by Julia James
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 claw-footed 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 heavy-lidded 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 elbow-length 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 executiv
e 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.