Page 6 of A Diamond for My Forbidden Bride

She’d assumed it was Constantine who’d taken her hand so naturally she’d be surprised to find it was me instead.

Her hand was cold, her fingers icy, and I remembered how she’d get cold after a swim in the sea, and I would take them in mine to warm them up. Once, I’d kissed the tips of her fingers and she’d laughed because it had tickled. She’d always had the most beautiful smile.

Except she wasn’t smiling now.

Not that I expected her to.

I’d let her think I was dead—I’d let everyone think I was dead—for the past fifteen years and so I hadn’t exactly anticipated being welcomed with open arms.

She certainly wouldn’t be happy when I got her back to my villa in the Maldives. But I’d deal with that later. Once she was there and safe, she’d have all the time in the world to yell at me.

First, though, I had to get her away from Constantine.

I’d planned this meticulously, right down to the very second I’d had my men cut the power, then I’d moved, crossing the space between us so it was my hand she’d grabbed in the darkness.

Me, leading her to safety.

I didn’t have time for explanations, not with Constantine’s security. I had to get her out of the mansion and with the least fuss possible before the confusion brought about by the power cut wore off and Constantine realised what had happened.

Yet even though I knew time was of the essence, for a second all I could do was stare at her, noting how changed she was.

She’d been fifteen the last time I’d seen her, all long, slender limbs and waist-length straight silver-blonde hair. A wildcat, yet with the sweetest smile I’d ever seen. My friend once, before she’d grown into something more.

She’d been so beautiful. The only thing I’d had in the hell of my childhood that had been mine.

Until Constantine had taken her from me.

Satisfaction was a cooling balm to the rage that had ignited inside me that moment six months ago when, during my daily press briefing, one of my staff had informed me that Constantine was now engaged to Olivia Wintergreen.

Well, he wouldn’t be engaged to her much longer.

Just as he’d no longer be inheriting Silver Incorporated.

He might have had a couple of years’ grace at being CEO if he hadn’t involved Olivia. But he had. And now he would have to deal with the consequences.

The fury I’d glimpsed in Olivia’s eyes just before I’d had the power killed leapt again, and she tried to jerk her hand away.

I tightened my grip. I didn’t want her running, not before I had a chance to secure her. I’d been forced to give her up all those years ago and I wasn’t going to let her be taken from me a second time.

‘For God’s sake, Valentin, what are you doing?’ she demanded, those diamond-bright eyes of hers flashing. ‘Let me go!’

Perhaps if I’d been kinder and more reassuring, gentler, things might have gone differently. But I wasn’t. Because the boy who’d once had all those qualities was dead. He’d died in that car accident all those years ago.

And someone else had taken his place.

I wasn’t Valentin Silvera any longer and I hadn’t been for fifteen years.

I’d left him behind in the wreckage of that burned-out car, along with some of my DNA, in an effort to finally escape that bastard Domingo once and for all.

Now I was just Val, CEO of a company that had its roots in the shadier of Europe’s crime networks, but was now straighter than an arrow, dealing with all kinds of security from tech to personnel to equipment.

And I wasn’t kind or gentle or reassuring any longer.

I smiled at Olivia, my bright little star. ‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m not letting you go. I’m not letting you go ever.’

Another woman might have been scared, but fear had never ruled Olivia before, and it didn’t now.

Temper glittered in her eyes, her pale cheeks flushing pink.

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