Satin and a Scandalous Affair (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
Satin and a Scandalous Affair by Jan Colley. Copyright 2008 by Janet Colley.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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ONE (CONT'D)

Hopeful that the lick of attraction she felt wasn’t written all over her face, she cleared her throat. “A proposition for me? April Fools was a couple of days ago.”

“I want you to design a setting for a large and very special diamond.”

This was very satisfying. The great Quinn Everard wanted her, Dani Hammond, to make him a diamond necklace.

Oh, but there was that one small problem. They hated each other.

She raised her head. “No.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Diamonds aren’t really my specialty.” His words, aimed at her four years ago at the prestigious Young Designer of the Year Award competition, the one everyone tipped her to win, came back to her. He’d said something along the lines of “A jewellery designer should stick to what she knows and is comfortable with. Ms. Hammond may have cut her teeth on diamonds, but she has little flair and understanding of the essence of the stones.”

That wasn’t the only public dressing-down Dani had received from Quinn Everard. She’d assumed it was because of the spat between he and Howard years ago.

“Remember?” she asked sweetly, and received a coolly assessing gaze in response. How could he sit there in his gazillion-thread suit and not melt?

“I am offering a generous commission.”

Now, that was interesting... “How generous?” A little extra cash and she could make the final payment on her loan from Howard. Of course, she’d repay his estate, since he’d died earlier in the year. Generous enough to include some new display cabinets, maybe? A face-lift for the tired signage?

Quinn took out what looked to be a solid-gold pen, wrote something on the business card and turned it around so she could see.

A surprised cough escaped and she jerked her head up at the numbers on the business card. “You want to pay me that to make you a piece of jewellery?”

He nodded.

The amount was obscene. Damn the spruce-up. This could be the deposit for the bigger, more modern and vacant premises two doors down.

“That’s way over the odds. You know that.”

“Yes or no?”

She shook her head, positive she was the butt of someone’s joke. “The answer’s no.”

Quinn leaned back, not attempting to cover his displeasure. “You and your family have endured quite a bit of unwelcome publicity lately, haven’t you? Howard’s death three months ago. Not to mention his companion on the plane.”

Tell her something she didn’t know. No one survived when the flight Howard Blackstone had chartered to take him to Auckland one night in January, plunged into the sea. When it turned out Marise Hammond was on board, the media were beside themselves. Marise was married to Howard’s arch enemy, Matt Hammond, head of House of Hammond, an antique and fine jewellery company in New Zealand. Matt was also Dani’s cousin, although they’d never met because of the feud between Howard and the Hammonds that spanned three decades.

The reading of Howard’s will a month later rocked the family to its core. Marise was named as a substantial beneficiary and a trust fund was set up for her son, Blake, giving rise to the assumption that Marise and Howard were having an affair. Who was Blake’s true father, everyone wanted to know, Howard Blackstone or Matt Hammond? All the old family history and hostility had been bandied around for months.

Despite a growing anxiety, Dani feigned nonchalance. “So?”

“And poor Ric and Kimberley,” he continued. “They must have been bummed when the TV cameras crashed their wedding.”

That was an understatement. Dani grew up in Howard Blackstone’s mansion, along with her mother and cousins, Kimberley and Ryan. Kim had recently remarried her ex-husband, Ric Perrini. Their lavish wedding on a yacht in Sydney Harbour was nearly ruined when the media sent in helicopters.

What did Quinn Everard know about that?

“I haven’t officially met Ryan,” Quinn resumed, “but I do know Jessica slightly. I think she’ll make a lovely bride, don’t you?”

She opened her mouth to agree, then snapped it closed. Ryan and Jessica had recently announced their engagement, but the wedding details were a closely guarded family secret.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said warily.

Ryan was the most private of people. That’s why he’d asked Dani to help arrange a secret ceremony up here, away from the Sydney gossip-mongers. Port Douglas was an excellent choice. Chances were, the family members wouldn’t be recognised, and there were any number of world-class venues and caterers to choose from. With Dani’s help, arrangements for the perfect intimate wedding in three weeks’ time were well under way.

“Really?” Quinn mused. “There are some lovely beaches up here, aren’t there? I hear Oak Hill is nice.”

Dani’s heart sank. He couldn’t possibly have found out. Almost everything had been confirmed and all participants sworn to secrecy. “Your information is out of date, Mr. Everard,” she lied. “There won’t be a wedding in Port Douglas, after all. That was just a ploy to get everyone off the scent.”

“A ploy? My source seems adamant that on the twentieth of April, the van Berhopt Resort is staging a very special event. It looks fantastic on the Web site, just the place for an intimate, discreet family wedding.”

She heard the sound of her own teeth grinding. “How the hell did you know that?”

He tapped his nose. “The diamond world is surprisingly small.”

Dani knew when her back was against the wall. “That’s blackmail,” she muttered.

He shrugged, all traces of amusement gone. “It’s business, Ms. Hammond. Are you so successful you can afford to turn down a commission of this size?”

Intimidation really got her back up. “Do your worst.” She pushed her glass away and picked up her purse. This was precisely why she had chosen to live up here, away from the city gossip. “The Blackstones and I are used to media attention.” Howard’s womanising and close-to-the-edge business dealings guaranteed that.

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