A Diva Wears the Ring

By Diana Dempsey

Imagine you are in San Francisco on a chilly December night. A dark-haired woman you’ve never met urgently presses a gorgeous ring into your hands. “This ring could change your life,” she tells you. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

It is an ancient Irish Claddagh ring, forged on the Emerald Isle’s Galway Bay, and opera singer Veronica Ballard will discover, to her amazement, that it possesses magical powers. For whether Veronica likes it or not, the ring will force her to listen to the innermost secrets of her heart.

What truth will she find there? What truth about herself? And what truth about the handsome stranger who just might hold the answer to her lonely heart’s deepest riddle?

“A Diva Wears the Ring” is Diana Dempsey’s 30-thousand word novella from the multi-author anthology Ring of Truth.

“Oozes magic and romance. I'm not even Irish and I loved it." Barbara Freethy, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Compelling and beautifully written ...” New York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe

“Ingenious, entertaining ... a terrific read.” New York Times bestselling author Jane Heller

www.DianaDempsey.com
Facebook.com/DianaDempseyBooks
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• Language: English
• Publisher: Diana Dempsey
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9780981522395

Diana Dempsey

Diana Dempsey traded in an Emmy-winning career in TV news to write fast, fun romantic fiction. Her debut novel, FALLING STAR, was nominated for a RITA award for Best First Book by the members of Romance Writers of America. It centers on the personal and professional travails—and eventual triumphs—of a primetime anchorwoman. TO CATCH THE MOON, a Romantic Times Top Pick, combines a murder mystery with a love triangle. TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN goes behind the glossy veneer of a Napa Valley winery to find forbidden love, intrigue, and betrayal. CHASING VENUS is a romantic suspense about Annie Rowell, who discovers that being a best-selling novelist can be a killer ...Since Diana enjoys the occasional well-executed murder, she's launched a cozy mystery series. MS AMERICA AND THE OFFING ON OAHU introduces beauty queen and budding sleuth Happy Pennington, who must clear her name when her fiercest competitor tumbles dead out of the isolation booth during the pageant finale. The ongoing installments are MS AMERICA AND THE VILLAINY IN VEGAS, MS AMERICA AND THE MAYHEM IN MIAMI, and MS AMERICA AND THE WHOOPSIE IN WINONA.In her dozen years in television news, the former Diana Koricke played every on-air role from network correspondent to local news anchor. She reported for NBC News from New York, Tokyo, and Burbank, and substitute anchored such broadcasts as Sunrise, Today, and NBC Nightly News. In addition, she was a morning anchor for KTTV 11 Fox News in Los Angeles. She started her broadcast career with the Financial News Network.Born and raised in Buffalo, New York - Go, Bills! - Diana is a graduate of Harvard University and the winner of a Rotary International Foundation Scholarship. She enjoyed stints overseas in Belgium, the U.K., and Japan, and now resides in Los Angeles with her husband and a West Highland White Terrier, not necessarily in that order.Diana loves to hear from readers! Visit www.DianaDempsey.com to email Diana, and sign up to her mailing list to hear first about her new releases. Also join her on Facebook at Diana Dempsey Books and follow her on Twitter at Diana_Dempsey.

Book preview

A DIVA WEARS THE RING

(a novella from the anthology Ring of Truth)

Diana Dempsey

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

A Diva Wears the Ring

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 2015 by Diana Dempsey

Cover Design by Streetlight Graphics

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission. Making or distributing electronic copies of this book constitutes copyright infringement and could subject the infringer to criminal and civil liability.

ISBN: 978-0-9815223-9-5

First electronic edition February 2015

Table of Contents

Title Page

Contact the Author

Also Available from Diana Dempsey

Dedication

Preface

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Author’s Note

Excerpt from TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN

www.DianaDempsey.com

Facebook.com/DianaDempseyBooks

Twitter.com/Diana_Dempsey

Available from Diana Dempsey

Falling Star

To Catch the Moon

Too Close to the Sun

Chasing Venus

A Diva Wears the Ring (novella)

Ring of Truth (anthology featuring novella A Diva Wears the Ring)

Beauty Queen Mysteries

Ms America and the Offing on Oahu

Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas

Ms America and the Mayhem in Miami

Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway

Ms America and the Naughtiness in New Orleans

To Alyssa and Jacinda

(once Yulia and Marina)

Preface

It is a chilly December night in San Francisco. A dark-haired woman urgently presses a gorgeous ring into the hands of a young opera singer, a woman she’s never met whose obvious distress captures her attention.

The distraught young singer hears fanciful words. This ring could change your life. You’ll just have to trust me.

It is a Claddagh ring, Ireland’s timeless symbol of love, friendship, and fidelity. This ancient and enduring ring, forged on Galway Bay, is like every other Claddagh, but it is different, too, in ways the young singer cannot begin to imagine.

In two ways, the ring proffers its message.

By its inscription: Know Thy Heart

And by a gossamer-thin, many-times-folded piece of parchment:

Be brave!—for the ring of truth will test you. Once on your finger, its power to speak endures but seven days. Listen and learn, lest you lose its wisdom and your heart’s desire. When seven days pass, prepare to give the Claddagh as a gift. Once her face you see, you’ll know the one who must the ring receive. On her bestow the ring of truth ...

Chapter One

Veronica Ballard stood on the sidewalk outside the restaurant clutching the ring box, passersby throwing quizzical glances in her direction as they pushed past her en route to their evening’s entertainment. She didn’t need a mirror to know she looked a fright, tears and stage makeup funneling down her face to stain the neckline of her cream-colored sweater. At least she wasn’t ruining her costume. But she’d had to leave that purple taffeta extravaganza behind at the Opera House for the next time the company mounted Don Giovanni. Chances were good that next time, too, she would be singing a minor soprano’s role.

Then again … perhaps at last her life was changing.

As the chilly San Francisco night swirled around her, Veronica glanced at the ring box and considered the airmail letter inside her handbag, which had shown up in her mailbox that very morning.

It couldn’t be coincidence that she received those two extraordinary items just hours apart. It had to be a sign of something. No one who believed in destiny as fiercely as she did could think anything else.

Again Veronica opened the box that cradled the ring; again she touched the green-colored gemstone in the shape of a heart set between golden hands and capped by a crown. It can’t be a genuine emerald, she concluded, no one would give that to a stranger; though just as that idea settled in her mind a sort of shimmer seemed to course through the gemstone, as if daring her to deny its authenticity.

Veronica? a male voice called behind her.

She spun around. It was Dominik, the bad-boy tenor from Budapest with the carefully disheveled blond hair, famous for cutting a swath through the ranks of the sopranos in every production in which he appeared.

Are you all right? he asked in his lightly accented voice. We’re all worried about you.

Even among opera singers, who embraced drama every chance they got, Veronica’s bursting into tears, fleeing a restaurant table, and nearly toppling two busboys on her way out the door was histrionic behavior.

Veronica stuffed the ring box in her handbag, not wanting to have to explain that, too. I’m sorry. Here we all are to celebrate our final performance, and I have a meltdown.

Forget about the celebration. Dominik edged still closer. It’s you I’m worried about.

Veronica watched Dominik switch on his legendary charm. This time he didn’t bother to say we’re worried, and she could guess why. No doubt he was thinking there was still time to make her one of his conquests. Dominik was far from boyfriend material, though her boyfriends were always other opera singers or musicians. (And once a conductor, though that had earned her some grief.) Who else would they be? Those were the men she spent time with, the men she got to know. More than that, they were as unmoored and peripatetic as she was. They understood her life because they lived it, too.

Are you worried about Florence? Dominik went on. You shouldn’t be, you know. You’ll be wonderful.

Indeed she was petrified about the new role in Italy but not for the reasons Dominik assumed. It’s all happening so fast, she told him.

Dominik was only inches away. It had to be said: Those hazel eyes of his were mesmerizing. Maybe she’d been wrong to keep him at arm’s length. How odd that for once she’d been cautious.

Now she let herself speak freely. The thing is, I received a letter from my birth mother. This morning. Even though she heard the words come out of her mouth she still couldn’t quite believe them. The first one ever.

Dominik frowned. Birth mother? he repeated, and Veronica realized she’d reached the limits of his excellent English.

I’m adopted. From Russia.

His brows flew up in shock. You’re Russian?

Sort of. My parents adopted me and brought me here to the Bay Area when I was only a few months old.

Understanding dawned. Oh, I see. Birth mother. I see. He nodded. I see how you could be Russian, he added, and Veronica knew what he meant. The blond hair, the fair skin, the blue eyes: She was a facsimile of Julie Christie’s Lara in Dr. Zhivago, though nowhere near so beautiful.

I’ve been writing to my birth mother for years, Veronica went on. Well, I write a letter and a contact in Moscow translates it and sends it on to her.

And every time Veronica’s contact forwarded her the return receipt, proving the letter had reached its intended recipient.

But after all these years, she added, this is the first time she’s ever written to me.

Wow! Amazing. After all this time.

Veronica’s parents would be seriously distraught to hear that this time their precious daughter got a response. Which was why so far she’d kept this stunning development to herself.

From the first, her parents had been forthcoming about her adoption. Even as a small child she remembered fingering the yellowing documents from the orphanage that told the melancholy tale of how her birth father was largely absent and her birth mother couldn’t afford to feed yet another mouth. So many times during her childhood Veronica had pored over the photos of her parents’ epic trip to Moscow, separated into Before and After they claimed their infant treasure. The Before photos were a travelogue: St. Basil’s Cathedral, with its whimsical bonnet of crayon-colored onion domes; the neoclassical majesty of the Bolshoi Theatre; the brooding hulk of the Kremlin. Baby Veronica was the star of the After photos: sitting in a borrowed high chair in a nondescript hotel room, baby food everywhere but in her mouth; in a sink awaiting a bath, naked and howling; swaddled in blankets to sleep in a suitcase, no crib for a bed. She grew up hearing that her parents, well past the bloom of youth when she came into their lives, had picked her out special. Russia hardly provided a beacon of hope for Americans in those days—or now—but it had for Georgette and Ed Ballard, whose adored Veronica was the only child they would ever call their own.

It was with exquisite guilt that Veronica first inquired how they would feel if she tried to contact her birth mother. By then she was out of college and taking her first steps toward a career in opera. Something in her had to know where she came from. With her past a virtual blank she’d spun so many wild scenarios in her mind; she longed to know if any of them were close to true. So often she fantasized that her birth parents were the source of her wondrous voice. Maybe one of them was even an opera singer. By that point she understood that such a gift rarely translated into riches—not even in the U.S. or Europe, so she wouldn’t expect it in Russia.

To this day she cringed recalling her parents’ shocked silence when she first brought up the topic. Bad as it was,