Pursued (The Diamond Tycoons 2) (13 page)

After giving her one more kiss—he couldn’t resist—he climbed to his feet. Which was no easy task considering the pain he was in after spending the night on that ridiculous sofa of Desi’s.

If he didn’t know any better, he would think Desi had bought the thing for the sole purpose of making him as uncomfortable as possible. Except it wasn’t as if furniture stores just had these things lying around. No way could she have gotten it there on such short notice. Which meant, unbelievably, that she actually liked the thing.

“I’ll be home around seven,” he told her after hustling into the bathroom and grabbing his shirt off the back of the door. He buttoned it up as he slipped his feet into his dress shoes, then grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door.

He changed course at the last second, detouring to the kitchen to drop another quick kiss on Desi’s lips. “If I’m going to be late, I’ll text you.”

“I actually have a gala to cover tonight, so I won’t be here when you get back.”

“A gala? Where?”

“SeaWorld. It’s for Save Our Oceans—a lot of Hollywood types are supposed to be there as well as the business elite.”

“Save Our Oceans—that’s a good cause.” He raised a brow. “Want a date?”

“A date? You mean, you really want to come?”

“Well, the last gala we attended ended pretty well, I think. So, yes. I do want to go.”

She laughed. “I’m not going to have sex with you on the balcony at SeaWorld.”

“A guy can dream.” He pulled open the front door. “I’ll send the helicopter for you and we can meet up at the gala. Sound good?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

He didn’t like the uncertainty in her voice. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just… I’ve never been in a helicopter before.”

“Oh, right. Would you rather drive? I can send a car for you—”

“I’m a big girl, Nic. I am more than capable of driving myself to San Diego. That’s how I met you, after all.”

“I’ve never once doubted your capabilities. I just thought I’d have a car bring you down, we could spend the night at my place and in the morning I’ll fly with you back to LA. The first time you ride in a helicopter shouldn’t be by yourself. There’s no fun in that.”

“But what about you? You’re working in San Diego tomorrow, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but the helicopter has to fly back to San Diego anyway. I’ll catch a ride.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’ll catch a ride?”

“Okay, fine, I’ll make them give me a ride.” He glanced down as his phone beeped with a text. The pilot telling him they were waiting for him—as if he hadn’t heard the noise of the approach. “I’ve got to go,” he told her, “before all your neighbors revolt. Does the plan sound good to you?”

“Yes, the plan works, Mr. CEO.”

“I think you’ve got me confused with my brother. I’m CCO. It’s a very different thing.”

He ducked out before she decided to throw something at him, and as he closed the door behind him, he couldn’t help thinking that Desi was right. It did sound good. And so did everything else about their arrangement at the moment. Well, everything except that damn couch.

Thirteen

H
e’d sent a limo for her. An actual limousine, long and black with tinted windows and a driver in a full suit. And not one of those rental limousines, either—no, this limo belonged to Bijoux, and was at the disposal of the Durand brothers only. She knew that because she’d asked the driver, who had been more than happy to wax poetic about his employers.

Of course he had. Everyone
loved
Marc and Nic Durand. Everyone except her, she assured herself as she uneasily settled into the plush leather seats. She was woman enough to admit how wrong about them she’d been when she’d taken the word of a source who was more disgruntled employee than whistle-blower. She was even woman enough to admit that she liked Nic—he was pretty impossible
not
to like, after all, considering how kind and charming and supportive he was being.

But that didn’t mean that she loved him. And it certainly didn’t mean that she was on her way to falling
in love
with him. She barely knew the man after all.

And if that wasn’t strictly true—if she knew his favorite color and how he liked to walk barefoot on the beach at midnight and that he gave huge amounts of his money away to those less fortunate and that he believed in standing up even when no one else would and that he liked his coffee with the teeniest drop of cream in it—well, that
really
wasn’t
that
much to know about a person, was it? It certainly wasn’t enough to make her fall in love with him when she had sworn she would never do that. With anyone. Ever.

Nic Durand could be as charming as he wanted to be, could do a million wonderful things for her and their child, and it still wouldn’t matter, Desi assured herself. There was no way she would let any of that sway her from her course, no way she would let herself soften, let herself forget. No way she would let herself depend on him. Because that didn’t work for her—it never had. Never would. The moment she started to believe someone cared about her, that the person wouldn’t leave her—boom. That’s exactly what happened.

So, no. There would be no falling for Nic, she told herself again as the limo made its way through the streets of LA before turning onto the freeway. Yes, he was living with her. Yes, they were incredibly sexually compatible, and yes, she was having his baby—but that was all there was. It was enough. More than enough. Trying for anything else would only end with one—or both—of them getting hurt.

The thought depressed her so much that she closed her eyes and willed herself not to think about it anymore. Nic had been living with her for only twenty-four hours, had been back in her life for only one week, yet the idea of him walking out of her life one day soon bothered her more than she would ever be comfortable with.

It had been a crazy day, and it wasn’t long before the motion of the car had her drifting off to sleep. She’d planned on only dozing—wanting to be alert enough to answer if Nic texted her—but the next thing she knew, they were pulling into the massive SeaWorld parking lot. She reached for her phone and the directions she’d downloaded earlier on how to get to the pavilion, but the driver seemed to know exactly where he was going as he wound his way to the private entrance.

When they arrived, she thanked the driver profusely and tried to tip him, but of course he wouldn’t take her money. Desi shook her head ruefully as she climbed out of the car. Having Nic around to take care of her was going to ruin her if she wasn’t careful.

A glance at her phone showed she hadn’t missed any texts from Nic, but then again, she’d made it to San Diego earlier than expected. She set her phone to recorder mode—which was one of the ways she kept track of who was talking to whom and what they were wearing while they were doing it—then followed the pathway up to the pavilion’s main door.

Once she was checked in, she walked through the venue, scoping it out. She’d never been to a charity ball here before, and as she walked in the door, she was charmed to see the huge aquariums that surrounded the room on all sides. The decor was very much “under the sea,” which was to be expected, considering the charity benefiting from the night’s gala. The aquariums blended in beautifully.

She took quiet note of who was already there—not a lot of people yet whom her readers would be interested in—then made her way to the aquariums. She wanted to see the fish. She could imagine the beginning of her piece starting with the fish and expanding to the oceans and then the purpose of the gala. The society reporter before her used to focus exclusively on the glitterati, but Desi had gotten in the habit of giving her readers a little more of the atmosphere and charity angle before launching into the who’s who.

So far her readers seemed to like it. Or, at least, they hadn’t complained about it, so she’d take a win where she could get it.

Especially after her debacle with the Bijoux article. Her cheeks heated as she once again thought of how badly she’d messed up that whole thing. She’d spent much of last week going over her notes, trying to see where she’d gone wrong in vetting the source, but everything had checked out. Everything had seemed fine…right up until it had all fallen apart.

She still didn’t understand how she had made such a terrible mistake.

Malcolm told her it was because her nose wasn’t developed yet—he was always going on about how all the great investigative reporters had a nose for a story…and a nose for the truth. When she was little, before her mother had died and her father had bugged out for parts unknown, her dad used to say the same thing. But he’d told her she had that nose. That she was going to be a great reporter.

And though he’d disappointed her in a lot of different ways through the years, she’d never doubted him when it came to that. Probably because she hadn’t wanted to doubt him. Hadn’t wanted to acknowledge that the one tenuous thing that held them together was nothing but a lie.

As she stood staring at a particularly beautifully arranged aquarium—filled with orange clownfish and yellow-and-blue angelfish swimming amid bright pink, yellow-and-blue sea anemones—she was hit with the most awful thought yet. What if she didn’t really want to be a reporter? What if she’d done all this—busted her butt at the top journalism school in the nation, worked her heart out to land the worst job at one of the most prestigious papers in the country—not because she actually wanted to be a journalist, but because she’d been so desperate to get her father’s attention, to make him love her, that she’d made herself into a person she thought he would want?

It hadn’t worked. Not that it was exactly a surprise—from the moment her mother had died, Desi had ceased to exist for her father. Then again, everything had ceased to exist except his job. He’d shuffled her from relative to relative, exhausting their hospitality while he chased stories overseas.

And where had that gotten them? He was dead and she was in the middle of this ballroom, taking notes about rich people and wondering if maybe her whole life up until this point had been a lie. Not exactly a stellar year for either of them, if she did say so herself.

Her soul-searching was cut off when a familiar male voice asked, “Sparkling water?”

She turned to see Nic, a glass of champagne in one hand and a glass of sparkling water in the other. He was dressed in a different tuxedo from the one he’d been wearing the night she met him, but he still looked absolutely gorgeous. Absolutely devastating. Or maybe it was just that she was devastated. She couldn’t tell. All she knew was she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms, burrow into his chest and pretend that everything was going to be okay.

“You look thirsty,” he told her, holding out one of the glasses with a quirk of his eyebrow.

And because she knew he would take her mind off everything that was whirling in her brain—and because she knew a perfect setup when she saw one—she took the glass from him. Then she looked over the rim and delivered her line. “Funny, I was just about to say the same thing about you.”

“Were you?” he asked with the crooked grin she had come to love. “Well, you wouldn’t be wrong.”

She went off script then, tapping his glass. “You should probably drink up, then.”

“Oh, I intend to. In fact—” He paused suddenly, his eyes darkening to the mossy green shade she loved the most. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing at all,” she lied. “Why?”

“Something is,” he told her as he searched her face. He was frowning now, all levity replaced by concern.

How could he tell?
she wondered a little wildly, even as she calmly met his gaze. She’d learned a long time ago to keep her emotions tucked deep inside, so deep that sometimes even she forgot they were there. So how did he know?

“I can see it,” he said, and for one crazy moment she thought he had read her mind. But then she realized he was reacting to her denial…and the upset she obviously wasn’t as good at hiding as she’d thought she was.

“Here.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, rubbed his thumb gently over the skin just beyond the curve of her mouth. “Your dimple’s gone. That only happens when you’re upset.”

No one had ever seen that before—not even her. She’d gone through most of her adult life thinking she was one of the very few people who didn’t have a tell, thinking she had hidden herself deeply enough that there was nothing for anyone to see.

And then Nic had come along and blown that idea right out of the water when they’d barely known each other a week. How did he do it? How did he see her when she couldn’t even see herself?

“Desi?” he urged, stepping closer. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing—”

“Don’t do that. Don’t pretend with me.”

“I’m not. I swear.” And to her astonishment, she wasn’t. Because right then, in that moment, standing in his arms, she
was
okay. More okay than she’d been in a very long time. “It’s just been a crazy day. But I’m good now.”

She could tell from the look in his eyes that he understood what she hadn’t been able to say—that being with him had made her okay—but he didn’t push it. He didn’t say anything at all. Instead, he dropped his glass of champagne on the tray of a passing waiter and pulled her into his arms.

“Is this the part where you ask me to dance?” she teased, more than ready to clear her head of painful thoughts.

“Actually, this is the part where I whisk you outside and ravish you.” But contrary to his words, he swept her onto the almost empty dance floor, spinning her around to the beat of some old-time song she recognized but couldn’t name.

“I thought I told you earlier that we weren’t making love on the balcony this time.”

He laughed, bending his head to drop a soft, sweet,
sexy
kiss on her shoulder. “Yes, but I checked. No balcony.”

She laughed then, too—she couldn’t help it. No matter how awful her mood was, Nic always found a way to make things better.

“So I’ll take that as a yes?” he asked blithely.

“Take it as a maybe,” she answered.

He quirked a brow. “
Maybe’s
not
no
.”

“No, it isn’t.” She held on while he twirled them around. “But it’s not yes, ei—” She broke off midsentence, gasping and clinging to him as he suddenly lifted her up and spun her around.

“Let go,” he said as he gently moved her away from his body. And though it went against every instinct she had, Desi did what he said for once. And then laughed her head off as he spun her all the way out before reeling her back in with a quick snap of his wrist.

She felt it happen right then—in the middle of the dance floor at a fancy gala that he belonged at and she certainly didn’t. Desi felt herself slide headfirst into love with Nic Durand.

She spent the evening breaking all the rules. Instead of blending into the background and observing the wealthy and sometimes famous, she allowed herself to be introduced to them. To be drawn into conversations with them. Then again, it wasn’t as if she had a choice.

Being Nic Durand’s date meant being surrounded by people all the time. She wasn’t the only one who loved him, after all. He might be new to Southern California’s high society, but Nic had the kind of personality people gravitated to—and the billions of dollars at his disposal only added to his appeal. But even without the money, he was one of those guys everyone wanted to be friends with. Larger than life, funny as hell, handsome as all get out—and nice to boot. What was there not to love? God knew, she’d tried and look where it had gotten her.

Still, she couldn’t quite believe that she was in the thick of things—wasn’t sure that she wanted to be, if she was honest. When she’d agreed to taking him as her date, she’d kind of planned to still do the wallflower thing. Sure, she’d known he’d attract attention, but she thought that would only make it easier for her to blend in to the crowds.

But Nic wasn’t okay with her blending in to the background. Actually, he wasn’t okay with her being more than two feet from him all night. Not in a creepy, possessive kind of way that would have made her champ at the bit—and probably deck him before the night was over—but in the concerned, solicitous way that said he was looking out for her. And that he was proud to have her by his side.

And so she found herself making miles of mental notes about who was doing what with whom—and what they were wearing while they were doing it. Twice, she slipped away to ostensibly use the bathroom only to spend the time hiding in a corner and talking into her recorder as fast as she could.

Not that she was talking to these people under false pretenses—everyone Nic introduced her to was told she worked for the
Los Angeles Times
and was covering the party for their society pages. But the thing was, no one seemed to care. At least that she could tell, no one acted any differently toward her at all.

At least until she met Marc Durand.

From the moment she locked eyes with Nic’s brother, she knew she was in trouble. And she couldn’t even say that she didn’t deserve it, because she totally did. He was the CEO of Bijoux, the man she had almost accused in print of lying, cheating, stealing and helping to fund the most egregious human rights violations. Was it any wonder he was looking at her as if he wanted to take her apart tiny piece by tiny piece? And then feed those tiny pieces to one of the sharks swimming in the tanks just beyond the pavilion?