His Reputation Precedes Him

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘The two of you are friends…?’ he prompted evenly.

  She swallowed before answering. ‘Cousins.’

  Cousins? Eva and the machinating Donna Cresswell were cousins?

  Markos’s thoughts were now in such disarray he had no idea what to think about this less than welcome revelation. ‘I thought you said yours was not a close family.’

  She flinched. ‘It isn’t.’

  ‘With the exception of yourself and your cousin Donna, it would seem?’

  Her gaze avoided meeting his. ‘We aren’t exactly what I would call close, either. We saw a lot of each other when we were children, but not so much any more.’

  ‘But you are still close enough that you exchange regular telephone calls?’

  ‘Occasional telephone calls,’ she corrected distractedly.

  His nostrils flared. ‘And your cousin never mentioned to you the name of her current employer during these “occasional” telephone calls?’

  ‘Well, of course she mentioned you!’ Eva eyed him exasperatedly.

  ‘And what, exactly, did she say about me? From your earlier attitude towards me nothing complimentary, I would guess.’ His mouth twisted scathingly.

  ‘Considering the way things ended so badly between the two of you—’

  ‘Badly?’ he repeated harshly. ‘I had to dismiss your cousin for behaviour that was not only unprofessional but also less than acceptable to me personally!’

  Eva frowned. ‘Admittedly Donna should have had more sense than to fall in love with you, but I would hardly call that—’

  ‘Eva, I have no idea what your cousin has told you of our past…association, but I somehow doubt, from your comment just now, she can have mentioned that I was less than pleased the evening I returned to my hotel suite and found her naked in my bed!’ His eyes darkened angrily at the memory.

  Eva’s frown was pained. ‘If that really happened—’

  ‘Oh, I assure you it did!’

  ‘Then I agree. It wasn’t the wisest move on Donna’s part.’

  Eva grimaced, having had no idea until that moment of the extremes her cousin had gone to in order to try and revive her relationship with Markos. Although it did sound like the sort of thing Donna would do…

  ‘But it was hardly grounds for dismissal, when she was obviously only reacting to the fact that she was so unhappy you had ended your personal relationship.’

  His brows rose into his hairline. ‘We did not have a personal relationship.’

  Eva stilled at the vehemence of his tone. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Your cousin and I did not have any relationship other than the fact that she was—briefly—my employee,’ Markos repeated evenly.

  Eva looked at him searchingly. The angry glitter of his eyes and the tension in his jaw were enough to assure her that Markos was telling the truth. The truth as he saw it, at least…

  ‘Markos, you aren’t the first man to make the mistake of having an affair with an employee which results in awkwardness once that affair is over—’

  ‘Eva, what did you not understand about my previous statement?’ he cut in exasperatedly. ‘I have not been, and will never be in the future, personally involved in any way with Donna Cresswell.’

  Eva blinked. ‘But Donna said—’

  ‘After the things she screamed at me the night I had to dismiss her from my employment, I can all too easily imagine what your cousin said about me, Eva.’ Markos began to pace the kitchen restlessly. ‘I can only say—once again—that my feelings towards your cousin were never anything other than the polite regard of an employer. And even that ceased the moment she decided to put herself naked in my bed!’

  Eva swallowed hard. She’d begun to feel nauseous. ‘But…’

  ‘Yes?’

  Could Donna have lied…?

  The possibility of that having been the case was so strong that Eva felt as if the ground had just dropped out from beneath her feet. Eva had seen Markos arrogant, even haughty on occasion, but never coldly, chillingly angry—as he undoubtedly was now.

  So much so that he bore little or no resemblance to the man who had treated her so gently the night before, or made love with her such a short time ago.

  But what possible reason could Donna have had for lying to Eva about having a relationship with Markos Lyonedes?

  Eva thought back to her childhood, to the family occasions when she and Donna had been together—those weekends they had both spent with their grandparents. Eva hadn’t thought of them for years, but now she belatedly recalled how Donna had always had to have a bigger or better toy than her, or have attended a more fun or glamorous birthday party.

  Better. Bigger. More glamorous.

  And a relationship with the charismatic Markos Lyonedes would no doubt have sounded so much more than even Eva’s marriage to the wealthy American Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior…

  ‘Donna lied,’ she stated flatly.

  ‘Oh, yes, she most certainly lied if she claimed the two of us were ever intimately involved,’ Markos confirmed softly. ‘What I wish to know is how, and to what extent, those lies have affected your own behaviour towards me?’

  Eva gave him a startled look. ‘I don’t understand…’

  ‘Oh, I think you do, Eva,’ Markos bit out grimly. ‘And I think your family connection to Donna Cresswell more than explains the little game you played with me at the beginning of our acquaintance.’

  She moistened her lips with the pink tip of her tongue. ‘I was predisposed not to like or trust you, yes—’

  ‘A fact you made more than obvious!’ Markos frowned as he recalled the way Eva, as interior designer Evangeline Grey, had made and then cancelled two appointments with him in a week. She had been scathingly dismissive of him, even insulting, on the evening the two of them had met at Senator Ashcroft’s cocktail party, and had made that cryptic comment concerning his ‘reputation’. Believing the lies her cousin had told her about him would certainly explain that remark!

  ‘The question is, Eva, how do you feel about me now that we have come to know each other better?’

  She gave him a startled glance before focusing that wide golden gaze somewhere over his left shoulder. ‘How do I feel about you?’

  ‘Yes!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Now that we have spent time together—talked, made love—what are your feelings towards me?’

  Eva gave a pained frown, knowing she couldn’t deny that she had initially behaved in exactly the petty way Markos suspected she had. Quite when her feelings towards Markos had changed from scathing dismissal to a grudging liking Eva had no idea, but she had known last night, when he’d behaved so protectively towards her in regard to Jack, that she not only liked him—a lot—but also that she desired him too. It was a desire the two of them had acted on earlier today—several times.

  But the chances of Markos believing that, now that he knew of her family connection to Donna—the woman who had not only completely invented a relationship with Markos, but had also lied to Eva about the callous way Markos had brought that non-existent relationship to an end—were exactly nil!

  At least they were if Eva didn’t want to totally humiliate herself and tell Markos how much, and how deeply, she now liked him—perhaps more than liked him. Which was definitely something she needed to think about once she was alone in the privacy of her own apartment.

  Eva forced a rueful smile. ‘I believe I told you earlier my intentions are entirely dishonourable!’

  He gave a humourless smile. ‘In exactly the way you have imagined my own were in regard to the women who have shared my bed in the past? Women who would, if asked, confirm that I have never deliberately, knowingly, hurt any of them. No matter how much the gossips or newspapers might have chosen to sensationalise those relationships. Certainly I have never behaved towards a single one of those women in the cruel and heartless way that your cousin appears to have claimed I treated her.’

  ‘I believe you—’

  �
�Do you?’ he questioned sceptically. ‘Do you really believe me, Eva? Or do you still think your suspicions in regard to me to have been justified? Enough, perhaps, for you to have decided to give me a dose of my own medicine?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Are you implying that I might have deliberately gone to bed with you with the intention of—of—?’

  ‘I have absolutely no idea what today was about.’ His eyes glittered intently. ‘Why did you go to bed with me, Eva?’

  ‘I don’t—’ She gave a dazed shake of her head. ‘You were kind to me last night—’

  ‘And do you always spend the day in bed with men who are kind to you?’

  Her face was very pale as she answered him quietly, ‘There really haven’t been that many.’

  ‘Men in your bed? Or men who have been kind to you?’

  Both, as it happened, Eva acknowledged heavily. Just as she acknowledged that this conversation had now deteriorated to such a level there was surely no hope of the two of them continuing a relationship.

  ‘Eva, talk to me, damn it!’ Markos hands were clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Help me to understand what happened between the two of us earlier today.’

  She released a heavy sigh. ‘Can’t we both just accept that we made a mistake—?’

  ‘Is that truly what you believe?’ He stood still as a statue and looked at her from between narrowed lids.

  Eva nodded abruptly as she stood up to slip the shirt off her shoulders and slide it off her arms before dropping it down onto the barstool. ‘It’s time that I left.’

  ‘You have nothing else to say?’ Markos could only stare at her with frustrated anger.

  She looked up at him with eyes of deep, smoky amber. ‘I’ve behaved badly, unprofessionally. Otherwise I don’t know what else you want me to say.’

  Markos wanted Eva to dismiss the lies Donna Cresswell had told her about him—to assure him that she had come to know him for herself this past week, and that she at least liked what she had come to know of him, that they had spent the day in bed together because of that liking.

  The guarded expression in Eva’s eyes told him that was never going to happen.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said flatly. ‘Obviously there is nothing more you can or wish to say to me.’

  She nodded abruptly. ‘Which is why I am going to collect my bag from the bedroom and leave.’

  Just an hour ago Markos had been filled with a feeling of well-being, of contentment in a woman’s company and in lovemaking such as he had never experienced before. Only for all of those feelings to have been completely shattered by one telephone call.

  He nodded abruptly. ‘I will need to accompany you.’

  ‘I’m perfectly capable of seeing myself out, Markos!’ she assured him heavily.

  His jaw tightened. ‘The lift will not work without putting in my security code, and the same applies to the outside door.’

  Colour darkened the pallor of her cheeks at the obvious rebuke. ‘I’ll just go and get my bag.’

  Markos was filled with regret as he turned to watch Eva leave the kitchen—her back very straight and proud, her hips swaying slightly, sensuously, as she walked, her legs long and shapely in the high-heeled black sandals—but he knew he was too angry still to attempt to set things right between the two of them.

  If such a thing was even possible…

  Eva held back the tears for as long as it took her to reach Markos’s bedroom, then she couldn’t hold back her emotions any longer and instead allowed the tears to cascade down her cheeks with the heat of molten lava.

  How could this be ending so badly?

  How could she and Markos be parting like virtual strangers after having made love together so tenderly, and then so wildly, only hours ago?

  The answer to that, Eva knew, lay firmly at her own door. Because she had too easily accepted Donna’s telephone calls and her conversation as a link with her otherwise uncaring family rather than remembering her cousin as how she really was: a shallow social climber who had always had to have everything bigger and better than Eva.

  She had been a fool, Eva accepted dully, a blind, stupid fool. There was absolutely no excuse for her initial scathing behaviour towards Markos. No foundation in it either—as she now knew.

  Neither did it do any good now to tell herself that she should have looked beyond Donna’s claims of Markos’s mistreatment, should have seen Markos for the man he truly was—if not from the beginning then at least following his warmth and kindness towards her last night.

  And now it was too late.

  Yes, Markos was a man who was extremely attractive to women, and it was an attraction he had no doubt taken every advantage of over the years. But, as Eva now knew, he was also a man of principle. A man who had been both protective and caring when she had fallen apart at Jonathan’s home the evening before following her introduction to the pregnant Yvette Cabot Grey. The same man who had allowed Eva to cry on his shoulder even though he had mistakenly believed those tears to have been because she still had feelings for her ex-husband. The same man who had brought her back to his apartment, put her in his own bed, undressing her and tucking her beneath the bedcovers.

  The womanising Markos Lyonedes that Donna had led Eva to believe in wouldn’t have bothered himself doing any of those things, let alone left her to sleep alone in his bed because he had no intention of taking advantage of her in her emotional state.

  Eva hadn’t just been a fool where Markos was concerned, she had been both blind and stupid too!

  A realisation, an admission, which made absolutely no difference to the fact that she was now about to leave Markos’s apartment and would in all probability never see him again.

  But there was something she needed to say to him before she left…

  * * *

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Markos was standing in front of one of the huge picture windows in the sitting room, staring sightlessly out at the New York skyline, but he turned now to face Eva, his expression unreadable as he took in the fact that she was still very pale, and her eyes were that deep and troubled amber. As well they might be.

  ‘What are you apologising for?’ he returned impatiently.

  She shrugged as she came further into the room, her gaze not quite meeting his as instead she stared at the centre of his chest. ‘I— It’s no excuse, but I—I was obviously misled about your involvement with Donna—or rather your lack of it,’ she amended hastily as Markos’s expression darkened.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her smile was rueful. ‘You aren’t about to make this easy for me, are you.’

  He raised dark brows. ‘Can you think of any reason why I should?’

  ‘No,’ she accepted heavily, before raising her chin and at last allowing her gaze to meet his. ‘I do sincerely apologise for my earlier behaviour towards you. My lack of professionalism. I really should have known better than to believe Donna’s lies.’ She sighed. ‘Or at the very least given you the benefit of the doubt—as you several times requested I might do,’ she added.

  ‘Yes, you should,’ Markos bit out grimly.

  She shifted her shoulders uncomfortably. ‘I— And thank you for being so understanding yesterday evening. You really were very kind.’

  ‘Maybe you believe there was an ulterior motive to my kindness and understanding?’ Markos came back challengingly. ‘After all, I did succeed in getting you into my bed—eventually!’ He gave a derisive grimace. ‘Which should fit in very nicely with what your cousin, the gossips and the newspapers have told you about me.’ His mouth twisted scornfully.

  Eva knew she deserved every ounce of that scorn, and that there was no way for her to salvage the situation without revealing how much her feelings towards him had changed. She might now know that Markos wasn’t the cold and callous bastard in regard to women and relationships that Donna had told her he was, but neither was he a man interested in an emotional relationship.

  She nodded abruptly. ‘I’ll leave you
now to enjoy the rest of your day. If you would like to do so, you can keep the designs and the swatches of material. Although another designer would probably prefer to—’

  ‘There is not going to be another designer, Eva,’ he cut in firmly.

  Her eyes widened in surprise. ‘You’ve decided not to bother after all…?’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Markos drawled dryly, ‘I have decided to keep the interior designer I already have.’

  She blinked, long dark lashes briefly brushing against the pallor of her cheeks. ‘I’m not sure I understand…?’

  ‘It’s quite simple, Eva.’ Markos strode into the middle of the room. ‘I have already wasted a considerable amount of my time procuring the services of the elusive but celebrated designer Evangeline Grey.’ He eyed her mockingly. ‘And, having done so, I have no intention of starting the process all over again.’

  Eva eyed him warily even as she chewed distractedly on her bottom lip. ‘You still want to engage me to redesign your apartment?’

  His eyes glittered deeply emerald. ‘I don’t just want you to do it, Eva, I insist upon it!’

  And if that determined glitter in his eyes was any indication then Eva knew he intended making her life very uncomfortable—even more uncomfortable than it already was—while she did it.

  ‘Markos, you can’t seriously want to have me hanging around here for the next few weeks—or months—after we… Well, you just can’t,’ she protested weakly once she had regained her breath enough to speak at all.

  ‘On the contrary, I believe I would very much enjoy the experience,’ he drawled mockingly.

  Her heart sank at the implacability of his expression. ‘Of watching me squirm with embarrassment every time I have to come here?’

  Markos shrugged those broad, uncompromising shoulders. ‘If that’s what it takes, yes.’