by Julia James
The intensity of the impulse scythed through him. His grip around his brandy glass tightened. Decision seared within him. A trophy wife might be next on his list of life ambitions, but that did not mean he had to seek her out immediately. He had been with Nadya for two years—no reason not to enjoy a more temporary liaison before seeking his bride.
And he had just seen the ideal woman for that role.
Ideal.
* * *
With an effort, Diana sheared her gaze away, heard the speech finally ending.
‘Phew!’ Toby exclaimed, throwing Diana a look of apology. ‘Sorry to make you endure all that,’ he said.
She gave a polite smile, but in her mental vision was the face of the man who had been looking at her across the tables. The image was burning in her head.
Darkly tanned, strong features, sable hair feathering his broad forehead, high cheekbones, a blade of a nose and a mouth with a sculpted contour that somehow disturbed her—but, oh, not nearly so much as the heavy-lidded dark, dark eyes that had rested on her.
Eyes that she still felt watching her, even though she was not looking at him. Did not want to. Didn’t dare to.
She felt her heart give a sudden extra beat, as if a shot of pure adrenaline had been injected into her bloodstream. Something that she was supremely unused to—unused to handling. She was accustomed to men looking at her—but not to the way she had reacted to this man.
Urgently she made her eyes cling to Toby. Familiar, amiable Toby, with his pudgy face and portly figure. In comparison with the man who’d been looking at her, poor Toby seemed pudgier and portlier than ever. Her eyes slid away, her heart sinking. She was feeling bad about what she was contemplating. Could she really be considering marrying him just because he was rich?
Guilt smote her that she should feel that way about him, but there it was. Had seeing that darkly disturbingly good-looking man just now made her realise how impossible it would be for her to marry a man like Toby? But if not Toby then who? Who could save Greymont for her?
Where can I find him? And how soon?
It was proving harder than she’d so desperately hoped, and time was running out...
* * *
Speeches finally over, the atmosphere in the banqueting hall lightened, and there was a sense of general movement amongst the tables as diners started to mingle. Nikos was talking to his host, a City acquaintance, and casually bringing the subject around to the woman who had so piqued his interest. The ice maiden...
He nodded in her direction. ‘Who’s the blonde?’ he asked laconically.
‘I don’t know her myself,’ came the reply, ‘but the man she’s with is Toby Masterson—Masterson Dubrett, merchant bankers. Want an introduction?’
‘Why not?’ said Nikos.
There had been nothing in his brief perusal to indicate that the blonde’s dinner partner was anything more to her—an impression confirmed as he was introduced.
‘Toby Masterson—Nikos Tramontes of Tramontes Financials. Fingers in many pies—some of them might interest you and vice versa,’ his host said briefly, and left them to it, heading off to talk elsewhere.
For a few minutes Nikos exchanged the kind of anodyne business talk that would interest a London merchant banker, and then he glanced at Toby Masterson’s guest.
The ice maiden was not looking at him. Quite deliberately not looking at him. He was glad of it. Women who came on to him bored him. Nadya had played hard to get—she knew her own value as one of the world’s most beautiful women, and was courted by many men. But he did not think the ice maiden was playing any such game—her reserve was genuine.
It made him all the more interested in her.
Expectantly he glanced at Toby Masterson, who dutifully performed the required introduction.
‘Diana,’ he said genially, ‘this is Nikos Tramontes.’
She was forced to look at him, though her grey eyes were expressionless. Carefully expressionless.
‘How do you do, Mr Tramontes?’ she intoned in a cool voice. She spoke with the familiar tones of the English upper class, and only the briefest smile of courtesy indented her mouth.
Nikos gave her an equally brief courtesy smile. ‘How do you do, Ms...?’ He glanced at Masterson for her surname.
‘St Clair,’ Masterson supplied.
‘Ms St Clair,’ he said, his glance going back to the ice maiden.
Her face was still expressionless, but in the depths of her clear grey eyes he was sure he saw a sudden veiling, as if she were guarding herself from his perusal of her. That was good—it showed him that despite her glacial expression she was responsive to him.
Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Toby Masterson, moving their conversation on to the EU, the latest manoeuvres from Brussels, and thence on to the current state of the Greek economy.
‘Does it impact you?’ Toby Masterson was asking.
Nikos shook his head. ‘Despite my name, I’m based in Monaco. I’ve a villa on Cap Pierre.’ He glanced at Diana St Clair. ‘What of you, Ms St Clair? Do you care for the South of France?’
It was a direct question, and she had to answer it. Had to look at him, engage eye contact.
‘I seldom go abroad,’ she replied.
Her tone still held that persistent note of not wanting to converse, and he watched her reach for her liqueur glass, raise it to her lips as if to give her something to do—something to enable her not to answer more fully. Yet her hand trembled very, very slightly as she replaced her glass, and satisfaction again bit in Nikos. The permafrost was not as deep as she wanted to convey.
‘That’s not surprising,’ Masterson supplied jovially. ‘The St Clairs have a spectacular place in the country to enjoy—Hampshire, isn’t it? Greymont?’ he checked. ‘Eighteenth-century stately pile,’ he elaborated.
Do they, indeed? thought Nikos. He looked at her with sudden deeper interest.
‘Do you know Hampshire?’ Toby Masterson was asking now.
‘Not at all,’ said Nikos, keeping his eyes on Diana St Clair. ‘Greymont? Is that right?’
For the first time he saw an expression in her eyes. A flash that seemed to spear him with the intensity of the emotion behind it. It made him certain that behind the ice was a very, very different woman. A woman capable of passion.
Then it was gone, and the frost was back in her eyes. But it had left a residue. A residue that just for a moment he thought was bleakness.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
He made a mental note. He would have a full dossier on her by tomorrow—Ms Diana St Clair of Greymont, Hampshire. What kind of place was it? What kind of family were the St Clairs? And just what further interest might Ms Diana St Clair have for him other than presenting him with so delectable a challenge to his seductive powers to melt an ice maiden?
His eyes flickered over her consideringly. Exquisitely beautiful and waiting to be melted into his arms, his bed... But could there be yet more to his interest in her? Could she be a candidate for something more than a fleeting affair?
Well, his investigations would reveal that.
For now, however, he had whetted his appetite—and he knew with absolute certainty that he had made the impact on her that he had intended, though she was striving not to let it show.
He turned his attention back to Masterson, taking his leave with a casual suggestion of some potential mutual business interest at an indeterminate future date.
As he strolled away his mood was good—very good indeed. With or without any deeper interest in her, the ice maiden was on the way to becoming his. But on what terms he had yet to decide.
He let his thoughts turn to how he might make his next move on her...
CHAPTER TWO
DIANA THREW HERSELF back in the taxi and heaved a sigh of pent-up relief. Safe at last.
Safe from Nikos Tramontes. From his powerfully unsettling impact on her. An impact she was not used to experiencing.
It had disturbed her profoundly.
She had done her best to freeze him out, but a man that good-looking would not be accustomed to rebuff—would be used to getting his own way with women.
Well, not with me! Because I have no intention of having anything to do with him.
She shook her head, as if to clear his so disturbing image from her mind’s eye. She had far more to worry about. She knew now, resignedly, that she could not face marrying Toby—but what other solution could save her beloved home?
Anxiety pressed at her—and over the next two days in London it worsened. Her bank declined to advance the level of loan required, the auction houses confirmed there was nothing left to sell to raise such a sum. So it was with little enthusiasm that she took a call from Toby.
‘But it’s Covent Garden. And I know you love opera.’
The plaintive note in Toby’s voice made Diana feel bad. She owed him a gentle let-down. Reluctantly she acquiesced to his invitation—a corporate jolly for a performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo.
But when she arrived at the Opera House she wished she had refused.
‘You remember Nikos Tramontes, don’t you?’ Toby greeted her. ‘He’s our host tonight.’
Diana forced a mechanical smile to her face, concealing her dismay. With her own problems uppermost in her mind, she’d managed to start forgetting him, and the discomforting impact he’d had on her, but now suddenly he was here, as powerfully, disturbingly attractive as before.
Then she was being introduced to the other couple present. Diana recognised the man who had brought Nikos Tramontes over to their table. With him was his wife, who promptly took advantage of the three men starting to talk business to draw Diana aside.
‘My, my,’ she said conspiratorially, throwing an openly appraising look back at Nikos Tramontes, ‘he is most definitely a handsome brute. No wonder he’s been able to hold on to Nadya Serensky for so long. That and all his money, of course.’
Diana looked blank, and Louise Melmott promptly enlightened her.
‘Nadya Serensky. You know—that stunning redheaded supermodel. They’re quite an item.’
It was welcome news to Diana. Perhaps she’d only been imagining that Nikos Tramontes had eyed her up at the livery dinner.
Maybe it’s just me, overreacting.
Overreacting because it was so strange to encounter a man who could have such a powerfully disturbing physical impact on her. Yes, that must be it. She tried to think, as she sipped her champagne in the Crush Room, if she had ever reacted so strongly as that to any other man, and came up blank. But then, of course, she didn’t react to men. Had schooled herself all her life not to.
The men she’d dated over the years had been good-looking, but they had always left her cold. A tepid goodnight kiss had been the most any of them had ever received. Only with one, while at university, had she resolved to see if it were possible to have a full relationship without excessive passion of any kind.
She had found that it was—for herself. But eventually not for her boyfriend. He’d found her lack of enthusiasm off-putting and had left her for another woman. It hadn’t bothered her—had only confirmed how right she was to guard her heart. Losing it was so dangerous. A policy of celibacy was much wiser, much safer.
Anxiety bit at her. Except such a policy would hardly find her a husband rich enough to save Greymont. If she was truly still contemplating so drastic a solution.
With an inward sigh she pulled her mind away. Tomorrow she would be heading back to Greymont to go through her finances again, get the latest grim estimates for the most essential work. But for now, tonight, she would enjoy her evening at Covent Garden—a night off from her worries.
And she would not worry, either, about the presence of the oh-so-disturbing Nikos Tramontes. If he had a famous supermodel to amuse him then he would not be interested in any other women. Including herself.
As they made their way to their box she felt her anticipation rising. The orchestra was tuning up, elegant well-heeled people were taking their seats, and up in the gods the less well-heeled were packed like sardines.
Diana looked up at them slightly ruefully. The world would see her as an extremely privileged person—and she was; she knew that—but owning Greymont came with heavy responsibilities. Prime of which was stopping it from actually falling down.
But, no, she wouldn’t think of her fears for Greymont. She would enjoy the evening.
‘Allow me.’
Nikos Tramontes’s deep, faintly accented voice beside her made her start. He drew her chair back, allowing her to take her seat, which she did with a rustling of her skirts as he seated himself behind her. Louise Melmott sat beside her at the front of the box.
His eyes rested on the perfect profile of the woman whose presence here tonight he had specifically engineered in order to pursue his interest in her. An interest that the dossier he had ordered to be compiled on her had indicated he must show. Because she might very well indeed prove suitable for far more than a mere fleeting seduction.
Diana St Clair, it seemed, was possessed of more than the exquisite glacial beauty that had so caught his attention the other evening. She was also possessed of exactly the right background and attributes to suit his purposes. Best of all about Ms Diana St Clair was her inheritance—her eighteenth-century country estate—and the fact that it was her inheritance, bringing with it all the elite social background that such ownership conferred.
An old county family—not titled, but anciently armigerous—possessing crests and coats of arms and all the heraldic flourishes that went with that status. With landed property and position, centuries of intermarriage with other such families, including the peerage. A complex web of kinship and connection running like a web across the upper classes, binding them together, impenetrable to outsiders.
Except by one means only...
Marriage.
His eyes rested on her, their expression veiled. Would Diana St Clair be his trophy wife?
It was a tempting prospect. As tempting as Diana St Clair herself.
He sat back to enjoy further contemplation of this woman who might achieve what he now most wanted from life.
* * *
To Diana’s relief, the dramatic sweep of Verdi’s music carried her away, despite her burning consciousness that Nikos Tramontes was sitting so close to her, and as she surfaced for the first interval it was to be ushered with his other guests back to the Crush Room for the first course of their champagne supper.
The conversation was led mainly by Louise Melmott, who knew the opera and its doubtful relationship to actual history.
‘The real Don Carlos of Spain was probably insane,’ the other woman said cheerfully, as they helped themselves to the delicacies on offer. ‘And there’s no evidence he was in love with his father the King’s, wife!’
‘I can see why Verdi rewrote history,’ Diana observed. ‘A tragic, thwarted love affair sounds far more romantically operatic.’
She was doing her best to be a good guest—especially since she knew Toby had no interest in opera, so she needed to emphasise her own enthusiasm.
‘Elisabeth de Valois was another man’s wife. There is nothing romantic about adultery.’
Nikos Tramontes’s voice was harsh, and Diana looked at him in surprise.
‘Well, opera is hardly realistic—and surely for a woman like the poor Queen, trapped in a loveless marriage, especially when she’d thought she was going to be married to the King’s son, not the King himself—surely one can only feel pity for her plight?’
Dark eyes rested on her. ‘Can one?’
Was there sarcasm in the way he replied? Diana felt herself colouring slightly. She had only intended a fairly light remark.
The conversation moved on, but Diana felt stung. As if she’d voted personally in favour of adultery. She felt Nikos Tramontes’s eyes resting on her, their expression masked. There seemed to be a brooding quality about him suddenly, at odds with the urbane, self-assured manner he’d demonstrated so far.
<
br /> Well, it was nothing to do with her—and nor was Nikos Tramontes. She would not be seeing him again after this evening.
It was to her distinct annoyance, therefore, that when the long opera finally ended and she had bade goodnight to Toby, making sure she told him she was heading back to Hampshire the next day, she discovered that somehow Nikos Tramontes was at her side as she left the Opera House. It was a mild but damp night, and his car was clearly hovering at the kerb.
‘Allow me to offer you a lift,’ he said. His voice was smooth.
Diana stiffened. ‘Thank you, but a taxi will be fine.’
‘You won’t find one closer than the Strand, and it is about to rain,’ he returned blandly.
Then he was guiding her forward, opening the rear passenger door for her. Annoyed, but finding it hard to object without making an issue of it, Diana got in. Reluctantly she gave the name of the hotel she and her father had always used on their rare visits to the capital, and the car moved off.
In the confines of the back seat, separated from the driver by a glass divide, Nikos Tramontes seemed even more uncomfortably close than he had in the opera box. His long legs stretched out into the footwell.
‘I’m glad you enjoyed this evening,’ he began. He paused minutely. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come with me to another performance some time? Unless you’ve seen all this season’s productions already?’
There was nothing more than mild enquiry in his bland voice, but Diana felt herself tense. Dismay filled her. He was making a move on her after all, despite the presence in his life of Nadya Serensky. Her hopes that her disturbing reaction to him were not returned plummeted.
‘I’m afraid not,’ she said, giving a quick shake of her head.
‘You haven’t seen them all?’ he queried.
She shook her head again, making herself look at him. His face was half shadowed in the dim interior, with the only light coming from the street lights and shop windows as they made their way along the Strand towards Trafalgar Square.
‘That isn’t what I meant,’ she said. She made her voice firm.