When Only Diamonds Will Do by Lindsay Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page A

his arms and sat up ‘—that I’m going to do it.’
    His lips twisted and he looked down at her quizzically. ‘No?’
    She shook her head. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
    ‘Does that mean to say I’m on a promise?’
    She chuckled and leant back against him, growing serious. ‘What I mean is, I think we need to know each other better.’ She paused. And suddenly realized that she meant it. This uncertainty about what he felt for her and vice versa—about what would become of them—had become like an emotional roller coaster for her and she had to find a way to get off.
    ‘What would you like me to know about you?’ he queried.
    ‘I would like,’ she said somewhat darkly, ‘not to be classified as a spoilt socialite, a ditsy redhead or—at least you can’t accuse me of being a dumb blonde—’
    He interrupted her by the simple expedient of puttinga finger to her lips. Then he bent his head and started to kiss her.
    Kim was lost. Lost beneath the finesse of his touch as he cupped her face and his fingers slid down the side of her neck, causing her to shiver in delight and anticipation.
    ‘You do that so well,’ she whispered when their lips parted.
    ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, but added, ‘You expected me to do it like the local yokel or a country hick, Miss Theron?’
    She wrinkled her nose. ‘Not at all. I just didn’t expect you to do it better than anyone else I’ve ever known.’
    He lifted his head and looked down at her with a glimmer of humour in his dark eyes. ‘Either you haven’t been kissed a lot or—’ He stopped.
    ‘Or what? I’ve made lousy choices in men?’
    ‘You said it,’ he returned ruefully.
    ‘You thought it.’ Kim leant back against him. ‘But it could be true. I’d hate to think what you could do to me if you really tried. But—’ she hesitated as some sanity returned and she recalled her conviction that she had to get off the roundabout ‘—Reith, we don’t need to rush into anything, do we?’
    She felt him move against her.
    She took a breath. ‘Do we?’ she queried, at the same time conscious of an alarm bell going off inside her.
    He hesitated. ‘Has something gone wrong?’
    ‘No.’ As she said it, it occurred to her that it wasn’t quite true but how to explain her reservations accurately?Or should she lighten up a bit until she could be more articulate?
    ‘Tell me a bit more about you, though. Where do you actually live, for example?’ she asked teasingly.
    He laughed. ‘I spend so much time on the move it’s hard to say. But I have an apartment in Perth where my offices are and it’s where Darcy comes home to for the school holidays.’
    ‘Darcy,’ Kim said on an unexpected breath. ‘So…he’s at boarding school? But he’s only ten.’
    ‘And he’s not the only ten-year-old boarder.’
    ‘True,’ Kim conceded slowly, ‘although we have very few that young in the school where I teach.’
    ‘He’s only been there for six months since his grandmother died.’
    ‘Your wife’s mother?’
    He nodded. ‘She more or less brought him up. But he seems to have settled down well.’
    ‘I hope you spend a lot of time with him,’ Kim said severely.
    ‘As much as I can.’
    ‘Talking of time,’ she added, ‘I need to spend a bit of time at home.’ She frowned as it occurred to her that something had felt different about ‘home’ lately but she hadn’t been able to put her finger on it.
    ‘You don’t live at home?’
    ‘For the last year I’ve been living in Esperance, that’s where I teach, so I’ve been out of the home “loop”, so to speak,’ she said slowly, then shrugged. ‘But it’s school holidays in a week or so.’
    He paused, then picked up her hand. ‘I can’t visualize you as a teacher.’
    ‘Neither could I, at first.’ She shrugged. ‘Then I found I had a knack for it. I really like kids.’
    ‘I thought something entrepreneurial would be more in your line.’
    ‘Oh, a friend and I have opened a gallery in