LITMIR.BIZ

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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.

      Quinn stroked his chin. “Poor Ryan and Jessica, their beautiful day ruined. And the rest of your family—especially your mother—will they be so blasé? All that distasteful speculation, old family wounds reopened, over and over …”

      “Leave my mother out of this,” Dani snapped. That was the worst of it. The Blackstone-Hammond feud had ripped her mother’s blood brother away from her thirty years ago, leaving a massive heartache. With Howard’s death, Sonya Hammond’s dearest wish was to bring the family factions together again.

      “I can empathise, being a private person myself.” His tone was sympathetic—reasonable, even.

      Dani jutted her chin out defiantly, despite a sinking feeling that he was right. Did she have the right to expose those closest to her to more scandal and shame?

      “You could spare them all that unwelcome attention. Ryan and Jessica will have the day of their dreams. And you, Danielle, will make a lot of money.”

      She glared at him. Only her family called her Danielle. Up here in Port, as it was affectionately known, she went by Dani Hammond, the brand name for her jewellery. Most of the locals had no idea she was connected to one of Australia’s richest and most notorious families. Those who did, didn’t care.

      Quinn shifted impatiently. “Yes or no?”

      Could she bear her anonymity here to be shattered by all the old gossip and innuendo she had lived with all her life? And worse, how could she let him ruin Ryan and Jessica’s day and put that hunted look back in her mother’s eyes? “Bring your damn diamond to the shop, then.” Grasping her change purse in a white-knuckled grip, she stood abruptly and scowled down at him.

      Quinn Everard tilted his head, peering up under his brows again. Then he rose, gesturing to the cars parked across the street. “My car is right over there. Take a ride with me.”

      Her internal alarm sounded. It wasn’t that she thought a man with his reputation would try anything dangerous. It was her reaction—her attraction—that worried her. And how could she refuse a man who held such sway in her profession, especially one offering dream money?

      “I don’t carry this diamond around in my pocket.” Quinn frowned at her hesitation. “I’ve rented a house in Four Mile Beach.”

      Four Mile was an outlying district in the shire of Port Douglas, and where her apartment was. “I’m working.”

      “Exactly. Time is money, Danielle.”

      She eyed him moodily, weighing her options. “Whereabouts in Four Mile?”

      He impatiently motioned her to start crossing the road.

      “You may be famous,” Dani said tightly, “but you’re a stranger to me. I’m going nowhere without telling my assistant.”

      He inclined his head. “Number 2 Beach Road.” He stopped beside a sleek black BMW. “I’ll wait.”

      Taut with indignation, she poked her head into the shop and told Steve, her assistant, and told him where she was going. Then she got into Quinn’s car. They spoke little on the short drive, but her eyes widened in surprise when they pulled up outside his house. She’d walked past here nearly every day on her way to work. Never a morning person, she needed the fifty-minute walk along beautiful Four Mile Beach to improve her mood.

      The house was right on the sand dunes, surrounded by high walls. A discreet plaque on the wall by the entrance said Luxury Executive Accommodation. Dani had always wondered what it was like inside.

      She

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