Трейси Вульф – Claimed (страница 1)
Isabella was somehow even more beautiful than he remembered.
And probably more treacherous, Marc reminded himself as he fought for control over his suddenly rampaging emotions and libido.
It had been six years since he’d seen her.
Six years since he’d held her, kissed her, made love to her.
Six years since he’d kicked her out of his apartment and his life.
And still he wanted her.
It came as something of a shock, considering he’d done his best not to think about her in the ensuing years. Sure, every once in a while something would come up and her face would flash through his mind. He’d be reminded of the scent, the taste, the feel of her. But through the years those instances had grown fewer and further between and his reaction to them—and her—had dimmed. Or so he’d thought.
All it had taken was a glimpse of her through the small window to throw him right back into the seething, tumultuous heat that had characterized so much of their relationship. At that moment, he hadn’t cared about the future, or his family’s company, which he had sacrificed so much for through the years. He hadn’t cared about anything but getting to her …
* * *
Claimed is part of the Diamond Tycoons duet— Marc and Nic Durand are ruthless, sexy and powerful, and only the women they love can tame them.
Claimed
Tracy Wolff
TRACY WOLFF collects books, English degrees and lipsticks, and has been known to forget where—and sometimes who—she is when immersed in a great novel. At six, she wrote her first short story—something with a rainbow and a prince—and at seven, she ventured into the wonderful world of girls’ lit with her first Judy Blume novel. By ten, she’d read everything in the young-adult and classics sections of her local bookstore, so in desperation her mum started her on romance novels. And from the first page of the first book, Tracy knew she’d found her lifelong love. Tracy lives in Texas with her husband and three sons, where she pens romance novels and teaches writing at her local community college.
Contents
Isabella Moreno froze in the middle of her lecture—in the middle of a sentence, really—as the door in the back of her classroom opened and the president of the Gem Institute of America walked in. But it wasn’t the presence of Harlan Peters that threw her off her game. She was a damn good professor and she knew it; a visit from her boss was no big deal. No, it was the tall, dark and silent man standing next to him that struck fear into her heart even as he sent shivers up and down her spine.
Not that she did, either. Not really. Oh, she recognized him. It was hard to be in the gem industry for any length of time and not be able to identify Marc Durand, CEO of the second largest diamond exporter and jeweler in the country. His too-long black hair, bright blue eyes and fallen angel face were hard to miss...and even harder to ignore. But the look on that face, the glittering contempt in those distinctive eyes and the derisive twist of those full lips was not something she was used to seeing from him. They turned him into a stranger.
The Marc she knew—the Marc she’d once loved—had looked at her only with tenderness. With amusement. With love. At least until the end, when everything had fallen apart. But even then he’d shown some feelings. Rage, hurt, betrayal. It had nearly killed her to see those emotions on his face, and to know that she was responsible for them.
But the look on his face now—the derision, the scorn, the
When they’d been together, their relationship had been characterized by heat, so much heat she’d often wondered how long it would take before she got burned. The answer, it turned out, had been six months, three weeks and four days, give or take a few hours.
Not that she’d been counting.
And not that she blamed him for how things had ended. How could she when the way things had gone down—the way the two of them had self-destructed—had been almost completely her fault?
Oh, he could have been kinder. She was the first to admit that tossing her onto the streets of New York City in the middle of the night, with nothing but the clothes on her back, was a hideous thing to do. But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t deserved it. Even now, there were nights she lay awake staring at the ceiling and wondering how she could have done what she had done. How she could have betrayed the man she’d loved so completely.
But that was the problem. She’d been caught between two men she loved, adored, would have done anything for, and because of that, she’d ruined everything. She’d known her father had stolen from him and though she’d tried to convince her dad to give the gems back, she hadn’t told Marc who the thief was until it was nearly too late for him to salvage his business. And then she’d made the situation worse by begging Marc not to prosecute, and by admitting that when she’d sought him out at the gala where they’d first met she’d been planning to steal from him, too. Her plans had changed—her life had changed—once she’d spoken to him, once he’d looked at her with those crazy blue eyes of his, but—
Isabella shied away from the painful memories instinctively. Losing Marc in the middle of everything else had nearly brought her to her knees six years before. She’d be damned if seeing him again, after all this time, did the same thing. Especially here, in the middle of her first graduate seminar of the day.
Forcing her wandering mind back to the task at hand, she was mortified to realize every student in the class was looking between her and Marc. As was the college president. Despite the years that had passed, the connection between them was obvious, the tension a live wire that threatened to spark at any moment. Determined not to let that happen, and not to let the atmosphere in the room get any more awkward than it already was, Isabella forced herself back to her task.
The next part of her lecture was on the world’s most famous sapphires and their locations. When she got to the part about the theft of the Robin’s Egg Sapphire—one of the most expensive and sought after gems in the world—she did her best not to look at Marc.
But in the end, she couldn’t help it. Her gaze was drawn to his, the magnetic force of his personality—his will—allowing her to do nothing else. She froze the second their eyes connected, the sardonic look he leveled at her as sharp as the finest hewn diamond. Marc knew what had happened to the Robin’s Egg. He’d made it his business to know before he’d confronted her in their bedroom—his bedroom—that long-ago night.
“We’re sorry to interrupt, Dr. Moreno,” Harlan said from his spot in the back of the classroom. “I was just showing Mr. Durand around the campus. He’s agreed to teach a miniseminar on diamond production starting in a few weeks and I wanted to give him the lay of the land. Please, carry on with your lecture. It’s fascinating.”
But it was too late for that. All around her, students murmured excitedly. Not that she blamed them. It wasn’t every day that one of the world’s largest producers and brokers of responsibly sourced diamonds agreed to speak to a bunch of first year graduate students. Still, she was the professor here. This was her lecture. She needed to regain control, if not for the class—which was only half-over—then because she refused to let Marc Durand have the upper hand for one second longer.
He’d taken everything from her. Or, to be completely honest, she’d given everything to him, only to have it all tossed back in her face. She’d deserved it then, and had paid for it royally. But that had been six years ago. Since then, she’d moved across the country and built an entirely new life for herself. She’d be damned if she let him come in here and screw that up for her, too.
Refusing to let Marc see just how much his presence here messed with her mind, she continued on with her lecture. Eventually the students settled down again and Marc and Harlan slipped out a lot more unobtrusively than they’d entered.