Page 9 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

Then, gripping her tightly, I strode out of Constantine’s mansion, Olivia Wintergreen screaming a furious blue streak all the way.

CHAPTER THREE

Olivia

THEMOSTDELIGHTFULwarm breeze washed over me. It was gentle and brought with it the smell of salt and the heavy, sweet scent of tropical flowers.

I stretched, not wanting to open my eyes, because the bed I was lying in was so comfortable and the breeze felt good brushing over my bare skin...

Wait...

Mybareskin? Since when had I slept in anything but pyjamas?

My eyes popped open, an unfamiliar ceiling above me.

Rafters in a honey-gold wood criss-crossed the big vaulted, empty space, a white fan turning lazily above the bed. Strange, silky-looking patterns of light rippled over the exposed ceiling, almost as if it was the reflection of the sun shining on water...

I stared at the patterns, not taking it in.

My brain felt sluggish, my head vaguely achy and my mouth dry, as if I’d had an emotional overload at some point, or a crying jag, which couldn’t be right. Not when I liked to stay in control at all times. Had I somehow forgotten myself at Domingo’s funeral and wake? I hadn’t been grieving him, not when I hadn’t liked him in the first place.

The wake... The shadow in the doorway...

My breath caught as memory came sliding in slowly like the tide.

Valentin.

A flush of violent heat went through me as the memories came flooding back. Valentin’s sensational appearance... Constantine’s fury... My own intense shock. And then the lights had gone out and someone had taken my hand in theirs, warm and reassuring. Except it hadn’t been Constantine’s hand, as I’d assumed, and I could still feel the shock as the tall man had turned round and I’d found Valentin’s black gaze burning into mine.

‘I’m never letting you go...’

The memories came flooding in even faster. He’d picked me up and slung me over his shoulder as if I weighed nothing, ignoring my shouts of rage and my fists hammering his strong back. He’d carried me out, tossed me into a car that had been waiting in the driveway and then, before I’d known what was happening, I was being driven away. He hadn’t come with me and, not twenty minutes later, I’d found myself at private airfield being ushered into a sleek jet by two burly security staff.

Furious, I’d tried to argue with them—demanding an explanation, demanding to know where I was being taken, demanding to speak to Valentin—but all I’d got back was silence. I’d tried threats next, but that hadn’t worked, either.

Valentin had arrived a few minutes later and proceeded directly past where I was sitting, heading to the work space at the back of the plane. He hadn’t even looked at me.

Then we’d been in the air and, when I’d finally been able to unbuckle my seatbelt, I’d tried to confront him, only to be prevented from getting anywhere near him by the same stony-faced bodyguards.

I think at that point I might have shouted. I’d definitely called him every name under the sun and then some.

Then, left with nothing else to do, all my fury expended, I’d gone back to my seat and had promptly fallen asleep, exhausted.

Now I sat bolt-upright, looking round wildly at the four-poster hung with gauzy white curtains that had been drawn back.

I was sitting in the middle of the vast mattress of that four-poster bed, a white sheet wrapped around me. The room was big, the walls panelled in that same honey-golden wood, the floors the same colour, and directly opposite me were huge sliding glass doors. The doors had been pulled back to admit a wonderful breeze and I saw immediately that in fact, the pattern on the ceilingwasthereflection of the sunlight on water.

Through the doors was the ocean. A deep, intense turquoise-blue ocean.

A lagoon with a reef lay just beyond.

A wooden deck lay outside the doors and I could see stairs leading down from it, presumably straight into that beautiful water.

I didn’t move, staring at the tropical sea a stone’s throw from the bed, my heartbeat loud in my ears, along with the sound of water lapping gently against wood.

All I could see was Valentin’s black eyes and all I could feel was his hand enveloping mine, the heat of his skin burning me, and his body as he’d drawn me in close, hard and hot. Not the body of a teenage boy any longer, but of a man. A broad-shouldered, powerful man. He’d smelled so good, like cinnamon and cedar: warm and spicy and delicious...

‘Feel free to scream on your way out...’

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