LITMIR.BIZ

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keep asking him when he was going to get around to giving them grandkids. Quinn’s response hadn’t changed since he was twenty: “I learned growing up that there are too many unwanted kids in the world.”

      He picked up the boxed diamond and took it to his room to lock away. Then he collected her empty plate and the food he’d brought at lunch. His phone rang as he descended the stairs. Matt Hammond calling from New Zealand.

      He’d met Matt before since they were both shareholders of several different companies, including Blackstone Diamonds.

      “Can we meet up in the next week?” Matt asked. “Among other things, I’d like to thank you properly for bringing the pink diamonds home.”

      Last month, Quinn had authenticated four pink diamonds for Matt’s former sister-in-law, Melbourne supermodel, Briana Davenport. Briana found them in her apartment safe after her sister Marise was killed in the plane crash. Quinn was astonished to find they were from the Blackstone Rose necklace, stolen from Howard nearly three decades ago. He told Briana they must be returned to their rightful owner. At her request, he’d delivered the stones to Howard Blackstone’s estate lawyers.

      It was well publicised that Howard’s will had been altered shortly before the crash to bestow his jewellery collection to Marise. Quinn was less clear on whether the stolen necklace would be included in the jewellery collection, since it was not specifically named and still listed as stolen. He had to be sure he was not acting illegally. It would pan out better for Briana, his client, that way.

      After deliberation, the lawyers declared that the Blackstone Rose necklace was included in the jewellery collection. Since Marise hadn’t changed her will before the accident, the pink diamonds now belonged to her spouse, Matt Hammond.

      “I’m holidaying in Port Douglas for the next couple of weeks,” Quinn told Matt now.

      “You’re kidding! I’m coming up there myself in the next couple of days. We can catch up then, if you’re agreeable.”

      Quinn wondered if Matt was coming to Port Douglas to see Dani. They were cousins, but from what he’d heard, the rift between the Blackstones and the Hammonds included both Dani and her mother, Sonya.

      “In the meantime,” Matt continued, “I’d like you to put the word out. I’m willing to ask no questions and pay top dollar for the fifth Blackstone Rose diamond, the big one.”

      The centrepiece of the old necklace was a pear-shaped 9.7 carat diamond. The original Heart of the Outback stone was just over one hundred carats in the rough. Stones lost a lot of weight in the cutting, especially if the cutter wanted several diamonds from the one stone. Some cutters went for weight, which did not necessarily correlate to value; fire and brilliance came from the shape the cutter chose.

      In this case, the cutter had done a masterful job, realising a creditable thirty-eight carats in total. This, along with the name and the legend, accorded the stones a massive price tag. The last big intense pink Quinn could recall coming up for auction several years ago—an unnamed twenty carat, pear-shaped beauty—fetched six million dollars. The Blackstone Rose diamonds could sell for as much as half a million dollars per carat, more if they were sold together.

      Although laser identification wasn’t around when the stones were cut, the Blackstone Rose’s thief must have sold the big stone on the black market for it to have disappeared without a trace. Quinn had extensive connections, and there was always someone who could be persuaded to sell information about less-reputable art and gem collectors. A pink of this size would cause comment wherever it turned up.

      Quinn hung up, thinking that his whole existence lately—professional and personal—seemed to be tied up with the Blackstone and Hammond families. First Matt and the pink diamonds, now his enforced cohabitation with Danielle Hammond. His very personal existence stirred again when he recalled the desire in her eyes a few minutes ago, heard the huskiness of her voice. He knew that he was destined to spend another night alone in his bed, dreaming about her intriguing face and lithe body.

      He would have Dani Hammond, he decided. It would help while away the hours in this sauna until he could return to civilisation.

      He grinned as he stripped and slid between the sheets, allowing himself the uncharitable thought that tupping Howard Blackstone’s little girl would be like thumbing his nose at the old man, dead or not. That would be twice in a month he’d shafted the old goat. Howard must have turned in his freshly dug grave when the Blackstone Rose diamonds came full circle to a Hammond again.

       Four

      Soon after 6:00 a.m., an ungodly time for her, Dani crept out of the house to watch the sun rise over the beach. The tide was high and the temperature around twenty. Yawning widely, she stumbled through the ten-metre stretch of trees that fringed the beach, then slipped off her sandals and carried them down to test the water.

      The physical response she’d had to Quinn in the workroom had played on her mind all night. Her fumbling efforts to gloss over it, knowing he’d noticed her tongue practically hanging out, made it ten times worse.

      This man was not her friend. More than that, he already had a woman, a special woman, judging by the value of the gift he was having made for her. But why did he have to be so gorgeous? How was she to exist under the same roof for the next two to three weeks without succumbing to his charms?

      She knew how. Remember Nick … remember the humiliation.

      The water licked around her toes, a cool surprise, reminding her that winter was on its way. She remembered a cool winter’s day two years ago. On cue, her cheeks burned for no one but her and the breeze as she walked on deserted Four Mile Beach. Nick had nearly finished her.

      Dani should have known better, even back then. Twenty-five was hardly wet behind the ears. Nick had wined and dined her, swept her off her feet in an indecently short time. Promised love and marriage and forever. And even though she’d lived all her life in a fishbowl being targeted by the Sydney tabloids, she trusted him.

      Until the day she’d left the house to go to a wedding dress fitting and found ten journalists camped outside the gate in the rain. To this day, Dani loathed large black umbrellas. They reminded her of vultures waiting for someone to die.

      The journalists gleefully filled her in on the details. While she’d been sitting at home happily planning her wedding, Nick had been entertaining a well-known soap actress in an alleyway beside a nightclub. The photographs were pornographic. When confronted, the louse drunkenly accused Dani of misrepresenting her position in the Blackstone family. It had finally sunk in, despite her repeated insistence, that far from being an heiress, his fiancée was penniless and illegitimate.

      Howard came to her rescue, just as he had for her mother years before. Dani wanted nothing more than to disappear. A few months backpacking around Asia eased her pain a little but caused her mother tremendous worry. Tired of the constant media scrutiny, she refused to return to Sydney, and Howard agreed to bankroll her business here in Port, where no one knew or cared that she was Danielle Hammond of Blackstone fame.

      The sunrise was beautiful, reminding her of why she loved this place. She filled her lungs with sea air, knowing she had to resist Quinn, because if she didn’t, there would be far worse heartache than Nick had inflicted. And that would spoil this beautiful place for her forever.

      She turned around at the halfway point, feeling stronger and determined to finish this job quickly and eliminate the temptation. But her heart fluttered as a figure in blue shorts and a black sleeveless T-shirt jogged leisurely toward her. She had forgotten he liked to run in the early morning before the heat and humidity gained purchase.

      Quinn slowed as she approached. “Too hot to sleep?”

      Whether it was there or not, Dani imagined a sardonic twist to his mouth, and her hope that he would ignore her stammering reaction to him last night faded. He knew. And he wanted her to know he knew.

      “Have a good run,” she said as politely as she could muster, still walking steadily toward

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