Page 8 of Gold Mine (The Diamond Trilogy 2)
I used every contact, every resource, every goddamn method of finding someone, but she was untraceable. Disappeared. In my darker moments, I was afraid that she had died. That’s why I couldn’t find her. She was buried at the bottom of a lake somewhere, like my mother.
Then the book came out, and I read about how the tooth fairy, expelled from her community of other fairies, heartbroken from losing her only human friend, wandered the world. She sold handmade trinkets for cash from tourists, acting always as the native, even though she never belonged. Never belonged anywhere, really. Cash. Trinkets are a cash business, and she paid for her purchases the same way. A coastal town. Some references to an Italian church.
It had been enough for me to finally find her.
The SUV bumps along at an incline, and I know we’re beginning the long climb up the Amalfi coast. There was enough time between reading the book and finding her for me to purchase a small house. A small fortress. It overlooks an expanse of blue—the ocean, the sky. Hardly any land. Sometimes I think she’ll like the lemon trees in the yard. Other times I imagine her beating herself against the confines of the cage, breaking her bones like a small, wild bird.
“Are you taking me back to Paris?” she asks.
I shake my head.
“Then where?”
She may not realize it, but there’s trust in her voice. Like pebbles at the bottom of a lake. I can fish them out, start building something strong again. I broke her trust once. After we escaped the prison I tried to hold her in again, to keep her as my own, very safe captive. I’ll be more careful this time around. More careful to make her believe she’s free.
I’m not my father. I don’t want to hold her captive. I want her to be with me of her own free will. It’s only that I can’t take the risk. What if she decides to walk away?
I can’t hold her captive.
I can’t let her leave.
The contradiction is tearing me apart.
“A place I bought for you and your sister to stay until I take care of things with Ian Taggart. He’s too dangerous for you to deal with, and after tonight, he’ll be pissed.”
“Pissed,” she says, her voice hollow. “My sister—”
“Will be safe in the house. It’s your job to make sure she stays put.” And in doing so, it means that she has to stay put. Yes, that’s the secret to keeping Holly. Her sister.
“That means you need the diamonds.”
“I don’t need the diamonds to pay off Ian Taggart.” I have my own money, as well as my own methods of persuasion to make sure he leaves the Frank women alone.
“Well, I don’t want them.”
“You can use them to decorate your T-shirts. Your yoga pants.”
She glances down at her glittering ball gown. “You knew?”
“I know when a woman’s wearing a million dollars in diamonds, yes. Though I am curious about your plan with Taggart. Were you planning on stripping naked in the ball?”
She reaches back and tugs on a few silken ties. The elaborate gown slips from her shoulders, revealing a black sheath dress that hugs her slender body. God, she would have caused a riot in this thing. I’m rock hard just looking at her, my bodily response impossible to control.
She tosses the dress aside. “Good lord, that thing was heavy.”
“The problem isn’t the diamonds. The problem is the coke.”
Her arms freeze in midair where she’d been shaking them out. Slowly she puts her hands on her lap. “My sister is recovering from her problem.”
“Your sister needs professional help.”
“She doesn’t want a rehab center.”
Frustration flares inside me. “So you’re going to become an addiction counselor, is that it? Anything she needs? What if what she really needs is a dealer?”
“I won’t let her slip.”
“This is taking things too far.”
“She’s family. You wouldn’t understand.”
We both freeze, and it takes me a moment to understand the sensation in my chest. Pain. She managed to hurt me, when I didn’t think I had emotions left.
For a long time I had no family.
“I’m sorry,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean that.”
“Yes, you did. And a year ago you would have been right. I didn’t know my family. I didn’t want to care about anyone. But I’ve gotten to know them, my brother Liam. His ward, Samantha. My other brother Josh. I would do a lot for them, even die for them, but I can’t live for them.”
“I’m not doing that. I’m helping London through a hard spot.”
“And you won’t stop helping until one of you ends up dead.”
She glares at me. “That’s not your problem.”
“Oh yes it is.” I grab her and drag her back onto my lap. Without the heavy fabric, the hard, little diamonds between us, it’s like holding her naked. The silk does nothing to hide her breasts, her stomach, her hips. Lust turns me into something else, something baser. An animal. It’s taking over and winning. “You made it my problem when you fucking ran from me.”
