Secret Love - Brenda Jackson [48]
Diamond shrugged. “Nothing really other than it will give us a year to ourselves. I’m not ready to share our love with the prying eyes of the world. I’m not ready for what we share to be analyzed, criticized and pulled apart by the press. I need some private time, Jacob, to be with you whenever I can without people looking in.”
Jake got out of bed and crossed the room to the huge window. Staring out, all he saw was darkness. It would be a mirror of how his life would look if Diamond walked out of it.
He turned back to her. “And what if you’re pregnant now?”
There was a long pause in the room. A part of him hoped she was, but the tense bunching of her brows indicated she was hoping she wasn’t.
She smiled faintly. “If I’m pregnant, then it won’t be a secret for long, will it?”
She rubbed one hand over her forearm, knowing that he was thinking hard on her proposal. After moments passed and he didn’t say anything, she felt compelled to ask, “What about it, Jacob?”
Jake sucked in a deep breath, wondering what choice did he have. He loved her and would continue to do so until the day he died. He walked back over to the bed and pulled her into his arms. “I love you, Diamond, and I’m willing to take you any way I can get you.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “Do you mean that, Jacob?”
“Yes, I mean it.”
He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her like a man who had finally found what had been missing in his life. He would love her and protect her and in time she would see that their love would truly be enough.
BOOK TWO
The Present
Chapter 13
J ake Madaris rubbed the back of his neck and looked anxiously up at the dark sky. He had been at the airstrip for more than an hour and there was no sign of Sterling’s plane. He drew in a deep, ragged breath and let it out slowly as he tried to remain calm. Sterling claimed Diamond was all right, but he would breathe a whole lot easier once he saw her for himself; once he held her in his arms.
Someone had tried to attack her! He nearly choked on his disbelief that some demented person had actually broken into Diamond’s home and tried to hurt her. Oh, she’d had to deal with overzealous fans in the past, but nothing of this magnitude had ever happened, and he intended that nothing like this would ever happen again.
Damn it. They were only supposed to keep their secret for a year, but here it was nearly eighteen months later, and still very few people knew they were married. Jake searched his mind frantically to recall just how things had gotten so out of hand. Why had he allowed things to go this far? He sighed, knowing the answer to that question without really thinking about it. He had not asked her to give up anything to become his wife because he knew all about Diamond’s dreams.
He of all people understood how it felt to want something so badly that you worked hard to achieve it. He of all people knew the importance of proving something to yourself as well as to others. He understood Diamond’s burning desire to reach the top. She was a good actress. As far as he was concerned, the whole world knew it, but still she had not reached that pinnacle of excellence where she was satisfied.
Instinctively as her lover, husband and friend, he knew what drove her to want to be the best and not live under her father’s shadow. He also knew just how much she loved being an actress. There was no way he could take away from her the only other thing that shared her love. She loved acting as much as he loved ranching.
He also understood her fears.
She was still fearful of how pulled apart and complicated their life together would become once the media found out about them. And she was fighting to protect their privacy. He didn’t care what the media found out. He wanted to stop hiding the truth about their marriage and make her realize that together they could handle the media. And although a part of him wanted to push her into finally making a decision about their future, he couldn