Page 10 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

And just like that the rage of the night before returned. There was no trace of my cool, calm façade now. It had been crushed by the weight of the fury that washed through me.

Fury at being taken here against my will.

Fury at someone who was supposed to be dead, someone I’d loved and mourned, who was clearly not dead and had somehow duped everyone into thinking he was.

Fury at myself for being so weak and allowing all of that to happen.

And, just as I was fulminating about that, another thought struck me.

I looked down, pulling up the sheet wrapped around me.

Yes, as I’d suspected: I wasn’t wearing the black dress I’d put on for the funeral. I’d been put into a delicate nightgown of white silk instead.

I was supposed to be focused and driven and in command of my emotions. I wasn’t supposed to let them command me.

My father had always been very clear about that. He’d wanted a son to inherit his company but, as my mother had been unable to have any more children after me, he hadn’t been able to have one. So he’d done his best to mould me into his idea of the perfect CEO, despite my being female. And the perfect CEO was ambitious and cold and above all strong.

I wanted to be all those things. I didn’t want to be like my trophy-wife mother, fluttering around ineffectually, all weepy and emotional, doing everything my father told her in a futile effort to make up for the sin of not producing a son. He had been a difficult man, and my mother had never stood up to him. She’d let him walk all over her, and one thing I’d sworn to myself was that I’d never let any man do that to me. I’d never stay with a man who treated me that way. I’d never be her.

So, I wasn’t. I cultivated my ambition and kept my emotions locked away in a box. I was strong and in control.

But in that moment I forgot every single lesson my father had drilled into me as fury gripped me, hot and bright and intense. I launched myself off the bed, clutching the sheet around me.

I was going to find Valentin Silvera and then I was going to wring his neck.

With my bare hands.

And then movement caught my eye from the deck outside beyond the big, glass sliding doors.

A man was coming up the stairs from the ocean.

He was still wet, the sheen of water on his bare, deeply tanned skin glistening in the sun highlighting the width of powerful shoulders, the planes of a broad chest, the carved corrugations of his rock-hard stomach and the length of his strong thighs.

Water dripped from his night-black hair and, as he reached the deck, he shoved one long-fingered hand through it, pushing it back from his face.

I froze in the middle of the bedroom, my fury forgotten for an instant.

He was stunningly beautiful.

He was also very, very naked.

Blood rushed into my cheeks.

It was, of course, Valentin.

‘Good morning, little star,’ he said as if he wasn’t entirely naked, his voice deep, rich and much warmer than Constantine’s had ever been. ‘I see you’re awake.’

My cheeks were burning, shivers of heat whispering over my skin. I wanted to look away from him and yet at the same time I wanted to keep staring, mesmerised at the sight of all that masculine glory.

He’d always been tall back when we were children, and in the water of that hidden beach I’d given him covert glances. At thirteen I’d been strangely compelled and at the same time oddly flustered by how muscular his body was.

He’d been beautiful then, and he was beautiful now, and I was very conscious that I was not thirteen any longer.

I’d steered clear of men altogether after Valentin had supposedly died, and since I’d taken over the company they’d steered clear of me. I’d been told I was too intimidating, which had been pleasing, and not something I wanted to change.

I’d never met anyone I’d wanted to change for, anyway. And I still hadn’t.

Except this feeling now...wanting to look at him, touch him, see if his skin was as velvety and hot as it looked, glistening and brown in the heat of a tropical sun... It was unfamiliar sexual attraction and I didn’t like it.

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