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

Esperance. Not paintings but metalwork, pottery, papier mâché, really creative knitting, et cetera.’ Her eyes glinted. ‘Satisfied?’
    He took her chin in his hand and dropped a light kiss on her lips. ‘Yes.’ Then he looked narrowly into her eyes. ‘We’re not parting on bad terms, are we?’
    She looked up at him, completely sober now, and knew that this man, this mystery man, could be the one to lure her onto the rocks. The rocks of loving him without being loved in return.
    She had no idea how she knew this; it was an instinct that somehow told her he was a loner…Yes, there was no doubt he was quite cagey about his life—for that matter, so was she. Apart from one mention of Saldanha, she’d told him nothing about her family, nothing about Balthazar.
    Come to that, she thought with a blink, he hadn’t asked her a single question about her background.
    She grimaced and returned to this loner she sensed in him, this
something
that told her he maintained an emotional exclusion zone around him …
    And yet they were always good together; they seemed to have a rapport, a similar sense of humour, a similar sense of what was fine, even a similar tastein music. And now it even seemed as if he could read her mind. As if he could sense her uncertainty beneath her attempts to make light of it. So
where
did this feeling come from?
    ‘Kim?’
    She came back from her thoughts. ‘No. Not on bad terms. Guess what?’
    He looked at her.
    ‘Penny’s settled on a name for their baby. Reith.’
    His eyebrows shot up. ‘Because I gave you a lift?’
    ‘No. Because it’s unusual and she likes it. When are you going?’
    ‘Tomorrow afternoon.’
    ‘Then I won’t see you until you come back.’
    He grimaced but said, ‘I’ll look forward to it. Kim?’
    ‘No, Reith,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s how we should leave it.’
    ‘Or…like this.’ He gathered her in his arms and kissed her deeply.
    Then he surprised her. He rubbed his chin on the top of her head and said, ‘What do you think of this place?’
    ‘Clover Hill?’ She looked around the paddocks and their horses, at the roses and the creeper-covered homestead, at the Darling Hills in the background, and she breathed deeply and smiled. ‘It’s special. Why?’
    He shrugged. ‘Just asking. OK, time to go.’
    But after he’d watched her drive off, Reith didn’t leave immediately. He leant back against the car and attempted to think things through.
    Such as being accused of a stop/start approach in his attempts to seduce Kimberley Theron.
    He shoved his hands in his pockets and chewed his lip. She was right, of course. Every now and then his conscience pricked him. And every now and then he felt guilt associated with Sylvia, his wife, the guilt he’d felt at wanting her but not being able to love her. As for Kim, he’d even once asked himself why he hadn’t rung for roadside assistance for her that first day and simply driven off when he well knew her family would hate him having anything to do with her.
    For that matter, why hadn’t he just told her? He’d been on the brink of it several times. But, despite his growing respect for her, he knew well enough that that could lose her to him. The more you got to know Kim Theron, the more evidence there was that loyalty to friends was paramount with her. It made sense that loyalty to her family would be the same. But she was no fool, so …?
    He left the question hanging in the air, but one thing he did know was that he wasn’t prepared to lose her.
    Not yet.
    He grimaced and got into his car. But, instead of driving away from Clover Hill, he drove from the stables round to the house …
    Two weeks later, Kim made a discovery that horrified her.
    She’d been preoccupied since her parting from Reith. Up in the air and down in the dumps described her alternating state of mind accurately. Would she ever seehim again? Why did life seem dull and sepia because he wasn’t around? Could you fall deeply in