Shackled by Diamonds

by Julia James

  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 will-power 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 an
other 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 inward-looking, 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.