they were only for effect. Her generous curves and the grace of God were all that was holding it up.

A familiar ache tugged in his groin as he watched the movement of her long legs beneath the floor-length skirt, glimpsing just enough skin through the thigh-high slit to make him wish for more. Her matching shoes had three-inch heels that put her at Jesse’s eye level as she gained the last step on the stairs. It was too close, and yet not close enough.

He got more than a glimpse of the devils dancing in her eyes and inhaled deeply the scent of her perfume. Unable to resist the bountiful cloud of curls she’d made of her hair, he ran his fingers lightly along a single curl resting just above her breast and wished to hell that they were alone.