When Only Diamonds Will Do (7 page)

But what greeted them as she led the way inside, stopping only to pat a delighted Sunny Bob, was a scene of trauma. Her father was slumped on the settee in the main lounge, her mother was kneeling beside him crying. Mary Hiddens was hovering, wringing her hands, and Damien was savagely punching numbers into his phone.

‘Kim…Kim …’ Her mother caught sight of her. ‘Oh, Kim!’ Her gaze fell on Reith and she gasped. ‘So it’s true!’

‘What’s true?’ Kim ran forward to kneel down beside her mother.

‘Some journalist just rang your father and asked him if it was true that you’d married Reith Richardson. He hadn’t been feeling well, your father, but that…at that…he just collapsed.’

‘You’ve probably killed him,’ Damien said darkly to Reith.

Thanks to Reith’s best efforts—he’d taken command—Frank survived the attack.

Reith had told Damien not to worry about calling an
ambulance and instead he’d summoned a medical emergency helicopter. He’d made Frank as comfortable as possible until it had arrived, and administered some of the emergency medicine Frank had been prescribed but no one had thought to give him in their panic.

And he’d been with Kim when the specialist told her that her father had a heart condition that had been ticking away like a time bomb, a condition that might or might not respond to open-heart bypass surgery—something her father dreaded.

The specialist had also told her that the attack could have happened at any time.

‘How did anyone find out? About us?’

She asked the question in a vague, distracted way when they were alone at Saldanha. Her mother had been persuaded to be admitted to the hospital and sedated, Damien was still at the hospital and arrangements were being made for bypass surgery on Frank as soon as possible. The subject of her marriage to Reith Richardson had apparently sunk from sight beneath the weight of the medical emergency, for both Damien and her mother.

Once again, Reith had discarded his jacket and loosened his tie. He’d poured them both a brandy.

‘Someone must have recognized—you, most probably. Kim—’ he paused ‘—what do you want to do?’

She sipped some brandy and laid her head back. ‘What do you mean? Now? In a week’s time? When?’

‘Now, for starters,’ he said dryly.

‘Look, I don’t know,’ she replied frustratedly. ‘I can’t
think straight.’ She looked around the lovely room with a frown and it occurred to her that Reith looked, if not exactly at home, almost as if he knew his way around it.

But, of course, she thought then, he’s been here before, hasn’t he? My father or Damien probably offered him a drink out of the cocktail cabinet, so that was how he knew where to find the brandy. Of course they wouldn’t have been offering him drinks after he made his first paltry offer for Balthazar…She paused her thoughts.

‘Tell me something,’ she said with another frown. ‘Were Saldanha and Balthazar just business propositions to you? Not any desire to live here and be involved in the wine industry or …’ She trailed off, then gathered steam again. ‘Or put down roots that have more substance than the boundary rider’s hut on some godforsaken cattle station—’ She stopped abruptly and put a horrified hand to her mouth.

He watched her for a long moment, narrowly, but otherwise curiously without expression. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t a boundary rider’s hut—but I suppose you could call it a godforsaken cattle station. It was out from Karratha.’ He grimaced. ‘No, in answer to your question. I’m not interested in roots or substance, so I’m never going to appeal to your father or brother, Kim. I’m never going to be good enough for you in their estimation. If that’s what you’re wondering.’

Kim sat up abruptly. ‘Why
do
they…Why are they
so
against you, though, Reith?’

He rolled his balloon glass between his hands and
stared down at the cognac. ‘They consider me a country hick who had a bit of luck with a patch of dirt.’

‘But you’re not a country hick. I mean—’

‘You mean I don’t uncap beer bottles with my teeth? No, I don’t. I do lack an old school tie, though.’

‘That’s rubbish.’

He shrugged.

‘There’s got to be more to it,’ Kim persisted, although she wasn’t sure why. It was just that she was so tired, so shocked by the events of the day, yet this was the one topic her mind seemed to want to pursue, as if it had an extraordinary significance.

Reith took a long sip of his brandy, then put the glass down and pushed it away from him. ‘It’s probably because I was able to expose all the mistakes they made over the past few years, the misjudgements—’

‘But I thought it was flood, fire, drought, global financial crises—’ she interrupted ‘—powdery mildew! And so on. Things you couldn’t prevent, in other words.’

‘They didn’t help, but there were no contingency plans in place, for one thing. Kim, look—’ he rubbed his jaw ‘—it’s how I operate. It’s by digging beneath the surface that I can accurately evaluate what I’m getting into, but it doesn’t necessarily endear me to the people on the other end of it.’

He got up abruptly and came to stand in front of her with his hands shoved into his pockets. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry about your father but, little though he knows it, you’ll be better off with me than—’

‘How can you
say
that?’ Kim stumbled to her feet.
‘You make me feel like a…a commodity! And there’s no way you can know what my welfare depends on.’

‘Kim, I know exactly what ensures your welfare. I only have to kiss you to—’

She raised her hand to slap him but he caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms.

‘Don’t,’ he warned softly.

‘Let me go,’ she said through her teeth.

‘No. Not until we’ve sorted something out.’

‘Well, sort away!’ she commanded. ‘Just don’t you dare kiss me.’ But, despite the command, tears ran down her cheeks.

He grinned fleetingly. ‘That’s more like the girl I know. No, listen.’ He tightened his grip on her as she wriggled. ‘I’m not expecting you to leap into the marital bed in these circumstances—’ he gestured ‘—your father, I mean—unless you’d like to?’

Kim refused to look at him but he didn’t let her go. ‘Take that as a definite no, Richardson,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Then it’ll have to be a moratorium.’

Kim stilled and turned towards him. ‘What do you mean?’

He lifted a sardonic eyebrow. ‘A freeze on all contentious matters. For a period of time.’

‘Why don’t we just separate and get a divorce?’

‘No, Kim.’

She stared up at him. ‘Just—no, Kim?’

‘Uh-huh.’

She sagged against him. ‘I can’t believe this,’ she said, distraught.

‘Life does hand out some brickbats,’ he agreed.

She opened her mouth on a sharp retort, then closed it, nearly biting her tongue in the process because, of course, it was true.

‘But for the time being,’ he went on, ‘while your father is so sick, we won’t make any lifestyle decisions or major changes.’

Kim straightened and looked into his eyes. ‘Where will you stay? Bunbury? Perth?’

He shook his head. ‘Clover Hill.’

She gasped. ‘Have you taken possession?’ But she immediately fired another question. ‘What’s wrong with Clover—what did you have to ferret out about it before you bought it?’

His eyes glinted and a nerve flickered in his jaw at the implied insult, but he answered evenly enough. ‘Nothing’s wrong with Clover. It was on the market because its owners are getting on and have no family to leave it to.’

‘So why did you buy it? Doesn’t sound like your usual modus operandi,’ she taunted.

He let her go and smiled, a cool chiselled movement of his lips. ‘I bought Clover because you thought it was special, Kim. Goodnight.’

He retrieved his jacket, slung it over his shoulder and strode out.

R
EITH
R
ICHARDSON
regarded his wife and took his time about it.

She was fairly tall, she was slim with a good figure and she was stunningly beautiful, with red-gold hair and sapphire-blue eyes. Her smooth skin was complemented by a pair of sparkling diamond earrings he had given her but was surprised to see her wearing. She usually made a point of refusing to wear any of the jewellery that came with the position of being his wife.

Of course, as a Theron of Saldanha and the Balthazar winery, the position of being his wife was a bit of a comedown for her, other than in monetary terms.

Her dress was cream and silky and long. It looked sleek when she stood still but when she moved it revealed yards of material in the skirt. With it she wore high nude platform shoes. But, beautiful as the dress was, as well as fashionable, it provoked one regret in him—it hid her legs and that was a pity; she had sensational legs.

In fact there was no doubt, so far as looks and an innate sort of classiness went, that she would be an asset
to any man. In lots of ways she was to him but there was one downside—she hated him.

She blamed him for profiting from her family’s misfortunes, she considered that she’d been manipulated into marrying him to stem some of the worst of those misfortunes. She despised his occupation, she’d accused him of having a questionable modus operandi—but in all other respects, bar one, she was a superb wife as, indeed, she’d promised to be.

She ran their homes perfectly, although she’d refused point-blank to live at Clover Hill. Out of necessity, he had moved in to Saldanha, though he was rarely there. She was an accomplished hostess so their social lives ran like clockwork and she was good with his motherless son.

And they all lived, like the old lady in the shoe, he thought with a wry twist of his lips, in Western Australia, south of Perth and towards the Margaret River district.

None of the Theron family, however, had approved of the Balthazar winery or the Saldanha estate straying out of the family, least of all his wife.

However, as he had once pointed out to her, she’d come with it and she
was
family. He’d also pointed out to her that, without his intervention, her parents—her father had recovered well from a heart bypass operation—would not now be settled in a fashionable unit overlooking the beach and bay, with its iconic dolphins, at Bunbury, enjoying a leisurely retirement. In fact they would have been much closer to a bedsit and Meals on Wheels. Nor would they have been able to afford the
luxury cruise he had paid for, which had contributed significantly to Frank Theron’s recovery from open-heart surgery.

She’d tossed her red-gold hair at him and her eyes had glinted sapphire fire but as he’d waited politely she’d clamped her mouth shut and stalked off.

Strangely, he’d taken himself to task for that encounter. How galling must it be to have things like that thrown into your face on a regular basis? he’d asked himself. Not that he did it often because, truth be told, he admired her fiery resolve not to forgive him for the proposition he’d put to her—marry me and I’ll save your parents from bankruptcy.

Well, he amended to himself, he had admired that fiery resolve but he was starting to lose patience. Two months had passed since he’d married her.

‘What are you thinking, Reith?’

Kim’s voice broke into his thoughts. He grimaced as he saw the puzzled frown in her eyes, and shoved his hands into his pockets. ‘That you look lovely; that you’ve been an accomplished wife and it’s just a pity that you hate me. Let’s see.’ He pulled a hand out of his pocket, rubbed his jaw and looked out over the gardens of Saldanha in the slanting rays of the setting sun. ‘What else was I thinking? I do appreciate how you’ve coped with Darcy; I do actually admire your hostility—well, I did—I’m starting to lose patience with it now.’

‘What…what do you mean?’ She frowned.

They were standing on the front doorstep. There was a gleaming gun-metal four-wheel drive parked on the driveway below them and they were about to go to a
neighbouring property for dinner. Sunny Bob sat beside the car, ever hopeful that he’d get taken for a ride.

‘This was never meant to be a marriage in name only, Kim,’ he said, bringing his dark gaze back to rest on her.

Fresh colour stained her cheeks. ‘I thought…I thought …’ She stopped.

‘You thought?’

‘You promised me time,’ she said more composedly. ‘And I thought…you might change your mind anyway. You might find someone who suited you better. Or someone you actually loved,’ she said with irony.

A dry smile twisted his lips. ‘Is that what you were hoping? If so, you shouldn’t have made yourself almost indispensable.’

Kim looked at him. ‘Any good housekeeper could have done—’

‘Not quite,’ he broke in. ‘They wouldn’t care about Saldanha and Balthazar as you do or have taken the time with Darcy that you have,’ he said dryly. ‘You know,’ he added, ‘when we come home, we could take a walk through the garden in the moonlight—it’s a full moon tonight—then I could take you upstairs and make love to you. After all, Kim,’ he said deliberately, ‘we
were
once on kissing terms.’

She took a ragged breath. ‘I didn’t know who you were.’

‘That didn’t affect the chemistry between us.’ He looked down at her with something like contempt.

Kim closed her eyes because he was right and her objection had been unworthy—she had once kissed Reith Richardson with wonderful abandon, with passion and
with promise—before she’d found out who he was. All the same …

She made a frustrated little sound and went to turn away.

He put out his hand and stopped her. ‘And there was a lot more to it, as you damn well know.’

‘Reith—’ she looked pointedly at his hand on her arm ‘—this isn’t the time or place to be having this kind of discussion.’

He didn’t release her. ‘You pick a suitable time and place then.’ He shrugged and looked at her cynically. ‘Provided it’s within the foreseeable future and not a year down the track—or ten.’

She flinched inwardly at the insult. ‘What I meant was…we’re already running late for dinner.’

He did release her arm then and stepped back. ‘You know, I never thought you were a coward, Kim.’

‘I’m not,’ she said icily.

‘Or an ostrich,’ he went on imperturbably.

‘I’m not that either,’ she flashed, her iciness turning to anger.

He shrugged. ‘You could have fooled me. After you.’ He stood aside.

She hesitated under the influence of an almighty desire to run away. But, really, she was like a puppet on a string and there was no way she could run away without breaking those strings. And the consequences of that could be catastrophic for her proud, dysfunctional family, whom she loved nonetheless …

She walked down the steps and got into the car.

It was a superb dinner.

Twenty people sat around the dining table. The meal had been served on exquisite porcelain and the wine had flowed out of crystal glasses. The tablecloth alone was a work of art, hand-embroidered with birds of paradise on ecru linen.

They were dining with their neighbours, Molly and Bill Lawson. Kim had known them all her life. She’d grown up with their children, all boys, and had been looked upon as a de facto daughter. That was still the case, which meant that Reith had been accepted without question, she thought darkly at times.

Then again, Reith could charm the socks off anyone when he set his mind to it and it wasn’t only his dark good looks, his height and physique that did it. He had a way of making you laugh with a few wry words and a crooked grin. Sometimes he had a way of making you feel like the only person on the planet for him.

Not that her husband spent a lot of his life charming people, she thought as she put down her wine glass and pushed away her plate with nothing left of what had been a mouth-watering Bombe Alaska. No, impressing people was his other forte.

There was no doubt Bill Lawson, an astute judge of character with a good grasp of the business world, admired Reith greatly. There was no doubt Molly thought he was divine.

Why, oh, why, she sometimes thought, couldn’t her parents have accepted Reith as the Lawsons had? Of course the answer was obvious—money and reputation and so much more had come into it, hadn’t it?

She picked up her glass and took another sip of wine.

And now Reith had laid down a gauntlet.

Why hadn’t she seen it coming? Because she’d been too immersed in restoring Saldanha to its former glory? Too busy doing the same for Balthazar?

Or
was
she a coward and had she been burying her head in the sand?

What if she…acquiesced? she wondered. Or—what if she confessed to Reith that she was never sure whether she loved him to distraction or hated him like poison?

There were certainly times when just to look at him or hear his voice brought on a deluge of anger as she recalled how beholden she was to him.

Equally certainly, though, there were times when she couldn’t deny the potent physical effect he had on her. The times when—out of the blue, usually—she’d look at his hands and suffer the acute desire to have them running up and down her body. Times when she wanted to laugh with him and go into his arms to be held in affection and companionship and love.

Times when she longed to be in his bed, being made love to until she was sated and exhausted and slippery with sweat and …

She broke off those thoughts with a snap as something alerted her to the fact Reith was staring at her with a question mark in his eyes.

Oh, God, don’t let me blush, she prayed, and was saved by Molly rising and gesturing towards the lounge, where the coffee tray was awaiting them. She rose swiftly and followed their hostess into the lounge.

It was midnight when the car turned into the long Saldanha driveway.

‘Pleasant evening,’ Reith murmured.

‘Y…yes,’ Kim agreed and could have shot herself for the slight quiver of nerves her voice betrayed.

He glanced at her and grimaced. ‘You don’t sound too sure.’

‘I…What did you think of Chilli George?’ she countered.

Reith pulled the car up opposite the back door and shrugged. ‘Exotic—like her name, but then I suppose fashion designers need to be.’ He paused, then he went on, ‘Is that to be the extent of our conversation tonight, Kim? A dissection of Molly’s guest list?’

Kim clasped her hands, then unclasped them as she struggled to find something to say, something that wasn’t inane, that wasn’t designed to ignore the situation between them, but no inspiration came. ‘It’s late,’ she said. ‘I…And …’ She trailed off.

‘Not the right time or place?’ he suggested, his voice hardening.

She stayed silent.

‘All right. Out you get,’ he ordered.

‘You could leave the car here, under the portico,’ she said without thinking.

‘I’m not taking it to the garage, I’m taking it to Perth.’

Kim jumped. ‘At this time of night? Why?’ She stared at him, wide-eyed.

Their gazes clashed. ‘You’re not really that naïve, are you?’ he said with soft but patently lethal sarcasm.

‘I…I…When will you be back?’

‘No idea.’ He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

‘Reith!’

‘Kimberley?’ he replied politely, but with a world of contempt in his dark eyes.

She bit her lip, then got angry although she tried to rein it in. ‘Suit yourself,’ she told him coolly and got out but anger got the better of her and she slammed the car door.

It didn’t help her state of mind to hear him laugh softly before he gunned the motor and drove off, sputtering gravel beneath his tyres.

The next morning, after what had felt like a sleepless night, Kim saddled her mare Matilda, affectionately known as Mattie, and went for a ride. Sunny Bob went with them and they headed for Balthazar and its Cellar Door, run on the estate and visited by wine-lovers from all over the world.

It was one thing she had always taken a special interest in, the Balthazar Cellar Door. Most wineries offered wine-tastings and sold their wines from their ‘Cellar Doors’ and many had restaurants as well as offering conducted tours through the winery itself. The Balthazar Cellar Door was housed in a stone and thatch building set in surroundings that were magical—gardens full of blooms, flowering creepers and trees, especially jacarandas, a stream that wound under wooden bridges, a thatched wishing well. And there was a natural amphitheatre backed by tall cypress-pines.

Inside, as well as the wine-tasting area, was the restaurant
and a souvenir shop where she now worked several days a week, having given up her teaching job.

And as she cantered Mattie, then galloped her with their breath steaming in the early morning air as the pale colours of dawn smudged the horizon, it was Balthazar she was forcing herself to concentrate on.

Some wineries hosted art shows, some were famous for their music festivals. Balthazar held an annual fashion parade that was due in a couple of days. This year Kim had offered the opportunity to debut her spring collection to a new but dynamic Perth designer—the unfortunate Chilli George.

She grimaced as Mattie’s hooves thudded over the turf. Not that Chilli was unfortunate in any context other than featuring unwittingly in the ongoing battle between Reith and Kimberley Richardson. She was in fact a petite, exquisitely chic blonde in her thirties. Perhaps she was a touch exotic but she certainly designed gorgeous clothes.

Kim owned some Chilli George clothes and they were fresh and exciting.

Was there something about Chilli that went beyond being a touch exotic, something she couldn’t put her finger on that bothered her, though? she wondered, then shrugged.

Really, the designer was the least of her problems, she reminded herself, as she slowed Mattie to a walk as they did a quick tour of the Cellar Door and the winery itself as well as the gardens. Then she turned back towards Saldanha.

And as they got closer, as always, these days anyway,
it pulled at her heart-strings to see her home. Until a few months ago she’d taken Saldanha pretty much for granted. True, she’d always been appreciative of the lovely Cape Dutch architecture, brought from South Africa by a great-great-grandfather.