Diamonds (Den of Thieves Book 1) (7 page)

"I demand to know where we are going Peter." The anger was quickly fading and fear was slowly replacing it.

Where was he taking her?

"Daria, don’t worry please; I have no interest in harming you. I told you earlier that I felt bad about bringing those memories about your mother up and that I was going to make it up to you and I mean to do just that."

"Well why are you taking me out into the country? There are plenty of perfectly good places in the city you could have taken me to instead of dragging me out here."

The sun was starting to set and darkness was falling.

"I know but again it’s like I said. I like to make sure that my guests have a good time."

"I would have had a perfectly good time in the city."

"Yes you might have. But it is also something that you do on a regular basis. I figured that I could do something different for you. To make it up to you."  Peter smiled and parked the car.

"Sure you did," she said peering out of the windshield.

The headlights shone into the darkness and she could see that they were at the edge of a cliff.

She got out of the car and walked to the edge before she stopped.

In front of her the whole city was lighting up in the falling darkness. It was as if a swarm of tiny fireflies were starting to light up the night sky. In the distance the sun had just about set on the horizon.

It was a breathtaking view to say the least.

"Peter it’s ---" She turned around

"Beautiful?" Peter was walking from the car towards her. In one hand was a bottle of wine, two glasses in the other and a blanket was tossed casually over his shoulder.

She smiled.

"Yes."

He handed her the glasses and the bottle of wine so he could lay the blanket out.

Daria sat down as he took the bottle from her hands. He quickly produced a corkscrew from his pocket and deftly opened the bottle before pouring them both a glass.

"How do you know about this place?" she asked looking back out over Lake City.

"I used to come here a lot when I was younger," he said softly, almost as if he was remembering some moment in his past.

"Did you bring all of your girlfriends up here?" She laughed before taking a sip of the wine he had given her. It was delicious.

"Oh God! No! I didn’t mean that. I mean I might have but not for what you are thinking."

"Oh really and what am I thinking?" she teased before she could stop herself.

It was too soon to blame her jab on the wine so she had to ask herself what the hell she was doing. Was she really going to flirt with this man because he had brought her to this beautiful look out? He was going to have to do better than that.

"No actually I came up here to think about things. I could find peace here when things got a little too hectic in the city."

"Oh." She looked at him as he stared off into the distance. There was a part of her that felt sorry for him. He had known his mother for a good chunk of his childhood. Enough that he knew what there was to miss.

She, on the other hand did not know what she was missing. She had never encountered it. Daria knew of what she believed she should have had and she had heard from her father what a wonderful woman her mother was but it was not the same as what Peter had to endure. He had a genuine loss he had to face as he grew up. She had a shadow in her life. Something that was there just beyond her vision but that she could never touch.

They sat in silence and watched as the sun finished its descent and darkness overtook the sky.

"What did you think I was going to do when I brought you up here?" Peter asked looking straight into her eyes.

"Oh I don’t know. I’m just not used to strange men taking me out of he city without knowing where I am going.

"So you are in the habit of getting into the car to go on dates with strange men are you then?"

"No! I didn’t say that." She playfully smacked him on the arm. Her glass was empty and she could officially blame it on the wine.

"Well you did in a round about sort of way."

"I did not!"

"You said that you weren’t used to having strange men take you out of the city without knowing where you are going. That implies that you do go on dates with strange men"

"Well I suppose some of the men I have had to date in the past are a tiny bit strange. So that counts in a way right?" She laughed.

"You have had to go on dates with strange men?" Peter smiled. He was clearly toying with her words but she was giggling too hard to stop the conversation.

"I mean the men that my father sets me up with. Some of them are atrocious!"

"Really? Do tell!"

"Oh I don’t want to bore you with that!"

"Actually it sounds pretty funny to be honest so I would love to hear about some of them."

Daria looked at him for a moment. She was having a hard time deciphering whether or not he was being honest. She had never met a man who wanted to know what the other men on her previous dates were like. Usually they didn’t want to hear a thing she had to say at all let alone have her talk about the men she had dated.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Alright then. If you insist--"

"I do."

Daria took a deep breath before she started.

"There was this one guy. I think he was in the oil industry. Big player over in Europe. Anyway he was obsessed with feet!”

“Feet huh?”

Daria nodded.

“He would spend hours looking a pictures of feet.”

“What about your feet? Did he like those?” Peter asked.

“Oh I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I never asked him and we didn’t date that long so he never told me really. All honesty it was creepy. We would be out for dinner and he would be staring at his phone. I know right well he was looking at pictures of feet.”

“Well he was in the oil industry so maybe he was doing business instead of being engaged in whatever your date was,” Peter offered, filling up her glass.

She shook her head as she took a sip.

“No that wasn’t it at all. I know because I caught him once when I got up to use the ladies room.”

“So he was out with you but surfing for pictures of other women’s feet.”

“Yes! How weird is that?”

“It is pretty weird. I mean I have heard of people having foot fetishes and all but for crying out loud if you are out with a beautiful woman you don’t ignore her to look at other women’s feet!”

Daria looked at him, her mind coming back down to earth. He had managed to get her talking and had almost managed to get her to forget that she was supposed to be leery of him. That he wasn’t allowed to get close to her.

“I said this wasn’t a date Peter.”

He stopped smiling almost as fast as if someone had stuck a pin in his happiness and had popped it.

She immediately felt bad.  She hadn’t meant for him to get upset.

“I mean. I don’t want you to get the impression that I am after something more than to enjoy this evening.”

Peter said nothing but looked back towards the city.

Daria suddenly felt even worse. It was her own fears that were preventing her from enjoying a nice evening with what appeared to be a complete gentleman.

One who had gone above and beyond the expectations of drinks.

"I’m sorry Peter," she apologized placing a hand on his shoulder. "I’m not used to being treated like more than an arm accessory by men other than my father. And even he still is set in his ways for how he thinks things should go for me."

"Well I am sorry that things like that have happened to you in the past. I can assure you that there was nothing dishonorable in my intentions this evening. I just wanted to make up for upsetting you in the first place and for my buffoonery last night. I never would want to treat you like you are less than what you are. That would be doing an injustice to you and my father would never approve of me behaving that way towards a lady."

"Your father wouldn’t approve huh?"

"No he wouldn’t. He was a big believer in treating the women in your life like royalty. He was always good to my mother. I remember he would get home from work and a song would come on the radio and the next thing you knew he had swept her away from the kitchen sink and the two of them would be dancing around the kitchen." Peter smiled at the memory.

"Mmm. I can almost see that in my minds eye. When I get married I want a marriage like that. It isn’t something I think I will ever get to have."

"And why is that?"

"Because people like me don’t get to have simple things. Everything has to be big and lavish."

"Well we are having something right now and there is nothing big nor lavish about it"

"I know Peter but this sort of thing could never last. I am a woman with money and responsibility. I could never--"

"Never what? Be with a man like me?" Peter frowned and once again Daria felt her heart sink.

"No. Not that at all." Daria quickly tried to rephrase what she meant. She wasn’t sure why but she didn’t like the idea of Peter thinking that she was some sort of snob. It bothered her.

"Well what did you mean?" She could see the hurt and anger in his eyes.

"I mean that the money and businesses I own or at least that I will inherit when my father passes it down to me are not something that I can simply up and walk away from."

"I don’t understand why you would have to."

"My father worked his entire life to see to it that I would never want for anything. It would almost kill him if I were to walk away from all of that now."

"But you don’t have to walk away from it to live a simple life. You can still have moments like this even if you have all of the things your father spent his life working for."

"I don’t see how."

"You choose what you do with the money. You make a choice about how much you put into the company. Heck you could donate it to any number of charities in Lake City that would love to have your support."

"I can’t just give it all away. It would break my father’s heart."

"I think you will find that what makes your father happy is actually the happiness of his daughter," Peter said taking her hand in his.

She felt an electric shock travel up her arm and down her back. She shivered.

"You’re cold." Peter pulled the one edge of the blanket up until it covered her bare shoulders. Truthfully it was a warm night but she didn’t want to tell him that she wasn’t actually cold. Because she really didn’t know what she was at that moment.

"Thank you," she mumbled.

"You’re most welcome." He smiled and put his arm around her.

She stiffened for a moment. She had not wanted to get that close to him but she couldn’t bring herself to pull away. The musky smell of his cologne was almost too much for her to think straight. She sighed and allowed herself to sink into his shoulder.