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Purchased for Passion
JULIA JAMES
ANNIE WEST
EMMA DARCY

MILLS & BOON^®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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SHACKLED BY DIAMONDS

Julia James lives in England with her family. Mills & Boon were the first ‘grown up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—‘The most perfect landscape after England’!—and she considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!

CHAPTER ONE

LEO MAKARIOS paused in the shadows at the top of the flight of wide stairs leading down to the vast hall of Schloss Edelstein, one hand curved around the newel post of the massive carved wood banister, his powerful physique relaxing as he surveyed the arc-lit scene below with a sense of satisfaction.

Justin had chosen well. The four girls really were exquisite.

He stood a moment, looking them over.

The blonde caught his eye first, but despite her remarkable beauty she was too thin for his tastes, her pose too tense. He had no patience with neurotic women. The brunette beside her wasn’t too thin, but for all her glorious swathe of chestnut hair her expression was vacant. Leo’s gaze moved on. Unintelligent women irritated him.

The redhead’s pre-Raphaelite looks were stunning indeed, but they had, Leo knew, already caught the attention of his cousin Markos, under whose protection the girl was living. His gaze moved on again to the final girl.

And stopped.

His eyes narrowed, taking in the picture she made.

The hair was sable. As black as night.

The skin was white. As pale as ivory.

And the eyes were green.

As green as the emeralds she was wearing.

Wearing with an air of such total boredom that a sudden shaft of anger went through him. What business had any female to look bored when wearing a Levantsky necklace? Did she not realise what a miracle of the jeweller’s art the necklace was? And the earrings and the bracelets and the rings she was adorned with?

Evidently not. Even as he watched her lips pressed together and she gave a conspicuously heavy sigh, placing one hand on her hip and very obviously shifting her weight from one leg to the other beneath her long skirts.

Leo stilled, the anger draining out of him. As she’d given that heavy sigh her breasts had lifted. Already lush from the tightly corseted black gown she was wearing, the movement had made their soft dove-white mounds swell delectably.

Through Leo’s lean, powerful frame a familiar and pleasurable sensation started.

So the sable-haired, green-eyed beauty was bored, was she?

Well, he would be happy to remedy that.

Personally.

He started to walk down the stairs.

Anna felt her mood worsening. What was the hold-up now? Tonio Embrutti had gone into a huddle with his assistants, and she could hear the static hiss of vituperative Italian. She gave another sigh, feeling the low-cut décolletage digging in. She hated wearing it—it was far too revealing, and it invited the usual sleazy male attention she tried to avoid.

Her lips pressed together again. Mentally she forced herself to go through one of her karate katas. It both calmed her and reassured her, knowing she could fight off any physical harassment—even if she couldn’t stop men leering over her.

She shifted her weight again minutely in the heavy dress. Modelling wasn’t as easy as people thought it was, and she could tell that the two amateurs here—Kate and Vanessa—were finding it hard and tiring. Anna’s eyes travelled to them. The brunette, Kate, looked vacant without her lenses in—but at least, thought Anna, it meant she couldn’t see the lecherous looks aimed at her. The redhead, Vanessa, had other protection—word had gone round that her boyfriend was the cousin of the guy who’d set up this shindig and owned this medieval mansion. Though why, Anna mused, a Greek should own a castle in the Austrian Alps was beyond her. Maybe he just wanted to be close to the private Swiss bank he kept his loot in.

He certainly had a whole load of cash, that was for sure. Schloss Edelstein was vast, perched halfway up a mountain and surrounded by forests and snowfields.

Anna’s bored expression lightened suddenly with remembered pleasure. The view from her bedroom was breathtaking: sunlight sparkling on the pristine snow, down to the frozen lake below, ringed by mountains. Very different from the view of the gasworks she’d had when she was growing up.

But then Anna had been lucky, she knew—spectacularly lucky.

Spotted in a shopping mall when she was eighteen by a scout for a modelling agency, she’d been incredibly suspicious at first. But the offer had proved genuine. Not that it hadn’t taken non-stop hard work to succeed at modelling. Now, even though she was not in the supermodel bracket, and at twenty-six was already facing up to her limited remaining shelf-life, she made a living that was light-years away from what she’d been born to.

She’d learned a lot along the way. Not just how the other half lived—which had opened her eyes big-time—but about how to survive in one of the toughest careers around. And do it without letting the slime get to you.

Because slime, she had swiftly discovered, was a big, big feature of a fashion model’s world. Some of the girls, she knew, did every drug they could, and slept with every man who could help their career. And a lot of the men in the fashion world weren’t any better either.

Not that everyone was like that, she acknowledged. Some people in the fashion world were fine—there were designers she respected, photographers she trusted, models who were friends. Like Jenny, the blonde of the quartet, her best friend, draped now in white, with a diamond tiara and bracelets up to her elbows.

Anna’s eyes narrowed.

Jenny didn’t look well. She’d always been thin—what model wasn’t?—but now she was on the point of looking emaciated. It wasn’t drugs—Jenny didn’t do drugs, or Anna would not have been friends with her. She hoped it wasn’t just undereating—especially not if some jerk of a photographer had been telling her to shift some non-existent weight. Illness? A shudder went through Anna. Life was uncertain enough, and you could die in your twenties all right. Hadn’t her own mother not made it past twenty-five, leaving her fatherless baby daughter to be brought up by her widowed grandmother?

Whatever it was that was pulling Jenny down, Anna would try and catch some time with her, when today’s shoot had finished. If it ever did. At least the huddle around Tonio Embrutti seemed to be ending. He was turning his attention back to the models. His little eyes flashed in his fleshy face, which a cultivated designer stubble did not enhance.

‘You!’ He pointed dramatically at Jenny. ‘Off!’

Anna saw Jenny stare.

‘Off?’ she echoed dumbly.

The photographer waved his hands irritably.

‘The dress. Off. Down to the hips. Peel it off. Then I need the hands crossed over in your cleavage. I want to shoot the bracelets. Hurry up!’ He clicked impatiently at a hovering stylist and held out a hand for his camera from his assistant.

Jenny stood frozen.

‘I can’t.’

The photographer stared at her.

‘Are you deaf? Remove your dress. Now!’

The stylist he’d pointed at was obediently undoing the fastenings down the back of Jenny’s dress.

‘I’m not taking the dress off!’

Jenny’s voice sounded high-pitched with tension.

Anna saw Tonio Embrutti’s face darken. She stepped forward to intervene.

‘No strips,’ she announced. ‘It’s in the contract.’

The photographer’s face whipped round to hers.

‘Shut up!’ He turned back to Jenny.

Anna walked up to her, putting a hand out to stop the stylist. Jenny was looking as tense as a board.

Another voice spoke. A new voice.

‘Do we have a problem?’

The voice was deep, and accented. It was also—and Anna could hear it like a low, subliminal tremor in her body—a warning.

A man had stepped out of the shadows consuming the rest of the vast hall beyond the brilliantly illuminated space they were being photographed in.

Anna felt the breath catch in her throat. The man who had stepped into the circle of light was like a leopard. Sleek, powerful, graceful—and dangerous.

Dangerous? She wondered why the word had come into her mind, but it had. And even as it formed it was replaced by another one.

Devastating.

The breath stayed caught in her throat as she stared, taking in everything about the man who had just appeared.

Tall. Very tall. Taller than her.

Dark hair, olive skin—and a face that could have stepped out of a Byzantine mosaic. Impassive, remote, assessing.

And incredibly sexy.

It was the eyes, she thought, as she slowly exhaled her breath. The eyes that did it. Almond-shaped, heavy-lidded, sensual.

Very dark.

He spoke again. Everyone seemed to have gone totally silent around him. He was the kind of man who’d have that effect on people, Anna found herself thinking.

‘I repeat—do we have a problem?’

He doesn’t like problems—he gets rid of them. They get in his way…

The words seemed to form in her mind of their own accord.

‘And you are…?’ Tonio Embrutti enquired aggressively.

Stupidly.

The man turned his impassive heavy-lidded eyes on him. For a moment he said nothing.

‘Leo Makarios,’ he said.

He didn’t say it loudly, thought Anna. He didn’t say it portentously. And he certainly didn’t say it self-importantly.

Yet there was something about the way the man who owned Schloss Edelstein, whose company owned every jewel that she and the other three models were draped with, and who owned a whole heap more besides spoke. Something about the way he said his name that almost—almost—made her feel sorry for Tonio Embrutti.

Almost, but not quite. Because Tonio Embrutti was, without doubt, one of the biggest jerks she’d ever had the displeasure to be photographed by.

‘Yes,’ she announced clearly, before the photographer could get a word out. ‘We do have a problem.’

The heavy-lidded eyes turned to her.

How, she found herself thinking, could eyes that were so impassive make her feel every muscle in her body tighten? As though she were an impala—caught out on a deserted African plain, with the sun going down.

When the big cats came out to hunt.

But she wasn’t an impala, and this Leo Makarios was no leopard. He was just a rich man who was having a fun time getting his latest rich-man’s toy some media attention. Starting with publicity photos, courtesy of four models specially hired for the purpose.

But not hired to strip.

‘Your photographer,’ she said sweetly, ‘wants us to breach the contract.’ Her voice changed. Hardened. ‘No nude work. It’s in the contract,’ she informed him. ‘I made sure it was. Check it out.’

She went on standing protectively beside Jenny. The other two girls—the amateurs—had, she noticed, instinctively closed in on each other as well. Both were looking uneasy.

Leo Makarios was still looking at her.

She was looking back.

Something was happening to her.

Something deep down. In her guts.

Something she didn’t like.

Slime. Was that it? Was that what it was about the way Leo Makarios was looking at her that she didn’t like?

No, she thought slowly. Definitely not slime. That she could handle. She’d had to learn how, and now she could.

But this was worse. What Leo Makarios was doing to her hit somewhere completely different.

She could feel it happening. Feel the slow, heavy slug of her heart rate. Feel the blood start to pulse.

As if for the very first time in her life.

Oh, no, she thought, with the kind of slow-motion thinking that came with great shock. Not this.

Not him.

But it was.

Leo let his eyes rest on her.

She wasn’t looking bored now.

Two quite different emotions were animating her face, though she was, he could see, trying not to let the second one through.

The first emotion was anger. The girl was angry. Very angry.

It was an old anger too, one that was familiar to her.

But the second emotion was coming as a shock to her.

He felt a surge of satisfaction go through him.

She might be hiding it, but he’d seen it—seen the tell-tale minute flaring of her pupils as her eyes had impacted with his.

The satisfaction came again, but he put it to one side. He’d attend to it later—when the time was appropriate. Right now he had other matters to deal with.

He flicked his eyes to the blonde. Yes, definitely the neurotic type, he thought. Tense and jittery, and the type to give any man a headache. She was fantastically beautiful, of course, but he didn’t envy the man who had the handling of her.

‘Let me understand,’ he said to her. ‘You do not want this shot? The one Signor Embrutti desires?’

The girl was almost trembling she was so tense. She shook her head.

Tonio Embrutti burst into a fusillade of staccato Italian. Leo halted him with a peremptory hand.

‘No breast shots. Not for her. Not for any of them. Their clothes stay on—all of them,’ he spelt out, for good measure.

His eyes moved over the four girls, resting momentarily on the redhead. A smile almost flickered on his mouth. He could just imagine his cousin Markos’s reaction to seeing his mistress’s naked charms paraded in the publicity shots accompanying the launch of the rediscovered Levantsky collection—long-hidden in a secret Tsarist cache in the depths of Siberia and recently returned to the commercial world courtesy of a shrewd acquisition by Makarios Corp.

Markos would have beaten him to a pulp for allowing it!

If he could land a punch, that was, thought Leo, with dark humour.

Not that he would give him cause to—or any man who had an interest in the girls here.

His eyes flicked back to the sable-haired model. Was she taken? Just because she’d responded to him it didn’t mean that another man didn’t have his marker on her. She wouldn’t be the first female to think she’d do better trading up to a Makarios.

Those that thought that way, however, he promptly lost interest in.

Such women made poor mistresses. Their minds were on his money—not on him.

And when he had a woman in bed with him he wanted her mind totally and utterly on him.

As the sable-haired model’s would be when he bedded her. He would see to it.

He strolled to the side of the vast hall, nodding briefly to the senior security personnel hired to guard the Levantsky collection, leaned back against the edge of a heavy oak table, crossed one ankle over the other, folded his arms, and watched, wanting to see more of the girl he had selected for himself.

The shoot went on.

It was the turn of the sable-haired model next. Both to be shot and picked on.

Tonio Embrutti was clearly taking out his spleen on her. Nothing she did was right. He snapped and snarled and sneered at whatever she did, however she posed.

Leo felt an intense desire to stride across to the photographer and wring his scrawny neck. And he also felt a grudging admiration for the model.

She might be bored wearing a Levantsky parure, she might be the kind of troublemaker who quoted contractual conditions at the first sign of rough water, but when it came to putting up with what was being handed out to her she had the patience of a saint.

Which was curious, thought Leo, watching her assessingly, because she didn’t look saint-like at all.

Not that she looked sexy.

Nothing that crass.

No, her intense sexual allure came from something quite different.

It came from her being supremely indifferent to it.

It really was, he mused, very powerful.

Very erotic.

His eyes swept over her. The black hair like a cloak, the milk-white shoulders and generous curve of her corseted breasts, her tiny waist and her accentuated hips, her slender but moulded arms—and then her face, of course. Almost square, with a defined jaw, and yet the high cheekbones, the straight nose, the wide, unconsciously voluptuous mouth—and the emerald eyes…

Oh, yes, she really was very, very erotic.

He felt his body stir, and he relaxed back to enjoy the view.

And anticipate the night’s entertainment to come.

Courtesy of the sable-haired model.

Idly, he wondered what her name was…

Anna sank her exhausted body into the hot, fragrant water. It felt blissful. God, she was tired. The shoot had been punishing. Not just because of that jerk Embrutti—though keeping her cool with him had taken more effort than she enjoyed exerting—but simply because it had taken so long.

But in the end it had been a wrap. Every girl had been photographed wearing every different colour stone, with both matching and contrasting gowns. They would be wearing the jewels again tonight, at the grand reception Leo Makarios was holding to launch his revival of the Levantsky jewellery marque. Vanessa in emeralds, Kate in rubies, herself in diamonds and Jenny in sapphires.

Anna’s eyes were troubled suddenly. She’d had her little chat with Jenny, following her into her room when they’d all finally been dismissed. She’d plonked her down on the bed, sat down beside her, and got the truth from her.

And it had shocked her totally.

‘I’m pregnant!’ Jenny had blurted out.

Anna had just stared. She hadn’t needed to ask who by, or just why Jenny was so upset about it.

She’d warned her all along not to get involved with someone whose culture was so different from Western norms, that it could only end in trouble.

And it certainly had.

‘He told me!’ Jenny had rocked back and forth on the bed, clutching her abdomen where, scarcely visible, her baby was growing. ‘He told me that if ever I got pregnant I faced two choices. Marrying him and living as his wife to raise the child. Or marrying him, giving him the child, and being divorced. But I can’t. I can’t do either! I can’t!’

She’d started crying, and Anna had wrapped her up in her arms and let her cry.

‘I can’t marry him!’ Jenny had sobbed. ‘I can’t live in some harem and never get out ever again. And as for giving up my baby…’

Her sobs had become even more anguished.

‘I take it,’ Anna had said, when they finally died away, ‘that he doesn’t know about the baby?’

‘No! And he mustn’t find out! Or he’ll come and get me and drag me back to his desert. Oh, God, Anna, he mustn’t find out. Don’t you see why I was so terrified when Tonio wanted me to strip down? In case it showed—the pregnancy. Supposing someone noticed—they would; you know they would—and it started circulating as a rumour. He’d pick up on it and he’d come storming down on me! Oh, God, I’ve got to get away. I’ve got to.’

Anna had frowned.

‘Get away?’

‘Yes. I’ve got to hide. Hide before anything starts really showing. And I mean hide for good, Anna. If he ever hears I’ve had a baby he’ll know it’s his. He’ll have tests done and all that. So I’ve got to get away.’

She’d turned a stricken face to her friend.

‘I’ve got to get really, really far away—and stay there. Totally resettle. Somewhere he’ll never think of looking.’ She bit her lip. ‘I was planning on Australia. One of the obscure bits, round the northwest. Where the pearls come from. I can’t remember what it’s called, but it’s the last place he’d look.’

Anna had looked sober.

‘Can you afford to move out there, Jenny?’

She knew Jenny earned good money, but it was patchy. Neither of them were in the very top league of supermodels, and agency fees and other expenses ate into what they were paid. Besides, Jenny’s ill-advised affair with the man she was now desperate to flee from had kept her out of circulation for too long—other, younger models were snapping up work she’d have now been grateful to get.

Jenny hadn’t answered. Just bitten her lip.

‘I can lend you—’ Anna began, but Jenny had shaken her head.

‘You need your money. I know how expensive that nursing home is for your gran. And I won’t have you selling your flat. At our age we’re both looking extinction in the face—you need your savings for when you quit modelling. So I’m not borrowing from you. I’ll manage. Somehow.’

Anna hadn’t bothered to press her offer. Somehow she would make sure Jenny had at least enough to start running, start hiding—even if it meant mortgaging her flat to raise some cash.

Now she lay back in the water, letting the heat drain her tiredness. Poor Jenny—pregnant by a man who valued her only as a body, and who would part her from her baby with the click of his imperious fingers. Neither of the generous ‘options’ he’d given her was acceptable. No, Jenny had to get away, all right. As soon as this shoot was over.

But there was more to get through yet. Already guests had started to arrive. Driven up in chauffeured cars or deposited via helicopter. The rich, the famous, the influential—all invited by Leo Makarios.

She stared at the steam gently rising from the huge clawfooted bathtub.

Leo Makarios.

She was going to have to think about him.

She didn’t want to.

Had been putting it off.

But now she had to think about him.

Cautiously she opened her mind to what had happened.

For the first time in four long, safe years she had seen a man who was dangerous to her.

And it was disturbing.

Because men weren’t dangerous to her. Not any more. Not since Rupert Vane had told her that he was off to marry Caroline Finch-Carleton—a girl, unlike Anna, from his own upper-crust background.

Even now, four years on, she could still feel the burn of humiliation. Of hurt.

Rupert had been the first man—the only man—who had got past her defences. He’d had the lazily confident good-mannered charm of a scion of the landed classes, and he’d simply breezed through each and every one of her rigidly erected guards. He had been funny, and fun, and fond of her in his own shallow way.

‘It’s been a hoot, Anna,’ he’d told her as he’d given her the news about his forthcoming marriage.

Since then she’d kept men—all men—at a safe distance. Thanking heaven, in a perverse way, that most of the ones she encountered held no attraction for her.

Into her mind, as the water lapped her breasts, an image stole. A picture of a man looking her over with dark heavylidded eyes.

Leo Makarios.

Deliberately she let herself think about him. I need to know, she thought. I need to know why he’s dangerous to me.

So that I can guard against it.

Something had happened today that had got her worried. A man had looked her over and it had got to her. And she didn’t know why.

It couldn’t be because he was good looking—her world was awash with fantastic-looking men, and not all of them were gay. And it couldn’t be because he was rich—because that had always been the biggest turn-off, accompanied as it usually was by an assumption that models were sexually available to rich men.

So what the hell was going on?

All she knew were two things.

That when it came to Leo Makarios she would have to be very, very careful.

And that she wanted to see him again.

CHAPTER TWO

EFFORTLESSLY, Leo switched from Italian to French, and then into German and English, as he greeted his guests. The vast hall had been cleared of all the photographic clutter, and was now thronged with women in evening dress and men in black tie, and waiters circulating with trays of champagne.

‘Markos!’ Leo switched to Greek and greeted his cousin. A couple of years younger than Leo’s thirty-four, and of slightly slimmer build, his dark slate eyes revealed his portion of English ancestry. Markos was otherwise all Greek. They chatted a moment or two, and Leo cast a courteous smile at the pre-Raphaelite redhead at Markos’s side.

She didn’t return the smile. She didn’t even see him. She was gazing at his cousin with a bemused, helpless expression in her eyes, as though Markos were the only person in the universe.

A strange ripple of emotion went through Leo.

No woman had ever looked at him like that…

Would you want them to?

The question thrust rhetorically, challengingly.

He answered promptly.

No, definitely not. Any woman who looked at him like that would be a nuisance.

Or faking it.

In the past there had been women who’d passionately declared their undying love for him, but he’d known better. The object of their devotion was not him, but his wealth. Now he never let any woman tell him she loved him.

He made the terms of his endearment crystal-clear from the outset. A temporary affair, exclusive while it lasted, with no emotional scenes to irritate him, no hysterical recriminations when it came to an end, and no post-affair harassment. When it was over, it was over—and could they please both move on? He would—she must too. They would inevitably cross paths again in the cosmopolitan world he moved in, and he didn’t want any unwelcome scenes or unpleasant encounters.

He moved through the throng, meeting and greeting his myriad guests. His eyes were scanning the crowd, picking out the models circulating with their display of Levantsky jewels.

Where was the sable-haired one?

Suddenly he saw her, and he stopped dead.

She looked absolutely and totally stunning.

She was wearing a black dress so simple it was almost a sarong, wrapped tightly across her breasts and then falling in a single fluid line to her ankles. With it she wore black elbowlength evening gloves. Unlike earlier, her hair was up, in a soft, immensely flattering low pompadour on the back of her head, framing her face. She had far less make-up on than she’d had for the shoot; her mouth merely seemed to have lipgloss, and her eyes little more than mascara. Her skin was still ivory-white.

Against the whiteness the shimmer of diamonds circling her slender throat glittered iridescently, enhancing her already exquisite beauty.

For a full moment Leo did nothing but look, taking in the vision she presented. She really was quite exceptional…

Then, abruptly, a frown drew his brows together. He strode towards her.

She’d been standing on her own, a glass of champagne in one long black-satined hand, and she was gazing up at the snarling mask of a long-dead boar on one of the walls. There was an expression of strong disapproval on her face.

‘Why are you not wearing the rest of the parure?’ he demanded as he reached her.

Her head spun round.

There was that flaring of her pupils again, he could see it. But right now he wasn’t interested. He was interested only in why she was not wearing the tiara, earrings and bracelets that matched the necklace, as she’d been instructed to do that evening.

‘Well?’ he prompted.

She seemed to collect herself minutely.

‘One of the bulbs was on the blink,’ she answered.

Leo frowned more deeply.

‘What?’ he snapped.

‘As in Christmas lights. I mean,’ she asked him, ‘did you actually want me wandering around looking like a Christmas tree? It just looked ridiculously overdone wearing the whole lot together.’

‘And that was your decision, was it?’

The tone was mild, but it raised the hairs on the back of Anna’s neck.

There was no way she was backing down, though. She’d seen her reflection when she’d been wearing the whole lot, and she’d just looked like a glitterball.

‘It would,’ she riposted pointedly, ‘be the decision of anyone who had any taste.’

His eyes narrowed at her tone. ‘My instructions were quite clear.’

Anna knew exactly what she should say. Leo Makarios was paying her to model his jewellery, and he called the shots. She should say docilely, Of course, Mr Makarios. Three bags full, Mr Makarios.

But she didn’t.

‘Well, you were wrong,’ she said instead. ‘To wear any more jewellery than this necklace would be irredeemably vulgar.’

His face stilled. Something changed in the heavy-lidded eyes. She ought to back down; she knew she should. But she never backed down. If you did you got walked over.

For one long moment his eyes simply rested on her. She could feel the tension start to edge through her.

Then she realised what he was doing.

Out-psyching her.

So she took the battle into his corner.

‘Surely, Mr Makarios,’ she posed limpidly, ‘a man with all your money would not wish to appear vulgar?’

For one timeless second it hung in the balance. And for that moment Anna found herself hoping for something—and she didn’t even know why she was hoping for it.

But she got it all the same.

At the corner of his mouth, almost imperceptibly, she saw a quirk.

Something lightened inside her. She didn’t know what, or why, but it did.

Then the quirk vanished and the mouth was a straight, tight line once more, the heavy-lidded eyes quelling.

‘You live dangerously,’ said Leo Makarios softly. ‘Don’t do it on my time.’

He gave a brief indication of his head. ‘Go and put the jewels back on.’

He walked away. Cutting her out of existence.

For one intense moment an urge so strong almost overpowered her and she had to steel her whole body. She wanted to vault forward, lift her empty hand up and bring it slashing down. But, slowly, she stood, letting the aggressive urge drain out of her. Why on earth should she let a man like Leo Makarios get to her? He was just one more rich man who liked the world the way he paid it to be. And right now he was paying her to wear his jewels. All his jewels. However vulgar such an over-the-top display would be. She gave a shrug.

He wanted diamonds? She’d put on diamonds.

As she strode off, as fast as her narrow skirt would permit, she did not see a pair of heavy-lidded eyes flick past the shoulder of the chief executive Leo happened to be speaking to and rest narrowingly on her.

Then, as she disappeared from view, he went back seamlessly to discussing the implications of the latest G8 summit on world trade.

The chamber orchestra was tuning up, people were taking their seats in the ballroom. Unlike the medieval-style hall, the ballroom was pure rococo, lined with mirrors and with an extravagantly carved gilded ceiling. Set diagonally, like miniature wings either side of the orchestra, were two pairs of gilt fauteuils. They were for the models, so the audience could admire the Levantsky jewels in their massed splendour while they listened to Mozart. Three of the girls, noted Leo, as he entered, had just taken their places. His eyes flicked over them again as he made some conversational reply to the wife of one of the Austrian government ministers sitting beside him.

The redhead was gazing into the audience, openly searching for Markos. The brunette, Leo noted with mild surprise, had lost her vacant look and was talking animatedly to the musician closest to her.

His eyes flicked across to the two chairs on the other side of the orchestra. The blonde was there, looking more uptight than ever, but the chair beside her was empty.

Leo felt his mouth tightening again.

Definitely a troublemaker.

He’d had confirmation. He’d sent for his aide, Justin, who was taking care of the publicity side of the Levantsky launch, and told him to check that the black-haired girl was this time obeying orders. Justin had looked nervous, and muttered something about her agency warning him that she had a bit of an attitude issue.

Leo had just looked at Justin. ‘Not while she’s here,’ he’d said.

Justin had scurried off.

Leo took his place beside the minister’s wife. The orchestra went on tuning up.

The girl cut it fine. Very fine.

The audience were finally quietening; the conductor was at his podium.

She came gliding in, whisking into her seat. Then she just sat there, hands folded demurely in her lap.

She had the tiara in her hair, long drops in her ears, bracelets on both arms, and the necklace of diamonds.

Looking exactly like an illuminated Christmas tree.

Leo’s mouth tightened.

He hated being wrong. About anything.

Or anyone.

Anna’s feet were killing her again. It was the worst aspect of modelling, she thought—apart from the boredom and the sleaze.

But she stood, politely attentive, while a stout German industrialist regaled her with the healing properties of spa waters. Across the room, Anna could see Leo Makarios talking to someone. She hoped he was happy with the Christmas lights.

They were certainly getting enough attention from the guests, that was for sure. She’d been on the receiving end of countless inspections by both men and women—though the male ones had been liberally blended with lecherous looks as well—speculating about the price. And not just of the jewels.

That was why she was sticking where she was. Spa cures might not be the most fascinating subject in the world, but the German industrialist was treating her with great courtesy. Better still, he was keeping other men away from her.

All except one.

‘Hans, wie gehts?’

The deep, accented voice was unmistakable.

Anna felt herself tense automatically, vivid with awareness of who had just approached.

The industrialist’s face lit into a warm smile and he launched into German. As Leo Makarios answered him in the same language, his voice rich and smooth, Anna could feel him looking at her, taking in the ostentatious display of diamonds she was showing off.

As he regarded her she kept her face expressionless, her eyes blank.

For a moment Leo thought of telling her that she’d been right, that wearing the entire parure was overkill, detracting from the exquisite beauty of the rainfall necklace.

Then Hans Federman was asking a question about his experience of doing business in the former Eastern Bloc, and comparing it with his own company’s experiences.

Taking advantage of the diversion, Anna was about to drift off. But as she started to move, without pausing a beat in what he was saying, Leo Makarios snaked his hand out and fastened it round her wrist.

Anna froze. Entirely opposite reactions flashed through her. One was an instinct to yank her arm away from his restraining hold. The second was a bolt of hot electricity that shocked her to her core.

Then, abruptly, her wrist was dropped. Leo Makarios stopped talking and turned his head to her.

‘Don’t wander off, please, Ms…?’ He cocked an eyebrow at her, pointedly waiting for her to supply her name.

‘Anna Delane,’ she said reluctantly. She wondered why she was so unwilling to let Leo Makarios know her name. All he had to do was ask one of his scores of minions, including that obsequious toady Justin Vennor, who’d lectured the four models for half an hour on how they must behave impeccably in such august and glittering surroundings.

‘Anna.’

It was just her name, that was all. She’d heard it said all her life.

But not like this…

A shiver went down her spine. She could feel it. It started somewhere at the nape of her neck and shimmered down the length of her back.

For a second Leo’s gaze just rested on her. She felt it like a tangible weight. Assessing her.

Then it was gone. Leo Makarios turned back and resumed his German conversation.

Mutely, Anna stayed at his side.

He kept her there for the rest of the evening.

It took all her professionalism to keep going. That and a dogged, grim determination that she was not going to let this get to her.

Let Leo Makarios get to her.

Because he was.

She could tell herself all she liked that to a man like Leo Makarios, surrounded as he was by chic, elegant, rich and aristocratic women from his own world, she was nothing but a walking jewellery display.

But why, then, was he keeping her at his side? And if her, then why not the other models in turn?

She said as much at one point. He had just disengaged himself gracefully from a Dutch banker and his wife, and had taken Anna’s elbow to guide her towards the buffet tables.

‘Isn’t it time to show off the other stones now, Mr Makarios? There’s Kate with the rubies—over there.’

She indicated where the brunette was gazing awestruck, or so it seemed to her, at one of the men in the group she was part of. He was, Anna recognised, the orchestra’s conductor.

Leo Makarios’s gaze flicked across to Kate.

‘How could I deprive Antal Lukacs of his latest adoring fan?’ he murmured sardonically. ‘And such a young and beautiful one.’

Anna’s eyes widened. ‘That’s Antal Lukacs?’ Even she had heard of such a world-famous conductor.

The heavy-lidded eyes glanced down at her.

‘Would you like to meet him?’

‘I’m sure he’s quite bored enough with people gushing all over him,’ she said dismissively.

‘Somehow,’ Leo Makarios murmured, ‘I can’t see you gushing over anyone.’ His voice became dryer suddenly, more critical. ‘You are certainly quite unimpressed to be wearing jewels that every woman here envies you wearing.’

Anna looked up at him.

‘They’re just carbon crystals—valued only because they are rare. Lots of other common crystals are just as beautiful. Diamonds are only worth money—’

‘They are the Levantsky diamonds! Works of art in their own right,’ Leo said sharply.

She shrugged. ‘So is Mozart’s music—and that doesn’t cost millions to enjoy!’

The dark eyes rested on her. She watched them narrow very slightly. She did not look away. Why should she?

‘I was told,’ he said softly—and it was that same softness that had raised the hair on the nape of her neck earlier ‘—that you have an attitude issue. Lose it.’

She smiled sweetly up at him. She could feel adrenaline start to run in her.

‘Is that another of your instructions, Mr Makarios?’

For a long moment he looked at her. She felt the adrenaline curl around every cell in her body.

‘What is your problem, Ms Delane?’ he asked, in that same soft, deadly voice.

You, she wanted to say. You’re the problem.

Then, even as she stared defiantly back at him, her false smile straightening to a thin, pressed line, something changed in his eyes.

He seemed to move minutely, as if closing her off from the rest of the room.

The lashes swept down over his eyes, and she felt the breath in her throat tighten.

‘Don’t fight me,’ he said in a low voice. Then she could see it. Something else came into his eyes, something that made a hollow where her stomach usually was. ‘You really are,’ he added slowly, ‘quite incredibly beautiful…’

Anna felt the hollow where her stomach had been turn slowly over.

No. She didn’t want this happening. She didn’t.

She opened her mouth to say so. Say something. Anything. But all she could do was stare. The room disappeared; the people disappeared; everything vanished. She was just standing, looking up at the man—letting him look at her. Look at her with those powerful heavy-lidded eyes, over which those long dark lashes were sweeping down.

The hollow where her stomach had been pooled with heat—heat that was starting to spread out through the veins in her body, carried by her treacherous beating heart.

She saw him see it. See the way the heat was starting to flow through her body. The eyes, so dark, so lambent, narrowed. A smile curved along his wide, mobile mouth. It was a smile of acknowledgement, satisfaction.

Anticipation.

He murmured something to her. So quietly that in the buzz of noise and conversation all around Anna thought she must have imagined it.

Of course she had imagined it.

But for a moment she thought he had murmured, ‘Later…’

Then, in an instant, his expression changed, becoming smooth and bland.

‘Ah, Minister…’

The perambulation resumed. And Leo Makarios still kept Anna at his side.

Anna kicked off her shoes with a sense of relief. Then she peeled off the long black satin gloves, dropping them onto the dressing table stool in her room. Hooking her now bare fingers round her back, she started to undo the painstakingly fastened together dress. The diamonds had been handed back into the care of the security company, and finally the models had been free to go up to their rooms. Anna had hardly been able to wait.

God, the evening had been endless!

And more than that. Her nerves were shredded, stretched to breaking point.

Being touted around by Leo Makarios had been excruciating.

She could feel the tension racking up in her.

He was getting to her, and she didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Her lips pressed together. Spending time with the man the way she had should have desensitised her to him. Should have made her get past that ridiculous disturbing rush she’d felt when he’d first walked in on the shoot and had such an impact on her. By now she should simply be able to see him abstractly, as a good-looking man. Exceptionally so, for a rich man—the combination was as rare as hen’s teeth in her experience—but nothing more. Certainly not a man who should have the slightest effect on her.

Such as making her breath catch in her throat.

Heat flush through her.

Nerves quicken in awareness.

Electricity shoot through her.

No!

Grimly she stared at herself in the mirror over the dressing table.

Yes, she was slightly flushed; her eyes were a little wider than usual. But that was just because it had been a long day and a longer evening. She was tired, that was all.

She looked at her reflection defiantly.

Out of the glass stared back a familiar image. The black hair, the pale skin and the green eyes. Probably inherited from your dad—whoever he was—her gran had always told her. The dramatic, eye-catching features an accidental meshing of DNA that had just happened to produce a face that was beautiful.

But her beauty was just a commodity. She sold it, day after day, to anyone who paid the right price for it.

And that’s all I sell.

Too many men thought otherwise. Thought she was also selling the right for them to look her up and down, strip her naked with their eyes, wonder what she was like in bed, offer to find out…

She turned away from the mirror sharply, continuing to undo, hook by hook, the simple but beautifully made dress.

At least she was free of the diamonds. The whole ridiculous glitter of them. Her eyes hardened again. Had Leo Makarios really not been able to see how overdone the whole lot was when worn together like that? That the sum was less than the individual pieces?

She shook her head in impatience. Who cared what Leo Makarios thought? About his wretched Levantsky diamonds or about her.

Or, she told herself doggedly, what she thought about him.

It’s completely academic anyway. After this I’ll never set eyes on him again. And then I’ll be safe…

She stilled. Why had she used that word? She was safe from Leo Makarios right now! Yes, he’d cast his eye over her, and found her visually pleasing, but she’d obviously annoyed him with her attitude—and anyway, for heaven’s sake, the man was in the middle of a glittering, glamorous party held to impress his rich pals—he wasn’t going to take time out to chase around some clothes-horse he’d hired. And who said he wanted her in the first place? A man with his looks and money must have women queuing round the block for his attention. He could pick any woman he wanted from his glittering social circle. He was probably schmoozing some Austrian countess or Park Avenue princess right now.

So how come he clamped you to his side the whole evening?

She shrugged. Justin had probably warned him that her booker had called her ‘difficult’, and so Leo Makarios had just been keeping her in order—at his side.

A saying floated through her head.

Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

She frowned. Why had that come into her mind?

Leo Makarios was neither a friend nor an enemy.

He was a stranger. Nothing more.

And he was going to stay one.

That way, he’d never be dangerous to her.

CHAPTER THREE

LEO strolled down the long carpeted corridor, the two household staff in front of him loaded down with trays.

He wasn’t sure he’d ever been to this floor before. It wasn’t the old servants’ quarters in the attic, but nor was it guest apartments. But even if the rooms up here lacked the opulent extravagance of the main floors of the Schloss they were still very comfortably appointed. Just right for office staff or other employees. He wondered idly if the three models were all housed in a row. The redhead, of course, would be with Markos, in one of the lavish suites below. Would the blonde and the brunette have found somewhere else to sleep tonight? he mused. Maybe the brunette was busy adoring Antal Lukacs from close quarters, he though cynically, knowing the conductor’s penchant for females. The blonde, though, had looked far too tense to be receptive to the admiration she had received during the evening.

None of them were of any interest to him, however. There was only one woman who had caught his eye, and she, he knew, had been highly receptive to him. Oh, she might have an attitude issue, but that was immaterial. It wouldn’t last. He would see to that. He’d have her purring like a cat before long.

Women always purred for him.

The two staff stopped outside one of the doors and glanced back at him. He gave a nod, and one of them knocked discreetly.

Inside the room, Anna paused, dropping her hands from her back. What on earth…? The knock came again. Hastily doing up her hooks again, for decency’s sake, she crossed over and opened the door. Outside were two of the household staff, each bearing a huge tray covered with a linen cloth.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taken aback. ‘I mean—um—Entschuldigen Sie bitte, aber Ich habe nicht…’

Her sketchy German failed her. She had no idea how to say she had not ordered anything.

The man merely bowed slightly and swept in, followed by the second man. They set both trays down on the low table in front of a pair of armchairs by the window, and removed the cloths.

An entire light supper was contained on the trays—including, she saw, a bottle of chilled white wine, a flagon of orange juice, a jug of mineral water and a coffee pot.

‘I’m afraid I didn’t ask for—’ she began.

‘But I, however, did.’ A deep, familiar voice interrupted her.

She whipped round. There, in the doorway, stood Leo Makarios.

For a moment Anna just stared, unable to believe her eyes.

Let alone what was happening.

He strolled into her room.

He was still in evening dress, still looking impeccable, as only a man of his height, wealth and looks could look, but there was a faint shadow along his jaw that somehow suddenly made him look—

Sexy.

The word came out of nowhere into her brain, and the moment it formed she was horrified.

She opened her mouth to say something. Anything. But her mind was a maelstrom of conflicting emotions. Predominant was disbelief. Sheer disbelief that Leo Makarios was strolling into her bedroom, one hand in his trouser pocket, looking as though he had every right to be there.

The two members of his household staff evidently thought so. They were diligently laying out their wares on the low table, deftly and neatly, placing a large plate of thinly sliced smoked chicken, ham and salmon together with a bowl of salad and a basket of bread in the centre, with porcelain plates and silver cutlery nestling in white damask napkins. Crystal glasses followed suit, and then a coffee service and drinks and a plate of tiny chocolate truffles.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Leo Makarios, indicating one of the armchairs. He simultaneously lowered his tall frame into the other one.

What the hell do you think you’re doing? She wanted to scream at him.

But the presence of the two staff made it impossible. Good grief, the last thing she wanted was to make a public scene that would inevitably feed back into the gossip machine that was always at work around the rich and famous.

Every nerve screwed tight, she urged them mentally to clear out. Because the moment they were gone she would—

‘Gnadige Fraulein?’ One of the staff was indicating her chair, bowing politely. The other was busy opening the wine.

Oh, hell, she would have to sit down, pretend that—my goodness—no, of course there was nothing strange in the castle’s multimillionaire owner turning up to have a little midnight supper with her!

Stiffly, she sat down, carefully ensuring the narrow skirts of her excruciatingly valuable dress were not catching on anything. Her face was a mask. But behind the mask her emotions were tumbling like a wash cycle set to crazy.

Skirts settled, and ignoring the fact that her back was imperfectly fastened, she looked up, ready to aim a killing glare at him.

Instead, she just stared, the breath stalling in her throat.

Leo Makarios was loosening his dress tie and slipping the top button on his shirt.

That, and the shadowed jawline, made her heart stop beating.

Oh, dear God, he is just so—

The word slipped straight into her mind—right out of her subconscious.

Sexy.

It was that word again, coming out of nowhere—refusing to go. She had heard it a million times—it was one of the most popular in the fashion world. But it had never meant anything at all to her. It was just people posing and pouting and putting it on for the camera or an audience.

With Leo Makarios it was real.

And it was, she realised, standing there as if someone had punched her in the solar plexus, incredibly powerful.

She tried desperately to analyse it away. It was just the juxtaposition of contrasting modes, that was all—the severe formality of the tuxedo with the raffish informality of a loosened tie and shirt, accentuated by the roughened jawline.

But the effect didn’t diminish. Quite the reverse, it simply gained potency, aided and abetted by the way his lean frame lounged back in supreme ease, long legs stretched out, hands curved over the arms of the chair, head resting on the chairback, those dark heavy-lidded eyes resting on her.

Looking at her.

Letting her look back.

Suddenly she did not want the household staff to disappear. She didn’t want to be alone with Leo Makarios.

Anna could feel a heat flaring out from somewhere deep inside her. She tried to douse it, extinguish it, but it wouldn’t be cooled. Instead it curled and spread through her as she just sat there, drinking in the man sitting opposite her, now being offered a taste of the wine that had just been opened.

She saw him sample the wine, saw him nod, saw the member of staff turn to fill her glass and then his employer’s, then be dismissed with his colleague, saw them both bowing briefly and then quitting the room, shutting the door behind them.

Leaving her alone with Leo Makarios.

With huge effort she quashed down the dangerous pooling heat inside her.

She opened her mouth to speak, protest his uninvited presence.

But Leo Makarios was before her.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘Mahlzeit.’

Anna’s mouth snapped shut again.

‘What?’

‘Mahlzeit,’ he repeated, in his accented voice. His eyes gleamed slightly. ‘Have you not heard that yet? Austrians invariably pronounce that to each other before eating. It means mealtime. It appears to be their version of bon appetit. Now, what may I help you to?’

He picked up the serving spoon and fork and let them hover over the plate of meats and salmon.

She took a deep breath.

‘Mr Makarios—’ she began.

He looked up. ‘Leo,’ he said. ‘I think we can dispense with the formalities now. Theos, it’s been a long evening! But,’ he went on, calmly selecting a slice of smoked chicken and placing it on her empty plate, ‘a highly successful one. Ham and salmon?’

‘No, thank you,’ she snapped. ‘Mr Makarios, I—’

The dark eyes lifted to her.

‘Leo,’ he said softly. ‘So, just chicken, then?’ He placed another slice on her plate. ‘Salad?’

‘No! I don’t want any food. I don’t want—’

He scooped up some salad and added it to her plate.

‘I ate very little this evening, and you ate absolutely nothing. You must be hungry.’

I’m always hungry, she wanted to snap. But if I eat I’ll put on weight and lose jobs. So I don’t eat. And I ignore hunger!

But even as the words formed in her mind she felt a treacherous pang in her stomach. She didn’t usually starve herself as she had done this evening. That was just counter-productive. But tonight had been so nerve-racking because of having to stay glued to Leo’s side that the very idea of eating some of the buffet food, however delicious, had been impossible. She had planned to have herbal tea and an orange—she never travelled without either—to see her through to breakfast in the morning.

But the sight and smell of the beautifully prepared and presented food was so enticing. The hunger pang came again. The scent of a freshly baked roll wafted to her. She felt her willpower weaken.

All right—she would eat a light supper, a very light supper, and then throw Leo Makarios out. It was perfectly obvious what he’d turned up here for—

Or was it?

Had she got it completely wrong?

He had started to speak again.

‘Tell me,’ he said, as he helped himself to food, ‘have you known the other three models long?’

Anna paused in the middle of lifting her fork to start eating. Chicken and salad without dressing wouldn’t be a crime—and she would, of course, ignore the rolls.

‘I beg your pardon?’ Her voice sounded surprised at his question.

He repeated it, shaking out a white damask napkin on his lap and lifting his plate.

She took a mouthful of chicken, which melted in her mouth. ‘I’ve known Jenny for several years, but this is the first time I’ve worked with Kate and Vanessa.’

‘Which one is the redhead?’ Leo Makarios asked.

‘That would be Vanessa,’ Anna replied with exaggerated politeness. ‘The one with the big boobs, in case you need another way of identifying her.’ Her voice was acid.

Dark eyes flicked over her.

‘You really do need to lose that attitude,’ Leo Makarios murmured.

‘So do you,’ she bit back. ‘Models do have names, as well as bodies.’

She forked up a large amount of salad with unnecessary vigour.

‘You take offence where none is intended—I merely had not yet managed to distinguish the four of you by name, only hair colour,’ he replied coolly. The eyes rested on her momentarily. She thought she saw irritation in them.

Was that supposed to be a reprimand? Anna wondered. If so, no sale.

She gave an indifferent shrug. ‘Why do you ask about Vanessa?’ she prompted. She was both relieved that he was not here for the reason she had assumed and warily curious as to why he was asking about his cousin’s girlfriend. Maybe, she thought suddenly, Leo Makarios was in poaching mode. Not, however, that Vanessa had eyes for anyone other than this guy’s cousin. Talk about stars in her eyes…the girl had it bad. Anna only hoped she wouldn’t get hurt—but she wasn’t taking bets on it.

He took a mouthful of wine.

‘If you do not know her well, my enquiry will mean little,’ he answered.

‘Yes, well, what little I do know of her is that she’s a nice girl.’ Anna replied all the same—pointedly. ‘Nice, if dumb,’ she added.

Leo Makarios’s eyebrows pulled together, making him look forbidding somehow.

‘Dumb?’ There was a bite in his voice she’d have been deaf not to hear.

‘Dumb enough to fall for your cousin, I mean,’ she elucidated.

The forbidding look suddenly became even more intense.

Anna gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘Oh, come on—your fancy cousin hardly looks like a down-on-one-knee kind of guy! Vanessa’s going to get burned—big-time. It’s totally obvious.’

‘My cousin is very generous to his mistresses,’ Leo Makarios informed her. There was hauteur in his face now, and a repressive note in his voice.

A choking sound escaped Anna.

‘Mistresses? Last time I looked, crinolines were definitely out of fashion!’

He frowned again.

‘I do not understand your reference.’

‘It means mistresses went out with Queen Victoria. Mistresses—kept women—rich protectors, you know.’

A cynical curve indented his mouth.

‘You think women no longer like to take rich men as their lovers, and thereby live in a style that they could not afford for themselves?’

Her eyes hardened. He was right, damn it—her exposure to the realities of life in the fashion world had taught her that a long time ago.

‘If they do, then ‘mistress’ is not the term I’d use for them,’ she riposted.

‘What would you use then?’

‘One unfit for mixed company.’ She gave her acid-sweet smile again. ‘And, by the way, no—I do not count Vanessa as one of them!’

‘You are so sure of that?’ The cynical note was back in his voice.

Anna glared at him.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I am. I just hope she’s got a best friend to mop her up when your cousin gets bored with being adored and moves on to his next squeeze.’

The dark eyebrows drew together again.

‘I have already told you that Markos has no reason not to be generous to her when he ends their affair.’

Anna gave up. There was clearly no point discussing the matter. Vanessa was going to get hurt, and if good old Markos was anything like his lovely cousin then it was going to be tears after bedtime for sure.

‘You can’t dry your eyes on diamonds,’ she contented herself with answering dryly.

‘She is a very beautiful woman—she will soon find another lover.’

The indifference in his voice raised her hackles.

‘Oh, good—that’s all right, then.’ Anna bestowed another acid smile on him.

But Leo Makarios was frowning again—and then a different expression was on his face.

‘What you say is disturbing,’ he said slowly. ‘You believe she has ambitions for marriage?’

‘Ambitions?’ Anna sat back. Her chicken and salad were gone, and she wasn’t about to help herself to any more. The pangs had been stilled, and it was time to get rid of Mr Money-Bags Makarios—and his delightful views on female venality. ‘I’d say she probably has some fairy-tale vision of wafting down an aisle to a heavenly choir towards your cousin suddenly transformed into Prince Charming with a halo, but she can’t possibly be idiotic enough to think a man like your cousin is going to marry her!’

Leo Makarios’s mouth tightened.

‘Perhaps you could ensure,’ he said, resting his eyes on her, ‘that she understands that that is indeed the case. She must harbour no ambitions to entrap Markos into marriage.’

Anna reached for the water. ‘I’ll be sure to pass the message on,’ she said dryly.

‘A naïve woman can be even more dangerous than a clever one,’ he rejoined darkly.

Dangerous. Suddenly Anna wished he hadn’t used that particular word. It was the one that had been haunting her about him ever since she’d set eyes on him.

Of their own volition her eyes swept across to him.

He seemed to be lost in thought, heavy-lidded eyes inwardlooking, a brooding expression on his face. Preoccupied as he was, she could not resist indulging in just gazing at him a moment.

Oh, dear God, he really was gorgeous! She just stared at him, as if he were a forbidden cream cake in a baker’s shop. Then, forcing herself, she dragged her eyes away and finished pouring out her glass of water. She drank it down and set the glass back on the table.

She gave herself a mental shake. Whatever her first assumptions had been about why Leo Makarios had swanned in here at this time of night, it was clear she’d been completely wrong. He was simply here on an intelligence-gathering mission—the purpose of which was to protect his precious cousin from women who—shock, horror—fell in love with him.

Leo wasn’t here to pounce. In fact he was probably just using up some rare spare time while a piece of posh totty slipped into her couture negligee and buffed her nails in his state apartment downstairs. Rich men, she knew, from her years in the fashion world, did odd things at odd times. Being eccentric, like turning up complete with a midnight supper just to get the gen on his cousin’s squeeze, was one of the perks of being so loaded you could do what you liked and no one even blinked.

She watched him polish off the last of his meal. He definitely had a large frame to fill up. Not that there was the slightest sign of fat on him. All lean muscle. A lot of power and vigour at his disposal. Whoever was waiting for him was clearly in for an energetic night…

No—stop that! Her self-admonishment was instant and severe. The less she thought about Leo Makarios’s sex life—which had nothing to do with her!—the better. In fact, the sooner he was out of here the better. The hooks at the back of her dress were digging into her, and she was dying to get her make-up off and have a shower.

Well, he wouldn’t be long now, surely?

Leo set his plate down, picked up his wine glass, and leant back again.

‘You are not drinking your wine,’ he remarked.

‘Empty calories,’ she answered flippantly.

The frown came again.

‘Why do you starve yourself?’

Anna shrugged. ‘Some models have fast metabolisms and can eat a horse and not show it. Jenny’s like that. Me, I’ll just pile on the pounds if I eat.’ She gave a twisted smile. ‘I’ll eat when I retire,’ she said.

Why was she talking to him? She wanted him to finish his wine and go.

‘Retire? But you are how old?’

She made a face. ‘Long in the tooth for modelling. The cult is for youth—the younger the better.’

‘Ridiculous! Who would want the bud instead of the full flower?’

‘Modelling agencies,’ she said succinctly. ‘Young girls are a lot more malleable—controllable and exploitable. It’s a nasty business, modelling.’

‘And yet…’ his eyes rested on her ‘…you thrive.’

‘I survive,’ she corrected him. ‘But,’ she went on, ‘I’m not ungrateful. Modelling’s been a well-paid career for me.’

There was a shuttered look on his face suddenly.

‘Money is important to you?’

Anna looked at him. ‘I’d be pretty stupid if it weren’t! I’ve known models blowing the whole damn lot they earn—chucking it around on clothes and rich living—and they end up with nothing to show for it.’

‘But you are more shrewd?’ The heavy-lidded eyes were resting on her.

‘I hope so.’ She returned his look, keeping it level. His expression stayed shuttered.

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, it changed.

And Anna’s breath stopped.

He was looking at her. Just looking at her.

How can a look stop me breathing? Breathe—for God’s sake, breathe!

But she couldn’t. The breathlessness was absolute, endless.

And as she just sat there, the breath frozen in her lungs, her stomach seemed to be doing a very long, slow motion flip inside her.

Anna felt her hands close over the arms of her chair. Felt, as if from a long, long distance away, her muscles tense as she levered herself to her feet. But, like a mirror image, Leo Makarios was doing the same—getting to his feet.

He was coming towards her.

It was obvious why. Totally, absolutely obvious. And it had been from the moment the expression in his eyes had changed.

Changed to one of intent.

An intent that should have been making her body react the way it always did when she saw that kind of look in a man’s eyes.

But no man had ever looked like that at her before. With lust, yes; with speculation; with hot, hungry appetite; with eagerness and with expectation.

Never the way Leo Makarios was looking at her.

Anna’s legs felt weak; her heart was hammering. A voice seemed to be inside her head, shouting Danger! As if it was some kind of automated warning.

A warning she could do absolutely nothing about—was helpless to heed.

He was coming towards her.

Tall, so tall. Lean, with a clear purposefulness about him. The dark eyes never left her, the expression in them turning her insides to water.

She still couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move. Just stood there, like a statue, immobile, lips parted, gazing at the planes of his face, his wide, mobile mouth, the loosened tie, the open-necked shirt, with waves of weakness going through her.

Leo stopped. Reached out a hand for her. With a slow, controlled movement he drew a single forefinger down her cheek.

It melted her skin where it touched.

And went on melting.

‘You really are,’ he said, ‘exquisitely lovely.’

The eyes changed again, becoming lambent.

‘Exquisite,’ he echoed softly.

And all Anna could do was just stand there, transfixed, as those heavy-lidded eyes rested on her, draining from her all will, all resistance.

Because in their lambent depths was something she had never seen before.

It was desire.

Not lust. Not slime. Not appetite.

Just—desire.

Desire—burning with a clear, ineluctable, irresistible flame…

Again that wave of weakness drowned through her, draining from her everything she had ever felt before about men looking at her…

Because nothing, nothing she had ever felt before, was anything like this.

She waited for the anger, the biting, aggressive anger that always came when some man looked at her with only one purpose, one intent in his mind.

But it didn’t come.

Instead, a slow-dissolving honey seemed to be spreading out through her veins, warming and weakening her, making her almost sway with sudden debilitating bonelessness.

His eyes were half closed, it seemed, their heavy lids lowered in a sweep of long black lashes. Her breath caught again, another spoon of honey spilling slowly through her veins.

She felt her lips part. As if she did not even have the strength to hold her mouth closed. She felt her eyelids flicker heavily, her pupils dilate.

Her body swayed. Very, very slightly.

He was so close to her. So close. She could feel his presence in her body space, catch the scent of his musk mingled with the expensive notes of his aftershave, heady and spiced. She could see the roughened jawline, the wide, mobile mouth, the lean, tanned cheek—and those heavy, half-closed eyes with the clear, clear intent in them.

Slowly, her insides turned over again.

‘Exquisite,’ he murmured again.

One hand slid around her neck, the other to her waist, and he lowered his mouth to hers, tongue sliding effortlessly within the silken confines.

For a timeless, delicious moment Leo luxuriated in the feel of her mouth. Silky, sensual, and so very, very arousing.

Not that he needed to be aroused. True, he had taken the opportunity while he was eating to sound her out about the redhead who seemed to have captivated his cousin—in respect of which prudence alone dictated that he warn his cousin off the girl. Markos was no gullible fool—far from it—but still, who knew how stupid a man could be if he was subjected to enough adoring gazes like those Leo had been witnessing all evening? Maybe they were calculated and maybe not. But if they weren’t—and they had, he acknowledged, looked genuine—then Markos might be at greater risk than he knew. At the very least the girl would be difficult to dislodge, and would probably cause a tearful scene when the inevitable end came, which he wouldn’t wish on any man. At the worst—well, although tears and weeping wouldn’t wash with himself—Markos might just be more vulnerable, and find himself in deeper water than he was comfortable with. A naïve woman, entertaining fantasies about marriage, Leo realised, could be far more dangerous than one who knew which way the world went round.

Like the woman he was enjoying now.

Anna was exactly what he wanted. There’d been a lot of tension surrounding the launch of the Levantsky marque, and he’d put a lot of personal effort into ensuring that tonight and tomorrow were being organised the way he wanted them to be. That, of course, was on top of his normal non-stop business schedule. It might annoy him, but it didn’t surprise him, that something had had to give—and that something was his sex life. It had been nearly a month since he had parted company with the Italian divorcee with whom he had been more than happy to celebrate her new sexual freedom, and there had been no time to choose her successor.

So the sable-haired beauty in his arms had caught his attention at a timely moment. She was just what he needed. A sophisticated, independent, unattached woman who had made it more than clear that she was receptive to his attentions. The world she moved in was known for its liberal sexual habits, and she doubtless had her pick of lovers in her time. Her caustic tongue and attitude might well put some men off, but it didn’t bother him. It could just be put on for effect, anyway, to make herself stand out from the competition—deliberately assumed to catch the attention of men like him, jaded by fawning women.

Whatever the cause, it certainly wasn’t in evidence now. She was reacting just the way he’d known she would—letting him taste her to the full and taking her own pleasure in it.

Leisurely, Leo slid his hand over her hip. Though slender, it was not in the least bony—for which he was glad. There was a rounded softness there beneath the silk of her dress that was really very enticing.

He deepened the kiss, pulling her body closer against his. He could feel his own body reacting very pleasurably to the contact. Rich anticipation filled him. A month’s celibacy might have been unwelcome, but it had its compensations.

Tonight would be good, he knew.

She would be good.

Letting his tongue powerfully stroke hers, he felt her yield to him, and he liked that. Too many women these days started a competition when he was kissing them, presumably thinking he found it exciting. They did not appreciate—as this one did—just how very erotic it was for a man to feel a woman being pleasured by him…

He felt his arousal strengthen. A month’s starvation had made him hungry.

Hungry for much more than a mere appetiser. Time to take their table for the main course.

He drew his mouth back a little, just enough to allow him to softly bite her swollen lower lip.

‘Shall we?’ he said, his mouth curving sensually, his lashes sweeping down over his eyes. He exerted the slightest pressure at her hip, loosening his hand from her neck to guide her towards the bed.

As he released her she swayed slightly, eyes dazed. A small frown started to form between his eyes.

Was she drunk? She’d nursed a single glass of champagne all evening, and it had still been almost as full at the end as at the beginning. And just now, over supper, she had stuck entirely to water. So why was she swaying? Looking dazed and dizzy?

Or was it merely sexual arousal? Her pupils were wide and dilated, lips swollen, parted. His eyes flickered downward, and then his mouth curved into a relaxing smile. Her breasts were straining against the confines of her dress, and even without the help of the laced corset, the soft mounds were swelling deliciously above her bodice.

He felt his own arousal surge through his body. Of its own volition his hand reached, curved around one lovely, tempting orb, thumb brushing the dark silk where the nipple strained against it.

He wanted her, badly. Now.

‘You really are…’ his voice was husky ‘…so very tempting.’ His thumb brushed again, and he felt himself thicken at the contact. Unable to resist, he started to close in on her. He wanted that mouth once more, that silken lushness…

The crack of her palm against his cheek took him totally and completely by surprise.

Anna hauled herself back. Her heart was hammering in her chest, pounding as if she’d done a workout. Panic, horror and a whole storm of emotions she couldn’t even identify poured through her like a deluge.

‘What the hell—?’

Leo Makarios was staring at her, shock naked on his face. Where her hand had impacted was a red mark.

Anna jerked further back.

‘Get out of here. Just get out!’

He was standing stock still. Every line of his body taut.

‘You will tell me,’ he bit out, ‘exactly what that was for!’

Her eyes flashed. Her breathing was ragged, tumultuous, her heart still pounding. Adrenaline was surging through her—and a whole lot more.

‘How dare you? How dare you think you can help yourself to me? Get out!’

His face darkened, his eyes suddenly as hard as steel.

‘It’s a little late,’ he spelt out, his voice harsh, contemptuous, ‘to tell me that.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t like teases. Don’t say yes to me and then change your mind and blame me for it.’

Anna’s eyes distended.

‘Say yes? I never said yes!’

‘You’ve been saying yes all evening,’ he bit back. ‘From the moment I first set eyes on you. You made it crystal-clear you wanted me. Right up to ten seconds ago. Don’t pretend to be naïve.’ The voice was still harsh, still contemptuous. Two lines of white were etched around his mouth, colour flaring along his cheekbones.

She took a thin, hissing breath, eyes aflame with fury.

‘My God, you have a nerve. I don’t have to take this from you. Go and find some other willing floozy for the night! How dare you think you can use me for a night’s entertainment?’

‘Forgive me, but you gave every impression that you were willing.’ The sneer in his voice was open.

Anna’s eyes spat fire. Oh, how she wanted to feel anger! She was feeling it now all right. Coruscating, burning, biting, furious, incandescent anger. She was shaking with it.

‘Get out! I don’t have to take this! I don’t have to put up with men who think because I model clothes I’ll take them off for them whenever they feel like it. Now get out of my room before I charge you for harassment!’

Leo’s face was as if carved from marble.