The Diamond Affair (17 page)

But just as
suddenly as he'd jumped on her, he let go and stepped back. "Jesus. Ruby."
He swore loudly.

She bent over,
holding her sides and trying to suck in oxygen but it felt like there wasn't
enough going around.

"Here."
Jake came up behind her and placed both hands at her sides, near her breasts,
pulling her up. "Stand up straight like this. It helps the air flow."

She nodded. She
could feel the difference already. After a few deep breaths, she was back to
normal. She wanted to turn around and ask him what the hell he'd thought he was
doing but he was holding her tightly and pulling her back against his chest. She
didn't want to move. To hell with fingering blame—he'd obviously thought she
was an intruder, either from his nightmare or his real life, and had done what
he usually did under those circumstances. Fought.

"I'm sorry,"
he whispered in her ear. "You okay?"

She nodded and
pressed her head back against his bare chest. His heart beat erratically and
loudly, in time with hers, fusing both their bodies with the rhythm. He slid
his hands from her sides around to her stomach and folded them there, holding
her against him.

It felt so good. So
right. Just the two of them in the darkness and each other's arms, anchored to
the spot and not going anywhere. Not wanting to.

"I'm sorry,"
he whispered again.

His arms
tightened around her but she managed to turn a little. She brought up a hand to
his cheek and lifted it so she could see his face. His eyes shone like deep,
dark wells in the night as they watched her, perhaps not yet trusting that she
was all right.

"I'm okay,"
she assured him. "Are you?"

He let out a
shuddering breath. "Think I'll be fine again in a minute."

She smiled and
turned fully in his arms so she was facing him. He still held her but not so
tightly, not as if she would fall down if he let her go. She lowered her hand
from his cheek to his mouth and caressed the top lip with her thumb. It was the
perfect shape. Plump and bow-like, gently curving out to the ends. She just
had
to kiss it.

So she did. Softly,
testing at first. He kissed her back, tentative, perhaps afraid he might hurt
her again. But then she, or perhaps it was he, deepened the kiss.

He groaned and
picked her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. He lowered her gently and
broke the kiss long enough to help her out of her pajamas, then he stripped off
his shorts and lay beside her. His fingertips caressed her breasts, her
stomach, her thighs. His mouth followed, planting tiny kisses over her skin,
sometimes licking or nipping.

"I'm sorry,"
he murmured again as his hand went south.

"Stop saying
that. I told you, I'm fine."

"Not for
that, for this. I want you so much. But it's so wrong. I don't want to hurt you
but...I can't stay. I can't be with you beyond these few days. You understand,
don't you?"

She understood. She
hated it, but she was beginning to realize it wasn't about her. But she didn't
want to think beyond the moment because she'd never felt so alive, so
beautiful
as she had in the arms of this man. She reached down and stroked his erection.

He sucked air
between his teeth then let out a strangled groan. "Ahhh, Ruby, you don't
play fair." He pressed a finger to her moist curls and began to rub but
she nudged him away.

"I want you
inside me," she whispered. "I want to be as close to you as I
possibly can."

He shifted so he
was lying on top of her but somehow not putting his weight on her. Then he
kissed her, capturing her gasps as he entered her.

He set a slow,
easy pace that seemed to last all night until they both collapsed onto the bed
in each others arms. Ruby's last thought before falling asleep was that their
love making had felt like a farewell.

CHAPTER 14

As dawn cracked
over the horizon, Jake left Ruby sleeping in his bed. She looked so beautiful
and peaceful with her hair tumbling over his pillow and her face relaxed in
slumber. She'd been through so much, she needed to rest as long as possible. He'd
got up without even allowing himself a final touch of her silky skin. It was
hard, but he'd employed every bit of his infamous self-control and managed it.

He did take one last
look at her, however, as he left the room. His heart twisted and clenched at
the sight. The thought that he'd never meet anyone like her again struck him
like a hammer blow to the chest. She affected him in a way no other woman ever
had. She made him feel...whole.

He pushed away
the thought and left in case she awoke. There was no room for sentimental crap
in his world. No room for soft, sensuous, steal-your-heart women like Ruby.

Besides, he
couldn't risk facing her right now. Not when he was still affected by their
lovemaking, still weak and still wanting her so bad that it felt like torture
to leave.

But he had to
walk away. He couldn't risk loving her and losing her the way he'd lost
everyone else. His parents, who'd never really deserved his love but had taken
it anyway, and those Afghani kids he'd tried desperately to save but couldn't.

He went out for a
run to clear his mind and sweat the frustrations out of his body. It would have
been a good plan if it had worked. He arrived back at the house more irritable
than when he'd left.

Ruby was up. She
was making herself breakfast in the kitchen. Relief flittered across her face
and she pressed a hand to her chest as if to still her heartbeat. Maybe he
should have left her a note.

"Sorry,"
he said. He seemed to be saying that word a lot lately. "I thought you'd
still be asleep when I got back."

"It's okay."
She looked away, avoiding him. He got the feeling she was very far from okay. Did
she think he'd left of his own accord or that something sinister had happened
to him?

"Toast?"
she offered.

"Thanks."
They ate in silence then he took a shower. The cold water dampened desire and
sharpened his focus. From now on, it had to be all about the mission. It was
time to reclaim Ruby's life for her. It was the only way he could give her some
of the happiness she deserved.

When he came out,
she wasn't in the kitchen, the lounge room or her bedroom. He called her name,
perhaps a little too frantically because she immediately answered him from a
distant room. A study, he realized when he entered. She was on the computer.

"I'm
Googling Sinestri." She looked up and her eyes narrowed as her gaze grazed
over his body. She cleared her throat. "Go put more clothes on." She turned
back to the computer.

When he returned,
T-shirt on, she was writing something on a notepad. "Find anything?"
he asked, pulling up a chair alongside her. They were so close their shoulders
touched. He shifted an inch further away.

She wriggled in
her seat before clicking on a link. "Not much. He's turned up in news
articles relating to the theft of a rare gem in Europe but as an expert
witness, not a suspect. There's a court document that also mentions his name. It
seems he worked for the Italian Gemological Institute which is a research unit
dedicated to the identification of diamonds and other gems. That's just before
he formed his own company, so he probably got many of his contacts from there. He's
been in Australia for five years, which I knew. That's about it."

"Strange to
come to Australia when there'd be more business in Europe for his line of work."

"Maybe he
had a different reason for returning. It seems he was born here so perhaps he
wanted to return to his family, look after elderly parents or something."

Like any good son
would. Jake shrugged off the thought. "Anything else?"

"There are
thousands more links. It'll take forever to look through them all."

"Try
Facebook. Do you have an account?"

Within a few
seconds she was in, her slender fingers swiftly typing. "Here we go."
They scanned Sinestri's page together so they saw his "friend's" name
at the same time.

Jake's breath
caught at the moment Ruby gasped. "Sonya!" they both said.

He quickly
scanned the timeline and spotted a message she'd left a month ago.

I was searching
for a few old friends and found you on here. What a wonderful surprise! I had
no idea you were living in Melbourne! It must be fate. I've been thinking a lot
about you lately. Want to catch up?

"He hasn't
left a response," Ruby said.

"Must have
got in touch with her some other way. We know they did end up together."

"Old lovers?"

He shrugged. "Could
be."

"
I've
been thinking a lot about you lately
," she read. "To me that
means they had a past that had nothing to do with business."

"Why don't
you Google both their names together. It might narrow the results."

She did. It came
up with nothing. "Do you know her maiden name?"

He searched his
memory for the information his friends had sent him. "I think it was
Blackthorn."

She replaced
Sonya Beauvoir with Sonya Blackthorn. Only five results were returned. She
clicked on the first one. "That's them!" She pointed at an image of a
couple sitting at a park bench and staring into each other's eyes. The website
was in Italian but their names were clearly recognizable in the caption.

"It looks
like they were lovers, but I wish I knew what the site was saying about them"
she said.

Jake quickly
scanned the heading and the first few paragraphs. "It's a where-are-they-now
type of website. It seems Sonya did some modeling and TV commercials in Italy
which got her face into the society pages over there for a while. Sinestri was
her boyfriend at the time."

"You know
Italian?" She sounded surprised, and dare he say it, impressed. It was a
small thing and he shouldn't have been pleased by her praise but he couldn't
help it.

"I learnt it
as part of SAS training. The more languages you know, the better your career
prospects in the forces."

She nodded. "Matt
learned German."

"According
to this site," he said, forcing his focus back to what was important and
not the breathiness of her voice or the smell of her hair, "they were
talking marriage, but the relationship broke up just before he moved to
Australia."

"Is Sonya a born
and bred Aussie?"

"It says so."

"She must
have come back here a short time after him and married Beauvoir." She
chewed her bottom lip and he was nearly undone by that one sensual gesture. Not
kissing her was becoming harder than any training he'd ever endured. "I
wonder if Sinestri knew."

"That,"
he said, "is something I intend to find out."

He stood and so
did she. "I'm coming. Don't argue with me," she said when he opened
his mouth to protest. "Don't worry, I'll wear the disguise."

And he'd carry
his gun.

***

After two minutes
of ringing the doorbell and knocking, it was clear Harry Sinestri wasn't home. Ruby's
disappointment tasted bitter in her mouth. When they got back to the car, she took
her frustration out on the dashboard.

"Hey,"
Jake said quietly, "we'll come back later. Don't worry, we'll get to the
bottom of this. We're close. I can feel it."

"Glad you
can, because all I feel is anger." And a kind of sadness that had nothing
to do with finding out who really stole the Florentine and everything to do
with Jake leaving.

She thought he'd
left her that morning. He'd seemed so distant after their love-making that she'd
wondered whether he'd just up and left. But when he returned, common sense came
flooding back, albeit a little late. He'd never leave her, not like this, not
when she needed him so much. She knew that with absolute certainty.

But he
would
leave, eventually. The closer they came to finding the real thief, the closer
they came to parting. It was a simple, awful correlation.

She closed her
eyes and rested her head back against the seat.

"Hey,"
he said again. "Just hang in there a while longer. I'll get you out of
this, I promise."

She smiled wanly.
It was the best she could do. "Thank you. You're the best friend Matt
could ever have."

He grunted and
put the car into gear. "I'm pretty sure my slate will be wiped clean after
this little escapade." He gave her a rueful smile.

"If it's
not, he must have done one hell of a favor for you."

His smile vanished.
"Yeah," he said softly, "he sure did."

The phone rang. He
pulled over to the side of the road to answer it but after he looked at the
screen, he handed it to Ruby. "Is that Aaron's number?"

She nodded.

"Answer it,"
he said. "Arrange a time and place to meet as soon as possible if you can."