Page 87 of A Diamond Deal
His heart galloped.
Her kiss hadn’t been a hello or a goodbye.
It wasn’t a first or a last.
It was a promise.
A promise that she was here with him.
He’d promise the same.
‘Wewill be together.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Three Days Later…
Poppy fingered theflowers that made up the bodice of her dress. She hadn’t thought they’d pull it off in time, this design of hers. A wedding dress made of flowers. But they had. A dress she’d designed for herself. Designed for him to see her in it.
And here she stood, wearing it.
Her stomach cramped.
She placed her palm there, to the hurt. Closed her eyes. Shut out the eyes looking back at her from the three large ornate mirrors reflecting them from each angled surface.
Her reflection knew what she tried to hide from.
Her reflection remembered what it felt like to carry a secret.
It was heavy.
It was pain.
Oh, it had hurt the little girl she’d been to look at her mother every day and withhold the truth.
Did she really think she could do it again? Look at Konstantinos every day and hide this secret?
Today, standing in front of all of them, it would be a lie. A lie she would be promising to keep.
It would makehera liar for the rest of her life. If she did this today there would be no going back on her lie—her promise—to maintain the marriage they’d had.
They didn’t have the marriage they’d had. They were closer. She was…
She loved him.
She should have trusted her mother to do the right thing for both of them if she’d told her the truth about her dad.
Shedidtrust Konstantinos.
She trusted him to do the right thing.
For themboth.
She had to tell him the truth before they married and were held together by the secret she would have to keep hidden for the rest of her life.
Her love.
She opened her eyes; met the older eyes of the woman she’d become in the mirror.
