Black Diamonds by Eliza Redgold

evening’s end, she said goodnight to the other dinner guests and rushed upstairs.
    How she’d been fooled by him! She couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to start to relax and let down her guard. All through dinner, she’d felt his emotional grip on her, reeling her in like a fish. She hadn’t even considered Xavier Antoine might be married. Clearly he was a well practiced cheat. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, and there was something about him that seemed, well—single. He didn’t have a married aura about him.
    Maybe, she thought grimly as she rootled in her suitcase for her kimono, he had perfected an attitude of availability. He was probably a practiced philanderer. One thing was certain; he was a bona fide louse. No! He was a bush tick, only fit to live on the fur of a kangaroo.
    What had he said to her? Why don’t you just go with the flow, Jacaranda? … Let me surprise you. Oh yes, he’d given her a surprise, all right. A horrible, horrible surprise.
    A knock at the door made her jump.
    “Who is it?”
    “I think you know. I want to talk to you.”
    Jackie hesitated. This was Xavier Antoine’s chateau; no matter what kind of man he was, she had to answer. Glancing down at her black underwear with its tiny lavender bows and her purple high heels, she grabbed her lilac satin kimono. After knotting it around her waist she hauled the door open.
    He lounged against the door frame and gave her one of his French looks . To think she had started to enjoy them!
    “I thought I liked your evening dress,” he drawled. “But I think I like this even more.”
    Following his line of sight, Jackie saw a lavender bow peeping out from her kimono, the curves of her breasts rising and falling in her anger.
    Tying the dressing gown more tightly around her, she said in a voice as flat as stale champagne, “You’re married. You cheat on your wife.”
    “Ah.” Xavier stepped into the room and closed the door. “So that’s it. I wondered why you turned as cold as your Indian Ocean, just when you were beginning to warm up.”
    Jackie backed away. He still wore his black dinner jacket, but he’d loosened his bow tie, leaving his strong throat bare and brown against the crisp white shirt.
    “It’s true, isn’t it?”
    He exhaled. “Ah, Jacaranda. Do you ever stop jumping to conclusions?”
    She jutted her chin. “Have I jumped to conclusions? Don’t you have a wife called Camille?”
    He raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to let me explain?”
    She should just tell him to get out, right now. She shouldn’t even bother to listen to his explanation about his wife. It would probably be all lies, anyway; he’d trot out some line about how his wife didn’t understand him, or how they were leading separate lives. She shuddered. She still couldn’t believe it was true.
    “I was married.”
    “Was?” She hung on to the crucial word as though it were a life buoy in the ocean.
    “Yes … Camille is my ex-wife. Whoever told you she is currently my wife is mistaken.”
    Jackie gulped with embarrassment. Why hadn’t she stopped to think before she’d accused him? “Oh … I see. It must have been my French. I … I—overheard.”
    “Ahh. Listeners never hear good of themselves. I believe it is an English saying.”
    A wave of relief washed over her. “So you’re divorced.”
    “I have been for almost six years.” Xavier crossed the room to a table where crystal decanters had been laid out for guest use. “I could do with a brandy. Would you like one?”
    She shook her head and waited for him to continue.
    He poured out a small measure of brandy and swirled it in the balloon glass reflectively. “I married fairly young,” he explained, after taking a mouthful. “In my mid-twenties. I’d known Camille all my life, our families were friends. She was very beautiful, very chic. Small, with dark hair and dark eyes. What in France we call gamine .”
    Lava of jealousy rose up in Jackie’s throat, hot and