Purchased For Revenge
Julia James
Powerful tycoon Alexei Constantin has only one thing in mind—destroying the Hawkwood empire! But Alexei doesn't realize he's just shared a passionate kiss with Eve Hawkwood, the beautiful daughter of his bitter rival!Blackmail!Alexei wants Eve. He'll propose a night in his bed in return for money… he'll push her to see just how far she'll go…And if she proves her innocence, he'll claim her!
Purchased for Revenge
Julia James
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
PROLOGUE
ALEXEI CONSTANTIN slid into the dark leather seat of the large, sleek black car waiting for him at the kerb, the door having been opened promptly for him by the uniformed chauffeur. The door closed, the chauffeur took his place at the wheel, started the engine and moved off into the early morning London traffic.
For a brief moment Alexei contemplated how easily he took such luxurious comfort for granted now, how easily he accepted the vast distance he’d travelled in the fifteen years since he’d set out for the Adriatic ferry port on his eighteenth birthday, a scrawny teenager with little more than the clothes he was wearing, and with his dark eyes burning.
Now, the same dark eyes no longer burned. They were veiled.
Unreadable.
Long lashes swept down over high cheekbones as he settled his lean shoulders against the smooth leather upholstery and picked up the topmost of the sheaf of newspapers that had been placed on the seat beside him, extracting the company news section. He glanced at the distinctive pink newsprint of the Financial Times.
‘Hawkwood—AC International tightens the net’ announced the headline.
He read the article swiftly, scanning the lines, his face expressionless. With the same methodical swiftness he worked his way through the papers. Only one caused him to pause.
It was a photograph, clearly taken at some society event, sited beside yet another news story about AC International’s takeover battle for Hawkwood Enterprises. Alexei’s gaze stilled as he looked down at the image in front of him.
Giles Hawkwood.
The man dominated the photograph, the way he sought to dominate anything and everything. He was wearing evening dress, the tuxedo straining across his thickening torso. His familiar features, with the characteristic strong nose, were framed by thick greying hair. He was looking his age, thought Alexei, his regard emotionless. For a moment he did nothing except look at the face of the man who was the object of the remorseless siege that he was conducting. Then, having taken his fill, he allowed his gaze to take in his companions.
There were two women, one either side of Hawkwood. One was of the same generation, although her handsome features were immaculately preserved. The Honourable Amabel Hawkwood, daughter of the sixth Viscount Duncaster, looked out at the world with a haughty, patrician expression. Acidly, Alexei wondered whether she looked so haughty and patrician at the extremely discreet detox clinic she was rumoured to habitually frequent.
His eyes slid to the other woman, standing on Hawkwood’s left.
She was facing away from the camera, turned towards someone else cropped out of the photo.
His eyes narrowed, his gaze arrested.
There was little to see of her beyond a bare shoulder, the line of her evening gown and the pale fall of her hair, a glint of diamond at the lobe of her ear. But Alexei knew who she was.
Eve Hawkwood, twenty-five years old and only child of Giles Hawkwood.
He felt his mouth tug into a cynical twist.
Like her aristocratic mother, Eve Hawkwood was a sophisticated socialite, adorning her wealthy father’s arm at glittering events such as the one where this photo had been taken. With her father’s money backing her, Eve Hawkwood could spend her life swanning around the luxurious places of the world, buying all the clothes she wanted, indulging herself all day long.
She had no need for anything as menial as a job.
Alexei’s expression grew even more cynical. Except that Eve Hawkwood, it was rumoured, did in fact work for a living.
If you could call it work.
Giles Hawkwood, a man who got what he wanted by any means he considered effective, was not averse, so the rumours ran, to exploiting all the resources he had to hand. Not only had he married the Honourable Amabel for her social standing, putting up with her well-known little ‘weakness’ which kept her increasingly out of circulation, but he was also not averse to making the most of his daughter’s youth and beauty.
Alexei stared down at the photo. He might not be able to make out Eve Hawkwood’s features, but there was a tilt to her averted chin, a straightness to her spine, that gave her an air echoing her mother’s—a hauteur, a remoteness, an untouchability in every line of her body.
Again Alexei’s mouth twisted. Except Eve Hawkwood, so he had heard, was not untouchable at all.
But only—his dark eyes hardened—only when Daddy told her not to be…
Abruptly, he tossed the newspaper aside.
Neither Eve Hawkwood nor the Honourable Amabel were of the slightest interest to him. They were not in his sights at all. Only Giles Hawkwood.
His prey.
CHAPTER ONE
EVE sat in the wide, soft leather aeroplane seat, legs slanted gracefully to one side, flicking unseeingly through a copy of Vogue. There was only one other passenger in the private jet winging its way south over France towards the Côte d’Azur. Across the aisle her father was working through papers, a frown on his face, his jaw clamped tight.
His mood was grim, Eve knew. It had been growing grimmer ever since the takeover bid by AC International had been launched. At first her father had been contemptuous, sneering, but as one shareholder after another had started to look favourably on the bid, or succumb to the lure of the premium price AC International was offering for Hawkwood shares, his reaction had changed.
The takeover bid had become a battle. A battle her father was now taking to the man who had the audacity to try and wrest his company from him.
‘When I come face to face with him it’s got to look like nothing more than a coincidence,’ he’d barked at Eve. ‘If you’re with me it will just look like a social occasion.’
It was a familiar role for Eve to be required to play. The socially poised daughter, the charming guest, the gracious hostess—whenever her father required youthful but respectable female company. Eve’s eyes hardened. The times when far from respectable females had been at her father’s side were plentiful. She could still remember the shock and disgust she’d felt when she’d turned up unexpectedly at her father’s Mayfair apartment once, as a student, to find a party in full swing. Except the word ‘party’ didn’t even begin to describe it.
Naked and half-naked girls had lolled about the apartment, many of whom clearly there for the purpose of ‘sexual entertainment’—if that was the polite term for what was going on—and a blue movie flickering in the background on a huge plasma screen.
Since then she’d had no illusions about what her father did to amuse himself when he wasn’t increasing his wealth and being a complete s.o.b. to everyone around him. And he certainly wasn’t the only one to amuse himself that way.
A look of repugnance shadowed her eyes. And foreboding.
When it came to that kind of partying some of the worst rich men were the newest rich men—especially those who came from countries just discovering how to make serious money.
Would this Alexei Constantin be like that? The country he came from was one of those in South Eastern Europe that seemed to have sprung up overnight in the last fifteen years after the fall of communism. What she knew of the place—Dalaczia—was minimal, though she’d looked it up a bit since last night. It would, she assumed hopefully, be a safe topic of conversation if she had to find one with the man. So far she had learned that Dalaczia shared a border with Greece, possessed a short Adriatic seaboard and some offshore islands, was mostly mountainous, and had been fought over for centuries by every power in the region, including Russia, Turkey, Austria, Greece, Italy and assorted Balkan states. The official religion was Orthodox, and the alphabet was a variation on Cyrillic. Its present independence was precarious and unstable—so was its current government. Not that Eve intended to discuss either—that could swiftly become contentious. Instead she had a list of notable natural features, some data on flora and fauna, and a smidgen of folk customs. That would have to do.
As for the man himself—well, if she was to go by the stereotype currently so popular in American films, Alexei Constantin would doubtless be some florid, overweight, middle-aged man, with a fleshy face and gold teeth, who’d made a bundle out of ruthlessly expropriating his country’s assets since the fall of communism.
She gave a suppressed sigh. So what if he was? Her only task would be to make polite conversation with him until her father decided it was time to despatch her to her quarters and talk business. Her father’s gloves would come off then. He fought rough, and very, very dirty—who knew better than she? Eve thought bitterly. But whatever he had planned for Alexei Constantin, she didn’t want to know.
She didn’t want to know anything of what her father did. She just wanted to keep him away from her life as much as she could. Not that that was easy, or even possible. Giles Hawkwood cast a long shadow.
She’d lived under it all her life.
And there was, she knew, no escape.
No escape at all.
Her reflection gazed back at her from the mirror of the vanity unit in the lavish ladies’ room on the ground floor of the Riviera hotel, and Eve studied it. It was the way she liked to look. Silvery-grey Grecian style evening gown with a draped bodice, pale hair in a coiled chignon, simple drop pearl earrings and matching necklace, subtle make up and hint of classic fragrance.
She looked cool, detached. Untroubled by the worries of the world. Cocooned and sheltered, the pampered daughter of one of the UK’s richest men, with a flat in Chelsea and charge cards for every designer store in London.
That was what the outside world saw.
Only she knew different.
For a moment, her eyes shadowed.
Then, lifting her chin, she got to her feet. She had a role to play and no choice in the casting, and that was that.
She walked across the hotel’s lobby, and paused at the entrance to the casino, her eyes quickly locating the table where her father was sitting, cognac glass at his elbow, wreathed in cigar fumes. Steeling herself, she straightened her spine and prepared to head back to her post at his side, as she was supposed to do.
Out of nowhere, a wave of depression hit her, crushing her with its weight. She’d lived like this so long—all her adult life—jerked on a string by her father, summoned when he wanted her for something, dismissed when he’d done with her, doing his bidding whenever it suited him.
If only I could escape—not be his daughter…be someone totally, completely different.
For a moment the desire was so intense she couldn’t breathe. Then, with a jolt, her lungs opened to take in air again.
And she stilled.
There was a man walking from the bar area at the far side of the casino towards the wide arched doorway where she was standing. He was walking with a lithe, but purposeful gait, threading his way between the tables. For one totally absurd, irrational moment, Eve thought he was walking towards her. For an even briefer moment she felt her mouth suddenly dry. Then she realised he was simply heading for the lobby, and would need to pass her to do so.
Automatically she made to move her gaze away from him.
But she couldn’t.
Helplessly, she found herself watching him, unable to look away. Her mouth went dry again.
He was slimly built, his tuxedo fitting like a smooth glove over his svelte figure. She was used to seeing men in bespoke evening dress, but very few of them ever filled them as well as this man did.
But then, she acknowledged, very few of them had physiques remotely comparable to this man’s.
Or, she realised, with a strange, breathless hollowing of her stomach, the looks to go with the physique. Dark hair, cut short, narrow face, high cheekbones, a blade of a nose and eyes—eyes that seemed as dark as a deep mountain lake caught in a hollow where the sunlight seldom reaches.
Something jolted through her, sucking the breath from her. She wanted to look—to keep looking. Her mind was racing almost as fast as her heart-rate.
He wasn’t English; that was certain. Nor French nor Italian. Not Mediterranean, perhaps. So what, then? She frowned very slightly. The high cheekbones seemed almost Slavic, yet his skin tone was Mediterranean—or close by.
Whatever his racial origins, one fact about him was indisputable—he was the most arresting male she had ever set eyes on.
She could not pull her eyes away.
But she must.
She must because it did not matter that he was the most arresting male she’d ever seen. There was absolutely no point in thinking him so. No point in standing here gazing at him like some gawky teenager. No point feeling this sudden dryness of her mouth, the breathlessness in her lungs, the senseless racing of her heart-rate. No point at all.
She wasn’t here to go stupid over a man. Any man.
She never went stupid over a man. Not since she’d realised, after she’d left school and started to look out at the adult world, that being Eve Hawkwood was not exactly an advantage when it came to romance. Whatever beauty she possessed, very few men ever saw past the looming presence of Giles Hawkwood.
She certainly could not, she knew bitterly.
And tonight—here—of all times and places—her father’s shadow was darkening everything.
So there was only one thing to be done. Look away. Tear her eyes away from the man walking towards where she stood and let him walk by. Take no further notice of him—because, after all, what would be the point of doing otherwise?
No point, she knew.
With a huge effort, more than she’d thought she would have to make, she tried to tear her eyes away.
It was too late.
Out of nowhere, suddenly, as he strode past the last of the vingt-et-un tables, the man’s eyes flicked to hers.
And the breath was crushed from her lungs.
It was like a blow impacting. But not with pain.
With something quite different.
Almost, Alexei paused in his stride. But not quite. It didn’t stop his eyes fastening to hers, though. Didn’t stop the sudden instinctive tightening that he felt.
She was blonde. Incredibly blonde. Pale hair and pale skin. With the fine-boned looks that only the English possessed.
And she was stunning with it. Perfect wide-set grey eyes, a slender nose, and a mouth that was slightly, very slightly parted.
Her body was tall, graceful, and perfectly proportioned. Long legs, rounded hips, hand-span waist and two perfect orbs for breasts. All covered by a silver-grey evening dress that was as subtly understated as her extraordinary beauty was not.
He felt the tightening again.
Hell, this was not the moment for this to happen—
He didn’t need this. Not now. Not here. Not when all his energies had to be focussed on the one thing he was so close, so close, to achieving. The thing that had driven him, possessed him, all his adult life.
I haven’t got time for this…
The hard, pitiless knowledge slammed through him.
He had to stop this. Now.
It was too late. His eyes had locked on to hers.
It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. Enough to send a shockwave through him that he could feel resonating in every cell in his body.
Desire bit through him.
And something else. Something he was not used to feeling. Something he could not identify.
For a handful of seconds his eyes held hers, as the distance between them shortened. She stood absolutely immobile, doing nothing, nothing at all, except locking her eyes to his. As if that was all that was keeping her upright.
He felt his stride slowing, preparing to stop, to pause. To veer towards her…
No! He hadn’t got time for this—this was the wrong time, the wrong place.
But the right woman?
The voice whispered in his head. He silenced it. Ruthlessly he slammed it down with all the rigid self-control he steered his life by. He swept his lashes down over his eyes to shut her from his sight.
As the lashes swept upwards again he realised that she had gone.
Eve bolted. Slipping sideways, she twisted away and hurried as fast as her high heels would let her towards the plate glass doors that led out towards the pool deck overlooking the sea. Her heart was beating like a wild thing, and her cheeks were suddenly burning.
Oh, dear heaven—
Her mind was in chaos. She felt as if a jolt of electricity had just been blasted through her body without warning.
Those eyes, looking straight into hers…
Heat fanned through her again. She took a tumbling breath and kept walking as rapidly as she could, not paying the slightest attention to where she was going.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before! Where on earth had it come from? What was it about that man that had overset her like this? She sucked air into her stomach and tried to steady her breathing, deliberately slowing her hectic pace.
As she did, determinedly calming her breath, even if there was nothing she could do for her racing heart-rate, she tried to get a grip of herself.
You just saw a fantastic-looking male. That was all. You’ve seen a lot of them in your time. They’re not exactly uncommon in the world.
Even as she reasoned with herself, she knew what she said was not true. There might be fantastic-looking males in the world, and she might have seen a lot of them—but none had ever made her react like that to them. None had made her just want to stare, and stare, and stare at them, while her heart-rate went crazy inside her and her breathing stopped.
His image leapt into her mind’s eye. She could recall it perfectly, and even just recalling it sent a frisson through her.
Something about him…
Again she felt that frisson go through her, as she remembered the endless moment when his eyes had locked to hers, jolting electricity through her with a voltage she’d never experienced before.
His eyes had done something to her that she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t lust. God knew she’d been on the receiving end of looks like that ever since she was a teenager. This was something much, much more powerful. Much more disturbing.
Much more devastating.
Her heart-rate started to clatter again, and she felt her pace increase. This time she let it. She’d realised where she was now. On a paved terrace that led along the rocky edge of the sea between the hotel’s gardens and the Mediterranean. The path led through pine trees, which blessedly shielded the lights from the hotel, and ended, she knew from previous visits to the hotel—one of her father’s favourites, thanks both to the casino and the marina where he had his yacht moored—at a miniature promontory overlooking the sea, set with stone seats from which to look at the view in daytime.
She gained it within a few more minutes, but did not sit down. The stone would be too cold with nothing to protect her but her thin evening dress. Instead she leant against the balustrade, trying to steady her breath, her pulse, and gazed out over the night-darkened Mediterranean, at the tiny waves breaking on the rocks below the terrace. Above her, stars were pricking out, and behind her the moon was starting to rise. An almost imperceptible breeze came off the sea, tugging her hair into tendrils around her face, freeing them from the confines of the low chignon at the nape of her neck. The mild night air netted her, the scent of the sea and the pines quieted her. Slowly she felt the heat seep from her cheeks, her heart-rate slow.
And into its place came a yearning that was almost a sadness.
What did it matter that she’d just set eyes on a man who had had such an extraordinary effect on her? It was pointless thinking about him. Quite pointless. She was unlikely to see him again, as he had clearly been heading out of the casino, and very probably the hotel, but even if he weren’t, so what? Nothing whatsoever could possibly come of her reacting to him like that.
Nothing.
All he could ever be was a fantasy. No one real. No one who could possibly have anything to do with her. Just a vague dream of what might have been in a different life.
That was all. Nothing more than that.
She went on looking out over the dark sea, her eyes as shadowed as the night.
She should not have run. That had been a mistake.
Alexei watched for a fraction of a second as she hurried across the hotel lobby to the rear doors facing the sea.
If she’d simply gone on standing there as he’d walked past her he’d have let her be. There was every reason to let her be. None at all for what he was now doing—striding after her with long, lean steps. Deliberately he did not catch up with her. Deliberately he let her reach the outdoors and plunge off to the left of the hotel. He didn’t know where she was going, but he would find out.
The area she was heading into was far less brightly lit than the deck immediately behind the hotel. Only the occasional low-level light marked the pathway she was hurrying along. He watched her for a moment, watched as her speed gradually slowed and she gained a stand of pine trees, then was lost to view in the dim light.
Alexei’s eyes glinted.
At a relaxed, leisurely pace, he set off after her.
He knew he shouldn’t. He knew it was the wrong time and the wrong place.
But she was definitely the right woman.
The most right woman he’d ever seen.
He’d only seen her for an instant, but he’d never, ever had such a kick to his system from any woman before—and he was not, not prepared to let her walk out of his life before he’d even walked into it. He was being rash, he was being reckless, he was being stupid—he knew that all too well. But he knew what he wanted right now.
He wanted to find her.
It was the footsteps she heard first. With instinctive alarm, Eve whipped her head round at the sound of someone approaching. The hotel and grounds were private, and with so many wealthy people here security was high, if unobtrusive. But she was at the far end of the gardens, a place no one was likely to be at this time of night. So who on earth was—?
As he stepped out of the deep shadow of the pine trees her breath caught, and held. For a moment she thought it could not be real. That she’d simply conjured the tall, lean figure out of the air, out of her memory. But the man walking towards her now wasn’t a fantasy.
He was very, very real.
‘You shouldn’t have run,’ he said.
He spoke French. There was an underlying accent, she could tell, but she couldn’t identify what his native language might be. The part of her brain that was capable of any kind of rational thought was not functioning.
She gazed at him helplessly as he walked towards her. Her heart had started to beat. Not racing, but with slow, heavy beats that seemed to take an eternity. Time seemed to be slowing down around her.
He came up to her.
She could not see his face properly in the dim light. The moonlight slanted across his face, turning it to planes and shadows. Turning her limbs to sponge. Her hands tightened on the stone balustrade. She ignored the cold that bit into her flesh.
It was the only part of her that was cold. In the rest of her a slow heat was burning.
‘Why did you? Run?’
The sound of his voice, with its low-pitched, accented timbre, caught at her senses.
‘I don’t know.’
It sounded to her ears such a stupid answer to make. But it was an honest one. It drew a slight smile from him. An indentation of his mouth. Her eyes went to it, drawn irresistibly. It did something to her. Something that fanned the slow-burning heat inside her and sucked the breath out of her lungs. She felt herself stepping back from the balustrade, letting go of it. Her arms fell helplessly to her sides.
What was happening? What was happening here, now, with this man who had drawn her eyes like a magnet as he’d approached her, and from whom she had run, fled, sensing an imperative that she must if she had any sanity obey, because he was only a fantasy, could only be a fantasy, nothing more? And yet he had come after her, followed her here, now…and she did not know why…
‘I just knew that I had to run…’
Her voice was still low, strange even to her ears.
He took another step towards her.
‘You don’t have to run from me,’ he said.
Eve looked at him. The shadowed light was still etching his face, the moonlight glinting off his eyes. There was something in his eyes…
He murmured something. She did not understand it. It was not French, or English. There had only been a few words, and she could not identify the language. Then he was speaking again, this time in English.
‘Who are you?’
Expression flickered in her face. Her lips parted, but she did not speak. She did not want to speak. Did not want to tell him who she was. It didn’t matter whether this man had or hadn’t heard of her father—and anyway, why should he have? There were a lot of rich people in the world and they did not all know each other. It was because suddenly, urgently, she wanted to be…someone quite different. A woman who could, if she wanted, walk out under the Mediterranean sky and gaze into the eyes of a fantasy come to life…
Prevarication came to her.
‘Why do you think I’m English?’ she answered, sticking to French.
The smile indented at his mouth again, and yet again she felt her breath catch.
‘Aren’t you?’ he mocked, very gently, keeping to English.
His words, accented as they were, with that strange, elusive accent, resonated through her. She gave a tiny shrug of her shoulders.
‘You’re not French either,’ she returned, still in that language.
‘No,’ he agreed, but said no more.
Eve knew why. Like her, he did not want this moment to be encumbered by nationalities, identities, categories and classifications. Like her, he wanted it to be—pure. That was the word that formed in her mind. Pure.
Out here, in the clean, fresh air, with the wind from the sea soughing so gently in the tall pine trees, in the clear moonlit night, it was nothing to do with the luxury world of the hotel, with its high-stakes casino, its three-star Michelin restaurant, its marina for multimillion-pound yachts, and its car park full of deluxe cars for deluxe people.
Nothing to do with the world of her father. Beyond the reach of his long, malign shadow.
She knew she was being foolish. She couldn’t escape from being who she was, what she was. Nor could this man here, who might possibly be some kind of impostor, interloper, but who was, she knew, with the deep recognition and experience of the world she had been brought up in, one of the rich men of the world.
But for this short space of time they would both escape from who they were, what they were.
‘Why did you follow me here?’ She spoke in French still. She didn’t quite know why.
He smiled again, not a mere indentation of his mouth, but almost a laugh, lifting his face, showing the whiteness of his teeth.
‘No Frenchwoman would ask that!’ The mockery was there again, but it was conspiratorial, not cruel.
She gave an answering, unwilling smile, acknowledging her mistake.
‘And no woman,’ he went on—and his voice had changed, the timbre deepening, sending the heat seeping through her veins again, ‘as beautiful as you need ask that question.’
For a moment he held her eyes, then hers flickered away, uncertain. As they did so the breeze freshened over her bare arms, and she gave a slight shiver.
He was there immediately. He stripped off his tuxedo jacket and draped it around her shoulders. The warmth from his body was still in the silk lining. Eve felt her throat tighten. It was so intimate a gesture. She felt her heart-rate flutter again.
His hands were still on her shoulders as he stood half behind her. She twisted her head back.
‘Thank you.’ Her voice was low, almost breathless.
His face was close. Far too close. Far, far too close. The world disappeared. Simply ceased to exist. Only his eyes existed, looking deep into hers. Moonlight reflected in their depths. A pulse beat at her throat. She felt her hand move, reach up, and with the lightest touch her fingers traced his jaw. She felt it tense beneath her feathering touch. Saw the pupils of his eyes flare. Heard the intake of breath in his throat. Caught the heady, masculine scent of him.
Then her hand fluttered free, and her mouth dried at what she had just done. Touched a complete stranger like that. Instinctively, impulsively, she pulled away, stepping forward to seize the balustrade again.
‘I’m sorry!’ The apology rushed from her in a low, abashed voice. Her head lowered, and she gazed unseeingly down at the wavelets lapping on the rocks below the terrace. She bit her lip.
‘You apologise?’ She could hear his accent. It shivered down her spine, rippling through her blood. Setting her body resonating finely, so finely…
He had stepped close to her again, was standing behind her now. And once again she felt the pressure of his hands on her shoulders, through the fine material of the jacket he’d draped around her. The pressure seemed to anchor her to the earth, the turning earth.
‘There is no need to apologise.’ She could hear amusement in his voice, but something else ran beneath the amusement.
He turned her around. Her back was against the balustrade, and he was standing right in front of her. His hands slipped to either side of her face, long, strong fingers sliding into her hair. He was tall, taller than her, looking down at her. His hair was sable in the night.
She gazed at him. Helpless. Motionless.
She did not breathe. Did not do anything, anything at all, that might break this moment. Might shatter the reality of what was happening. She was standing here, in the moonlight, by the sea’s edge, and this man, whom she did not know, could never know, held her face in his hands and looked down at her.
He kissed her.
She saw his head start to lower, realised in that fraction of a second what he was going to do. Realised, in that same fraction of a second, that she would let him. That she would rather die than not let this man kiss her here, now, like this, in this moment out of time, out of reality. Out of sanity.
She closed her eyes.
Closed her eyes and let him kiss her. A stranger whom she would never know, whom she could never know. A stranger she would walk away from. She would never have this moment again.
But she would have it now. Just for these few, precious seconds. An eye-blink in time.
But hers now. Here.
And nothing, no one, could take it away from her.
Her lips parted.
He kissed her slowly, like honey, grazing her with a velvet touch, moving over her mouth like softest silk.
Then his head lifted away, his hands dropped from her face.
She opened her eyes.
His face was different somehow, his eyes different.
And at that moment something tremored through her. The world went still again. So still.
Then, into the stillness and the silence, she heard the sound of a motor boat intrude, coming out of the marina on the far side of the hotel and heading out to sea, towards one of the rings of lights that marked the presence of a motor yacht moored in deep water.
Her eyes flared. Reality flooded back. The world started up again.
‘I have to go!’
She slipped out from where she was, undraping the tuxedo jacket as she did so, and thrusting it towards him.
‘Wait—’
It was a command. She obeyed. Her breath was tight in her chest.
‘I have to go,’ she repeated.
Her hand lifted, almost as if to reach to touch his sleeve, so short a distance away. Then, her eyes flaring again, she whirled around, gathered her skirts, and ran.
Like Cinderella from her ball.
But leaving behind no glass slipper.
Alexei watched her go. This time he let her run. He didn’t want to. He wanted to stride after her and seize her back. Stop her running. Keep her.
Hold her.
Fold his arms around her and hold her very close.
Instead, he let her go. He had no choice, he knew.
Reality had flooded back. The reality of what his life was about.
And what it was about was not this. Not holding in his arms a woman who had taken his breath away, who had been, for these few brief, fleeting moments, like a sip of purest spring water after stagnant dregs. Whose lips had touched his and in that touch touched more. Touched something deep inside…
No. Grimly he shrugged on his tuxedo jacket again. This was just some fantasy he could not afford. Not now.
Reality was waiting for him. Waiting for him as it had waited all his life. Hard and unyielding. And there was no escape from it.
He headed back to the hotel.
CHAPTER TWO
EVE walked back into the casino. The heat, the constant murmur, the smell of wine and cognac, the fumes of cigars and cigarettes, the heavy perfumes and scented air, oppressed her instantly. But she ignored it. Steadily, she threaded her way towards her father. The pile of chips at his side had diminished. So had the level of cognac in his glass. There was the stub of a cigar in the ashtray, and another was between his thick fingers as he pushed more chips onto a square.
Silently, she took her place behind him. He acknowledged her resumed presence only by a low, perfunctory admonition.
‘You took your time.’
‘I needed some fresh air,’ she said. Her voice was very calm, her manner composed. After all, what else was there for her to be? What else was there to do but what she had been brought here to do, to be a social foil for her father?
Who else was there for her to be except her father’s daughter? Eve Hawkwood.
She wasn’t anyone else. She wasn’t a woman who could weave dreams about a man she had seen for no more than a few minutes walking towards her, who’d made her body still, her heart race, her breath stop. She wasn’t a woman who could kiss that same stranger in the moonlight. It was a fantasy, nothing more, conjured by her own longing for escape.
For a second, piercing and anguished, she felt again what she had felt as she had lifted her mouth to his, felt again the cool slide of his hands to cup her face, long fingers grazing in her hair, felt again her eyes start to shut…
No. Rigidly she held them open again. Made them look, with her habitual composure, her inexpressive indifference, at the scene in front of her, at the spinning whirl of the roulette wheel, the chips conducting their remorseless dance around the table, from player to chequered cloth, to croupier to player. Hypnotic in its remorselessness.
Then, with an awareness of her father’s mood that her instinct for survival and self-preservation had honed since childhood, she saw his shoulders tense.
She looked up from the table.
Blackness drummed in on her. Her hand groped automatically for the back of her father’s chair. Vision blurred, then cleared.
The man she had just kissed was walking towards the roulette table.
For one blazing, incandescent moment, Eve’s heart leapt. Then, like a slow draining, she realised that he was not looking at her.
Not looking for her.
And even as she realised that, she realised too that somewhere, buried deep inside, there had been a hope—frail, pathetic, but there all the same—that the man who had turned her limbs to water with a single glance from his dark, compelling eyes would not let her run from him. Would not let that single, momentary kiss be enough. The slow draining of that frail pathetic hope was complete.
He had not even seen her. Had not even registered her presence.
She was invisible to him.
He had kissed her so short a time ago, but now he did not know her. Did not see her.
But even as she let go of the last remnant of her futile hope, leaving a dry, drained emptiness inside her, she realised why he was not looking at her.
And as she did, a dark, ominous foreboding began to gel inside her.
He was not walking towards the roulette table. He was walking towards her father.
And something about the way he was walking sent a chill down her spine.
Controlled. Purposeful.
Deadly.
The word formed in her mind, and she could not unform it. It hung there, making her stomach pool with cold.
She tensed in every muscle.
Hawkwood had paused in his play. Alexei saw his hand still a moment, before continuing to position the next batch of chips he was pointlessly sacrificing to his own arrogant bluff—the bluff that said he could afford to lose, and go on losing, the way he was tonight.
Alexei knew better. Giles Hawkwood could not afford to lose a penny more. His yacht, his properties, every possible asset, had all been securitised to raise cash to buy up his own company shares wherever he could find them. But he was too late. As of this morning, AC International had agreed to acquire—in a very friendly and mutually profitable merger—an Australian company that just happened to possess a sufficient number of Hawkwood shares to give Alexei the undisputed majority holding.
Giles Hawkwood was—finally—in the palm of his hand.
Powerless, and broke.
He just didn’t know it yet.
And Alexei didn’t have any intention of letting him know it yet.
He wanted to savour the knowledge that he would be meeting his prey for the first—and last—time, and his prey did not even know that he was beaten.
He reached the roulette table, and stopped.
Waiting. Waiting for Giles Hawkwood to make his move.
‘Constantin.’
Eve heard her father say the name, but his reason for saying it did not register. All that registered was that the man whom she had thought a fantasy, whom she had kissed in the moonlight, by the sea’s edge, from whom she had run because there was nothing else for her to do, was now standing a handful of metres away from her, on the other side of the roulette table. The people sitting there had automatically, it seemed, made way for him, and now he stood looking across and down at her father.
For a moment he said nothing, yet Eve felt her stomach pool with cold again.
Then, with a slow welling of disbelief, the name her father had addressed him by registered.
Constantin.
Alexei Constantin.
This was Alexei Constantin.
Shock knifed through her. And hollowing disbelief. She felt herself sway, and grip the chair-back as if it alone kept her upright.
Then her father leant back. Instinctively, automatically, she pulled her hand away.
She never touched her father. Never let him touch her.
He was looking across at Alexei Constantin, who was looking back down at him. His face was unreadable, expressionless. But there was something in it, in the controlled stance of his body, that was completely, absolutely different from the man who had walked towards her on the terrace such a short time ago.
This was a different man.
Her father took a deep inhalation from his cigar, then rested it against the ashtray. His eyes never left the other man’s.
‘So,’ he said, ‘an opportune encounter, wouldn’t you say?’
His voice was grating.
Even, to Eve’s ears, baiting.
Alexei Constantin’s expression did not change. ‘Would I?’ he responded.
His voice was different. As different as the man who looked down at her father with that chill, expressionless face.
She realised, with a start of unease, that the play at the roulette table had halted. So had the conversation around the table. Everyone was focussing on the exchange taking place.
It must be obvious to her father as well. His eyes moved dismissively, then he nodded at Alexei Constantin.
‘Come to dinner tomorrow night. On my yacht.’ He lifted his cigar again, and took another leisurely puff from his cigar, relaxing more deeply into the chair carrying his bulk. ‘I’ll send the launch at, oh, say half-eight?’
His eyes, pouched from burgundy and cognac, were heavy.
For the briefest moment Alexei Constantin did not speak. Then he gave the very slightest nod.
‘Make it nine. I like to check the Asia Pacific opening prices. It’s always interesting to see what’s moved.’
Now it was his turn for his voice to be baiting. Eve saw the colour mount fleetingly in her father’s mottled cheeks, then subside again.
‘You do that,’ he contented himself with responding. Then, as if to regain the upper hand, he snapped his fingers at the croupier to resume play, and pushed some more chips onto the table. With a mix of relief and regret that the incident was over, the other guests around the table took their cue, and restarted their conversations.
Alexei Constantin did not move. For a long, oppressive moment Eve saw him continue to look down at her father. He was very still.
The stillness of a predator before it struck…
The cold pooled again in Eve’s stomach.
This man is dangerous…
Deadly.
The words had formed before she could stop them.
Did she move? Did she make a noise, however suppressed, in her throat? She didn’t know.
All she knew was that suddenly, out of nowhere, Alexei Constantin’s gaze shifted.
Lifted to her.
And froze.
Shock ripped through him. Shock and something much, much worse.
He let his eyes rest on her. Deliberately did so. Forcing himself.
He had not gone after her. Had not called her back. Had let her run.
Because it was not the time. Not the place. He was too close, too close to his goal. Too close to the moment he had spent his adult life determined, striving, to reach.
The moment when Giles Hawkwood would be destroyed.
And nothing, nothing on this earth, in this life, could get in the way of that.
Not even a woman whose beauty was like no other he had ever seen, who had drawn him as no other woman ever had, who had touched him as no other had.
Who had kissed him in the velvet night, with moonlight in her hair…
And who had run from him. Unknown. Unnamed.
Until this moment.
The moment that had revealed her for who she was.
Eve Hawkwood. The daughter of the man he was about to destroy.
He went on looking at her. She returned his gaze. It was as blank as his.
Then, as if a knife had cut him down, he turned and walked away.
Eve Hawkwood.
Alexei said the name again in his head. Letting the two words bore through his brain.
It had to be her. Doing the social honours for Giles Hawkwood.
Social honours? Alexei’s mouth twisted savagely. Anger bit through him. Black and roiling. It had been breeding in him since the moment shock had ripped through him as he had looked at the woman behind Giles Hawkwood’s chair and realised who she was.
What she was.
And what she was, he knew, with the black anger biting through him, was good. Very good.
He had to give her that.
Skilful in the extreme.
She had played it with an expertise that was unequalled. Every little touch had been perfect.
The pose by the entrance to the casino, the perfectly timed eye-contact, the pause, and then the equally perfectly timed flight to the romantically deserted garden.
And then…
No. He wouldn’t allow himself to think about ‘and then’.
It had never happened. He had never kissed her. Never kissed her with moonlight in her hair, and cool, soft silk on her lips. Never felt that strange, inexplicable emotion so deep within him that he could not tell what it was, unknown, mysterious, like the woman he’d thought he was kissing…
Who had been someone else entirely all along.
He walked on out of the casino. In the lobby, he cast around.
He needed a drink.
Somewhere dark, where he could be left alone.
Without missing a beat he headed for the broad swathe of stairs that led not up, but down, down to the hotel’s nightclub in the basement. That would do him fine.
Alexei Constantin.
That was who her fantasy was—the man hunting down her father’s company. Bitter irony pierced Eve. Of all the men, in all the world, her dream man was Alexei Constantin…
But even if he hadn’t been it would not have made any difference, she knew, with a sagging of her shoulders in defeat. She would still have had to run, like Cinderella, from a ball she could never go to. Condemned to the only life she had, never to seek escape again.
A voice pierced her bleakness.
‘Cherie, you are not thinking about me—I can tell. If you were, you would look happier.’
Eve gave an apologetic moue.
‘I’m sorry, Pierre. I’m not very good company tonight.’
‘Tant pis—I shall make you smile, and then I shall take you to bed.’
A reluctant twitch formed at Eve’s mouth. Pierre Roflet had been trying to take her to bed ever since she’d known him, and right now she was glad of his company. He’d sauntered up to the roulette table half an hour ago, exclaiming at finding Eve here in the South of France unannounced, and swiftly removed her to the nightclub below the casino. Her father had turned briefly, seen who it was, and nodded his permission.
Eve had gone with Pierre with relief. She’d wanted only to return to the yacht, but she knew her father would not permit it until he was ready to go, and that could be some hours away. His luck, so it seemed, had finally turned at the roulette table.
So instead she was whiling away the time to the throb of music in the dimly lit nightclub, with Pierre to distract her. He was amusing, very lightweight, but not unkind. And right now she could do with some amusing, kind and lightweight company.
She’d let Pierre dance with her once, then retired to a table set among armchairs, letting Pierre rattle on with gossipy anecdotes and bestow over-the-top compliments on her. She’d sipped coffee and felt some of the bleakness drain from her.
Yet even so, now, when Pierre had abandoned her to order another coffee and a cocktail, she felt it returning. Blankly, she gazed out over the crowded dance floor. So many couples—some permanent, most temporary. While she…
For a few pointless moments she let her imagination go where it wanted. To the fantasy that had her in its grip. Out over the dance floor, to where she would be, her hands at the nape of his neck, her head resting on his chest, his hands resting lightly, oh so lightly, at her waist…
Sharply, she set aside her fantasy. Indulging it would only feed it, and what was the point of that? None. None at all.
‘Dance with me.’
Her head whipped round. Shock widened her eyes. Her heart surged in her chest. Her mouth dried like a desert.
Alexei Constantin stood there, holding out a hand to her.
‘Dance with me,’ he said again.
His eyes were dark. Very dark. She could not see their pupils.
Like a sleepwalker she put her hand in his, and felt his fingers close over hers. A frisson jarred through her. He drew her to her feet.
He did not look at her. Simply walked her out on to the dance floor.
And put his arms around her.
Her hands splayed against his chest, slipping past the lapels of his jacket to press against the fine, warm surface of his dress shirt. She felt his breath still a moment, then his breathing resume. Beneath her palms she felt the smooth hard muscle beneath the thin material.
Heat flared through her body, out along her cheekbones. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at all. Could do nothing except let his hands on her back steer her, in a slow, sensual rhythm, into the dance.
Time stopped.
Everything stopped. Except what was happening to her now. But only for now.
She shut her eyes and let her forehead lower slowly, until it was resting on him.
And then she danced with Alexei Constantin.
He was insane, he knew. Every brain cell in his head told him that. He was insane to have gone anywhere near her again. Insane to have watched her, à deux with Pierre Roflet.
Watched Eve Hawkwood in action.
Pierre Roflet. Son of the president of a French investment bank that could, if Roflet père so chose, provide sufficient financial muscle to shore up Hawkwood and fend off the takeover.
A very suitable target for Eve Hawkwood’s skills.
Was that why he had done what he had? To give Roflet fils a chance to escape her toils? Even as the words formed, he knew them for a lie. He knew exactly, exactly what had made him do what he had just done.
He had wanted, just once more, to have this woman in his arms again. For one last time to enjoy the fantasy of what he had thought she might be. He didn’t care that she was nothing but an illusion, unreal. For this last, brief time he would believe the fantasy.
The music throbbed in his blood. Soft, sensual.
Like the woman folded against him.
Her body was so pliant, so slender. Her head bowed against him, her hands resting lightly, oh so lightly, against the wall of his chest. Her hips resting against his.
He could feel his body react, damn it as he might. Instinctively he drew back a little, using what frail shreds of sanity remained to him.
He felt a shimmer go through her, a fine vibration of her spine beneath the tips of his fingers. His eyes swept down over her in the dim, pulsing light. Her hair was so pale, even without moonlight.
He did not mean to, but he could not help himself. Slowly, he dipped his head, letting his mouth graze the fine silk of her hair.
The shimmer came again, the vibration of her body. His fingers tightened on her spine, as if to arch her towards him.
Slowly, infinitely slowly, he circled the dance floor with her. Taking his time.
Savouring the last of his time with her. Before he put her aside for ever.
The music faded to silence. He stopped. His arms started to slip from her.
Slowly, heavily, as if it were the heaviest weight in the world, she lifted her head.
Looked up at him.
Just looked.
And in that moment doubt knifed through him.
Then sanity flooded through him again. He dropped his hands away, stepping back.
Without a word, he walked away.
Eve just stood there. It was all she could do. A knife blade had just slid between her ribs. It was a physical pain.
She turned around, catching her skirt with her fingers, so that she could hurry, stumble, back to her seat. As she did so, Pierre Roflet got to his feet. He must have returned to their table while she was dancing.
Dancing with Alexei Constantin.
Why had he done it? Her question was anguished. Why had he not just left her alone? What had he danced with her for? There was no point. No point at all. So why do it?
Heavily, she sank into her chair.
Pierre Roflet looked at her silently a moment. Then he spoke. ‘You know who that is, don’t you?’ His voice was unnaturally grave.
Eve nodded, biting her lip. ‘Yes. He’s trying to buy my father’s company.’
Pierre nodded, his eyes expressive. ‘It’s not a good idea, cherie. Dancing. Or anything else.’
There was kindness in his voice, as well as warning. For a second she just looked at him, a stricken expression in her eyes. Then slowly, soberly, she inclined her head.
‘I know,’ she said.
‘Sensible girl.’ Wordlessly, he pushed her coffee towards her. And a glass of champagne.
With shaky fingers Eve took the glass, and drank from it.
‘You’d do better with me, cherie. You wouldn’t weep in the morning.’
Lightly, he brushed her bare arm with his fingers. Then he started to tell her another gossipy anecdote.
She tried to smile.
It wasn’t possible.
Alexei walked back to the bar. His gait was very controlled, his face expressionless. Beneath the mask of his face, emotions roiled like dark waters. He’d been insane, all right, but he’d got his sanity back now. Forced it back. Eve Hawkwood could resume her attentions to her original target.
Was she sleeping with Roflet already? Or was she holding out until Roflet père rode to her father’s rescue?
No, don’t think about Pierre Roflet enjoying Eve Hawkwood. The woman he’d wanted was not her. It was an illusion, a fantasy that did not exist. A mirage.
‘M’sieu?’
The barman was hovering attentively. Alexei gave his order.
‘Vodka,’ he instructed tersely.
The barman nodded, and turned to pour the drink. He placed it in front of Alexei and watched him knock it back, then replace the glass on the surface of the bar. Silently, he refilled it.
Alexei reached for it, let his fingers curl around the cool edge of the glass, but he did not drink it. Already the first one was burning down his throat. Deadening his senses.
‘Russe?’
The husky voice at his side was female. He turned his head.
There was a woman sitting on the barstool, nursing a glass of champagne. Young. No more than twenty, perhaps. Low-cut dress with a high hem. A lot of make-up.
Good-looking.
Expensive-looking.
Available-looking.
Alexei’s eyes narrowed slightly. Assessingly.
Then he answered her.
As he did so, he saw surprise—and wariness—flicker in her eyes. Then it was gone. Instead, she laid a hand with red-lacquered nails on his sleeve. She smiled.
Invitingly.
It took Alexei only a handful of minutes to persuade her to come up to his suite with him.
Eve watched him walk out of the nightclub. He was difficult to miss. The woman on his arm had the highest heels possible, and was swaying provocatively in her tight-cut dress that moulded over her bottom, skimming high across her thighs. Her long dark hair waved extravagantly down her back.
Her hand, with its long red nails, curled around Alexei Constantin’s forearm with blatant possession.
Eve’s hand curled tightly around the stem of her champagne flute. As if to break it.
How many more illusions could she stand seeing destroyed?
Yet one more, it seemed.
Pierre was looking where she watched, her eyes wide and stricken.
‘Definitely not a good idea, cherie,’ he murmured.
She tore her eyes away. She looked down into her champagne glass.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘You’re right. Not a good idea.’ Her voice was strained.
She made herself look up, look across at Pierre. He gave a little grimace, half-sympathy, half-warning.
‘And a health risk.’ He nodded in the direction that Alexei Constantin was walking off in. ‘The girl is a hooker.’
Eve stared.
Pierre gave a light shrug. ‘I know—they shouldn’t let them in here. But they—or their pimps—bribe the staff. And she is one, cherie, believe me. She offered me her services when I was getting your drink while you were dancing.’ He made another slight grimace. ‘She is no doubt most expensive. But then, price is not a problem for Alexei Constantin.’
Eve hardly heard him. The sound of the final shattering of her last illusion drowned him out.
For one last, despairing second she felt herself try to fight against what she was seeing, but she was crushed down. Crushed by the damning reality of who and what the man was.
No one worth wanting. No one worth dreaming over.
Bleakly, she lifted her champagne glass to her lips.
CHAPTER THREE
ALONG the line of the sea’s edge, to the south, there was still the glimmer of light. Eve stood at the yacht’s rail in the cooling air, looking out to sea, not wanting to see the garish brightness of the shore.
Not wanting to think about the ordeal ahead.
Alexei Constantin was coming to dine with her father. And she would have to do her duty as her father’s hostess, be gracious and polite, ensure that the conversation flowed smoothly, that the staff performed to the standard her father required, ensure the evening went well.
How could the evening go well? How could it be anything other than a horrible nightmarish ordeal?
Her hands tightened over the rail. She had spent the previous night tossing and turning in bed, bitter and hopeless and angry with herself—and all day she had dreaded the coming dinner. How could she cope with seeing again the man she had made such a fool of herself over? Engaging in some idealised moonlit tryst, a fleeting kiss, then making her swift flight from the scene of her stupidity? The man who had turned out to be the predator slowly circling her father? A man who, whether he was Alexei Constantin or not, saw nothing wrong in dancing with her one moment, then picking up a prostitute in the space of a handful of minutes and taking her off for some expensive, professionally serviced sex?
But she was going to have to cope with it, she knew. If she tried to pretend she was feeling ill, the repercussions from her father would be severe. Financially punitive. It was the way he controlled her. Threatening to hold back money.
She could not risk that. Not when her father’s money was so desperately needed. And for that reason she steeled herself for the ordeal ahead. Her mother had taught her well, because it was how she got through her own life. Her mother’s stringent drilling would get her through the evening.
As for her frail, pathetic fantasy—that was dead. Quite dead.
What was the saying in English? thought Alexei, as he started to eat the elaborately prepared food placed in front of him. Take a long spoon when you sup with the devil?
Well, he was supping with the devil tonight, all right. His own personal devil.
But as of tomorrow morning, when the news of AC International’s Australian acquisition was made official—giving the coup de grâce to Hawkwood’s failing fight to remain independent—his devil would finally be exorcised.
The years of calculating, planning, executing, would be over.
Justice would finally be served on Giles Hawkwood.
Oh, it would not be the killing blow, he knew, but he would not need to finish him off. Others would do that. Enemies even more ruthless than he. Serving Hawkwood with the justice he so thoroughly deserved.
But now, while the man did not yet realise his time was up, Alexei could watch him—coldly and silently—behaving as if there were still time to escape, time to do a face-saving deal that would allow him to emerge from this takeover bid with advantage.
Not that he was raising the subject now. No. Now, as Giles Hawkwood entertained his nemesis, the subject was quite different. It was art. The topic had been picked by Eve Hawkwood.
Alexei rested veiled eyes on her, forcing himself to do so. He wished to God she were not here. Her presence was a distraction, diluting and disturbing his focus on Hawkwood’s coming annihilation. Though he’d known she would be at this travesty of a dinner, the reality of seeing her again was worse than he had expected. In the last twenty-four hours he’d ruthlessly refused to let himself think about her.
Yet the first sight of her as he’d walked into the stateroom had made a mockery of his resolution. It had been like a punch to the solar plexus.
It still was. But now he was slamming down hard on his reaction to her. He had to. It was essential. Essential to be able merely to look at her with his eyes veiled, betraying none of the turbulent thoughts within. Refusing to allow her to use her skills on him.
And she was, as she had been the day before, very skilful indeed.
She was wearing cream tonight, another simple column of fine layers of fabric, caught at each shoulder with a pearled clasp. It was a demure design, and yet the impulse that filled him, instantly and insistently, was not a response to the demure design. It was a response that made him want to stride across to her, slide his hands down her bare arms and draw her towards him as he had done last night, in the moonlight, by the sea’s edge…
He hauled his mind back from memory and desire.
She was not that woman. That woman was a mirage.
She was Eve Hawkwood, a woman prepared to engage in sex with men chosen for her by her father, for his own financial advantage—and hers.
Not that one would guess it. It was not her cool, untouchable appearance, but her whole manner and demeanour. She sat, poised and graceful, her crystal-cut tones moving effortlessly, smoothly, from one innocuous topic to another as she played the dutiful role of attentive dinner party hostess. Making not one reference, by sign or by word, to what had happened not twenty-four hours ago, when he had kissed her in the moonlight.
It was as if it had never happened.
But then, of course—his mouth twisted briefly—what he had thought had happened, had not. All that had really taken place was that Eve Hawkwood had, whether opportunistically or calculatedly, tried out her wiles on him.
Well, she wasn’t trying them out tonight—not in that way, at any rate. Tonight a different Eve Hawkwood was on show. The society hostess—a role she executed to perfection.
She had already exhausted the flora and fauna, folk customs and natural features of Dalaczia, and had now moved on to art.
‘Do you collect art, Mr Constantin?’ came the polite enquiry, with a slight lift of her eyebrow in his direction as she gracefully forked up a mouthful of sole Veronique.
‘No,’ he replied.
It was almost true. He owned only one work of art—a Dutch still life of flowers. Though small, scarcely more than the size of a computer screen, its tumbling, vibrant blooms painted in exquisite detail so that minute ladybirds were visible on leaves and drops of water gleamed on petals, it was like an icon to him.
Ileana had loved flowers…
For a moment the pain was as harsh as ever.
He could see again, so vividly, so real, the way her dark fall of hair had caught the sunlight as she’d picked a meadow flower and given it to him—the smile on her face the one that was just for him, her special smile…
No—the steel door slammed down, impenetrable to all memory, all pain.
Forcibly, he turned his mind back to where he was now—the present. The past was gone; it would never come back. The present was now. And the future—the future would bring justice. That was all he asked of it.
‘It doesn’t appeal to you, art?’ Eve Hawkwood’s crystal tones came again.
Alexei reached to lift the glass of vintage wine to his mouth.
‘Art is not for private consumption or financial investment,’ he replied tersely.
He watched her raise delicate eyebrows at his assertion.
‘An admirably purist view,’ she responded.
Pure? What did Eve Hawkwood know of pure? Derision curled in Alexei. A sudden desire to pierce her appearance of demure untouchability—so deceptive, so deceiving—possessed him.
‘Besides—’ he looked straight at her ‘—so much art was commissioned as pornography—Louis XV of France liked to see his mistresses naked on canvas for his private pleasure.’
Not a flicker showed in Eve Hawkwood’s eyes at his deliberately provocative remark. She merely maintained an expression of polite but indifferent interest in a guest’s conversation.
‘The decadence of Louis XV’s private life must certainly have been a factor in the growing disillusion with the French monarchy in the eighteenth century,’ she merely observed concurringly, and paused to request some more mineral water from a steward.
‘Talking of nudes, Constantin.’ Giles Hawkwood’s heavy tones suddenly interjected into the pause, as he swivelled his head towards his guest. ‘I’ve got a private film collection of my own I can show you. Every colour and size of girl to suit all tastes—as many as you like at a time, in any combination. I had them filmed to my own specification. Acts like a catalogue—they all work for the same agency, and I fly them in when I want them. The agency gets fresh girls all the time—never delivered a dud yet.’ He leant back heavily in his chair, taking a large mouthful from his glass of wine, from which he’d been drinking freely all evening. ‘Last time they sent me a woman who could do things with her thighs you wouldn’t think physically possible!’ He gave a crack of crude laughter. ‘You should come along some time—I’ll organise something special for you. Something really memorable.’
Another crack of laughter came from him, and he drained his glass, signalling to the steward to refill it. While the man was pouring, Giles Hawkwood looked across at his guest with pouched eyes.
‘You’ll have to tell me what you like, Constantin. I can lay on any type of girl you want—and any equipment and accessories you enjoy. All top quality. Just say the word.’
He started to drink from his refilled glass.
Alexei’s face had stilled. Drained of all expression.
He felt his fists start to curl—felt murderous rage sear through him.
No! He would not soil his hands on Giles Hawkwood. The man was dead meat already—he simply did not know it yet.
Forcibly, with rigid self-control, he made his hands relax. To his left he saw from the edge of his vision that Eve Hawkwood was continuing with her meal. His eyes turned to her. She was cutting a piece of lamb on her plate, and it was as if nothing exceptional had been said at all, as if she were perfectly at ease as the subject of her father’s sexual proclivities arose.
And yet—
There was a rigidity in her jaw that was almost imperceptible, but Alexei could detect it all the same. A momentary glazing of her eyes, as if she were shutting something out of her consciousness.
Then, as she proceeded to spear the chunk of meat with her fork, she remarked, ‘I can remember reading an article once—it was quite serious, I believe—about how one could use nude portraiture as a guide to the nutritional habits of the societies that produced those works of art. It might have been pretentious, but I suppose it must be true, after all. Who considers Rubens’ rotund females to be healthy these days?’
There was just the right amount of light humour in her voice, just the right amount of amused questioning. It would have served just as well if she’d been talking to a bevy of bishops or a division of dowagers.
Did she think she was going to get an answer? Alexei’s eyes narrowed even more. Then, abruptly, he spoke. It was an impulse that came from somewhere he thought had ceased to exist in relation to Eve Hawkwood.
But it was something to do with the punishing rigidity of her throat, the blankness in her eyes, the visible whiteness around her fingernails as she lifted and lowered her fork. The jerkiness with which she was eating her lamb.
She was hiding it, but Eve Hawkwood’s stress levels were sky-high.
Why?
There was only one reason. Could only be one reason.
Because Eve Hawkwood was as repulsed by her father as he was.
Alexei’s eyes were riveted to her.
Was that it? Was that what was going on behind that flawless composure, that social surface that Englishwomen of her class presented to the world as effortlessly as they cut their vowels on crystal?
Except that now, right now, it wasn’t effortless. The fan of tension around her eyes, the rigidity of her expression. That required effort. Effort to maintain.
His eyes narrowed fractionally.
What was going on under that blank surface?
And suddenly, as he started to speak, he felt emotion spear through him.
Was I wrong about her? Is she not her father’s creature after all?
And if she weren’t—if Eve Hawkwood weren’t what those surreptitious rumours about her said she was, if she didn’t select her lovers from those men whom her father instructed her to, for his own ends—then maybe, just maybe, what had happened last night, that extraordinary, consuming moment of insanity that had possessed him, that had made him follow after her, seek her out, claim her—kiss her—was not an illusion at all…
The emotion speared him again. He did not know what it was. He had never felt it before.
But it was powerful. Very powerful.
And, because of that, he needed to control it. Absolutely. Totally. Completely.
So as he spoke he pitched his voice to match her own.
‘Health and beauty do seem to be in opposition these days. Obesity was relatively rare in the past, as it still is in much of the non-western world. In the west the opposite holds true,’ he contributed dryly.
He watched her give a slight smile to acknowledge his comment, and saw the web of tension around her eyes slacken minutely as the conversation reverted to acceptable topics.
‘Indeed,’ she responded, picking up on his remark. ‘We’re obsessed with thinness—to the detriment of our health.’
Alexei lifted his glass.
‘You, however, succeed in achieving the perfect medium—as rare as that is.’ He tilted his wine glass in a swift and silent toast, his eyes resting on her, taking in, whether he wanted to or not, the slender but softly rounded curves of her body, veiled by the creamy layers of her dress, and all the more exquisite for it. It enhanced so subtly the extraordinary beauty she possessed. And suddenly, without his volition, the iron guard he had imposed on himself all evening dropped.
It was only for a fraction of a moment, but it was enough. The damage had been done. He had let something show; he knew he had. Something that had been in his eyes last night as he’d approached her, as she’d stood pooled in moonlight beneath the scented pines, remote, beautiful, drawing him to her as no other woman had ever done…
His guard had dropped because she’d made him doubt what he knew about her, made him question his judgement of her.
Which is she? The woman I first thought her or her father’s corrupt creature, using her body for his ends?
The question burned through him. He had to know—
His eyes went on resting on her, letting her see what had been in his eyes the first time he had seen her, silver-framed in the entrance to the casino, pure and beautiful. Was that a lie? Suddenly, it was the most important question in the world.
Eve set down her wine glass. It took all her self-control. But then every moment of this excruciating evening had required every bit of her hard-won self-control. Only by imposing total discipline on herself was she getting through it.
Her mother, she knew, would be proud of her.
Nothing, absolutely nothing of what she was feeling was showing. And that was essential. Utterly essential.
Seeing Alexei Constantin again was disastrous. She had acknowledged that in the first moment he’d walked into the stateroom, and she’d had to glide forward and take his hand in greeting. Not to have done so would have been socially unacceptable, because he was her father’s guest and she, whatever else she would have given years of her life to be, was her father’s hostess.
But even as the cool, long fingers had closed over hers, so very briefly, she’d known she should have done the socially unacceptable, however much her rigid training had told her never, never to do so. Because simply touching his hand, so fleetingly, had been disastrous. Disastrous because instantly, though she’d tried to fight it, she had been there, once again, out in the hotel’s gardens, in the moonlit darkness, alone with a man who—
Who wants your father’s company and who buys sex.
The cruel, condemning words were like stones, crushing her. Crushing hope. Making a mockery of memory.
But memory mocked her still, had mocked her all evening as she’d sat at her father’s table making endless small-talk, as a good hostess should. And now it was more than memory that mocked her.
How could she be so helplessly aware of Alexei Constantin as to want to do nothing more than gaze at him, drink in the planes of his face, the line of his mouth, the dark, chill pools of his eyes? How could she be so punishingly aware of the way his long fingers curved around the stem of his wine glass, the way his sable hair feathered on his brow, the way his high cheekbones flared beneath the dark, veiled orbs of his long-lashed eyes, the way the lines about his mouth indented into his tanned skin, the way the superb cut of his tuxedo sat perfectly across the lean breadth of his shoulders…?
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