Diamond (Rare Gems Series) (5 page)

He looked at the doorway when he heard her. Thad had no idea how long Diamond had been standing there
, but by the look on her face, long enough to hear him. He wasn’t going to apologize to her. She’d known all along what she was and had let him…well that wasn’t right either. She’d been pushing him away since he’d been there. Thad stood up when she disappeared.

“
I need to get back to Texas. I have some things going on there that I need to…we have a contract, are you…fuck, I have no idea what I want right now. I’ll…I’ll call you in a few days.” He wasn’t going to call him at all but have his attorneys handle this. He just knew that he wasn’t going to be working with these…people any longer.

Thad made arrangement
s for a cab to come and get him, and he waited outside until it arrived. His things were brought out by Annabelle, who simply set his luggage and his computer on the picnic table and went back inside. She looked as hurt as he was pissed.

Once he was at the airport
, he felt a little better. Distance, he supposed, was a big help, and once he made it home again they’d be out of a job and he’d have to start over. But the more he thought of it, the angrier he got. He wondered if he could sue them. Then he caught himself. Yeah, that would go over well.
“I can’t work with them, your Honor, because they’re werewolves and they said I have a few vampires working for me too.”

Every
time his phone rang he ignored it. He wasn’t in the mood to speak to anyone right now. And when his flight was called he turned it off and took out the battery for good measure. He was going to enjoy his flight home.

Thad had called his house to have his car
brought to him. On the ride back, he pulled out his phone and started to sort through his voicemails. The first one he listened to was from Morton.

“
I’ll be changing shit back to the old way in the morning. Glad you finally came to your senses about them people and their wanting you to convert. That Henson woman sure was bossy, but I’m glad you fired her. We’ll get back to normal now.”

Thad had no idea what he was talking about until he got to the third message. This one was from Blair
’s attorney.

“
As per the contract signed between Flair Marketing and Galloway Industries, we are in agreement with the break in the contract. You’ll receive official notifications in the mail in the morning as I am over-nighting the information to you. I have stated that there are creative differences that cannot be overcome. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact my office and not the firm.”

Thad was livid.
How dare they do this to him? He was going to break it with them, of course, but he should have been the one to do it, not them. He listened to his next message and nearly froze on the spot when he heard her voice. Diamond had left him a message.

“
You left some things in my room. I don’t want you to think I’ve stolen them, but I will have them cleaned and pressed before I have them sent. You’ll not have to worry about my….” She let out a long breath before she continued. “They’ll go out within the next few days.”

She
’d been about to tell him that her germs or some other part of her wasn’t going to be on whatever it was she was sending him. He wanted to call her back and tell her not to bother, that he could replace whatever it was, but he wasn’t ready to speak to any of them just yet. He moved through his house and to his bedroom, where he took a long hot shower. Tomorrow he’d deal with all of this; right now he was exhausted and emotionally worn out. Tomorrow would look better.

Chapter 5

Diamond put the last of her boxes in the back seat of her car and closed the door. She looked at her sisters and her grandmother and wanted to cry again.
But this was what needed to be done, and she was sticking by her decisions. The hospital in New York was going to be a good place to begin again. If she got the job. No one knew it wasn’t a done deal and she was keeping it that way.

“
Are you sure about this?” Jade asked. Diamond nodded. “I don’t want you to move away. This is our home, we’re family.”

“
I know, but I need to have a job, and this one is the best.” It was also far away from Texas, which was the point she supposed. “I’m going to be working a great deal, but I promise that I’ll call all the time. Every day. You won’t even miss me.”

She
’d made the decision after leaving the message for Thad. She had sat in her bedroom and sobbed over his shirt, and had even put it on. Stupid now when she thought of it, but she’d been so hurt by him that she’d wanted to send his things back smelling like her. But he was just a human and he’d not smell anything anyway and put it in the laundry. Then she went into her bathroom to take a long bath and smelled him in there as well. Everything, including her own clothes, smelled like him, and she decided to leave. She had dropped off his shirts and pair of pants at the dry cleaners that morning.

It took her all night to pack up her things.
Then after everyone was gone for the day she took it all out to her car and started loading it in. Her grandmother must have put out a call because, within half an hour, they were all back at the house to try and keep her from going. The only person who didn’t say anything was Blair. He just helped her carry the things down the stairs. But after they all hugged her and went into the house, he leaned against the car and looked at her.

“
Will you ever forgive me?” She looked at him, startled by the question. “I fucked this up for you, and I’m sorrier than I’ve ever been in my life. I should have let you handle telling him in your own way.”

“
He wasn’t going to take it well no matter how he found out.” She looked at the woods instead of Blair as she continued. “I’m not going to say that I’ll come back here, but I’d like to be welcome in the pack if I do.”

“
You know that you will be a part of my pack for the rest of your life. And you’d better come back here. Sapphire will be pissed at me if you don’t come back when we have a baby.” The pang of her sister having a child ran deep in her heart. “Diamond, let me try to fix this, please? You know what will happen to you if you don’t at least talk to him.”

“
I may not turn rogue, and we both know it. He didn’t do anything more than kiss me, and I helped his wounds. I’m pretty sure in a few weeks I won’t even remember what he looked like.” Neither of them believed that, and she was sure they both knew it. “Besides, you’ll be rolling in the dough once you get this product off the ground. You and Galloway Industries will be contenders.”

“
After he left here, I contacted our attorneys and told them to dump the contract. We can’t do business with him, and I’m pretty sure he would have done the same thing once he got back to his home. Sapphire and I are going to see if we can market it to someone else in six months.” Diamond felt the tears fall. “Don’t cry, baby, it’s for the best. He’ll either come to his senses or not, but either way, we came out ahead on this. We have a product that we know will sell.”

Diamond
was just getting into her car when another car pulled into the drive. Two men got out and came toward them. She had a feeling that Galloway Industries wasn’t going to go quietly into the night.

“
Mr. Blair Henson of Flair Marketing?” Neither of them said a word as the men looked down at their notes. “We’re here to see Blair Henson. Does he live here or not?”

Blair stood up and let a little of his wolf go.
Diamond watched the other man as he took a step back. Before either of them could move, the first man pulled a gun. Blair pushed her behind him.

“
We only want to talk to Henson. If you’re not him then I would suggest that you simply say so and we’ll go up to the house.” The click of something had them all turning, and Diamond saw Emerald standing there on the deck with a gun pointed at them all.

“
You’ll either lose your dicks or your brains. I’m thinking they’re both in the same general area so it’s entirely up to you two who gets it first.” Sapphire came out on the deck then with her phone to her ear as Emerald continued. “My sister is calling Galloway now, and Grandmother is calling the police. I’m pretty sure that if you were told to pull a gun on my family, you’re all going to jail. But I’m thinking it’ll be just you idiots.”

“
He said you’d be pissed off, that we were to protect ourselves if need be.” The man who spoke seemed to be happy at the turn of events, but all she could think about was this was really stupid. She looked at all of them and decided enough was enough, this had to end now. Diamond put out her hand to take the gun from the man, and he jerked back and pointed the gun at her. She heard the shot before she felt the pain. And by then she was falling. What the hell had just happened to her?

~~~

“See if you can get a meeting set up with the foremen at the plant. Tell them that I….” The pain was incredible. Thad doubled over and held his belly in hopes that it would pass, but it only grew more intense. He was sure that he’d been shot, but when he pulled his hand away, there was nothing there but skin. Trying to stand up, he felt the world spinning out of control, and then the floor came up and slapped him in the face. Blackness swallowed him up and he thought of Diamond in those last seconds.

“
Don’t move,” his secretary said. Thad sat up anyway and looked at his secretary. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. “Are you all right, sir? You scared me to death.”

Thad had been terrified as well
, and when he stood up, he felt weak and out of sorts. Moving to his desk slowly, wondering for a moment how he got in his office, he looked back at Jane. She flushed brightly and stood up from her kneeling position on the floor near his couch.

“
You fainted. After you screamed and then fainted I called security and they helped me put you in here. When we couldn’t find anything wrong with you, I called the doctor, and he said you were more than likely exhausted. He said you were sleeping and not hurt.” She moved to his desk and handed him a stack of messages. “Those came in right after you fell. The man, Blair Henson, he said for you to call him as soon as possible the first few times, then…well, then he said never mind when he called the last time. He said it was no longer important.”

Thad almost just tossed the messages in the trash but saw Diamond
’s name there. “What happened, did he say? Did he mention Diamond Erickson?”

“
Yes. At first, like I said, but then after….” She stopped when he glared. “Mrs. Henson called first and asked about us sending out some goons. I assured her that we didn’t work that way. Then Mr. Henson called back a few minutes later. He was screaming something about her being shot and that you were a…you were a son of a bitch who’d shot her. I told him that you’d been here all morning, and he said something about some henchmen. I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, so I hung up. The next time he called back he was calmer but no less abusive. He certainly didn’t seem like the man who called the first time. He was…well hell, he acted like his world was ending. He’s the company you’re doing business with on the veggie containers, right? I can’t wait to get them. I think—”

“
Can you reach him for me?” Jane nodded and moved to the door, but he stopped her. “Never mind. Could you just get my plane ready to go to Ohio? I need to…I have to see what is going on.”

The longer he sat there thinking about Diamond the more he thought something had happened to her.
He didn’t have a clue about henchmen, but he did know who might. He picked up the phone and called Morton. For some reason, Thad thought he was behind all this.

“
Henchmen, you say? Nope. Did send out my son and his friend to tell them to back off. Did you know that they’re planning to sell your idea to another firm? Heard tell they are saying it was all theirs.” Thad buzzed Jane as Morton continued. “I haven’t heard back from him since he was there, but I’m guessing he’s made some progress.”

“
It was their idea.” Putting the phone on speaker, he waited for Morton to say something as he wrote out a note to Jane. He needed to get to Ohio more than ever now, and he wanted her to set up an appointment with Blair as soon as possible.

“
Well…I suppose that we can say that it was yours, and nobody will be the wiser. I’m willing to say whatever you want for a price.” Thad looked up at Jane as Morton unknowingly spewed more information to them both. “Otto, my son, he’s got himself a gun down there. I told him to be careful of them people. They ain’t anything more than dogs with big teeth, but then ain’t we all at some point.”

He knew.
That’s all Thad could think of was that Morton knew. And according to a conversation he’d had with Sapphire before leaving, only another supernatural would know about another one unless they were told. That made Morton a sup. But what?

He had to be slick, trick him into answering him. But how?
He waited, knowing that sooner or later this was going to come back to bite him in the ass, but he had to take a chance.

“
One of them is my mate.” There was silence both in his office as well as on the phone. “Diamond. Diamond Erickson is my mate, and we’ve bonded.”

“
Mother fuck,” Morton exploded. “You have to get rid of her. That’s the only way. Mother…you say you’ve bonded? Shit, let me call Otto back and have him hunt her down. He’ll know just what to do. Our kind just doesn’t like wolves. Panthers are much more superior to those fucking animals any day.”

He looked at Jane when she stood up and took his pen from his hand. She wrote something on another sheet of paper and handed it to him. Then she left the office. Thad was almost afraid to read it
, but when he did, he felt a chill run down his spine that made the hair on the back of his neck dance.

“
I’ll take care of him. Vampires are much more superior to panthers any day.”
Thad let Morton go on and on. He wasn’t sure if it was because everything had gotten so surreal or that he wasn’t sure what to do now. Thad thought it was a good case of both, and when Morton said Jane was at his door, he had the overwhelming urge to tell him good luck. But he hung up the phone and waited.

Jane returned an hour later
, and she simply went to her desk. He didn’t ask her, though he wanted to know what had happened in his foreman’s office. When she came into his office again and sat across from him, he tried his best not to notice the drop of blood on her blouse. It might have been there this morning, he kept telling himself.

“
There’s a major front moving through Ohio right now, and will be for the next several hours. I have you booked to Chicago, the closest I could get you, and have arranged for you to have an SUV there for you to drive the rest of the way.” She handed him a file, and he took it from her without speaking. “There are driving instructions in there, as well as hotels that you can…. Are you all right? You look like you’re going to freak out.”

“
I am. I don’t…you’re a vampire.” It wasn’t a question, but she answered him with a nod. “And Morton was a panther. Diamond and her family are wolves, and there is more of your kind on my staff?”

“
Yes. I would say about half your management staff is, and more of your floor staff. We, well most of us, thought you were aware of us but had some sort of don’t ask don’t tell kind of thing going on.” She leaned back and watched him carefully as she continued. “You’re not mated with Diamond, are you? The reason I say that is because while I can smell her on you, you don’t actually have her scent.”

“
Sex you mean?” She nodded. “No, we didn’t have sex. I didn’t…I had no idea what she was or you were, for that matter. Sapphire knew, she and Blair told me when they explained to me what they were. Not who was what, but that I had a few of you on my staff. I think…fuck, I fucking lost it and said some things that I’m sure I didn’t mean.”

“
Doubtful. You say what you mean and stick to it.” She stretched out her legs in front of her and smiled. He could see her fangs now, and he was sure it was because she was letting him.

“
What did you do to Morton?” She shook her head, and he decided that he really didn’t want to know. “I don’t think they’re going to let me go back, and I’m pretty sure that something happened to Diamond or one of the others.”

“
I can find out. You won’t ask me how I find out, but I can find out.” He nodded as she stood up and moved to the door.

“
I really screwed this up with her. I’m not saying that I’ll want her as my mate, but I didn’t want anything to happen to her.” Jane turned to stare at him, and he could see fear there. “What is it? What do you already know?”

“
She’s your mate. And weres bond for life. But if you don’t take her, then did…did they tell you what would happen now that she’s taken a part of you in her? I’m assuming that’s what happened. Diamond somehow has taken your blood?”