Page 3 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

A shocked silence fell as everyone in the room turned and looked in the direction of the voice.

It had come from the man in the doorway.

A premonition gripped me, wrapping around my throat and twisting hard.

I had no idea where it had come from or why, but I suddenly knew without a doubt that something terrible was about to happen.

I opened my mouth to warn Constantine but, just at that moment, the man shoved himself away from the door frame and stepped out into the ballroom.

A ripple of sound passed around the room, a kind of gasp and sigh combined, and an abrupt, scorching heat swept over me.

That man... I knew him.

He strolled into the room with the powerful, predatory grace of a panther, his hands thrust casually in his pockets.

He was as tall as Constantine and as broad. He had the same strongly carved, fiercely beautiful face. The same straight nose, high cheekbones and hard, carved mouth. The same coal-black hair, black brows and deeply set black eyes.

Constantine’s mirror image.

Yet there were some slight differences. This man’s hair was slightly longer, grazing the collar of his white shirt, which he wore open with no tie, unlike Constantine. He didn’t have Constantine’s air of icy control, either. No, this man had the opposite.

He burned like a flame.

As suddenly as the heat had swept over me, it vanished, leaving behind it the freeze of a deep, echoing shock.

I’d only ever met one other man who burned like that, and he hadn’t been a man, but a boy. And that boy was dead. He’d died long ago and I’d mourned him with everything in me.

Valentin Silvera, Constantine’s twin.

My poise vanished. My fingers were blocks of ice, and so were my feet, and I could feel the same shock that gripped me wash through the assembled crowd. They were all staring at Constantine Silvera’s duplicate, strolling calmly through their midst as if they weren’t even there.

The man didn’t look at the crowd. He looked only at Constantine, who didn’t move or speak, as if he’d been turned to stone.

‘Hello, little brother,’ the man said in perfect, unaccented English. ‘Long time, no see.’

The entire ballroom was utterly silent.

If I hadn’t heard him speak, I’d have been certain I’d gone deaf.

‘“Why are you here?” I hear you ask,’ the man went on, even though no one had asked. No one had said a word. ‘That’s a good question and I’m glad you mentioned it.’ He smiled, easily and friendly, but for the flames that leapt high in his eyes. ‘I bet you’d forgotten, hadn’t you, that I’m your elder by five minutes? Which of course makes me the oldest son.’ He had a panther’s smile, predatory and white. ‘And, since I am, I’m going to claim the company, Constantine. Because you are not a fit man to run it.’

His smile widened and then his black gaze settled on me, burning far more fiercely than I remembered. Instead of the warm, comforting glow of a hearth fire, this was the wild heat of a forest blaze. ‘Oh, yes, and that pretty fiancée of yours? You’re not a fit man for her either, so she’ll be mine too. Then again, she always was, remember?’

No, he couldn’t be here.

He was dead. It had been a tragedy. A terrible tragedy. And I’d cried endless, dramatic tears at his funeral while Constantine had stood by the grave side, his face so pale it had looked as though it was carved from ice. And Domingo had been beside him, dominating the proceedings, a powerful, terrifying figure betraying no expression whatsoever. As if he hadn’t just lost a son.

The silence in the room was deafening, not that I’d have heard anything anyway, over the blood roaring in my ears.

He wasn’t dead, he was here, large as life and radiating an aura of menace that the boy I remembered had never had.

A hundred times as gorgeous too.

The heart I’d thought I’d buried all those years ago suddenly shuddered to life in my chest, like an old machine starting up. It was beating so hard it felt as if it was going to break all my ribs.

Desperately, I curled my fingers into my palms, my nails digging in, trying to find my poise, my usual strength.

‘What?’ Valentin asked sardonically. ‘Got nothing to say, Con? Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll think of plenty tomorrow. Especially when my lawyers contact you.’ His smile flickered like a flame. ‘So, how would you like to play this? In full view of everyone? Or would you prefer to discuss this in private? Either is fine with me, though I have to tell you now, I do like an audience.’

---