by Various
‘Good evening, Miss Balfour, would you tell us which designer made your gown?’
Surprised to find herself staring directly into the lens of a television camera, Mia answered without thinking until it was too late to wonder if the world-famous Italian designer wanted his name given to this particular gown since it was at least twelve months old.
‘Buona sera, signorina.’ The sound of her native tongue calling out to her sent Mia’s head swinging the other way, directly into a second television camera. ‘Signor Valencia knows how to make the most out of a sensational figure, heh?’ The interviewer had already picked up the dress designer’s name. ‘Will you take a moment to tell Italy what it is like for a Tuscan farm girl to discover she is the daughter of such a wealthy Englishman?’
The question came without warning. The camera zoned close on her face. Her fingers tensed, stretched, then pleated tightly in between Nikos’s long fingers, and a warm flush of self-consciousness spread across her face while he just stood there beside her, smiling coolly, waiting for her to give a response.
It was a test, yet another lesson for her that he was letting her learn how to handle. Tutor and pupil at work in the classroom of life.
‘Sì…Grazie…Buona sera, Italia…’ Somehow she managed to keep her smile in place and come up with a reasonably intelligent comment about the differences between her old life and her new life.
‘Love your voice, Mia!’ someone else tossed at her in English. ‘Very sexy. I could listen to you all night! What do you think, Nikos?’
Nikos just smiled and started them moving, thinking sexy did not begin to describe those dark throaty earth tones she used whenever she conversed in her natural language.
Dipping his dark head he murmured, ‘You handled that well. Now let’s see if we can get you through the rest of the evening without you making a bolt for the kitchens.’
‘Non capisco,’ Mia responded coolly, refusing to acknowledge the taunt about her well-documented bolt into the bowels of the kitchens the night of the Balfour Charity Ball.
Nikos gave a soft laugh and swapped his grip on her hand for an arm strapped across her back so he could hustle her in front of him into the house.
The next half an hour passed by in a whirl of first-time introductions that more camera crews recorded moment by moment. By the time she was given a chance to draw in a proper breath again, Mia was feeling dazed.
‘You could have warned me,’ she complained to Nikos.
‘Forewarned, there was a chance you might do a runner,’ he said, catching up two glasses of champagne and handing one to her.
‘This place is amazing,’ she changed the subject, glancing up at a high vaulted ceiling around which a cantilevered glass walkway seemed to stay up there by will alone.
‘Santino likes to impress us with his structural engineering skills,’ Nikos murmured dryly.
‘I thought the D’Lassios were media moguls.’ Mia frowned.
‘Been doing your homework?’
Lifting her chin, she said, ‘To improve my education is the reason why I am here with you, is it not?’
The direct challenge. Nikos arched an eyebrow because he had not expected her to make it. Like a fool playing a very dangerous game he held on to her deep blue eyes and piled the pressure on the constant tug of sexual awareness that was always present between them now.
She looked away first.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s move on to where the real action is.’
The work angle of action, Mia saw the moment they stepped inside a vast reception room already crammed with high-end glittering people. The networking started almost straight away. Nikos kept her at his side as he walked the room, rarely needing to make an effort to gain attention because people were more eager to meet him. It was the quality of the man and his billionaire kudos, his entrepreneurial brilliance, his stunning good looks and his casually presented charm. He handled people with a low-key edginess that made them work all the harder to earn themselves an impressed glance or an approving smile.
Smooth, Mia described as she soaked him in like the rest of them.
Then he ruined it for her when he turned to her and said, ‘OK, this is where I leave you on your own for a while.’
Like a kick in the gut she instantly turned as white as parchment. Nikos released a sigh, catching her by the shoulders and turning her to face him.
‘All you have to do is circulate and listen. If you know what they’re talking about, join in. If you don’t know what they’re talking about, then ask questions,’ he relayed as if it was really that simple. ‘People don’t mind being asked questions. In fact, they like to show off their knowledge. What they don’t like is someone pretending to know what they’re talking about when they don’t. OK?’
Pressing the tremor out of her lips Mia nodded.
‘And you’re a Balfour,’ he reminded her. ‘The people here know you are a Balfour and they’re going to just love to welcome you into their group on the strength of your name alone. In fact it’s going to be them hoping to impress you so you will remember them to Oscar.’
‘Not to you?’
‘To me too,’ Nikos agreed. ‘If they ask you anything too personal shoot them down the way you like to do to me,’ he went on. ‘You have spirit, Mia, use it to your advantage. Always be polite. Always be aware of how much you’re drinking. I will come and find you in, say, half an hour when we are due to go into dinner.’
Glancing down at the fine silver watch circling her wrist which Tia Giulia had bought her for her last birthday, she said, ‘OK,’ with only a tiny scared tremor showing in her voice.
Nikos heard it though and released a sigh.
‘It’s OK—really,’ she said and straightened her shoulders. ‘This is work—yes? I have to treat it that way.’
Still he hesitated, giving her the impression he wanted to say something else, and for some reason Mia found herself holding her breath.
Then he instructed, ‘Don’t bolt,’ and walked away.
For the next half-hour Mia braved the sharp jaws of socialising. Like Nikos had said, it was easier than she expected because people did recognise her instantly and it tended to be them drawing her into their conversation rather than her needing to butt in.
Nikos wished he’d found it easy to walk away from her but he hadn’t. He felt as if he’d abandoned a puppy on the fast lane of a motorway. But he needed to speak to some people about Lassiter-Brunel. During Mia’s research exercise she had—admittedly unwittingly—exposed some business issues that were bothering him. OK, he reasoned, so he had pulled out of the deal they were trying to broker, but he’d done that for personal reasons. It was only this morning when he had gone back to the office to look through Mia’s file that he had picked up on other things that troubled him.
She was good at ferreting, he acknowledged with an inner smile. But other colleagues in the same business might not have a ferret that looked so beautiful Brunel would let his professional guard slip to the point anyone would question whether he was as reputable as he made out.
Hearing himself using Mia’s choice of word made Nikos grimace at the same moment that a set of slender long fingers coiled around his arm. ‘So you’ve been landed with Oscar’s little cuckoo,’ a mocking voice purred.
Glancing down Nikos found a smile for the beautiful but dangerous socialite-cum-gossip-columnist Diana Fischer who’d sidled up against him.
‘Who would have believed Oscar could be such a deliciously secretive dark horse,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps it’s as well that the scandal broke after poor Lillian departed to the afterlife. Imagine her horror if she’d been here to discover that the man she had been married to for twenty years had still been busy sowing his wild oats right up to and beyond their marriage.’
She was fishing for knowledge, timing details, that Nikos was not going to reveal. Setting his teeth together behind the relaxed line of his mouth, he drawled, ‘Still enjoying playing the heartless b
itch, Diana?’
‘I’m heartless?’ Her lovely green eyes opened wide. ‘Tell me, Nikos, how many hearts have you broken since you became sexually active?’
‘I was referring to your lack of respect for the dead.’
‘I adored Lillian,’ Diana declared. ‘Everybody did. I thought I was being sympathetic towards her.’ She pouted up at him. ‘After all, who would want to find out that her husband had been laying into another woman?’
‘Remind me,’ Nikos murmured, ‘why is Lance in the process of divorcing you?’
‘Oh.’ The luscious pout became pronounced. ‘That was so below the belt, Nikos.’
Nikos released a dry laugh. Diana was a bitch and a brazen one but at least she never pretended to be anything else. He liked that about her—so long as she kept her barbs out of Oscar and his daughters.
Or one particular daughter, he amended, unable to stop himself from glancing across the room to hunt her down. He caught sight of her dark head in amongst a group of younger people and wasn’t sure he liked the odd stinging sensation that ran down his front.
‘The cuckoo is different from the other seven, isn’t she,’ Diana prodded lightly, following his gaze. ‘She’s so shy and reserved—just look at the way she’s blushing at whatever Joel Symons is saying to her…’
Nikos was looking.
‘She doesn’t have a clue how to deal with people like us.’
‘Like us?’ Nikos was curious enough to pick up on the comment.
‘Well, we’ve already established that I’m a heartless bitch and you’re a ruthless heart-breaker. And there is a room full of both those types here tonight. Elegant, bored, social spinners,’ she extended candidly. ‘Men with their egos in their wallets and their pants, and women with theirs in the exact same two places—and I meant in the men’s,’ she made clear. ‘The cuckoo stares at us all as if we are aliens and I don’t really blame her. Think what it must have been like for her to be launched like a bomb into Balfour society after spending all of her life halfway up a mountain, growing plants.’
‘And perhaps she recognises that she’s sauce for tongues like yours,’ Nikos offered up.
And realised suddenly that he was right. Mia was not overwhelmed by the greatness of the elevated company her new life had thrown her into the midst of; she was overwhelmed by her own notoriety as Oscar Balfour’s shockingly exposed illegitimate child.
‘Do me a favour, Diana,’ he said quietly. ‘Keep your barbs out of Mia.’
‘And you will do what for me?’ she shot back.
Leaning down Nikos brushed a light kiss to one of her smooth cheeks. ‘Respect you,’ he murmured and walked away.
Mia saw the kiss and wondered what the name of that particular blonde was. He had beautiful blondes coming out of his pockets, she decided acidly, thinking of Lois Mansell, who he had been with just last night.
She pitied the one he’d just kissed and walked away from, she decided as she turned and strode off in the opposite direction. For there was one lesson Nikos had already taught her which stopped her short of being jealous of the new blonde and the kiss—he left with the woman he arrived with and saw her safely back to her own front door.
Or her bedroom door in her case tonight.
Or inside the bedroom door if it was anyone else.
A hand caught her wrist as she was about to continue through the open doors onto the pool terrace. For a brief second she thought it was Nikos and a wry smile curved her mouth as she turned her head with the intention of telling him the half an hour was not yet up.
But the smile died along with her sinking heart when she found herself staring into the cold silver eyes of Anton Brunel.
‘I want words with you,’ he informed her thinly.
‘I don’t think so.’ Trying to pull free from his grip, her wrist hurt when he tightened his hold on it. ‘Let go of me!’ She frowned at him in contemptuous surprise.
‘Not until I get some answers from you.’
Pulling her away from the doorway, he swung her into a corner of the room behind a giant palm plant. ‘Right,’ he said, pushing his handsome face up close to hers. ‘You owe me a bloody explanation as to what the hell you think you’re playing at, telling lies about me to Theakis!’
‘I did not lie about you,’ Mia denied, wincing when his hard fingers crunched the tender bones in her wrist.
‘You spent that whole lunch turning me on with your sexy-eyed promises, then you told him it was me coming on to you!’
‘You live in a strange place in your head, signor, if you truly believe what you just said,’ Mia retorted scornfully, still trying to get away from him and glancing over the top of his blocking shoulder to see if anyone had noticed the way he’d cornered her like this.
It came as a shock to realise that he’d chosen his spot carefully because the palm plant virtually sealed them off from view.
Then she gasped when he pushed in on her, his body pressing her back against the wall. ‘Listen to me,’ he rasped. ‘I want you to tell that jealous bastard the truth! You came on to me! You offered yourself up over the damn lunch table, and if I took the bait, he only has you to blame. I don’t see why I should take the flack and lose the best investment deal I had going for my company because you like to play sex games across a table!’
His face was so close to hers that she was breathing in the alcohol from his angry breath.
‘I would not play sex games across anything with you,’ Mia whipped back, shuddering with distaste. ‘And if you don’t release me from this corner I will start shouting for help!’
‘No, you won’t,’ he jeered. ‘You’re a Balfour, and too damn scared of making a scene here. Theakis won’t like it. Darling daddy won’t like it.’
‘But I am not making the scene—you are! Now—let—me—go!’
With an angry tug she managed to yank her wrist free. As he went to grab hold of her again, she pushed at his body with her two clenched fists and enough angry strength to make him stagger back a small step, giving her just enough space to slither around him and get away.
Shaking inside with anger and reaction, she hurried out onto the pool terrace. Scared that he might be following her but determined not to look back and check, she made for the first group of people she saw standing by the swimming pool, and with a deep breath to calm her unsteady breathing, she ventured close enough for them to notice her, and smiled gratefully when they widened the circle to invite her to join in.
Did she do the things Anton Brunel had accused her of doing? Her eyes glazed with the agonised knowledge that she might have done without knowing she was even doing it. But did not knowing make her any less guilty? Hadn’t Nikos accused her of doing the same thing to the waiter at the restaurant last night?
What was she, some kind of unwitting man-teaser?
And her wrist was hurting, she noticed, carefully rubbing the place where Anton Brunel had dug into her bones. Someone offered her a glass of champagne. She smiled as she took it, and hoped the thoughtful person could not see the strain in her eyes.
She did not want to be a man-teaser. She did not like what it meant.
She thought about taking a sip from her glass but she knew she would not be able to swallow. Her throat felt thick and her nerves were still jangling like mad. It was dark outside now and the air was cooler than it had been earlier. Soft lighting had been switched on to light the way to the marquee set up in the garden and the pool glittered a soft aqua blue.
She caught the smooth deep tones of Nikos’s voice and turned to watch him appear in the doorway leading back into the main reception room. He was flanked either side by Santino D’Lassio and Nina, his beautiful flame-haired wife. All three of them were smiling, relaxed—friends by their easy manner with one another.
Someone called out, ‘Hey, Nina! When are you going to feed us?’
And Nina D’Lassio’s light laughter filled the terrace, making Mia find a small smile too because the laughter was contagious
. Then a hand arrived in the centre of her back and pushed, propelling her forward. For a moment she teetered like a ballerina on the tips of her toes, fighting the momentum trying to pitch her forwards, her eyes wide as she stared into the lit blue depths of the swimming pool.
Then she lost the battle and the next thing she knew she was falling, her sharp cry of shock the last thing she remembered before she sank beneath the depths of the cool blue waters.
Nikos was grabbing her arms even as she broke through the surface again, winded and gasping for breath. It was his fiercely clenched face she first focused on, his blazing black eyes, as he hauled her up and out of the water like a quivering, shivering, dripping wet rag.
Camera bulbs flashed in the stunning silence that hung over the pool terrace. Still too shocked to care right now, her fingers clutched at the bunched muscles in Nikos’s forearms in an effort to remain standing upright. Her legs had turned to jelly and she’d lost her shoes in the tumble. Her hair had come loose and now it was dripping all over her face, and stinging hot tears were hurting her eyes.
‘What happened?’ Nikos roughed out harshly.
‘I would swear someone gave her a push,’ a disembodied voice claimed, and hearing someone say it out loud like that sent the air choking from her lungs on a broken sob.
Cursing softly Nikos tried to fold her into the shelter of his arms but she held back. ‘I will wet you.’
‘Do you think I care about that?’
A large warm towel arrived around her shoulders and she huddled into it gratefully, shivering badly now as the cool evening air struck deep into her wet skin.
‘Are you all right, Mia—?’ It was only when she heard Nina D’Lassio’s anxious question that she realised it must be her hostess who’d been so quick to produce the towel she was huddling into. ‘Are you hurt anywhere?’
With a shake of her head Mia made an effort to pull herself together, found the strength to push her wet hair from her face and discovered that her wrist was still hurting.