The Purest of Diamonds? Read Online Free PDF Page B

life, I was enigmatic. I was only having a bit of fun, but I couldn’t resist it. My sisters tease me constantly, so this was my chance to get them back.’
    ‘Well, I’m happy to go along with however you want to play it,’ Raffa assured her, his dark eyes glinting in a way that filled her mind with all sorts of outrageous possibilities.
    ‘I might take you up on that.’
    ‘Please do.’
    His smile could travel to places she had forgotten about, in no time flat. ‘Then I will,’ she added with a smile and a shrug, thinking this evening was going to be fun.
    ‘Tonight will see Leila Skavanga come to the fore,’ Raffa promised as he held her chair.
    ‘But I don’t want to upset them,’ Leila was quick to add. ‘Britt has gone to a lot of trouble to arrange the party for Eva, and I don’t want anything to spoil Eva’s night.’
    ‘I promise you, it won’t,’ Raffa agreed, ‘not through anything I do, anyway, though there’s nothing to prevent us having a bit of fun. I just hope with all the Skavanga Diamonds glittering at once you don’t dazzle me into a stupor.’
    ‘No chance of that,’ Leila said, laughing at Raffa’s expression as she sat down.
    Warmth flooded her as Raffa sat down in the next chair, close but not too close, almost touching but not touching, in a way that made her thighs tingle.
    ‘You can rely on me to back you up with enough smouldering looks and dirty dancing to shock your sisters out of their killer shoes.’
    ‘Wonderful.’ Did she mean to say that? Yes, she did. ‘That should make my home life a whole lot easier,’ she commented dryly.
    ‘Any time I can be of service...’
    And this was a really bad time to be holding Raffa’s stare. His eyes were dancing with laughter, which told her nothing about his thoughts, but if this connection between them was only for tonight, it was the most fun she’d had in a long time. And now Britt and Eva had arrived in the ballroom on the arms of their handsome partners, bringing an end to their conversation as every head in the ballroom swivelled round.
    ‘Don’t look so worried, Leila,’ Raffa murmured, leaning in close. ‘I promise not to do anything that might upset them.’
    Once she stared at Raffa it was hard to look away. ‘Something tells me Eva and Britt aren’t going to believe we’ve been sitting, chatting in the lounge all this time.’
    And the truth was even more complicated than that, Leila realised. Both of them had touched on subjects she guessed neither of them would dream of discussing with a stranger, and the connection she’d sensed between them at first had grown stronger because of it.
    ‘You’ll just have to put up with your sisters’ suspicions,’ Raffa said pragmatically, leaning back as he prepared to stand to greet their dinner companions.
    ‘Just so long as we don’t take this too far,’ Leila agreed, already wondering what she’d got herself into as Raffa turned to bestow a lingering look on her face.
    ‘You and I know what went on.’
    Precisely nothing, she thought as the most handsome man in the room went on to list their harmless pastimes. ‘You drank juice. We talked. We relaxed. But there’s no way on earth your sisters are going to believe that, so unless you’d rather pretend we haven’t been together every second since you arrived at the hotel—’
    ‘You make our innocent time together sound so bad.’
    ‘What fun would it be otherwise?’ he murmured.
    She hummed as Raffa’s black gaze bored deep into hers.
    ‘Let the teasing begin,’ he said.
    Had it already? she wondered as Raffa leaned in close. And was she the main target? If Britt and Eva had been suspicious before, seeing the two of them like this, so close they were practically kissing, would turn her sisters into tireless seekers after the truth. But she hadn’t done anything wrong. She was following the advice in her mother’s letter and being bold.
    And even when Raffa smiled his slow, sexy smile, she asked