Artem had made a mistake, but it could have been worse. Far worse. The list of things he’d wanted to do to her in that hotel room while the snow beat against the windows had been endless. He’d exercised more restraint than he’d known he’d possessed. The very idea of a woman like Ophelia remaining untouched was criminal.
Regardless, it wouldn’t happen again. It couldn’t. And since he could no longer trust himself to have a simple conversation with Ophelia without burying his hands in her wayward hair and kissing her pink peony mouth until she came apart in his hands, he would just avoid her altogether. It was the best way. The only way.
There was just one flaw with that plan. Ophelia’s jewelry designs were good. Too good to ignore. Drake Diamonds needed her, possibly as much as Artem did.
“Ophelia Rose?” Dalton frowned. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Because she works here,” Artem said. “In Engagements.”
Dalton waved a hand at the sketches of what she’d called her ballerina diamonds. “She can do this, and we’ve got her working in sales?”
“You have her working in sales.” After all, Artem hadn’t had a thing to do with hiring her. “I’d like to move her to the design team, effective immediately. I’ve been going over the numbers. If we can fast-track the production of a new collection, we might be able to reverse some of the financial damage that Dad did when he bought the mine.”
Some. Not all.
If only they had more time...
“Provided it’s a success, of course,” Dalton said. “It’s a risk.”
“That it is.” But what choice did they have? He’d already investigated auctioning off the Drake Diamond. Even if he went through with it, they needed another course of action. A proactive one that would show the world Drake Diamonds wasn’t in any kind of trouble, especially not the sort of trouble they were actually in.
Over the course of the past ten days, while Artem had been actively trying to forget Ophelia, he’d been doing his level best to come up with a way to overcome the mine disaster. It had been an effective distraction. Almost.
Time and again, he’d found himself coming back to Ophelia’s designs, running his hands along those creamy-white pages of cold-press drawing paper. Obviously, given the attraction he felt toward Ophelia, promoting her was the last thing he should do. Right now, he could move about the store and still manage to keep a chaste distance between them. Working closely with her was hardly an ideal option.
Unfortunately, it happened to be the only option.
“Let’s do it,” Dalton said.
In the shadow of his father’s portrait, Artem nodded his agreement.
* * *
Ten days had passed since Ophelia had shown Artem her jewelry designs. Ten excruciating days, during which she’d seen him coming and going, passing her in the hall, scarcely acknowledging her presence. He’d barely even deigned to look at her. On the rare occasion when he did, he’d seemed to see right through her. And morning after morning, he kept showing up on Page Six. A different day, a different woman on his arm. It was a never-ending cycle. The man went through women like water.
Which made it all the more frustrating that every time Ophelia closed her eyes, she heard his voice. And all those bewitching things he’d said to her.
A woman needs to be adored, Ophelia. She needs to be cherished, worshipped.
Touched.
Ophelia had even begun to wonder if maybe he was right. Maybe she did need those things. Maybe the ache she felt every time she found herself in the company of Artem Drake was real. It certainly felt real. Every electrifying spark of arousal had shimmered as real as a blazing blue diamond.
Then she’d remembered the look on Jeremy’s face when she’d told him about her diagnosis—the small, sad shake of his head, the way he couldn’t quite meet her gaze. There’d been no need for him to tell her their affair was over. He’d done so, anyway.
Ophelia had sat quietly on the opposite side of his desk, barely hearing him murmur things like, too much, burden and not ready for this. The gravity of his words hadn’t even registered until later, when she’d left his office.
Because for the duration of Jeremy’s breakup speech, all Ophelia’s concentration had been focused on not looking at the framed poster on the wall behind him—the company’s promotional poster for the Giselle production, featuring Ophelia herself standing en pointe, draped in ethereal white tulle, clutching a lily. She wasn’t sure if it was poetic or cruel that her final role had been the ghost of a woman who’d died of a broken heart.
That was exactly how she’d felt for the past six months. Like a ghost of a woman. Invisible. Untouchable.
But when Artem had said those things to her, when he’d reached out and cupped her face, everything had changed. His touch had somehow summoned her from the grave.
She’d embodied Giselle’s resurrected spirit dancing in the pale light of the moon, without so much as slipping her foot into a ballet shoe. Her body felt more alive than it ever had before. Liquid warmth pooled in her center. Delicious heat danced through every nerve ending in her body, from the top of her head to the tips of her pointed toes. She’d been inflamed. Utterly enchanted. If she’d dared open her mouth to respond, her heart would have leaped up her throat and fallen right at Artem’s debonair feet.
So she’d done the only thing she could do. The smart thing, the right thing. She’d run.
She’d simply turned around and bolted right out the door of his posh Plaza penthouse. She hadn’t even bothered to collect her designs, those intricate colored pencil sketches she’d labored over for months.
She needed to get them back. She would get them back. Just as soon as she could bring herself to face Artem again. As soon as she could forget him. Clearly, he’d forgotten about her.
That’s what you wanted. Remember?
“Miss Rose?”
Ophelia looked up from the glass case where she’d been carefully aligning rows of platinum engagement rings against a swath of Drake-blue satin. Artem’s secretary, the one who’d given her the instructions to meet him at the Plaza a week and a half ago, stood on the other side, hands crossed primly in front of her.
Ophelia swallowed and absolutely forbade herself to fantasize that she was being summoned to the hotel again. “Yes?”
“Mr. Drake has requested a word with you.”
A rebellious flutter skittered up Ophelia’s thighs. She cleared her throat. “Now?”
The secretary nodded. “Yes, now. In his office.”
Not the hotel, his office. Right. That was good. Proper.
It required superhuman effort to keep the smile on her face from fading. “I see.”
“Follow me, please.”
Ophelia followed Artem’s secretary across the showroom floor, around the corner and down the hall toward the corporate offices. They passed the kitchen with its bevy of petits fours atop gleaming silver plates, and Ophelia couldn’t help but feel a little wistful.
She took a deep breath and averted her gaze. At least all this was about to end, and she could go back to the way things were before he’d ever walked in on her scarfing down cake. She assumed the reason for this forced march into his office was to retrieve her portfolio.
Although wouldn’t it have been easier to simply have someone return it to her on his behalf? Then they wouldn’t have been forced to interact with one another at all. He’d never cross Ophelia’s mind again, except when Jewel purred and rubbed up against her ankles. Or when she saw him looking devastatingly hot in the society pages of the newspaper every