His brother’s gaze softened. “It made you aspire to greatness. It made you need to be better than the rest. It led you to the right decision today. But now you have to let it go, just like you said I needed to. Pretending you don’t care isn’t going to release you. Following your destiny is. Prove him wrong.”
His fingers tightened around the armrests of the chair. He wished he didn’t have to prove himself to a ghost. Wished he’d been given the same trust his brother had from the beginning. But you couldn’t talk to a phantom. You had to banish it instead.
Frankie stuck her head in his office. “Nieman’s here.”
He nodded and stood up. He had always taken his own path. This shouldn’t be any different. Except it was. This time it was personal. It was about doing what was right. It was about saving his hundred-year-old legacy.
The venue for the annual Viennese Chamber of Commerce ball was the exquisite Great Hall in Lower Manhattan, a New York City landmark considered to be an Italian neo-Renaissance masterpiece. Designed by Benjamin Wistar Morris and completed in 1921, the space featured sixty-five-foot-high ceilings, soaring marble columns, magnificent inlaid floors and murals painted by Ezra Winter.
Diana might have been enjoying herself for once, amid her and Coburn’s insane social schedule, if it wasn’t for her husband’s volatile mood. The venue was utterly spectacular, the music from the orchestra excellent and her husband undeniably striking in his black tuxedo. Instead, she was worrying about him. He had come home from his board meeting tense and edgy, the weight of the world on his shoulders, utterly preoccupied to anything and everything around him.
She would have insisted they skip the fund-raiser if an important customer of Grant’s hadn’t been in attendance. Instead, she put on her most striking ankle-length gown in midnight blue and focused on being a light foil to her husband’s dark, intense focus as they networked their way through predinner cocktails.
Coburn finished his conversation with the Austrian ambassador. She braced herself for yet another introduction; instead, he laced his fingers through hers and pulled her through an arch to a deserted alcove.
“Have I told you how jaw-droppingly beautiful you look tonight?”
His husky rumble sent a fission of awareness through her. “No, you haven’t,” she reprimanded, her lips skimming the stubble on his cheek. “You’ve been far too preoccupied. What happened in the meeting?”
“We’re going ahead with my plan. No turning back now.”
The tension in his tone made her draw back. “No second-guessing yourself. You knew this wasn’t going to be easy.”
“Jack Nieman said it was either the gutsiest or the most reckless strategy he’d ever witnessed.”
“Gutsy,” she supplied softly. “To take the untraveled path is full of peril, but it also provides the greatest rewards.”
His mouth curved. “I married a philosopher.”
“Who believes in you.”
“Yes.” He bent and pressed a hard kiss to her mouth. “Thank you.”
The light glittering in his magnetic blue eyes as he drew back to look at her stole her breath. “This is what I’ve been fighting for our entire marriage, Diana. The bond, the power we create when we believe in one other.” He ran the pad of his thumb across her cheek, the gentle caress sending a shiver sliding through her. “When you let me in...”
A warmth unfurled inside her, wrapping itself around her insides. He loved her. She knew he did.
Her heart sat suspended in her chest as she waited to hear the words she so desperately needed to hear.
His gaze darkened. “I have so many things I want to say to you,” he murmured softly, “but this is not the place.”
Her heart stuttered forward in her chest. She had to swallow past the lump in her throat to speak. “I know.”
He pressed a kiss to her cheek in a silent promise and drew her into the throng of guests being directed toward the other sweeping hall for dinner. A staff member checked the list and escorted them to their table. They were to dine with Coburn’s Austrian customer and his colleagues.
Coburn’s fingers tightened against her back as they approached their table. “Is that Frank Moritz?”
Her gaze zeroed in on the tall, graying figure set in profile standing beside their table. Oh, God, it was. Her stomach dropped. She hadn’t told Coburn about Frank’s job offer. Hadn’t given her mentor an answer yet, either. As if by avoiding the whole subject, clarity would come to her.
Now that seemed like a very unwise decision.
She managed to secure a seat beside Frank and his wife, Carole, at the round table for ten, Coburn on her right. She would find an opportunity to tell Frank the fellowship was an off-limits conversation.
“Six degrees of separation,” she murmured when they all laughed about the connections between them all, Frank and Coburn’s client seeming to go way back. Apparently Frank and the client’s father had competed in luge together during Frank’s youth in Switzerland.
She focused on finding an opening to talk to Frank while Coburn was engaged with his client. It never seemed to come. The conversation was intimate, moving back and forth across the table like a Ping-Pong game, keeping everyone engaged.
She started to relax when the chatter stayed rooted in topics such as politics and international business policy. Perhaps Frank knew better than to talk personal business tonight.
Launching enthusiastically into a discussion about a film generating awards buzz, she kept the conversation flowing. Frank added his usual cutting commentary, then sat back in his chair, bringing his wineglass with him as he trained his gaze on Diana. “You still haven’t given me an answer on the fellowship. I take it that means you aren’t interested.”
Her husband went rigid beside her. A buzzing sound filled her ears. “Coburn and I haven’t had a chance to discuss it,” she said quietly. “Things have been chaotic.”
Frank pointed his wineglass at Coburn. “What do you think? Your wife is too talented to not be using her skills.”
“I think it’s not good timing,” her husband responded in a lethally quiet voice. “Considering Diana is pregnant.”
The buzzing sound in her ears flatlined. He had not just done that. He had not just outed her pregnancy at a table half-full of strangers.
Carole’s face lit up. “That’s so wonderful. Congratulations, you two.”
“I’m only a couple of months along,” Diana murmured. “It’s a bit soon to be talking about it.”
Frank was watching her with an assessing look. “We could make it work. A few weeks off is no problem. I’d rather have the most talented surgeon.”
Coburn put his fork and knife down on his plate. “It’s not happening, Moritz. I know how your underlings work. I will not have my wife running from the OR to the delivery room.”
I will not have... She turned to look at her husband, fury raging through her. Not even the white-hot anger sizzling in his blue eyes could stem the desire to strangle him.
The silence at the table was deafening. Diana looked at her mentor. “You’ll have to allow us some time to discuss.”
He inclined his head. “As I mentioned, I have to put a name forth by next week latest. I’m sure your husband will see this as the opportunity it is. I take on one surgeon every two years. That’s it.”
Coburn said nothing. Carole moved the conversation along. Diana reminded herself her husband was a barely functioning human being right now, but it was no use. She wanted to kill him.
She had contemplated turning the fellowship down because of him. Because he was more important to her than a job. But she was not and never would be a possession. She’d spent her life allowing her father to make her decisions for her. Coburn was not going to take on that mantle.
After dinner, Coburn’s customer suggested liquors at the bar. Coburn declined and escorted her out of the building. She waited silently at his side while the valet retrieved the car. When the young man brought the Jaguar to a halt in front of them, Coburn held her door open, waited while she slid in, then slammed it shut behind her.
She waited until he had gotten in and put the car into gear before she spoke.
“I was thinking about turning the job down. That’s why I hadn’t responded to him. I knew you needed me more than I needed the job.”
He pulled out of the driveway. “If you really believed that, you would have turned it down.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Coburn.”
“It’s not.” He yanked the car over to the side of the road and put it in park. “Goddammit, Diana, I thought we were getting somewhere. That we were finally being honest with each other. That we had the partnership I had always dreamed of. When all along you were keeping this from me.” His gaze pinned her to the seat. “When did he ask you?”
Heat singed her cheeks. “A few weeks ago. But it wasn’t the right timing to bring it up.”
He threw his head back against the seat. “So you said nothing. You allowed me to be blindsided tonight by Frank Moritz, who took great pleasure in putting me on the spot. Who made me look like a complete fool in front of a client by not knowing my wife had been offered a prestigious fellowship.”