From Dirt to Diamonds
Julia James
He’ll stop at nothing to settle old scores! When Angelos Petrakos spies supermodel Thea Dauntry in a swanky London restaurant, he knows she’s not really the effortlessly elegant woman she seems to be… For Thea, Angelos’s reappearance is disastrous! Dining with a viscount on the verge of proposing, the last thing she wishes to be reminded of is the street-smart, quick-tempered girl she once was.A lucky encounter years ago with the gorgeous Greek tycoon enabled Thea to make something of her future. But Angelos can’t forget how she used him – and he’ll stop at nothing to bring her down. Even seduction…
Dark, hard eyes looked down at her. Thea pulled back against the stone wall.
Shock. Panic. Fear ran through her. And—far more powerful than any of those—loathing. Black, virulent loathing.
Something moved in his eyes. Then he spoke.
‘Still the street rat,’ said Angelos Petrakos.
Her eyes narrowed like a cat’s.
‘Upstairs,’ he said. His voice was terse.
She raised delicate eyebrows. ‘Whatever for?’
‘It’s in your interest,’ he said.
Nothing more. He didn’t need it. And he knew she knew that. Oh, yes, he knew she knew, all right …
Loathing flashed in her eyes, but for all that she turned and walked towards the staircase. He let her go up first, let his eyes take in the graceful line of her body.
She was casually dressed, but the dress was cashmere, and the boots the finest soft leather. She wore the outfit with an elegance that might have been natural but which he knew was not.
It was all only an illusion. And now he would be stripping the illusion from her, exposing the lie.
About the Author
JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Mills & Boon
were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England’!—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!
From Dirt to Diamonds
Julia James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE
ANGELOS PETRAKOS eased his broad shoulders in the wide-backed dining chair and reached a long-fingered hand for his wineglass. He took a mouthful of the extremely expensive vintage, savouring it. His glance flicked around the crowded, fashionable Knightsbridge restaurant, momentarily diverted from his host, with whom he was in discussion about a particular joint venture with Petrakos International.
Immediately he was aware of female eyes assessing him.
A mordant look gave a dark glint to his obsidian eyes. How much of their interest was in him and how much in his position as head of a multinational conglomerate with a range of businesses in its highly profitable portfolio?
It was a distinction his widowed father had been incapable of making. So astute in business, in building the Petrakos empire, yet his father had been targeted by one financially predatory female after another, and the youthful Angelos had been repelled by it. He’d hated to see his vulnerable father exploited, lured into loaning them money, making investments in their business affairs, or promoting their careers with his wealth and contacts. Angelos had learnt his lesson well, and so, however alluring the woman, however tempting it was to have an affair with her, he was ruthless in keeping business and pleasure scrupulously separate.
Such self-control could be irksome, but his rule was inflexible and absolute—he never allowed any beautiful and ambitious woman to take advantage of his interest in them. It was simpler and safer that way.
His gaze continued its swift sweep of the restaurant, ignoring the attempts to catch his eye, while his attention remained still attuned to what his host was saying about the complex financial structure of the deal he was proposing. Then, abruptly, his grip on his wineglass tightened. His gaze honed down between the heads of other diners to the far side of the room, to a table set against the opposite wall.
A woman, sitting in profile to him.
He stilled completely. Then slowly, very slowly, he lowered his wineglass to the table. His gaze had not moved an iota. His eyes were hard as steel. For one long, measureless moment he held his gaze immobile. Then, abruptly cutting across whatever his host had been saying, he said, ‘Excuse me one moment.’ His voice was terse. As hard as his eyes.
He pushed back his chair, getting to his feet, discarding his napkin on the table. Then, with a lithe, powerful tread, he headed across the restaurant.
Towards his target.
Thea lifted her glass, smiling across at her dinner partner, and took a delicate sip of her flavoured mineral water. Even though Giles was enjoying a fine vintage Chablis, she never drank alcohol herself. It was not just empty calories—it was dangerous. For a second so brief she did not register it by time the flicker of a shadow feinted over her skin. Then Giles spoke, dispelling it.
‘Thea …’
His voice was tentative. She smiled reassuringly, despite the nerves which ate her inside. Please let him say it …
She had worked so hard, so long for this moment, and now what she hungered for so much was almost within her reach.
‘Thea—’ Giles said again, his voice sounding more determined now.
And again Thea found herself willing him to continue. Please let him say it! Please!
But even as the words begged in her head she saw him pause.
A shadow fell over the table.
It was curious, Angelos found himself thinking with an abstract part of his mind, just how swiftly he had recognised her. It had been, after all, nearly five years. Yet she had been instantly identifiable in the first second his eyes had lighted on her just now. The same abstract portion of his brain felt a flicker of emotion. He dispelled it swiftly.
Of course he had recognised her. He would know her anywhere. There could be no hiding place for her.
Now, as he reached the table she was sitting at, he could just what she had done to herself. It was, he acknowledged, remarkable. His gaze rested on her. Seeing, for the moment, what she wanted the world to see.
A stunningly beautiful female. A woman to catch the breath of any man.
But then she always had been that. But not like this. Not with sleek, pale, perfect hair—styled immaculately, drawn off her face into a sculpted chignon at the nape of her neck—her make-up so subtle that it was as if she were wearing none, the shimmer of pearls at her earlobes, her couture dress the colour of champagne in tailored silk, high-cut, long-sleeved.
Almost, he laughed. Harsh, unhumorous. To see her like this—chic, elegant, soignée … A thousand miles from the way she had once looked. Five long years from that. Five long years in which to create the transformation his outward eye now saw. The illusion.
More than an illusion. A lie.
His shadow fell across her. She turned her head. And in the one microsecond that it took he saw the shock—far more than shock!—detonate in her eyes. Then it was gone. Almost he admired her. Admired her for slamming down the visor over her face, the blankness—the flawless, perfect lack of any sign whatsoever of recognition, of acknowledgement of his identity.
But admiration was not what he felt for her. What he felt for her was—
Something different. Something quite, quite different. Something that had been buried deep for five long years. Crushed like rocks under lava that had once burnt blisteringly hot and which had cooled to impenetrable basalt.
Until this moment. Out of nowhere.
His hand slid inside the silk-lined inner breast pocket of his jacket, withdrawing a card. He flicked it down on to the table in front of her.
‘Call me,’ he said. His voice was expressionless. His face expressionless.
Then he turned and walked away.
As he did, he reached for his mobile phone, pressing a single number. Instantly it was answered.
‘The blonde. I want a full dossier on her when I get back to my suite tonight.’ He paused minutely. ‘And her swain.’
Then he slid the phone away and rejoined his table. His face was still expressionless.
‘My apologies,’ he said smoothly to his host. ‘You were saying …?’
‘Thea? What on earth?’ Giles’s upper-class accents sounded bemused.
She lifted her eyes from the card. For a moment something seemed to move in her face.
‘Angelos Petrakos.’ She heard Giles read out the name on the card. It came from a long, long way away. Down an endless corridor of purgatory.
Angelos Petrakos. The name speared through her mind. Five years. Five years—
She could feel shock still detonating through her. Invisible, but explosive. A destructive force she could barely endure. But endure it she must—must. It was essential. Yet she felt as if a Shockwave was slamming through her, convulsing her, and all she could do was hang on—hang on with her fingernails—as its force sought to overwhelm her.
In the wake of the Shockwave came another devastating force—panic. A scorching, searing heat, screaming up in her chest, suffocating her. With an effort she could scarcely bear, she crushed down the shock, the panic. Regained control. Frail—paper-thin. But there all the same, holding everything down, pinning everything down.
I can do this!
The words, gritted out into the seething maelstrom in her head, were called up from the depths. Familiar words—words that had once been a litany. A litany that had somehow, somehow, got her through. Got her through to where she was now. In control. Safe.
She forced herself to blink, to focus on Giles’s face. The face of the man who represented to her everything that she had ever craved, ever hungered for. And he was still there—still sitting opposite her. Still safe for her.
Everything’s all right—it’s still all right …
Urgently, she crushed down the panic in her throat.
Giles had turned his head to look at the tall figure striding across the restaurant. ‘Not the type to bother with good manners,’ he said, disapproval open in his voice.
Thea felt a bubble of hysteria bead dangerously in her throat, seeking to break through her rigid, desperate self-control.
Good manners? Good manners from Angelos Petrakos? A man whose last words to me five long bitter years ago had been to call me a—
He mind slammed shut. No! Don’t think. Don’t remember—not for a single moment!
Giles was talking again. She forced herself to listen, to keep crushed down the storming emotions ravaging inside her with sick, sick terror. To deny, utterly, what had just happened. That Angelos Petrakos—the man who had destroyed her—had just surfaced out of nowhere, nowhere, like a dark, malignant demon …
Panic clawed again in her, its talons like slashing razors.
‘Perhaps he wants to engage you,’ Giles said, looking back across at her. ‘Seems an odd way to go about it, though. Extremely uncivil. Anyway …’ his voice changed, sounding awkward, self-conscious suddenly ‘… no need for you to accept any more bookings—well, that is if you—Well, if you—’
He cleared his throat.
‘The thing is, Thea,’ he resumed, ‘what I was going to say before that chap interrupted was—well, would you consider—?’
He broke off again. Inside Thea the claws stopped abruptly. A stillness had formed. She couldn’t move. Nor breathe.
For a moment Giles just looked at her—helpless, inarticulate. Then, with a lift of his chin, and in a voice that was suddenly not hesitant or inarticulate, but quiet and simple, he said, ‘Would you, my dear Thea, consider doing me the very great honour of marrying me?’
She shut her eyes. Felt behind the lids tears stinging.
And everything that was storming in her brain—the shock, the panic, the terrified clinging of her fingernails to stop herself plunging down, down, down into the engulfing depths that she could feel trying to overwhelm her—suddenly, quite suddenly, ceased.
She opened her eyes. Gratitude streamed through her. Profound and seismic relief.
‘Of course I will, Giles,’ she answered, her voice soft and choked, the tears shimmering in her eyes like diamonds. Relief flooded through her. A relief so profound it felt like an ocean tide.
She was safe. Safe. For the first time in her life. And nothing, no one, could touch her now.
As the terror and panic drained out of her in the sweet, blessed relief of Giles’s proposal, she almost twisted her head to spear her defiance across the room—to slay the one man in the world she had cause to loathe with all her being. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he even registered in her consciousness. Whatever malign quirk of fate had brought him here tonight, it had allowed him to witness—even if he had no idea it was happening!—a moment of supreme achievement in her life.
A hard sliver of satisfaction darted in her mind. All the shock and the panic she had felt were gone now—completely gone. Unneeded and unnecessary. Instead there was now thin, vicious satisfaction. It was fitting—oh, so fitting!—that he should be here, in the moment of her life’s grateful achievement, when he had nearly, so very nearly, destroyed her life.
But I wouldn’t let him! I clawed my way back and now I’m here, and I’ve got everything I’ve wanted all my life! So go to hell, Angelos Petrakos! Get out of my life and stay out for ever!
Then, casting him away with her damnation, she gazed into Giles’s eyes. The eyes of the man she was going to marry.
On the far side of the room Angelos Petrakos’s eyes were bladed like knives.
* * *
The rest of the evening passed in a blur for Thea. Gratitude and relief were paramount, but she also knew that there were still grave difficulties ahead of her. She was not—how could she be?—the ideal bride for Giles. But she knew how hard she would work to succeed as his wife—a wife he would never regret marrying, that even his parents would accept as well. She would not let them down. Nor Giles. For what he was giving her was beyond price to her. And she would not risk him regretting it.
And I can do it! I remade myself out of what I was—and I can make myself a suitable wife for Giles! I can!
Resolution surged through her. Giles deserved the very best of her, and she would not stint in her efforts to get it right for him. I’ll learn how to do it, she vowed, as she listened to Giles telling her more about Farsdale, the ancestral pile in Yorkshire he would inherit one day.
‘Are you sure you want to take it on?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘It’s a bit of a monstrosity, you know!’
She smiled fondly. ‘I’ll do whatever it takes—I only hope I won’t let you down.’
‘No!’ he answered quickly, taking her hand. She felt warmth go through her. ‘You’ll never do that! You’ll be the most beautiful and wonderful Viscountess we’ve had in the family!’
Angelos stood, hands curved over the cold metal balustrade of the roof terrace of his London apartment, and gazed out over the river, flowing darkly far below. The darkness of the Thames was shot with gold and scarlet—reflected lights from the buildings either side of its wide expanse. From the penthouse terrace he could see the city stretching far in all directions.
A vast, amorphous conurbation—cities within cities—physically contiguous but socially isolated from each other as if there were stone walls and barbed wire fences between them. The London that he inhabited when he visited the city was the one that had the highest fence around it, the thickest walls, keeping out those who did not qualify for entrance.
The London of the rich.
Many wanted to get in—few succeeded. The failure rate was steep, the odds stacked heavily against them. Passports hard to come by.
Money was one passport—the main one. Those whose endeavours made them sufficient money could gain entry. But sometimes money was not essential, not necessary. Sometimes—Angelos’s eyes darkened to match the inky water far below—other attributes would do it.
Especially if you were female.
His hands tightened over the balustrade.
The time-honoured method.
That was what she had used.
He exhaled slowly. He gave an impatient hunching of his shoulders. Well, of course she would! What else did she have?
The cynical twist of his mouth deepened. Only now she wanted more than she had wanted once from him. In the years since then her ambitions had soared—as the dossier he’d ordered showed glaringly.
The Hon. Giles Edward St John Brooke—only son of the fifth Viscount Carriston, principal seat Farsdale, Yorkshire. The Hon. Giles has been a regular escort for the subject at a wide variety of social events over the last year. It is a relationship rumoured in the gossip columns to be potentially one of matrimony, but with the speculative impediment that the Viscount and Viscountess might not approve, preferring a more traditional wife for their heir.
The final phrase echoed in Angelos’ head.
… a more traditional wife …
His mouth thinned.
Had they had her investigated, being concerned for their son? If so, they would have found only what his own security team had found.
Thea Dauntry, twenty-five years old, fashion model, represented by premier modelling agency Elan. Owns lease of a one-bedroom flat in Covent Garden. British nationality and passport. Born Maragua, Central America, to church-funded aid worker parents who died in an earthquake when she was six. Returned to the U.K. and lived in Church of England boarding school until she was eighteen. Travelled abroad for two years. Started modelling career at twenty-one. Good reputation for reliability. No known drug usage. No other known liaisons other than Giles St John Brooke. Press coverage neglible. No scandals. No record of court orders or police convictions.’
For a second, black fury knifed through him. Then, abruptly, he turned away, stepping back indoors, slicing shut the balcony glass door behind him.
She should be asleep, Thea knew. Yet she was restless, staring sightlessly up into the dark in the bedroom of her Covent Garden apartment. Outside she could hear the noise of the street, subdued now, given the lateness of the hour—well gone midnight. But London never slept. She knew the city. Knew it like a chronic, malign disease. She had lived here all her life. But not in this London. This London was a world away, a universe away, from the London she had once known. The London she would never, never know again … never go back to.
And now she would be leaving London completely. She would not miss it—would embrace with gratitude and determination the windswept moors of Yorkshire, the new, wonderful life that was opening out in front of her. Where she would be safe for ever.
But even as she lay there, hearing the subdued noise of the traffic far beyond in the Strand, she felt the shadow feint over her skin. A dark shadow—cruel. Flicking a card down in front of her. A deep, hard voice that had reached out of the past.
But the past was gone—over. It would not come back.
She could not allow it to come back.
Giles phoned in the morning, wanting her to go with him to Farsdale, to be presented with the heirloom engagement ring and meet his parents. But Thea demurred.
‘You owe it to them to see them on your own first,’ she said. ‘I won’t cause a breach, Giles, you know that. And I’ve got a photo shoot this morning anyway.’
‘I hope it’s for a trousseau,’ said Giles warmly. ‘To put you in the right frame of mind!’
She laughed, and hung up on him. The troubled, restless unease of the night was gone, vanished in the brightness of the morning. Her heart felt light, as if champagne were bubbling in her veins. The past was gone. Over. Dead. It was not coming back. Ever. She would not allow it. And it meant nothing, nothing, that a spectre from her past had risen from his damnable earth-filled coffin like that last night!
He can do nothing—nothing! He’s powerless! And so what if he’s here in London? If he recognised me? I should be glad—triumphant! Because how galling for him to see how I’ve ended up despite everything he did to me …
She used the defiant, bombastic words deliberately, to rally herself. To give her strength—resolution and determination. The way she always had. The way she’d always had no option but to do … scraping herself off the floor, out of the abyss into which she had been thrust back.
By one man.
The man who, last night, had appeared like a spectre. But the past was gone. She was in the future now. The future she had hungered for all her life. Angelos Petrakos could do nothing do her.
Ever again.
Angelos sat at his vast mahogany desk and drummed his fingers slowly, contemplatively, along its patina. His expression was unreadable, the darkness of his eyes veiled.
Across from him his British PA sat, pencil poised, waiting instructions. He seldom visited London, preferring to run the Petrakos empire from across the Channel, and she was allowing herself the rare opportunity of looking covertly at him. Six foot plus, with broad shoulders and lean hips superbly sheathed in a hand-tailored business suit, strongly planed, ultra-masculine features, and, most compelling of all, dark, veiled, unreadable eyes that sent a kind of shiver through her. What that shiver was, she didn’t like to think about too much. Nor about the way his mouth could curve with a harsh, yet sensual edge …
‘No other calls while I was in Dublin yesterday? You’re certain?’
His PA jumped mentally, summoning back her focus on her work. ‘No, sir. Only those I’ve listed.’
She saw his mouth tighten. Obviously he’d been expecting a call that hadn’t come. Fleetingly, his PA felt a pang of sympathy for whoever it was who hadn’t phoned when clearly they should have.
Few who failed to do what Angelos Petrakos wanted of them enjoyed his reaction.
* * *
Thea walked with brisk purpose along the pavement, heading back to her flat from the local library in the still-light evening of early summer. She was calmer now. Giles was coming back to London tomorrow—she had nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. Relief and gratitude were the only emotions she would allow herself.
As she approached her apartment block, a sleek limo on the other side of the road dimly impinged on her consciousness, but she paid it no notice. This close to the Opera House it would be a chauffeur, waiting for his employer at the theatre. She paused by the block’s main entrance, key already out of her bag. There was a second’s warning, a footfall behind her. Then a man was standing there, closing her in to the doorway.
‘No fuss, please, miss,’ said the man.
He pressed the door open, pushed her inside into the entrance lobby. It was done in a second, and for that second Thea was paralysed. Then gut instinct, rising up from the depths, cracked in. She twisted round, knee jerking upwards. There was a grunt from the man, but even as she started to knife back with her elbow, fisting her other hand, ready to stamp down with her heel, there was someone else there—someone who thrust her back powerfully, effortlessly.
Dark, hard eyes looked down at her. She pulled back against the stone wall, eyes distending.
Shock. Panic. Fear.
And far more powerful than any of those—loathing. Black, virulent loathing.
Something moved in his eyes. Then he spoke.
‘Still the street rat,’ said Angelos Petrakos. He glanced briefly behind him. ‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said dismissively to the bodyguard, who was still catching his breath from the unexpected blow inflicted upon him.
Angelos turned his attention back to the woman against the wall, her eyes narrowed like a cat’s. He could see the pulse hammering in her neck. Immobile she might be, but she had adrenaline kicking through her system.
Well, so did he.
‘Upstairs,’ he said.
Her eyes narrowed even more. ‘Go to hell.’ Deliberately, never taking her eyes from him, she reached for her mobile. ‘I’m phoning the police,’ she said.
‘Do it,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It should make interesting reading in tomorrow’s papers. Especially in Yorkshire.’
Her hand hovered, then fell. Her heart was pounding, adrenaline surging round her body in huge, sickening waves. She had to beat it down, get control of herself—of the situation. She straightened herself away from the wall, lengthening her spine, bringing her body into a pose. Regaining the illusion, if nothing else, of composure.
‘Why the house call?’ she asked. She kept her voice light, incurious.
‘I told you to phone me.’ His voice was terse. Grating.
She raised delicate eyebrows. ‘Whatever for?’
She could see his eyes darken. ‘We’ll go upstairs and discuss it.’ He saw her hesitate. ‘It’s in your interest to do so,’ he said.
Nothing more. He didn’t need it. And he knew she knew that.
Oh, yes, he knew she knew, all right …
Loathing flashed in her eyes, but for all that she turned and walked towards the staircase. He knew why. Even though her flat was on the penultimate floor she would not risk the confinement of the lift. He let her go up first, let his eyes take in the graceful line of her body. She was casually dressed, in a belted sweater dress over leggings and ankle boots, but the dress was cashmere, and the boots the finest soft leather. She wore the outfit with an elegance that might have been natural but which he knew was not. It had been acquired—just as the rest of her image had been acquired. From the sleek fall of her thick blonde hair, caught back in a jewelled grip, to the cultured tones in which she’d told him to go to hell.
But it was all only an illusion—a lie. And now he would be stripping the illusion from her, exposing the lie.
She let him into her flat, setting down her shoulder bag. ‘So. Talk.’ Her voice came—terse and tense. She was standing hands on hips, chin lifted. Defiance—belligerence—open in her eyes.
For a long moment Angelos simply kept his eyes levelled on her, taking in her new appearance. She hadn’t just transformed her image, she’d matured—like a fine vintage wine. Become a woman in the fullness of her beauty. No longer coltish, but slender, graceful. Her beauty luminescent.
He felt an emotion spear within him, but the emotion, like her beauty, was at this moment irrelevant. It was obvious what she was doing. Attacking so she could avoid having to defend herself. He knew why—because she had no defence. Had that street-sharp mind of hers realised that already? He’d shown his hand downstairs, when he’d mentioned Yorkshire—she’d picked it up straight away. Did she realise that the concession she’d made then—not phoning the police—had only proved to him just how absolutely defenceless she was?
Not that that would stop her fighting—defending the indefensible.
Like she’d done before.
His lips pressed tighter. Memory darkening in his eyes.
He let his gaze rest on her a while. Impassive. Unreadable. Taking his time. Controlling the agenda. Racking up the tension in her. Then, deliberately, he let his glance pass around the well-appointed living room.
‘You’ve done well.’ He would allow her that—nothing more.
He could see the flare of her pupils. But, ‘Yes,’ was all she said.
‘And you plan to do better still.’ He paused. ‘Do you seriously believe,’ he demanded, sneering harshness in his voice, ‘you can get Giles Brooke to marry you? You?’
The flare came again. ‘I’ve already accepted his proposal,’ she answered. It was a sweet moment—so very sweet.
She watched his face darken, fury bite in his eyes. The moment became sweeter still.
Then the fury vanished from his eyes. His face became a mask. He strolled over to the sofa, dropping down on it, lengthening his legs, stretching out his arms. Occupying her space. She didn’t like it, he could see.
‘Thea Dauntry,’ he mused. His mockery was open. ‘A name fit for the bride of a real, live aristocrat! The Honourable Mrs Giles St John Brooke,’ he intoned. ‘And then, in the fullness of time, Viscountess Carriston.’ He paused—a brief, deadly silence.
Thea felt her stomach fill with acid. She knew what he was going to say … knew it with a sick dread inside her.
His eyes moved over her. Assessingly. Insultingly. Then he spoke. Silkily, lethally.
‘So, tell me, what does he think about your little secret? What does he think,’ he asked, his voice edged like a blade as cold snaked down her spine and Angelos’s malignant gaze pinned her, ‘about Kat Jones …?’
The name fell into the space between them. Severing the dam that held the present from the past.
And memory, like a foul, fetid tide, swept through her …
CHAPTER TWO
KAT raced up the escalator at the underground station, not caring if she was hustling the people standing. She had to race. She was already twenty minutes late. Half of her told her it was a waste of her time, racing or not. The booker had said as much—the snooty one Kat disliked, who looked at her as if she hadn’t washed that morning.
Well, you try keeping lily-white and fragrant in a dump of a bedsit with only a cracked sink in the corner!
Strip washes were all she could manage—mostly in cold water, to avoid the rip-off meter—apart from when she went to the public swimming baths and used the showers there.
One day I’ll have a bathroom with a walk-in shower and a bath the size of a hot tub …
There was a long list of things she was going to have ‘one day’. And to get even a fraction of the way to getting them she needed this job. If she could get there in time, before they’d seen all the girls. If they picked her out from the crowd of other hopefuls. If that then led to other castings, other jobs, other shoots.
If if, if …
She took a sharp intake of steadying breath as she thrust through the exit barrier. Yeah, there were a lot of ifs—but so what? She’d got this far, hadn’t she? And even this far had been way, way beyond her once.
Everything had been beyond her. She’d had nothing except what the taxpayer had handed out to her at the care home. Who had been responsible for her existence she had hardly any idea. Certainly not who’d fathered her—he probably didn’t even know himself. Certainly didn’t care. Not enough to check whether the women he slept with ever found themselves pregnant. As for who that lucky woman had been—well, all Kat knew from her records was that she’d been deemed unfit to raise her own child. The social workers had descended when she was five, finding her hungry, crying and with bruises on her thin arms. Her last memory of her home was her mother screaming slurred obscenities at the policewoman and the social worker as they carted her away. Anything else was just a blur.
Just as well, probably.
She’d never settled well, though, in the care home, and had left school the moment she could, resisting attempts to educate her, drifting in and out of casual work, sometimes being sacked for tardiness, sometimes walking out herself because she didn’t like to take instructions from people.
But at eighteen Kat had found out something that had changed her life. Changed it completely—for ever. She’d got access to the records of her birth and family. She could still remember the moment when it had happened. She’d been staring down at the paperwork, reading the brief, unexpansive notes written in official language about herself.
Father—unknown. Mother—known to the police as a prostitute, drug addict—no attempt at rehabilitation. Died of drug overdose at twenty-three.
Hatred had seared through her—hatred of the woman whom she could remember only dimly as someone who’d shouted a lot and slapped her, and very often hadn’t been there at all, leaving her to pick food out of the fridge, or even the rubbish, and feel sick afterwards. A mother who’d loved her drugs more than she’d loved her daughter.
Yes, hatred was a good emotion to feel about a mother like that.
Then Kat had read the next entry—this time about her mother’s parents.
Father—unknown. Mother—a street prostitute, alcoholic. Knocked down by car and killed at twenty. Daughter taken into care.
The chill that had gone through her had iced her bones. For a long time she’d just stared down at the document. Seeing the damnation in it. Each mother damning her daughter. Generation to generation. Then, slowly, very slowly, she’d raised her head. Her eyes had been like burning brands. Her expression fierce, almost savage.
Well, not me! I’m not going that way! I’m getting out—out!
Her resolution was absolute, fusing into every cell in her body. Fuelling, from then on, every moment of her life. She was getting out and heading up. Making something of herself. Getting off the bleak, relentless conveyor belt that was trying to take her down into the pit that had swallowed her mother—her mother’s mother.
And two things, it was obvious, could push her down there. Drink and drugs. That was why her mother, and her mother’s mother, had become prostitutes, she knew—to fund their addiction. And sex, too, had to be out. Sex got you a fatherless baby, raised on benefits, got you trapped into single motherhood. The way her mother had been, and her mother before her …
Sex, drink and drugs—all toxic.
All totally out of her life.
Out too, all the drifting and aimlessness of her existence. From now on, everything had a focus, an end point, a reason. Everything was a step on her journey out of the life she had into the life she wanted. The life she was going to get for herself.
But how was she going to get that life? She was going to work—work her backside off—but doing what? She’d left school with the minimum qualifications, had hated school-work anyway, so what could she do?
It was Katya who showed her. Katya, whom she’d met at the hostel for the homeless she’d got a room in, who was Polish, blonde and busty. She palled up with Kat, claiming they had the same name, the same hair colour, the same age—and the same determination to make good. Katya’s father was a miner, crippled in an explosion. Her mother had TB. She had eight younger brothers and sisters.
‘I look after them,’ said Katya simply. She knew exactly how she was going to do so. ‘Glamour modelling,’ she told Kat openly. ‘It makes good money, and at home no one will see those magazines, so I don’t care.’
Kat tried to talk her out of it. Her every instinct revolted against going anywhere along that path.
‘No. I do it,’ said Katya resolutely. She eyed Kat. ‘You, with your looks, can model without the glamour,’ she said. ‘Real modelling.’
Kat had laughed dismissively. ‘Thousands of girls want to become models.’
Katya only shrugged. ‘So? Some of them make it. Why not you?
Her words echoed in Kat’s mind. Resonating like wind chimes, playing seductively in her consciousness.
Why not her?
She took to staring at herself in the mirror. She was thin, like a model was. Especially since she didn’t spend much on food—not having much to spend. And she was tall. Long bones. She studied her face. Her eyes were wide. Greyish. Oval face. Cheekbones high. Straight nose. Bare mouth. Teeth OK. No lipstick, no eyeshadow. She never wore make-up. What for, when she avoided sex—and therefore men—like the plague?
She gave a shrug. Either her face would suit, or it wouldn’t. But she might as well try.
‘You need a portfolio,’ Katya told her. ‘You know—photos to show how good you can look. But they cost a lot.’
Kat took a job—two jobs. In the day, six days a week, she worked in a shoe shop, and in the evening, seven days a week, she worked as a waitress. She was on time every day. She took all the instructions she was given without argument, resistance or attitude. She was polite to customers, even when they were rude to her. She gritted her teeth, steeled her spine, and did the work—earned the wages. Saved every penny she could.
It was slow, and it was hard, and it took her six months to put aside enough. But pound by pound, doggedly hoarded, she put the money together to pay for a professional portfolio.
Then she just had to find a photographer. Katya recommended one. Kat was sceptical, given the Polish girl’s line of work, but Katya went on at her, and eventually Kat said OK. She didn’t like Mike, straight off, but Katya was with her, so she didn’t walk out. She liked him even less when he wanted her to strip off—just to see her underlying figure, he claimed—nor did she like the fact he didn’t like it when she said no. The session took for ever, with Katya redoing her hair and make-up, changing her clothes all the time. She didn’t like Mike physically changing her pose, moving her around like a doll. But she knew that was all a model was—a clothes horse. Not a person. She had better get used to it. Train herself to be docile. Even though it went against the grain.
Finally he finished, and when the photos were ready Kat was so stunned she could only stare. The face which all her life hadn’t seemed to be anything much, was suddenly, out of nowhere, amazing! Her eyes were huge, her cheekbones like knives, and her mouth—
‘I look fantastic,’ she said faintly. It was like looking at a stranger—a face that wasn’t hers, but was. She gave Katya a hug. ‘Thanks!’ she choked.
She didn’t see the strange expression fleetingly in the other girl’s eyes.
She took the next morning off work and, nerves shredded like paper, heart thumping, headed for the modelling agency she’d selected as her first try with her new portfolio.
They had, to her exultation, taken her on.
But even after being signed it was a long, slow haul. Assignments were thin on the ground, and competition for them fierce.
Especially the best ones.
Like the one she was racing for now. For a start, the casting was at a seriously flash Park Lane hotel, and the shoot itself was going to be in Monte Carlo—posing on yachts in a marina. She felt a thrill of excitement as she raced out of the tube station. She’d never been abroad in her life, let alone anywhere that fantastically swanky.
As she dashed up to the hotel, heart-rate zapping in her chest, she was intent only on getting to the entrance as fast as possible. She completely ignored the sleek limo pulled up at the kerb, and the frock-coated doorman stepping back from opening the rear door. Nor did she pay the slightest attention to whoever it was getting out. Except that as she raced up to the hotel’s revolving door he was in her way.
“Scuse me!’ she exclaimed, and made to push past him, to get into the revolving door first.
But the man simply turned his head sharply and stopped, blocking her. Kat glared at him. She took in height, a dark suit, a tanned complexion, strong features which made her pulse give a strange kick, and dark, forbidding eyes clashing with hers.
Her pulse gave that strange kick again. But it was because she was running late, was in a hurry, didn’t have time to waste—and this block of a man was in her way. That was why. No other reason.
‘Look, are you going to shift or not?’ she bit out impatiently, glaring at him belligerently.
Something flashed in the dark eyes. Something that made that kick come again. But it was just because he was still in her way—and because he was looking at her as if she was some inferior being. Her back went up as automatically as the kick that came in her pulse.
‘Would you be so very kind,’ she gritted, in mock-ingratiating accents, ‘as to allow me to get into the damn hotel?’
The dark eyes flashed again. But this time it was different. She didn’t know how different, or why. But it was. This time it didn’t make her pulse kick. It made something arrow in her stomach instead.
Then he stepped back. He said nothing, just indicated with his hand for her to go into the revolving door. It was an offhand gesture—dismissive. She didn’t like it. It made her back go up even more. She stepped into the open angle of the doorway, then turned her head.
‘Thank you so much,’ she said, in sweetly acid, exaggerated tones. ‘How terribly kind of you!’
Something glinted in his eye, which she didn’t like either, and she turned her head sharply and swept inside, pushing the door round, to gain the marbled entrance lobby.
‘Posh idiot!’ she muttered. Then she pulled her mind away from the incident. She had to find where the casting was.
Fifteen minutes later she was sitting on a spindly gilt chair in a huge hotel function room, looking depressed at the usual horde of fantastic-looking hopefuls. There seemed to be a bit of a lull in the proceedings. The suits at the far end, bunched around a table, must be making their minds up. Kat stared round, feeling strangely edgy—more so than she usually felt at a casting. Maybe it was because she didn’t like this room—it made her feel out of place. This was the poshest place she’d ever been in, and all the people who came here were posh. Like the bloke who’d looked down on her for daring to push past him.
Kat’s eyebrows drew together. She felt antagonism flick inside her, then pushed the memory out of her mind. No point thinking about it—it had been brief, annoying, and now it was over. Just one of those things. She wondered how long it would take for the suits to decide whether she was one of the lucky chosen.
She wasn’t a strong candidate, she knew. Not for a swanky shoot like this. Her looks and style were fine for streetwise stuff, smart and sassy or aggro-cool, but if this was all about yachts then they’d want models that looked the part. Those sleek, classy girls who spoke with plums in their mouths, who were called Christabel and Octavia and knew each other from boarding school. Who were only modelling for a hobby or a lark until they married, or got bored with the hard work it really was.
She went on staring, keeping herself to herself, the way she always did at castings, not caring if other girls thought her standoffish. Then, abruptly, the huddle at the table straightened and a chicly dressed middle-aged woman started reading names out.
Kat’s wasn’t one of them.
She gave a mental shrug. What had she expected? Disappointment and frustration went with the territory, and you rolled with the punches because there was no alternative. She, like the rest of the girls in the room apart from the chosen nine, who’d hurried forward to the table, started to pick up their stuff and prepared to leave.
Except that, abruptly, another door at the far end of the room opened, close to the table with the suits, and someone walked in.
Kat recognised him instantly, and it set the seal on the casting. It was the man she’d hustled at the entrance to the hotel. By the way the suits had jumped to their feet—even the two women—the guy was clearly a head honcho type. Kat wasn’t surprised—it was obvious from the handmade suit to the way he’d looked at her with coldly arrogant eyes, as if she was an inferior being.
Well, if he was the head honcho, then it was just as well she hadn’t been picked. She hadn’t exactly impressed the guy, had she, back-talking him like that? She hefted her bag, and stood up.
As she did so, she felt something on her. It was the man—he was sweeping a rapid glance over the girls in the room. Maybe he was just checking that the models on the short list, clustered eagerly by the table, were the best there. Well, it wouldn’t be her, anyway, not once he’d recognised her. She turned away, moving towards the door.
The voice of the middle-aged woman rang out.
‘You—short blonde hair, green shift. Wait.’
Slowly, Kat paused and turned. The woman beckoned to her impatiently.
‘Kat Jones, is it?’
Kat nodded, but her eyes went past the woman to the tall figure at her side. The man she’d hustled. Mr Big. His eyes were resting on her. She couldn’t read them, not from this distance, but there was something in them that made her feel suddenly very, very weird.
She started to walk towards him.
Angelos Petrakos watched her approach. She appeared wary. He was unsurprised. She’d be ruing her rudeness to him at the hotel entrance. His gaze rested on her critically as she came forward. Too thin for his personal taste, and although her features were stunning, her short, jagged hairstyle was not what he liked in a woman. He liked women chic, elegant, soignée. Not raw off the street like this. With a lip to her that would get her nowhere fast in life.
And yet his eyes narrowed speculatively. There was something about her …
His eyes flicked over her one more time, assessing her. He saw something flash in hers, surprising him. She hadn’t liked the way he’d looked her over.
Curious. She was a model—it was her livelihood to be looked over. But she hadn’t liked him doing it. And that was an anomaly in itself. Women liked him to look them over. They queued up for the privilege. But this fauve girl just about had her hackles raised, claws out. Kat was clearly a good name for her …
But her name was irrelevant. So was anything else. The only thing on the agenda was whether she would suit the campaign he wanted—lend an edge to it that more conventional models wouldn’t. Well, he’d think about it. He snapped off his surveillance and nodded at the creative director of the advertising agency that had been selected for the campaign.
‘Put her on the list,’ he instructed. He didn’t expand on his choice—that was not the concern of those he paid. He turned to go. ‘Have the short-listed girls back here for seven o’clock this evening.’
Then he walked out of the function room.
* * *
At five to seven precisely, Kat walked out of the hotel’s powder room, where she’d changed into her evening gown, having done her face and hair at home earlier. She was looking good, she knew, and she hung on to the knowledge, knowing her nerves were stretched and she needed all that her reflection could offer her. The thin-strapped eau de nil silk gown bought in a sale fell sheer down her slender body, its pale colouring suiting her own paleness. Strappy, high-heeled sandals lifted her hips and gave an assertive boost to her stride.
But beneath the surface her emotions were conflicted. Predominant was nervousness—but running alongside that was another emotion. One that she didn’t want to feel.
She knew who he was now—she’d had it spelt out to her by the suits after he’d walked out of the room that afternoon. Angelos Petrakos. He wasn’t the guy who owned the yacht company—he was the guy who owned the company that owned the yacht company.
Yeah, well, she thought bitingly to herself as she strode into the hotel lobby, she wasn’t going to tiptoe around him, however much she wanted the job. If he wanted to hire her—fine. But no way was she kow-towing to him! No way!
She still didn’t know why he’d put her on the short list. She was a completely different type from the sleek, posh others. Well, she didn’t care about that, either. Either she’d be picked or she wouldn’t. That was it, really. Nothing to do with her—just what Mr Big wanted.
She felt an odd sensation jitter through her. It was different from the impulse she’d had to slug the guy for looking at her like meat. Yet it still had something to do with him looking at her. She frowned as she walked along. It wasn’t a feeling she’d had before. It felt alien. Unnerving. She found, too, that she was replaying the encounter at the hotel door in her head—and then the bit where she’d been summoned to the table. The odd jittery sensation went through her again.
She didn’t like it. It made her feel—vulnerable.
And vulnerable was something she never, never wanted to feel.
Quickening her pace, she headed up the broad sweep of stairs up to the function suite. Inside, she saw that the other nine girls were already there—and so was Mr Big, talking to the most important suit. Deliberately not looking at him, Kat took her place beside the group, standing quietly to one side.
Angelos looked up. Immediately his eyes went to girl he’d added to the short list. His gaze stilled.
She was looking stunning. With part of his mind he tried to analyse why—and failed. Every girl here looked outstandingly beautiful, yet there was something about the edgy blonde that made her stand out even from them—that made him want to look at her …
Was that quality, whatever it was, enough to make him break the brief he’d given his creative team? That the models for this campaign should have the glossy, upmarket look that went with the new line of luxury yachts Petrakos Marine was launching? He turned to his creative director, taking a seat at the table and tilting his chair back slightly.
‘Have the girls walk,’ he instructed.
Deliberately he studied the other girls as they paraded up and down as if they were on a runway. Then, equally deliberately, he let his eyes go to the edgy blonde.
She doesn’t like it, surmised Angelos. She doesn’t like parading up and down on command. Doesn’t like taking orders. Showing herself off. He could see her resentment in every stiffened line of her body as she stalked up and down.
‘That’s enough.’
The girls stopped, came back to the table. The creative director leant forward to say something to Angelos, but he held out a hand to silence him. His gaze remained on the girls clustering around. He worked his gaze along them, his face expressionless.
Then he simply said, ‘You, you, you,’ nodding at each he’d chosen in turn.
One was blonde, with long hair down to her waist—clearly her particular asset—the second was an aristocratic brunette, and the third was Eurasian and any man’s private fantasy. They would all be ideal for the campaign.
Having made the required decision, he left everything else to his staff. But as he got to his feet his eyes went to the girl at the end of the row. She looked even more apart than before. The other rejected girls were peeling off into a group, some shrugging, some looking unconcerned, while the favoured three were taken off by two of his staff to get more details of the forthcoming shoot.
For a long moment the girl in the eau de nil silk just stood there, very still. Her face was quite expressionless. Then she turned away, walking back to the door.
There wasn’t any sign of resentment now. Only deliberate indifference.
Except that it wasn’t indifference. He could see exactly what it was—defiance. Not by the slightest slump of her shoulders letting any trace of having been rejected show. He watched her a moment, ignoring whatever it was his creative director was saying to him.
Then he went after her.
He caught her up just in the upper foyer, as she was heading for the stairs down and out of the hotel. He took her arm.
She stopped dead and jerked around. Her eyes flashed.
‘Don’t handle the merchandise, sunshine!’ she said, and made to tug away. It had no effect on his grip.
Angelos looked down at her upturned face. There was antagonism bristling in her eyes, but more than that. Something behind the antagonism.
‘There may be room for one more model. I’m prepared to consider it,’ he said.
Something flashed in her eyes, then disappeared.
He let go of her arm. ‘I’ll discuss it with you in my suite.’
Her eyes flashed again, but not with the emotion that had just been in them.
‘Get stuffed,’ she said, and wheeled round. He caught her again.
‘You mistake me,’ he said, and his voice was icy. ‘This concerns merely whether you are, or are not, suitable for this campaign. Nothing else.’ He walked towards the bank of lifts, not bothering to see if she was following. She would be, he knew.
She stepped into the lift beside him, standing as far away from him as possible, staring straight ahead, her shoulders rigid. Wary as a cat, but with a hunger, he knew perfectly well, for what he had in his power to offer her. As the elevator lifted away he caught the faintest tang of perfume—something citrusy. Sharp. It suited her, he realised.
Beside him, Kat stood, every nerve end bristling. It had been a rollercoaster all afternoon—from realising she wasn’t going to be short-listed to the exultation that she had been, and then, just now, the bitter knowledge that she still hadn’t made it, despite her best shot and her evening gown.
Only to have hope flare all over again—
She felt pincers snip away inside her stomach. And now it was not just because of the job she wanted so much. It was because of the man she was standing beside. Something about him was setting her nerves jangling.
It’s because he’s an arrogant s.o.b—that’s why! Mr High-and-Mighty, Filthy-Rich-Big! Looking at me like I’m nothing more than meat.
And it was in his power to give her a job she really, really wanted.
No other reason. Absolutely no other reason.
As she walked after him into the suite she stopped dead, gazing round, mouth dropping open. So this was how the rich lived! The place was like some kind of apartment, with rooms opening off a lounge that had a balcony on one side and a dining table in a huge alcove. Two huge sofas faced each other across an acre of coffee table.
‘Sit down and wait.’
The voice was indifferent, assuming obedience. She did as she was told, still looking around her, and then her eyes went to him without her volition, watching as he extracted some papers from a briefcase, setting them down upon the dining table and standing to look through them. He started to make phone calls in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before, so maybe it was Greek—the guy was Greek, the model who’d told her about him downstairs had said. Greek—and loaded.
And not just with money.
Kat found herself looking at him. Staring at him.
He might be an arrogant s.o.b, but she knew exactly how he was getting away with it. With looks like his—all that height and toughness and hard, planed features and dark, measuring eyes, plus that magnetic Mediterranean appeal with his olive skin tone and sable hair and that indefinable aura of being ‘foreign’—he must have women slavering for him!
Oh, not her. No chance. Because she didn’t slaver over any man, and never would. But she could still feel her nerves jangling, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Every impulse told her to jump to her feet and run, but she had to sit there, like a good little girl, because this man—however much her made her hackles rise—could give her the job she craved.
Her eyes flashed momentarily. But I’m still not kow-towing to him! He can take the job and stuff it before I do that!
She set her jaw, forcing her eyes away from where he stood, looking as if he owned the place. Which he might very well do, she realized. He was stuck giving orders in Greek, or whatever it was, down the phone. Her eyes went back to looking over this room where the rich folk hung out, taking it all in—the décor, the furniture, the deep carpets, the vast bouquet of flowers on the sideboard. All the trappings of luxury that a man as rich as Mr Big took for granted every moment of his gilded life.
A world away from her own life.
Well, she would never get to this level—she knew that—but then she didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. All she needed was something a lot better than she had—a clean, nicely furnished flat, not the squalid, mouldering bedsit she was holed up in now, and enough money coming in for her not to be cold in winter and watching every penny every minute of the day. Something that was hers and hers alone—a decent life.
And one day she’d have it. One day—
Her focus snapped back to the present. The phone calls had stopped, and he slid the phone away in his inside jacket pocket, coming across to sit down opposite her in an armchair. He’d helped himself to a drink from somewhere, but wasn’t offering her one, she noticed. Just as well. She wouldn’t have touched it.
He hooked one leg over his knee and relaxed back into his seat, holding his glass in his hand. His eyes rested on her.
Kat made her face expressionless. She was learning how to do that.
‘So …’ said Angelos Petrakos. His voice was deep, but with hardly a trace of accent, she realised, only the clipped, curt tones of a posh Englishman—a million miles away from the London voice she spoke with. ‘Shall I hire you, or not?’
Kat’s expression didn’t change. Was she supposed to answer, or just sit there like a dummy? She chose to answer. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but sitting voiceless was more than she could make herself do.
‘No point asking me,’ said Kat. ‘I’m just the meat.’ Her voice was deadpan.
‘Meat?’ The word fell into the space, ready frozen.
She tightened her mouth. ‘Clothes horse. Dress rack. Dummy. AKA body. AKA meat.’
His eyes seemed to narrow minutely. ‘You have a problem with that?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s what modelling’s all about,’ she answered.
‘But you object?’ The voice was sardonic.
‘Not if I get paid. And if I don’t get any hassle,’ she added pointedly.
For a moment he did not answer. Then the dark eyes narrowed again. For a moment Kat felt she was skating on thin ice—very thin ice—that might suddenly crack, disastrously, and send her plunging down into dark, drowning water …
Then it was gone.
‘And if … hassle… were part of the deal?’
For answer, Kat held up a single finger, her face expressionless.
Angelos’s eyes flickered to it, then back to the girl’s face. Why was he doing this? He had no intention of sleeping with her. His assessment was purely professional. But something made him say, his tone suddenly dulcet, ‘You might find it enjoyable—’
‘And you,’ Kat retorted sweetly, ‘might find the attempt painful.’
For a second, the barest portion of one, she felt the ice give an ominous crack. As if he might actually find her answer amusing. Then the hard features hardened even more, and he simply levelled upon her a glance that crushed her like an insect.
Oh, God, thought Kat. My big mouth.
But Angelos Petrakos was reaching for his mobile phone. It was answered instantly. He didn’t look at her. ‘Add Kat Jones to the shoot,’ he said.
She stared, eyes widening. Then elation soared through her.
A moment later it dissipated. Those sharp dark eyes were back on her again.
‘Provisionally,’ said Angelos Petrakos.
She looked at him warily. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked. She sounded blunter than she’d meant to, but her nerves were jangling for a hundred reasons which had a lot more to do with the hard-featured face of the man with the power to hire her than the job he was dangling in front of her.
‘It means,’ he answered, ‘that I want to check whether you can behave appropriately. Fit in. I don’t tolerate,’ he said cuttingly, ‘attitude.’
Kat bit her lip. She could feel herself doing it. Forcing herself to do it.
‘Exactly,’ said Angelos Petrakos, a mordant expression in his night-dark eyes. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet. ‘If you have any engagements for this evening, cancel them.’
She stared. Wariness radiated instantly from her again, like a beacon switch thrown to high. He saw it—just as he’d seen her forcing herself to bite her lip.
‘I’m taking you to dinner,’ he enunciated. ‘There will be a considerable amount of socialising in Monte Carlo. The other girls will find it easy. You need practice,’ he told her coolly. ‘If, that is, you are to go at all.’
CHAPTER THREE
KAT had got the message, loud and clear. She was on trial. And, whilst one part of her wanted to tell him what he could do with his ‘provisional’ offer, the other side of her brain managed to hold down that predictable but destructive reaction.
The trouble was, she realized, as she stiffly and selfconsciously followed Angelos Petrakos down in the lift to the hotel restaurant with determined docility, that trying to behave ‘appropriately’—she mentally gave the patronising term a vicious nip—for going to Monte Carlo was being impeded by the very man who was judging her behaviour. Because as she jerkily took her place opposite him in the ultra-swanky restaurant—all dim lights and designer seating and damask linen—the tension she felt was not just because of her surroundings—or the fact this job depended on her behaviour, but predominantly and overwhelmingly because spending any time at all in the man’s company was stringing her nerves out like wires.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want a bevy of waiters hovering around, flicking out napkins, proffering water, bread, menus, so that she didn’t know what to do or what to take or what to say. And she didn’t want to open a huge leatherbound menu and stare blankly at the entire thing, written in French, not understanding a word of it. It made her feel like a fool, and she resented it. And the man who was putting her through it. Above all she didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
Because—well, just because. That was good enough, wasn’t it? she told herself aggrievedly. She didn’t have to say she didn’t like the way his strong features made her want to look at them, even though they damn well shouldn’t have, or the way his dark, glinting eyes seemed to flick over her like a blade and do things to her that they shouldn’t, or the way his handmade suit eased across his broad shoulders and the silk slash of a tie accentuated his aura of Mr Big, so that everyone flunkeyed around him and he didn’t even notice it.
‘Chosen what you want yet?’ His voice was cool as he addressed her.
She pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t know. I can’t read it. It’s in French.’
She was being truculent, she knew, but couldn’t stop herself. The place was getting to her. He was getting to her.
‘You’ll find,’ replied Angelos Petrakos, his sarcasm silky, ‘that French is the de rigueur language in Monte Carlo.’
Kat gave a shrug, doggedly resistant to his putdown. ‘Well, I’ll be stuffed then, won’t I?’ She shut the menu. ‘I’ll have a green salad, no dressing. That OK in a place like this?’
She was sounding belligerent, and she really, really didn’t mean to. It was stupid to be like this—just stupid! But she couldn’t help herself. She felt wired all along her nerve endings, a tightness in her chest.
He was frowning. ‘That’s all?’
‘Yeah. Model—diet—you know.’
She was being daft, not just flippant. This was free food. She should eat a week’s worth and starve till the weekend! But right now she didn’t think she was going to be able to swallow easily she was so strung out.
A second later her nerves twanged like a bass guitar. His eyes were resting on her. Just—resting.
But it was all they had to do. Suddenly her dress seemed skimpy, her breasts too noticeable beneath the slinky fabric, her shoulders and arms far too exposed. She felt—naked.
Not in the way that photographers and stylists made her feel—although she hated that, no mistake—but what was happening now was … different.
Worse. Much, much worse.
Because when photographers and stylists made her feel like meat it didn’t make her feel like this.
As if she was suddenly burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. As if she wanted to jump to her feet and bolt, and yet was glued immobile. As if her breathing had stopped completely, and yet her heart-rate was racing as if she’d just injected adrenaline straight into it …
And then suddenly the gaze was gone, and there was, instead, a faint frown line between his brows, as though yet again something had annoyed him.
Then the waiter was hovering, ready to take orders. She repeated her request for salad, her voice sounding tight and breathless. When he’d gone, Angelos Petrakos turned his attention back to her.
‘You’d look better with more flesh on you,’ he said. He sounded critical, and it galled her. But then, everything about him galled her. Or did something like that to her …
‘Tell that to the camera,’ she riposted. ‘It puts weight on if you just breathe.’
‘So you live on air?’
‘Just about. You get used to it.’
The frown between his eyes snapped deeper. ‘With the aid of drugs?’ he shot at her.
‘No,’ she retorted instantly. She said nothing else. It was a subject she never discussed. Never.
‘Good,’ he said brusquely. ‘I don’t tolerate drug-users, for any reason.’
She didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. She knew drugs were prevalent in the modelling business, both for recreation and weight control, but since she didn’t socialise she saw very little of it.
Then a guy with a little metal cup beetled up, with a minion in tow bearing a bottle as if it was some kind of baby. Kat stared, nonplussed, at the ritual that then proceeded.
‘What was that all about?’ she heard herself asking, as the flunkey and his minion beetled off again, having eventually filled two glasses.
Angelos found himself explaining the role of the sommelier. While he did so he wondered, for the dozenth time, what the hell he was doing right now. Bringing this ill-mannered, back-talking, street-sharp girl here to dinner. Oh, he knew what he’d told her—but that wasn’t the reason and he knew it. He couldn’t care less if she was gauche and unsophisticated on the shoot, provided she took instructions and shot well. No, he had different reasons for extending his time with her—reasons he didn’t want to focus on right now, simply continue with.
She was totally not the type of female he was ever interested in—too thin and too raw, with an unlovely London accent exacerbating her sharp tongue. A universe away from the sophisticated and soignée women he chose for company.
So why was he wasting his valuable time on this mouthy, angular, bony female who’d brought her back-street behaviour with her from whatever sink estate she’d been dragged up on?
The question probed at him, finding no answer. None but whatever it had been about her that had made him subject her to his scrutiny from the moment she’d pushed past him in the hotel doorway to now, having her sit here opposite him, clearly completely out of her social depth and radiating resentment, hostility and, most obvious of all, having to force herself not to jump to her feet and march out of the restaurant and hightail it back to wherever she hailed from.
Was that it? he found himself wondering. Was that why he was wasting his time on her? Because she didn’t want him to? Because she so obviously didn’t want his attention?
Something he’d never known in any female. Oh, the women he associated with were sufficiently sophisticated not to let their assiduous desire to please him be conspicuous, but it was there all the same—all the time. He took it for granted that it would be, even if it was just his wealth alone that drew them. And if the kind of women he selected for his relaxation were of that mind, how much more so all the other females who crossed his path in more workaday, humbler roles? A girl in this model’s circumstances should be desperate to court his approval, impress him with her suitability for the assignment.
For a fleeting moment he examined the possibility that the girl was deliberately trying to make herself noticeable by being as belligerent and hostile as she was. Then he dismissed it. No, her body language—bristling and protective—was genuine. So was her resistance and suspicion. His eyes darkened momentarily. She’d repulsed very clearly, very crudely, his deliberately voiced and entirely theoretical proposition. Had she meant it? It had seemed entirely spontaneous, entirely genuine. But … He found his thoughts turning over. Would that resistance last if he let her think that his selection of her as an extra model for the yacht shoot was contingent on her supplying sexual favours?
Was she really, despite her sharp tongue and bristling body language, that virtuous?
His thoughts idled. Perhaps he should put it to the test …
Out of nowhere, like an image illuminated by dark light, he saw her in his mind’s eye, her elongated, coltish body lying on a bed, her small breasts bared, her head tilted back, pale hair jagged on the pillow, eyes blinded by a moment of sexual whiteout—
He thrust the mental vision aside forcefully. The last thing he was interested in was taking her to bed! Forcibly, he focussed his mind on the present circumstances—wondering what on earth had possessed him to waste dinner in her company. She was as far from his type as it was possible to be, and with every minute that passed she confirmed it. Her ignorance was total. She had clearly never dined in a restaurant like this before, and clearly never made conversation over a dinner table before. Her brusqueness was comprehensive, at every question or comment he made, whether from nerves or belligerence.
On top of the ludicrous green salad she’d insisted on, she was ignoring the wine poured for her. Instead, she reached for her water glass and drank it down. Angelos watched her.
‘You won’t try the wine?’
She set down her empty glass and shook her head. ‘I don’t drink,’ she said. ‘Empty calories.’
It was all the reason she would give. Besides, she found talking hard. Her jitters were getting worse. She didn’t like the way she was getting more aware of the man opposite her. He seemed to be crowding her consciousness, making her look at him, and she didn’t want to. For a searing second she could feel an urgent impulse to grab the glass of wine and knock it back. A second later she crushed the impulse. No. No alcohol. Ever. End of story. Instead she took a steadying breath, swallowing air to calm her.
He made no reply to her terse rebuff, only lifting his own wineglass, taking a slow mouthful of wine, swirling the ruby liquid in the large glass, his eyes still resting on her. She shifted position, wishing she could just get up and go. It was like being under a microscope. She hated it. Then, like a release, he set down his glass and turned his attention to his food. Kat felt her stomach cramp with hunger as he forked the rich, fragrant dish of seafood.
He started a new topic. ‘Tell me—have you been to Monaco before?’
‘No. I’ve never been anywhere.’ Why had she said that? He didn’t need to know she’d never been anywhere.
His fork stilled. ‘You’ve never been abroad?’
‘No.’ She collected herself, clamming up.
The dark eyes rested on her. She hadn’t a clue what was going on in them. Didn’t care, anyway. Why should she? If he wanted to make stupid conversation with her, she didn’t have to make it back. Couldn’t anyway. She knew that. Knew she knew nothing. And didn’t care either.
I just care about getting this job.
He was speaking again, taking another considered mouthful of wine. ‘That’s rare, these days, even for the British,’ he observed.
Kat shrugged.
‘You never went abroad on holiday as a child, with your parents?’
‘No.’ She’d never been on holiday, period. As for her parents—a junkie, prostitute mother and an unknown, could-be-anyone father didn’t really cut the mustard when it came to taking their darling daughter off on foreign jaunts …
Anger spiked through her suddenly. Anger at what this man was digging out of her. She turned it towards him to get rid of it—the quickest way she could. ‘Look, what is this?’ she demanded belligerently. ‘What’s it to you whether I’ve ever been abroad or not? I haven’t—OK? Is that some kind of crime in your book?’
The hard features hardened abruptly. ‘I told you I don’t tolerate attitude,’ he bit out at her. ‘Do you really have no idea how to conduct yourself? Because, if so, perhaps I should reconsider my decision.’
He watched with satisfaction as emotion jabbed in her eyes, then subsided.
He nodded. ‘Yes, that’s better.’
He resumed eating. Was the girl really worth the trouble, after all? Yet even as he questioned himself his eyes were going back to her. Taking in those high cheekbones, the luminous skin, the extraordinary eyes focused once more on picking at her salad, the jagged blonde hair edging the sculpted line of her chin. Raw, rough, resistant—yet she drew the eye. And not just his.
He could see it in the other diners. Females were glancing at her, and not just because she was dining with him. He could see she was making them feel as if they themselves were overdressed, fussy, with too much make-up, too elaborate a hairstyle. As for the men—they were looking at her because she was completely, supremely, not paying them attention.
And that quality—that ability to draw eyes—was all that mattered about her. Not her rudeness, her insolence, her thinness, her ignorance.
She’d started to eat finally, forking the green salad mechanically. How the hell she lived on such a diet he couldn’t imagine. But presumably she did it because she had to—competition amongst models was ferocious, and she was right: the camera did add weight. Did she really not do drugs? he mused. His eyes glanced at her arms, but they were unblemished—though that was hardly proof positive. She’d seemed adamant, however, and anyway drug usage was an instant termination of contract clause for models.
As she ate, she made no attempt to talk to him—didn’t even look at him, or anywhere else. Illogically a flicker of annoyance went through him. The last thing he wanted was the girl getting any ideas, yet at the same time being so totally blanked by her made his mouth tighten. He reached for his wine again, taking another contemplative mouthful as his eyes rested on her. For a moment he found himself wondering whether, by some remote chance, the girl had any hidden depths to her. It was extremely unlikely, of course. Nevertheless, having insisted on her presence, he should interrogate her for the purpose he’d stated.
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