“Coward,” Eleni trilled.
Sabrina froze, fisting her hands on her side.
“Nice touch on the hair ornament, by the way. Luca’s always had a touch of whimsy in him.”
Sabrina forced her legs to walk away.
“Be careful you don’t lose it. I’d hate to see you lose another investment.”
Eleni’s sardonic laughter tempted Sabrina to turn around and scratch her eyes out.
Her sanity prevailed.
* * *
Luca accosted the Konstantinos twins on the dance floor. They were dancing with a blonde who couldn’t be more than twenty. She had the dazed look of someone who couldn’t believe her luck.
“Ingrid,” Luca addressed his cousin. “After the party, I want you to go home with Wolf.”
“Hey,” Stelios protested. “She’s going home with us.”
Ingrid beamed, glancing at one twin then the other.
Luca quelled Stelios with a single look. “You don’t want to have to deal with me or her brothers, believe me.” He tilted his head to where the Jager brothers were nursing their drinks by the bar. They looked like Vikings with their gigantic height, blond hair, and pale eyes.
Nikos swallowed. “Right.”
Luca slapped him on the shoulder. “Where’s Markos?”
Stelios shrugged. “We didn’t come with him.”
“But he said he was coming,” Nikos volunteered. “He wanted to talk to Prince Stefan about something.”
Luca nodded. He picked up his mobile and tried Markos’ number again while his eyes roamed the ballroom.
And there he was, right by the bar nearest the stage. He pocketed his mobile and grimly made his way to his friend.
* * *
Sabrina’s hands were shaking. She turned on the gold-colored faucet and dampened several tissues, trying to make out her reflection through her blurry vision. Her eyes were still smarting from the wine. A solicitous waitress had assisted her to the powder room.
She blotted the moisture from her lids and lashes several times, blinked, then gazed at the mirror with raccoon eyes. The eyeliner had smeared. The whites of her eyes were starting to turn red. There was no hope for it then. She rinsed her hands and removed her contacts. Since she didn’t have her case with her, she threw it in the trash bin.
Her gaze met the one in the mirror’s of the elegantly coiffed woman who was retouching her lipstick. The woman spotted the red stains on her gown and made a little sound of commiseration.
“I know. Terribly clumsy of me,” she fibbed.
“Such a shame,” the woman said in English with a melodious accent. “And it’s an Argenti gown.”
At Sabrina’s look of surprise, the woman clarified, “I was at the last Milan fashion show.”
“I hope the cleaners can remove it.” Sabrina didn’t want to return the gown in damaged condition even though it wasn’t her fault.
“I hear you can put salt on it while the stain is still fresh.”
“Really?”
The chitchat was helping her calm down. Her fingers were no longer trembling as she continued to remove all of her eye make-up with the moist tissue.
“They say it helps absorb the stain.”
She wanted to be in complete control when she sought Luca out, not a trembling mess. Eleni was completely deranged. She was disgusted with herself for running away, making Eleni think she had the upper hand. Of course it would do no good to make a scene and embarrass the newlyweds. She didn’t need the negative attention. Word or even photos of a catfight would make their rounds on the Internet.
“Maybe I’ll try that.” Was there even a salt shaker on the table? She couldn’t remember, but she doubted it. Not with these kinds of fancy affairs.
The woman capped her tube of lipstick and tucked it in her bejeweled clutch. “Good luck,” she said in her lilting accent as she twirled on her tottering heels and bumped into a new arrival.
A torrent of foreign, angry words reverberated in the marbled interior of the powder room.
Eleni.
A cutting retort in another language cracked like a shot. The lipstick woman was not backing down.
Sabrina was watching this play out on the full-length mirror at the end of the powder room. It was reflecting the tableau on the mirror by her place near the sink.
Eleni’s striking face was twisted menace. She wasn’t the intoxicated psycho she was by the bar. A glint of crazy lucidity shone in her eyes.
Something shattered.
She gasped with horror when she saw Eleni brandishing the stem of a broken wine glass, the same one she had used to splatter her dress with.
Eleni’s eyes were riveted on her. Sabrina had the sickening certainty she had hunted her down.
The lipstick woman wisely fled through the door.
Sabrina’s eyes trailed Eleni’s advancing form in the mirror. She was frozen, like a prey not daring to move, afraid of causing a predator to pounce.
Run! Her mind screamed, but it was as if she was paralyzed by terror and disbelief. This woman couldn’t possibly be planning to do what Sabrina thought she was going to do. It was all posturing.
Did she hurt you?
Luca’s question rang in her brain. She had thought nothing of it back then. Now she scanned the countertop feverishly, looking for anything which she might be able to use to defend herself.
Shit! No dispenser bottles lying around. The palace might be hundreds of years old, but the fixtures were automated. Her handbag was lying on the countertop between two sink bowls. She groped for it slowly, her back shielding her stealthy maneuver.
This particular powder room was a bit way off from the ballroom, thus the dearth of users. Of course the only time Sabrina wished it was full was the only time it had to be empty.
She could do the surprise attack. Whirl around so fast and bop Eleni on the head with her handbag so she could make a run for it.
She breathed deeply, willing her fibrillating heart to slow down. At the count of three. One, two, thr-
“Oh, yes! Give it to me! Oh, yes!”A woman’s throaty cries ruined her momentum.
Shit! Chase’s ringtone. He had programmed it into her phone as a joke and Sabrina kept forgetting to change it.
“What the hell is that sound?” Eleni growled, distracted. She tipped her head, trying to echolocate the source of all the panting and moaning .
The phone continued on its loop. “I’m coming!”
Eleni’s eyes grew wide in shock as the woman in her ringtone screamed. Sabrina took advantage of Eleni’s continued distraction. She whipped around, drew back her arm, aimed for Eleni’s head, and threw her handbag with all her might.
It hit Eleni with a thunk. The woman on the phone was cut off abruptly mid-orgasm. Sabrina dived to retrieve her bag. There was a ripping sound, another insult sustained by the poor couture gown.
“Oof!”
Eleni tackled her, now straddling her back. Sabrina managed to twist her torso, trying to dislodge the mad woman. But she only got her half-off.
Eleni clambered back, this time her weight landing squarely on her abdomen. Eleni lifted her right hand with the pointed stem, ready to strike. Sabrina swung her left arm in an angle and awkwardly delivered a chopping blow. Eleni dropped the glass.
With a howl of rage, the madwoman dropped both her elbows, swung low and forward, and pulled on Sabrina’s hair.
Sabrina screamed, pummeling Eleni on the chest. “Let me go, you bitch!”
Sabrina smelled the alcohol on her breath and almost gagged. Eleni’s pupils were dilated with mad rage. Eleni tugged on her hair harder, lifting her head inches off the floor, bringing their faces close together. Their eyes locked, and then Eleni froze. Her face blanched and suddenly she released her hold on Sabrina like she had turned poisonous. Her head thudded painfully on the cold marble floor.
“Just who the hell are you?” Eleni said in Greek, looking dazed. Eleni was regarding her wildly, as if she had never seen
her before.
Sabrina wasn’t sticking around to answer her question. She roughly shoved the bewildered Eleni off her and grabbed her handbag.
Chapter 19
“About time you showed up.”
“I had to wait for Mother to wake up from her beauty sleep.” Markos Konstantinos gulped the whiskey in his tumbler neatly and banged it on the mock-up bar counter top, one of the four scattered around the ballroom. “She wanted to meet up with some guests from Spain.” He pushed on the cuff of his shirt and glanced at his wristwatch. He had an unusually distracted air about him.
“You in a hurry?” Where the hell was Sabrina? Luca wanted the whole damned thing to be over with. His height made him easy to home in on Mrs. Konstantinos on the other end of the ballroom. She was ensconced in a tête-à-tête with some matrons.
Relax, Argenti. He wouldn’t leave without his mother.
“I’m leaving Mother with the twins. Something came up.”
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath.
He had known Markos since they were children, and he could always spot his tell. He’d look you straight in the eye and then when he thought he had you convinced he was telling the truth and you looked away, he’d cast you a furtive sideways glance. Just to check you hadn’t caught him out.
It reminded him of someone. He just couldn’t remember who at the moment. “Yeah. Your dick came up.”
Markos scowled.
Busted. “So, who is she?” he said brusquely.
A new lover meant he’d really forgotten Sabrina. He felt angry at how easily he had discarded her, which was ridiculous since he wanted Markos out of the picture. He had never wanted to find out more about what had gone down between him and Sabrina because God forbid if he found out Markos had been more than a regular asshole to her, he’d smash his face in, best friend or not.
He took a swig of his whiskey. Talk to him, Luca. Draw him out. Delay him. So that Sabrina could get him out of her system once and for all.
“None of your damned business.”
It wasn’t Markos’ style to be evasive. Luca’s curiosity about his new lover was piqued.
“We’ll have a drink soon. Chat longer next time.” Markos rose from the bar stool, oddly avoiding his gaze.
That was it? Not even a hint of curiosity about how it was going with Sabrina? The self-absorbed bastard.
“I’ll see you at the launch-”
Luca was all set to physically restrain his friend when Sabrina came through between several couples on the dance floor like a puppy bursting out of a bush. She looked around, wild-eyed and wild-haired. Her gaze went past him then skittered back. She ran to him and clutched his arm, trying to speak, but she was out of breath.
“What is it, strega?” he asked in alarm. Then he noted the red blotches on her dress and his body felt like a block of ice. “Is that blood on your dress?”
She shook her head frantically as he touched the stains, needing to find out for himself. His nose recognized it first before his brain did. Thank God it was just red wine.
“Eleni-” she panted, doubling over, still trying to catch her breath. “Eleni-”
“Calm down, strega.” At the mention of his ex-lover’s name, foreboding filled him but he concealed it. The sooner she got hold of herself, the sooner he could get the whole story out of her. He rubbed her back repeatedly. “Calm down.” She was still hyperventilating. “Sabrina,” he said more firmly this time, “listen to me.” He bent at the waist so he could speak near her ear. “You’re going to be okay. Slow, even breaths. That's it,” he said even as he himself strove for calmness at the fact that Eleni was here.
It seemed to be working. The back of her chest was now moving in a slower, even cadence.
“Did I hear you call her Sabrina?” Markos’ voice was ominous. Luca saw him take a belligerent stance directly in front of her.
Sabrina jerked up in surprise. Markos merely gave her a frowning, passing glance then pinned him with a seething look.
“Surely it can’t be that long that you’ve forgotten what she looks like,” Luca said sardonically. What the hell was he doing, goading Markos into losing his temper?
“I can’t believe you brought this gold-digging bitch here! I told you to keep her away from me,” Markos said in a low, harsh voice. ”I told you I didn’t care what you did to her as long as you kept her away from my family.”
He saw Sabrina flinch at Markos’ callous words. Felt disgusted at Markos and himself for how sordid it all sounded. He should have told Markos right at the start to man up and deal with it. Instead he had taken one look at her and exploited the situation to his advantage, he realized sickeningly.
His self-directed anger had him lashing out. “You hear what it is she wants to say to you, you fucking bastard, or I swear I’m going to beat the crap out of you until you can’t walk and you have no choice but to hear her out.”
Markos shot him a murderous glare.
Friend or no friend, he was going to rearrange the bastard’s face before the night was over. He had it coming-
“No!” He felt Sabrina’s hands on his chest, pushing him away from Markos. “Don’t hurt him,” she cried out when he grasped her arms and pushed her to the side.
“Nobody talks about you that way and gets away with it, strega.”
“Luca, listen to me-”
But he was past the point of listening. Rage and jealousy, because even up to this point she was defending her ex-lover, churned inside him.
“Step aside, Sabrina,” he warned in a low voice that oddly seemed to sound louder than he intended.
And he realized everyone and everything in the ballroom had gone quiet. Everyone was watching their little drama unfold. Fuck. I’m sorry, Lexie and Nic.
“Luca, it’s not what you think,” Sabrina cried, once again blocking his path.
Markos was standing his ground, refusing to budge, but where before there was anger, Luca was trying to figure out that odd expression on Markos’ face. It looked vaguely like…guilt?
“Luca, Sabrina was never my lover.”
Markos’ pronouncement rang loud and clear in the hushed ballroom. Excited whispers rippled through the crowd.
“Asshole! So now you’re going to deny her?” he growled in Italian, refusing to make it easy for their international audience. And then he sidestepped Sabrina and lunged, delivering a blow to the Greek bastard’s face. Markos’ head snapped backwards.
Several women shrieked.
This time, Sabrina stepped in front of Markos, who had his head bent and was nursing an eye socket.
Luca saw red. “Stay out of it, strega,” he ordered.
“No, Luca. Please don’t hurt him.” Sabrina gazed at him with pleading eyes. He blinked, tried to clear his vision. Surely he hadn’t had too much to drink to be seeing things?
“Give me one good reason why I can’t beat the shit out of this bastard.”
Everyone held their collective breaths. The waiters looked poised to clear nearby breakable items at the next punch.
Tears started rolling down Sabrina’s cheeks. Luca blinked once more, trying to clear his head, feeling as if he had been the one that had taken a blow. He was so confused at what he was seeing he almost didn’t hear what she said.
“I think Markos is my brother.”
Luca’s gaze swung from Sabrina to Markos, who was now looming behind her. He noted the slight swelling of the tissue around his one blue eye. And then noted the uninjured one. The assymetrical brown eye.
He ran a shaking hand through his hair. Sabrina and Markos were regarding him warily through identical, mismatched colored eyes.
Behind him, a commotion of sorts ensued.
He turned around and saw a cluster of people around a woman he recognized.
Mrs. Konstantinos had fallen in a dead faint.
Chapter 20
Sabrina shivered from the chilly, sterile air in the emergency room. Why did hospitals have to be so cold? Or ma
ybe the people who stepped in them only felt like it because they were sick, and if they weren’t, they were fearful for a loved one.
Luca took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders. It was too big and too long with its tail, but the remnant of his body heat warmed her.
“Grazie,” she murmured, wrapping it more tightly around her.
“Prego,” he answered automatically.
It was their first exchange since she was discharged from the examining room for the swollen bump on the back of her head. A doctor had ordered a scan. Her initial protest against the procedure had been overridden by Luca, who in turn had adamantly refused to have his hand checked. Markos Konstantinos and his mother were still being attended to by doctors.
They were seated side by side on a metallic bench, like those found in airports. Occasionally, staff in scrub suits and lab coats passed in front of them.
“I should’ve never let you out of my sight.” His voice was filled with censure. “Eleni would not have dared hurt you if I was by your side.”
“You couldn’t have gone with me everywhere. At least not to the ladies’ room,” she said in an attempt at levity.
His brow kicked up as if to say, Don’t be too sure about that.
“I’m sorry, Luca,” she blurted out, staring straight ahead. She didn’t dare look at him. “I should have told you.”
From one of the cubicles, a child’s pitiful cry rent the hushed atmosphere.
“We just had sex. It doesn’t warrant an exchange of life stories,” he said flatly. “You have nothing to be sorry about.”
This time she couldn’t help it. She glanced at him. His profile was like a marble sculpture, so beautiful and so cold.
Would it be too late? But it was worth more than a try. She took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m Sabrina Connelly from California,” she spoke, averting her gaze from his profile. “I was told that my father had died before I was born. My mother left me with my grandmother to work abroad when I was still a baby.” He remained impassive, as if she hadn’t spoken. “My mother came back to the States with a man she had met and married at work, with whom she had other children. My mother became sick and died two years ago. She left me a letter, revealing the identity of my father. She just gave me a name. She left everything else a blank. I wanted to go to Greece and seek him out as soon as I knew his name, but my grandmother fell ill. I couldn’t leave her. She died just over a year ago.”
When She Fell for the Billionaire Page 18