Damon strode across the room, ignoring her attempts to wriggle out of his arms.
‘Will you put me down? You have no right to…to man-handle me,’ she cried, her breath leaving her body on a sharp gasp when he dropped her unceremoniously onto one of the wide sofas, scattered with brightly coloured cushions, that were grouped beneath the main window.
Instantly she struggled to sit up, her cheeks the same shade of scarlet as the sofa. ‘How dare you interrupt my photo shoot? I’m supposed to be working for Tina Theopoulis—whatever will she think? And what are you doing here? Did you know I would be here?’
‘Of course I knew. It’s taken me two weeks of constantly badgering your agent to arrange the shoot,’ he growled.
He loomed over her, big and powerful and so utterly gorgeous that Anna’s heart contracted and she felt the familiar sting of tears. Damn him! For a woman who’d once vowed never to cry over a man, she had shed an ocean over him and she hated herself for her weakness.
Nothing horrified her more than the idea that she was turning into the woman her mother had once been—wasting her life and her emotions on a man who didn’t deserve them. But she’d missed Damon so much this past month that every day without him had been more agonising than the last. How could she have let it happen? she wondered as she edged off the sofa. How could she have been stupid enough to fall in love with him?
That last thought was so terrifying that she jumped up, only to have him haul her back down onto his lap and imprison her with arms of steel.
‘What did you mean when you said you arranged the photo shoot?’ she demanded, hastily dragging her eyes from his face. He was too close for comfort. She could feel the warmth emanating from him and the familiar tang of his cologne set her senses alight. ‘Are you Tina Theopoulis’s financial backer?’
‘Yes, but I’m also her brother. Catalina, or Tina as she is sometimes known, is incredibly talented—don’t you think?’ He absorbed her look of stunned comprehension and gave a wolfish smile, his eyes gleaming with the familiar heated desire that made Anna tremble. ‘Diamonds suit you, pedhaki mou,’ he murmured softly, sliding his fingers over the ornate necklace at her throat before tipping her head back to claim her mouth in a brief, hard kiss that drove her to the edge of sanity.
Common sense told her she should resist him, but, as was usual when she was in Damon’s arms, her brain seemed to lose all power of rational thought and she became a wanton creature, desperately seeking the pleasure his mouth evoked.
Sensing her capitulation, he deepened the kiss until it became a sensual feast that demolished her mental barriers and had her clinging to him, her lips parting helplessly beneath the demanding sweep of his tongue. Finally he lifted his head and stared down at her swollen lips, noting the expression of stunned despair in her eyes. There was still a hell of a way to go, he accepted grimly. But at least she was here, in his arms, and this time he was determined not to let her go.
‘Why did you go to such lengths to bring me here?’ Anna croaked. She tried to ease off his lap, needing to put some space between her and the temptation he aroused to fasten her mouth on his and lose herself in the exquisite ecstasy of his kiss.
She quickly discovered that her attempts to escape him were futile when he clamped his hands around her like a vice and forced her to remain balanced on his thighs.
‘I want some answers—and, as you refused to take any of my calls, kidnapping you was my only alternative,’ he told her bluntly.
‘Kidnap! You can’t possibly believe you can keep me here against my will…’ She tailed to a halt, the look in his dark eyes warning her that he intended to do just that. ‘My agent will wonder where I am if I don’t contact her.’
‘I told her to clear your diary for the next month.’
‘You’ve got a damn nerve. This is my career we’re talking about.’
‘No, our future relationship is the only subject up for discussion,’ he said mildly, earning himself a look of such wrath that he had to hide his smile. Angry was good—at least she looked more alive than the pale waif who had looked as though she would snap in the slightest breeze.
‘I did answer your first call,’ Anna snapped. ‘I was glad to hear that your daughter’s head injury was not as serious as first believed and that she was recovering well from her bike accident.’ She inhaled sharply as a thought struck her. ‘The little girl downstairs—that was Ianthe, wasn’t it?’
‘She’s been very excited about your visit ever since I told her about you and she couldn’t resist taking a peep,’ Damon explained. ‘She thinks you look like a princess.’
‘But why did you tell her about me? I don’t understand what game you’re playing, Damon, but it’s a dangerous one,’ Anna warned. ‘I told you the last time we spoke that I won’t be drawn into a relationship with you now that I know about your daughter.
‘I don’t want to be responsible for hurting her like I was hurt when my father walked out,’ she added painfully. ‘Ianthe is a little girl who needs your full attention and commitment. You have to be there for her and make sure she knows how much you love her. You have to protect her,’ she told him fiercely, ‘and you can’t do that if you’re constantly flitting between London and Athens, trying to maintain a long distance affair with me.’
She wiped her hand over her face and was startled to find that her cheeks were wet. Damon had stilled—she could feel the tension in him as he tilted her chin and forced her to meet his gaze.
‘Ianthe is in no doubt of my love for her. I would gladly give my life for my daughter. But your father didn’t protect you, did he, Anna? That’s what all this is about.’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Anna lied thickly. She tried to pull away from him but he cupped her face in his big hand and gently wiped away her tears.
‘I spoke to your mother about you.’
‘You did what?’ Anna’s eyes flew open. ‘How dare you harass members of my family—how did you even know where to find her?’
‘It was relatively simple for my private detective to discover that she’s living in France with her third husband,’ Damon revealed steadily. ‘You’ve never met Charles Aldridge, have you? Your mother couldn’t hide her disappointment that you’ve never visited.’ He paused for a moment and then added, ‘He seems to be a decent man.’
‘Good,’ Anna muttered, remembering the promises she’d made to visit her mother’s French home, and the last-minute excuses that had prevented her from going.
‘A far better choice than her second husband,’ Damon said softly. He didn’t know what sort of reaction to expect and was unprepared for Anna’s violent struggle as she scrambled out of his lap. The patent distress in her navy-blue eyes told him what he already suspected. He knew now who had called her Annie, but for both their sakes he had to make her face her demons.
‘Did you know that Philip Stone served a jail sentence for downloading illicit images of young girls onto his computer? I guessed not,’ Damon murmured when Anna silently shook her head. ‘Your mother left him after he was arrested and immediately started divorce proceedings. She explained that you had already left home by then and, because she didn’t want to upset you, she never told you the truth about him. But you knew what he was like, didn’t you, pedhaki mou? And that was the reason you chose to struggle to live independently at such a young age, rather than return home.’
She was silent for so long that he thought she wouldn’t answer, but suddenly she lifted her head. The utter desolation in her eyes made his heart clench and he longed to draw her into his arms, but he knew she would reject him.
‘He used to watch me,’ she whispered, ‘all the time; whatever I was doing in the house, he’d be there, staring at me. At first I thought I was imagining it. I only saw him when I came home from boarding school and I thought maybe I was just being silly.’
She took a deep breath and forced herself to continue. ‘But then he started saying things, making personal comments about how my
body was developing. I didn’t like it, of course—it was embarrassing—but he only did it when we were alone and when Mum was there he was always just normal and friendly.’
‘Is that why you didn’t say anything to your mother?’ Damon asked gently.
‘I knew Phil would laugh it off or make out that I was over-imaginative. And Mum was happy. For the first time since my father had left us I actually saw her laughing, after years of watching her crying all the time. I couldn’t destroy that happiness,’ Anna told him fiercely. ‘I would have done anything to see her smile, and my stepfather knew it.
‘That was when he started trying to touch me,’ she revealed, her face twisting with revulsion as long-buried memories resurfaced. ‘He didn’t sexually abuse me in the full sense, but he used to brush against me as if by accident and he delighted in telling me, in grotesque detail, exactly what he’d like to do to me.’
‘Where was your real father while all this was going on?’ Damon queried tightly, fighting to disguise the anger in his voice that anyone could have treated a vulnerable young girl on the brink of womanhood so appallingly.
‘He was busy with his new wife and family,’ Anna replied quietly. ‘I barely had any contact with him and I was afraid he would accuse me of trying to stir up trouble to gain his attention.’
‘So the man you should have been able to depend on most failed to protect you,’ Damon murmured, quietly. Suddenly everything made sense. Her father had abandoned her and hadn’t been there when she’d desperately needed him. She had been forced to cope alone with her stepfather’s foul sexual advances. It was little wonder that she was afraid to trust any man.
Despite the late-evening sunshine spilling into the room, Anna was cold and she wrapped her arms defensively around her body as if to prevent herself from falling apart. This was the first time in her life that she had ever spoken about the trauma she’d suffered at the hands of her stepfather. It was as if the floodgates had opened and the words spilled out of her. ‘Philip made me feel dirty,’ she admitted huskily. ‘He made me believe that sex was disgusting, and, although the sensible part of me knows that can’t be true, I still hear his voice in my head.
‘When you touch me, try to make love to me, I imagine his hands on my body and I can’t bear the knowledge that he’s out there somewhere, thinking all those disgusting things about me.’
‘But he’s not, pedhaki mou.’ Damon stood and swiftly crossed the room to pull her into his arms. Instantly she stiffened but he held her against the broad strength of his chest and stroked his hand through her hair. ‘Philip Stone was killed in a car accident two years ago. Whatever happened in the past is over and he can never hurt you again.’
CHAPTER TEN
‘ANNA, are you awake?’
Anna opened her eyes and frowned at the sound of the disembodied voice—before she remembered where she was. ‘It’s all right, Ianthe, you can come in,’ she murmured, smiling sleepily when her bedroom door was cautiously pushed open.
‘Papa said I wasn’t to wake you,’ Damon’s daughter admitted anxiously, in the fluent English that she spoke as easily as Greek, ‘but we’re going to Poros today and I can’t wait!’
The little girl flung herself on the bed, her riotous mass of black curls dancing on her shoulders and her dark eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘It’s going to be great. We’re going on Papa’s boat and when we get to the island we can go swimming in the sea. You will come swimming with me, won’t you?’
‘Of course,’ Anna promised. Ianthe’s enthusiasm was impossible to resist. ‘I’m all packed. I’ll have a quick shower and then I’ll be ready. What’s the time?’
‘Almost nine o’clock,’ Ianthe informed her. ‘I wanted to wake you earlier, but Papa said you were tired because sometimes you have bad dreams.’ She hopped off the bed and followed Anna into the en suite bathroom. ‘I used to have bad dreams about a monster, but Papa told me not to be scared because he would chase all the monsters away. Do you dream about monsters, Anna?’
Anna stared at her reflection in the mirror and realised that her eyes were no longer full of shadows. ‘I used to,’ she replied honestly, ‘but your papa chased my monster away, too.’
‘Papa’s the best,’ Ianthe stated with a degree of adoration in her voice that tugged at Anna’s heart. She remembered a time when she’d believed that her father was the most wonderful person in the world, and her feeling of devastation when he’d walked out and left her behind.
Damon was nothing like her father, she acknowledged. He would never abandon his child. It was a week since she had arrived in Greece and discovered that the modelling assignment for Tina Theopoulis had partly been a trick to lure her to Damon’s home. In that time she had quickly come to realise that Damon’s daughter was a happy, well-adjusted child who was utterly confident of her father’s love.
Ianthe would always be Damon’s first priority and Anna admired and respected him for his dedication to his daughter. She would never be jealous of his love for his little girl. But the ghost of his dead wife was another matter.
‘Are you going to have a very long shower?’ Ianthe asked in a tone that told Anna she was struggling to hide her impatience.
‘Five minutes max,’ Anna assured her. ‘Where is your papa?’
‘Waiting on the terrace. I’ll tell him you’re almost ready.’ Ianthe bounded out of the room and threw a final plea over her shoulder. ‘Hurry up, Anna!’
Ten minutes later Anna had managed to shower, blow-dry her hair and slip into a pair of white jeans and lemon yellow strap top. If she was honest, she was almost as excited about the coming trip as Ianthe and she quickly applied the minimum of make-up and sprayed her wrists with her favourite perfume before heading for the lift.
She had spent the first few days since Damon’s revelation that Philip Stone was dead in a state of shock. It was hard to accept that the man who had caused her such misery and mental anguish was gone for good.
Even though she hadn’t seen her stepfather for years, the idea that he was still enjoying his disgusting fantasises about her had filled her with revulsion. Damon’s news had created a heady sense of relief. She felt as though she had been released from a life sentence, and the mental barriers that had prevented her from having a sexual relationship were slowly disappearing.
As the week had progressed she’d realised that the past was finally buried and she could look to the future with a new optimism. The thought of making love with Damon no longer filled her with fear. Indeed, every time he kissed her she responded with an eager passion that she hoped would show him that she was ready for them to become lovers.
But to her frustration he had made no move to take her to bed. At first she’d thought that the gentle sensitivity he’d shown her all week was his way of giving her time to come to terms with the news of her stepfather’s death. He was obviously determined not to rush her, she decided, when each night he escorted her to her room and kissed her until she was senseless with longing, before politely bidding her good night and retreating to his own room.
However, as the days and nights slipped past her doubts grew and she wondered if his seeming reluctance to deepen their relationship was for another reason. Damon’s wife was dead, but her memory lived on. Every room in the villa was adorned with her artwork—vibrantly beautiful paintings and exquisite sculptures that were a lasting legacy to Eleni’s incredible talent.
How tragic that the pretty and gifted young woman pictured in the photographs that Ianthe had proudly shown her had died so young, and when she’d had so much to live for, Anna brooded. She didn’t doubt that Damon had been deeply in love with his wife, and in Ianthe—who was the image of her mother—he had a visual reminder of all that he had lost.
Eleni was a hard act for any woman to follow and she had no intention of even trying, she accepted when she reached the terrace and saw Damon sitting beneath the shade of the pergola. He’d even admitted that he wasn’t looking for another wife. But as her se
nses flared at the sight of him she wondered if she could cope with a brief affair and emerge unscathed.
‘Good morning, Anna—did you sleep well?’
Damon lowered his newspaper and subjected her to a slow appraisal that brought a flush of colour to her cheeks. Although she was one of the most photographed women in the world, her self-confidence was shaky and she couldn’t help thinking that she must look pale and uninteresting compared to Eleni’s exotic beauty.
‘Too well, I’m afraid,’ she murmured apologetically. For the first time in years she was able to sleep without fear of the nightmares that had so often plagued her. ‘I had no idea it was so late, but I’m ready now,’ she added with a smile when she watched Ianthe hop impatiently from foot to foot.
‘Good—we’ll leave as soon as you’ve had breakfast.’
‘Oh, I’m not hungry,’ she said quickly.
‘Well, we’re not going anywhere until you’ve eaten, pedhaki mou,’ Damon told her implacably. ‘If you don’t wish to disappoint Ianthe, I suggest you sit down and have some fruit and yoghurt.’
‘Has anyone ever told you you’re the bossiest man in the world?’ Anna snapped as she took her place at the table and forced a smile for the maid who had set a cup of coffee in front of her.
‘No one else has ever dared,’ Damon admitted with one of the devastating smiles that took her breath away. ‘Trust you to break the mould, Anna mou.’
The note of gentle affection in his voice, teamed with the warmth in his eyes, made her heart lurch and she hastily tore her gaze from him and helped herself to a selection of fresh fruit.
In faded denims that clung lovingly to his thighs, and a black T-shirt stretched taut over his broad chest, he was awesome. Anna was filled with a crazy urge to lean across the table, snatch his newspaper out of his hands and claim his mouth with her own, in a kiss that would leave him in no doubt of what she wanted.
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