Italian’s Diamond Deception
Chapter One
Three years ago…
MIRABRAUN HADfinished her last exam and was determined to celebrate.
Unfortunately, she’d been so focused on attaining her degree, she didn’t have any friends to celebratewith. She didn’t even have flatmates. When she had been accepted at London Business School, she had bought a one-bedroom condo with money from her mother’s trust.
She had thought making an investment rather than throwing money away on rent would show her father she had business savvy, but he’d only been annoyed at her for making him call the trustee to set it up.
Lucky him, he wouldn’t have to do that anymore. As of her birthday last November, Mira had control of her own funds. Her father’s assistant had sent her flowers for that occasion, supposedly from him, but all Otto Braun had said about it was that they would discuss how she would move forward with administering her mother’s money.
He hadn’t even texted to congratulate her on finishing school, she noted with a glance at her phone and a pang of inadequacy. He hadn’t asked when she would return to Berlin. He hadn’t confirmed whether she would have a job at his firm or what role he would start her in.
What would it take to get him to notice her? To care? She had vague memories of him being, maybe not a warm father, but not such a cold one. Around the time she started school, however, he’d begun peppering her with the icy sleet of his critical remarks. What had she done to deserve it?
Stop it, she ordered herself. There was nothing worse than an adult woman with daddy issues. She knew her own worth. If she felt she was entitled to recognition and reward, she gave it to herself. She was doing that now, wasn’t she? Lounging by this rooftop pool atop one of London’s most exclusive hotels?
She’d had a massage and a foot bath and hot-stone therapy. Now, she was dozing between sips of cucumber water.
If she did have friends, they would laugh and say it was typical that she was celebrating alone, without so much as a glass of champagne, in a way that involved the least amount of conversation and other people. She hadn’t even cracked the weighty historical romance she’d brought.
Mira was actually a massive introvert who didn’t know how to relate to people. A counsellor might blame her father’s indifference or the loss of her mother, who had passed right before Mira had started university, caught in a flash flood while traveling. It had been a horrific shock and Mira still missed her, but that wasn’t the reason she felt as though she was out of step with the rest of the human race. She just did and always had.
That usually made her anxious, but today, for the first time in forever, she was truly relaxed. It was late afternoon, midweek. She had the place to herself. The only sound was the gentle, new-age instrumental that drowned out the distant noise of traffic. Her lounger was under a roof supported by columns at the pool’s edge. Her legs were touched by the slant of sun. The day was warm enough that she opened her robe and shrugged out of the sleeves. She wore only the bandeau bikini she had put on in case she decided to step into the pool.
She might fall asleep first. This wasperfect.
The low hum at the door into the hotel announced someone else had arrived. Crap. The peacefulness had been nice while it lasted.
The door quietly thumped closed, then there was a faint sound of something being set on one of the glass-topped tables.
She opened her heavy eyelids to slits, wishing she’d thought to bring her sunglasses and planning to pretend she was asleep so she wouldn’t have to talk to whoever it was.
Oh. A man appeared in her line of vision. He ran his fingers beneath the legs of his navy blue briefs, snapping them a fraction of a centimeter lower on the firm curve of his buttocks. The rest of his tanned, muscular body wore only the droplets of water from his recent shower.
Without noticing her, he stood on the No Diving letters and sprang out like an arrow, clearing the shallow end and cutting in where the deep end started. He stayed under until he turned at the wall, then he surfaced and began to swim laps. His strokes were powerful enough that he seemed to levitate across the surface rather than push through the water. It took only three or four strokes before he was flipping and going back the other way.
Mira was mesmerized by his even tempo and the casual way his feet flipped up at the wall each time. He only seemed to take a breath once each lap and his movements were so graceful, he was genuinely beautiful to watch.
She never stared at people. She hated when it happened to her, but she was only appreciating his power and athleticism. She wasn’toglingthose long, tanned arms or his flexing back, or the arc of his buttocks and the muscles on the backs of his thighs.
Even so, a curious sensuality unspooled in her. A restlessness that had her shifting her feet to feel the softness of her insteps with the tops of her toes. Her hand touched her hair in its clip, then absently drifted down her nape and into the hollow of her throat. Her breasts felt constrained and her thoughts took a turn that was deeply unlike her.
How would it feel to make love with him?
She’d never even had sex, so it wasn’t as though she had anything for comparison. The few dates she’d been on had been awkward occasions that caused her so much anxiety, she had felt like a robot pretending to be human. She’d been incapable of decent conversation or allowing more than a brief kiss.
Until today, she’d never looked at anyone and felt tendrils of intrigue quicken her blood. She had never, ever eyed up a man’s bulge and curled her toes in reaction, but that’s what happened when this stranger flipped into a backstroke. She couldn’t take her eyes off the width of his chest as he rocked back and forth, long arms windmilling up and back, stretching out his abs with each stroke. His thick thighs kicked in a way that made his hips pump and shorten her breath.
This was so—
Inappropriate.
She forced herself to reach for her water and stared into it as she sipped to dampen her dry throat.
She was still hyperaware of the stranger, though. The muted splashing, the relentless pattern of him driving from end to end like a tiger pacing his cage.
