Page 14 of The Best of Friends

Nearly eleven years ago she’d run away, assuming one could call it that at eighteen. Tired of fighting with her mother, she’d taken off. Jayne had begged her to stay, had promised to help work things out between Rebecca and Elizabeth, but the chasm ran too deep. Like trying to cut a flawed stone. Eventually, it simply shattered.

So she’d left. She’d had a bit of money, but not enough to support herself in the style she’d grown up enjoying. Meaning a job was required. Jayne had doubted her friend’s ability to make it in the real world, but Rebecca had surprised her—and maybe herself—by getting an office job at one of the large diamond mines in Australia. The Worden name had helped, as had David’s willingness to vouch for his sister. She’d learned about the family business, literally from the ground up.

Nigel had taught her how to see diamonds hiding in what looked like worthless rock. She’d studied geology with the experts employed by the mine, had watched the diamond cutters work their magic. But drawn more by the finished product than by the lure of discovery, she’d left a few years later.

At twenty-one, she’d come into a large portion of her inheritance, enough for her to move to Europe. She settled in Milan to study jewelry making with a grumpy master craftsman who made her sweep floors for months before he would even speak to her. Eventually, he’d taught her his craft, and she’d discovered a talent for creating the perfect setting to make a diamond shine.

And as constant as the sun, there’d been Nigel. Like David, he had traveled the world, looking for the next perfect find. Unlike her brother, who brought his stones back to the family business, Nigel searched for the rare, the perfect, the unobtainable, and sold it to the highest bidder.

She often thought that was why they’d lasted so long. If she’d stayed in Australia, the relationship would have eventually burned itself out. But she’d left, and no mere woman left a man like Nigel. So he’d followed her, showing up when she least expected him, staying just long enough for her to remember how much she loved his hands, his laugh, his words. Then he disappeared, and all she had left was the work that filled her days and the memories that made her ache at night.

While their relationship had always been volatile, she’d never thought he would marry someone else. Right now, given the choice between him and the perfect blue diamond, she would choose the man. Hopefully, with time, that would change. Like Jayne, she would heal. Because right now she felt… broken.

“Have you considered that Nigel is all flash and no substance?” Jayne asked.

“A thousand times.”

“And?”

“On my good days, I believe it.”

Nigel hadn’t been her first lover, but he’d been her first love. Her only love. God knows she’d tried to fall for other guys, but so far she’d been spectacularly unsuccessful.

There was a knock on the front door. She answered it and collected the prescription from David. When she returned to the living room, she held out the pills to Jayne.

“I went to the Italian place on the corner. There’s minestrone soup, bread, and gorgonzola-and-walnut ravioli with a butter garlic sauce. Is that all right?”

Jayne shook her head. “No spaghetti in a can for you.”

“Is that what you want? It sounds disgusting.”

“No. I’ll start with the soup and bread. If I can keep that down, I’ll eat more.”

Rebecca went into the kitchen and pulled out the containers of soup. She dumped one in a bowl and put it in the microwave. A minute later, she carried it to Jayne, who’d sat up. She put the soup on the coffee table.

“Bread, right?” she asked, then sighed. “I’m not very good at this caretaking thing.”

“You’re doing fine. I’ll talk you through it.”

Rebecca collected a second bowl of soup for herself, along with bread and bottles of water. Then she sat on the floor on the other side of the coffee table.

“What happened at the house?” she asked. “I left you alone for all of an hour. This is about my mother, isn’t it?”

Jayne groaned. “It’s a mess. I went over to open up for David and realized no one had been there to let in the florist. The floral display for the foyer was waiting out back, but you know how big they are. I wrestled with the vase and lost.”

Rebecca winced. “You didn’t get cut by the glass?”

“Oh, I saved the vase. I’m the one who got smashed. It’s fine.”

“You’ve got to stop doing things for my mother.”

“Tell me about it.”

Elizabeth had always treated Jayne as an unpaid assistant. Jayne was smart, easy to be with, and efficient. Rebecca got why her mother liked the arrangement—what she couldn’t figure out was why Jayne put up with it.

“Why are you nice to her?” she asked.

Jayne reached for a piece of bread. “Because I want to be. Your mother isn’t the devil.”

---