Passion Becomes You
Michelle Reid

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER ONE

JOSH was late in the office on Monday morning—a sure sign that his weekend had been a heavy one.

Jemma’s smile was wry as she dealt efficiently with the morning’s mail. She had to give it to Cassie Drake—the gorgeous brunette had certainly succeeded where countless before had failed, and managed to keep the equally gorgeous Josh Tanner on a nice rolling boil for three whole months!

A record for him. His women usually lasted only as long as it took him to bed them thoroughly. A low boredom threshold, Josh called it—and the added fact that he couldn’t resist trying it on with just about any presentable woman who happened to catch his wandering eye.

Jemma should know—he had tried it on her once or twice. Not that it had worked. She wasn’t into men—not men like Josh anyway. He looked at a woman and saw sex with a capital S, and nothing else. He was a rake. A handsome, conceited, feckless rake, and the last type of man she would ever let herself become mixed up with.

She’d already been there—via her father, witnessed what his overactive libido had done to her mother. And no way—no way would she ever let herself fall into that thankless trap.

Josh hadn’t given up on her that easily, though, she recalled with a smile. It had taken him two months to accept defeat. Another month to stop sulking about it. And since then—nearly two years ago now—he had made her his best friend and confidante instead.

Which was why she knew all about Cassie, and what she did to him. How just one look at her softly rounded, sensually luxurious figure and his temperature shot off the gauge.

‘Why her?’ he’d once demanded in sheer exasperated confusion. ‘She isn’t even my type! I like them tall and slender with legs that go up to their armpits like yours do. And long blonde hair like yours I can strangle myself with!’

‘My hair is not blonde, it’s sandy.’

‘Blonde,’ he’d insisted. ‘Golden-blonde like honey—hot honey.’ His eyes had begun to smoke. ‘Makes me want to—’

‘Lay one finger on me and I’ll tell Cassie!’

It was enough to cool his ardour. ‘What is that black-haired witch doing to me?’ he’d muttered and slammed away to his own office to brood.

Jemma thought she had the answer to that question, but refused to offer it to him. It would be bad enough working with him once he discovered it for himself without her bringing forward the dreadful day. But, in her opinion, Josh Tanner, the sexy blond rake of London town, had met his Waterloo—and at the hands of a woman who made no secret of what she wanted from Josh.

‘Marriage, children—the full works,’ she’d told Jemma recently while sitting on the corner of her desk waiting for Josh to take her to lunch. ‘I’m sick of playing the field. And anyway, I’m getting on.’ It seemed that in this day and age twenty-seven was really getting on by the expression on Cassie’s face when she said it. ‘So I started looking around me for a suitable candidate.’

Which happened to be Josh, something Jemma found rather strange since she considered her boss the last man on earth a woman would actually want to settle down with. After all, a rake was a rake in her book. Good fun to be with, great in bed, so the tale went, but not—definitely not—husband material.

‘I happened to meet Josh at a party I’d gone to with an old friend of mine,’ she’d gone on. ‘Fell for the self-obsessed jerk on the spot and would have had to be blind not to understand the lecherous look in Josh’s eyes. The air fairly sizzled between us, highly amusing Leon, I can tell you—you know Leon Stephanades?’ she’d asked, and at Jemma’s blank look had added, ‘Darling, you do not know what you’re missing. If I’d dared to set my sights so high, I would have gone all out to catch him instead of Josh. But Leon is—special. Very Greek. Very wealthy. And very, very possessive of his freedom. His father has tried all ways—threats, bribes, you name it—to get his son to marry the nice Greek girl with the hefty dowry he has picked out for him, but Leon refuses to so much as consider it. Caused quite a family rift, so I gather.’ Her beautifully sculptured brows had arched ruefully, the reason why coming in the next sentence. ‘So what chance does a not-so-nice English girl with nothing to offer him but a great body have against all of that? None,’ she’d answered her own question. ‘So I decided to go all out to catch Josh instead. Leon and I are still good friends, though—which Josh hates,’ she’d added with a grin that was all feminine guile. ‘He’s as jealous as sin of Leon because he thinks we had something going between us once, which is not true,’ she had insisted, though her expression had implied that she maybe would have liked it to be true. ‘But his jealousy is probably the only ray of hope he allows me in this crazy relationship we’re having—that and the fact he can’t get enough of me,’ she’d tagged on ruefully. ‘Leon says if I land Josh Tanner he’ll buy us a twelve-inch solid gold flying pig for a wedding present, because that’s how much of a chance he thinks I’ve got of pulling it off! But I’m working on it,’ she had concluded determinedly.

Cassie must have told Josh more or less the same thing, because it was only a few days after that conversation with Cassie that Josh had come striding into the office, growling, ‘I’m not marrying any woman! Not even for a solid gold pig!’

The phone began to ring now. Jemma picked up the receiver to have the familiar impatient bark of Josh Tanner hit her eardrums. ‘I’m late,’ he stated the obvious. ‘I’ve had one hell of a weekend. Only just woken up. You’re going to have to hold the fort until I can get there.’

‘What about your ten o’clock appointment with that big cheese from the Leonadis Corporation?’ she reminded him, glancing at her watch only to confirm that it was already twenty to ten. There was no way Josh could make it here in time.

Some very unsavoury vocabulary came slashing down the line. He had obviously forgotten all about the appointment. Not like Josh, she acknowledged. It had to have been a hell of a weekend. ‘Him of all people,’ he muttered. ‘That’s all I need today. Look, you’re going to have to try and put him off,’ he added impatiently. ‘See if you can catch him before he leaves his office. Make my excuses. And if that conniving bitch I’ve been seeing turns up—tell her I’ve died and gone to hell! And not to bother following me!’

‘Who?’ she asked, frowning. ‘Cassie?’

But Jemma was already talking to fresh air. Josh had slammed down the phone. She sat staring at the contraption for the space of ten seconds while trying to make head or tail of that final scathing remark, then shrugged, replacing her own receiver. It seemed that when Josh had said he’d had a hell of a weekend he’d meant it.

The lovers’ bed must have had thorns in it, she mused, and smiled to herself as she hunted out the number of the Leonadis Corporation.

It was only as she waited for someone to answer that she realised she had no idea what the managing director’s name was. Josh had made the appointment himself on Friday. And all he had said was, ‘I hate the damned man, but he’s hunting for new outlets to get his design components from and I need the business. So I suppose I’ll have to fanny round him.’

She grimaced, wondering what the man could have done to Josh to make him dislike him so much; her boss was not normally drawn to taking personal exception to potential clients. In fact, he was usually quite happy to ‘fanny round’ anyone so long as it brought him business.

‘The Leonadis Corporation?’

Jemma blinked. ‘Ah,’ she began, wondering how to get around this one without sounding like a fool. She explained who she was and why she was ringing, then added, ‘So I hoped to catch your managing director before he leaves the building,’ she concluded, mentally crossing her fingers that the receptionist on the other end would provide the name and save her having to ask.

‘Oh, I’m afraid you may be too late,’ she was informed. ‘But I’ll put you through to his secretary.’

‘Thank you.’ Jemma held the line while she waited to be transferred, but a single glance at her watch told her she was running out of time. ‘Damn you, Josh,’ she muttered to herself.

‘Mr Stephanades’s secretary speaking. Can I help you?’

Stephanades—now where had she heard that name before? ‘I do hope so,’ she said, then quickly went into her explanation again. ‘Mr Stephanades had an appointment with Mr Tanner for ten o’clock this morning, but I am afraid Mr Tanner has been delayed. Am I too late to save him a wasted journey?’

‘When I am already standing right here, I would say yes, you are much too late,’ a deep, smooth, beautifully accented and drily amused voice drawled at her from across the room.

Startled, Jemma glanced up—then felt everything vital inside her grind to a shuddering halt when she found herself staring at the most disturbingly attractive man she had ever seen in her life!

He was leaning in the open doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of his dark silk business suit trousers so that the side panels of his jacket had been shoved out of the way to expose the solid breadth of his chest beneath the crisp clean whiteness of his shirt. He was tall and dark, his black hair cut in a short, neat style which kept the hint of a wave contained to the silken top of his head. His bone-structure was square and strong, the skin stretched across it smooth and tanned. Black eyes were teasing her from between jet-black, sleepily curling lashes. And he was smiling at her with the most startlingly sensual mouth she had ever encountered.

Faultless, she decided hazily. He is absolutely faultless. He set her blood pumping in a way which left her in no doubt whatsoever as to what was happening to her. And the dark, coiling warmth she was experiencing in the pit of her stomach confirmed it.

This, she accepted, as she continued to stare breathlessly at him, was what it was all about.

Attraction. Dark and hot and rousing.

Her continued silence sent his sleek brows arching. Jemma heaved in a deep breath of air in an effort to pull herself together. The action lifted her breasts in a slow quivering motion beneath her white silky blouse then dropped them again in the same tremulous way, making those gorgeous lashes of his fall in two luxurious curves over his eyes as he followed the revealing motion. Her nipples stung painfully in response, and she blushed hotly with embarrassment, wishing for the first time ever that she possessed such a thing as a bra, because she didn’t have to look down at herself to know what he was witnessing happening to her.

‘Miss Davis?’ a slightly puzzled voice prompted in her ear.

‘I...’ She ran the tip of her tongue around her suddenly parched lips. ‘It—it doesn’t matter,’ she whispered breathlessly and replaced the receiver without really knowing she had done it, her eyes not leaving the man leaning in the doorway.

The smile widened on his lips, giving them a sensually knowing quality that annoyed her even as she accepted his right to display it. She knew who he was, of course. He had made that clear when he let her know he was there. But she could not for the life of her respond with anything like the light brisk, ‘Good morning, Mr Stephanades!’ Josh would expect of her. She wanted to know his first name, to feel it curl off her tongue like a caress. Her heart was bursting, her breasts tingling, her calves and thighs trembling with the full fermenting blast of his attraction.

‘Shall we leave now, or do you need a few moments longer to compose yourself?’

‘W-what?’ She blinked, blue eyes filling with bewildered confusion. ‘L-leave for where?’

‘My apartment,’ he explained, levering himself away from the door-frame to come further into the room, closing the door behind him. ‘I must say,’ he went on lightly before Jemma had a chance to digest the full import of his first remark, ‘I have in my life been propositioned in many ways, but never with such open and—dare I say it?—helpless invitation before. I find it rather—enchanting.’

Stung, Jemma closed her eyes, feeling the heat of embarrassed colour grow hotter in her cheeks.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she murmured, pulling herself together with an effort that cost her her dignity as she stumbled shakily to her feet. ‘You took me by surprise, Mr...’ She’d forgotten his name. His secretary had only just informed her of it, and already in her stupidity she had forgotten it!

‘Stephanades,’ he supplied it for her, the mockery spiked and cruel. ‘Leon Stephanades, at your service, Miss...?’

Leon, his first name was Leon. Jemma actually had to count to ten to stop herself repeating the name in the breathless little way she knew was hanging on the very end of her dry, quivering tongue.

On a jerky movement she straightened her body, ‘Davis,’ she supplied, lifting her chin to face him as coolly as she could, but she knew the hectic flush still colouring her cheeks said it all. ‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey, sir.’ That’s better, Jemma, she told herself encouragingly, refusing to look anywhere but at the left tip of his well shaped ear in case the look in his eyes sent her crazy again. ‘But Mr Tanner has been delayed and cannot make your appointment. I was hoping to catch you before you left your office, but as we both see—’ she tried a wry smile and it just about worked ‘—I was too late.’

‘How fortunate.’

Oh, good grief! She almost choked in appalled horror when his reply made her breasts tingle again. She closed her eyes, only opening them again when she was sure she was looking down at her desk and not at him. ‘If you will just give me a moment,’ she murmured a trifle hoarsely, feeling a fool—a damned fool, ‘I’ll find Mr Tanner’s appointment book and we can arrange another—’

‘I have a better idea,’ he cut in. ‘Meet me for lunch and we will discuss...arrangements over a light meal and a bottle of wine.’

Jemma almost died inside with shame, not in any way missing the double meaning. ‘I’m sorry.’ She stuck to the official meaning in his words with all the secretarial cool she could muster, but it wasn’t easy when her body was responding wildly to the other. ‘S-someone has to m-man the office when Mr Tanner isn’t here.’

‘Shame,’ he murmured, so softly that her eyes flickered up to clash with his, and her cheeks went even hotter at the expression on his face. This was not all one-sided. He was attracted to her also. ‘For I am flying to New York this afternoon and will not be back for at least a week. A long time to leave something like this—pending...’

Suddenly, the office door flew open again, and Jemma looked towards it in wild hope that it was Josh come to rescue her.

But it wasn’t Josh. It was Cassie, looking as mad as hell. ‘Where is that low-down, no-good son of a—?’ She stopped mid-flow, her unusually pale face lighting up when she saw the man standing in the centre of Jemma’s office. ‘Leon!’ she cried, and threw herself into his arms.

It was at that moment, and only that moment, that Jemma’s addled brain made the connection it should have made long, humiliating minutes ago. Leon. Cassie’s good friend, Leon.

And their mutual affection showed in the way he gathered Cassie into his arms then kissed her warmly on both cheeks before smiling indulgently down at her.

Jealousy whipped through Jemma like a flash fire, contracting her nerve-ends until she could barely breathe across the acid taste of it filling her mouth. If Josh had ever seen them together like this, it was no wonder he was so jealous.

At least Josh has the right to be jealous, a little voice taunted inside her burning head. You don’t.

You don’t even know the man!

God in heaven! She sat down heavily in her chair, trying desperately to throw off what was happening to her. She wanted to scratch Cassie’s eyes out. She wanted to drag her away from him. Scratch his eyes out!

‘How’s your love-life?’ he was saying teasingly to Cassie.

She pulled a wry face and wound her arms more tightly around his neck. ‘Not so good that this isn’t welcome,’ she said very drily. ‘More than welcome...’

‘Tanner not treating you well?’ The mocking brow lifted questioningly.

Cassie’s beautiful mouth took a downward turn. ‘He’s a rat of the first order,’ she scowled, her dark eyes flashing bitterly. ‘And I hate him!’

Jemma started at the other woman’s virulence. Leon Stephanades frowned. ‘Trouble?’ he asked.

‘Big trouble,’ Cassie said ominously, and pulled out of his arms to turn on Jemma. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded. ‘Skulking in some dark hole somewhere, waiting for the bogy-man to go away?’

Jemma opened her mouth to answer, wondering curiously just what had happened this weekend to make both Josh and Cassie this mad.

‘He’s...’ She was about to trot out the same excuse for Josh she had given to Leon Stephanades when the phone began to ring. Absently she picked up the receiver and chanted out the usual.

‘Did you catch him before he left?’ Josh’s impatient bark made her jump, and she pressed the earpiece tighter to her ear in an attempt to block Josh’s voice off.

‘Er—no,’ she answered carefully. ‘Can—can I call you back?’

Josh had never been slow on the uptake, and he wasn’t now. ‘He’s already there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Damn...’ There was a pause, then Josh muttered something and grunted. ‘You’d better put him on so I can apologise personally.’

‘I—er don’t think that would be a very good idea at the moment,’ she said, lowering her eyes and her voice from the two watchful people listening to her to add, ‘We’re not alone.’

She didn’t hear Josh’s answer to that, because Cassie had leapt at her desk, eyes flashing green fire—and something else that Jemma could not interpret but hinted oddly at terror. ‘Is that Josh? Give me that!’ she demanded, trying to snatch the phone from Jemma. ‘I have a few things I want to—’

‘I don’t want to speak to her!’ Josh grated into Jemma’s ear.

‘Give, Jemma!’ Cassie insisted, her eyes fire-bright with anger. ‘It’s time that rat learned a few home truths!’

‘Get her out of my office—now!’ Josh barked.

‘I can’t!’ she answered both of them, jumping to her feet in an effort to stop Cassie from wrenching the phone from her, and Josh hurled out a string of abuse aimed entirely at Cassie while Leon Stephanades viewed the whole scene with a look of lazy amusement sparking his eyes.

Jemma hated him at that moment. The whole thing was utterly ridiculous. She felt stupid being a part of it, and he thought it was funny!

He glanced up at her then, caught the look burning in her eyes, and suddenly the amusement left him to allow something so elemental to take its place that she gasped as everything inside her went haywire in answer to it, heart, lungs, pulses, even her skin—as if every minute hair follicle she possessed had been delivered an electric shock which set her whole body tingling.

Josh was growling, Cassie was shouting, but suddenly they might as well not have been there for all Jemma knew. She was lost in a seething hot raid on her senses, and what really threw her into hectic confusion was the fact that he was feeling the exact same way—and doing nothing whatsoever to hide it!

Then it all came crashing in. With the help of a sudden pained cry from Cassie, Jemma refocused her attention on the other woman just in time to hear her choke, ‘Whatever I am, you bastard, I am still pregnant with your child!’ Then she crumpled on to the floor.

In a state of stunned shock, Jemma watched the lightning-quick reactions of Leon Stephanades as he caught Cassie’s weight before she hit the floor, listened to Josh cursing and swearing on the other end of the line, his voice so thick that it was obvious he was feeling the pressure of his emotions as much as Cassie was.

‘The bitch trapped me, Jemma,’ he was saying hoarsely. ‘She deliberately laid a trap for me.’

Jemma did not know what to say. In the end, she just murmured, ‘I’ll call you back, Josh. I’ll call you back,’ and slowly replaced the receiver.

By the time she had collected a cool cloth and a glass of water, Cassie was beginning to show signs of life. Leon Stephanades had carried her into Josh’s office and placed her on the leather sofa in there and was now squatting beside her, gently chafing at one of her hands.

Jemma knelt down beside him and offered him the cloth. He took it without speaking, his expression grim to say the least as he applied the cloth to Cassie’s brow.

It was him Cassie saw when she eventually opened her eyes. ‘Oh, God, Leon,’ she whispered tragically. ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Nothing, until you feel well enough,’ he answered calmingly. ‘Then I will take you home.’

Tears blurred the wretched green of her eyes. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose,’ she claimed fretfully.

‘Didn’t you?’ he said. That was all, but even as Jemma stiffened in violent protest at what his tone was implying Cassie’s eyes were going dark with guilt, and on a pained choke she hid her face in her hands and began to sob wretchedly.

Shocked, Jemma sat back on her heels, the fact that any woman would set out deliberately to trap a man that way just too awful for her to take in.

Leon Stephanades turned his head to look at her, then grimaced. ‘Don’t look so appalled, Miss Davis,’ he drawled. ‘Your sex use this ploy all the time. To them, it is the next best thing to a genuine proposal—especially when it is a man like your Mr Tanner who is involved. Or me,’ he then tagged on cynically.

Feeling sick, Jemma got up and walked back into her own office. She felt ashamed of her sex, if what Leon Stephanades had said was true. Ashamed for Cassie whom she had liked and even admired for what she’d seen as her candid honesty about her intentions.

And Josh? She sat down behind her desk and wondered what she felt for Josh.

She felt sorry for him, she realised. For the first time in two years of witnessing the way he used women for his own purposes, she actually felt sorry for him.

Because, no matter how much he deserved his come-uppance in one way or another, he did not deserve this.

The phone rang. And for the next few minutes she had to turn her attention strictly to business as a spate of calls followed one on top of the other.

She was just replacing the receiver for the final time when Leon Stephanades came through to her office. ‘She is calmer now,’ he said. ‘When she has tidied herself, I will take her home.’

Jemma nodded dumbly, refusing to look at him, shock and distaste at what Cassie had done still evident on her face. He studied her for a moment, then closed the connecting door between the two offices and walked over to her desk.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘I just find it hard to believe she actually did it deliberately,’ she confessed.

‘Women are devious creatures, Miss Davis,’ he said heavily. ‘They will go to any lengths to achieve their own ends.’

‘Thank you.’ She smiled tightly. ‘Generalisations like that keep the world turning, I suppose.’

‘They do in my sphere,’ he said cynically.

His sphere—who the hell did he think he was? Were all women supposed to be as unscrupulous as Cassie? ‘Well,’ she said, coming stiffly to her feet and making a play of gathering her telephone notes together, ‘I shall try to remember that when I decide to go hunting, and make a wide berth of your—sphere.’

‘Now that,’ he murmured, ‘would be a great pity.’

She glanced up, drawn by the husky message in his voice. Their eyes clashed, and she stopped breathing, drowning instead in the dark, deep promise burning in his eyes.

No, she told herself from some hazy distance in the back of her foggy mind. Don’t let this happen. Think of Cassie weeping in the next room. Think of Josh, just another version from the same mould as this man. Ruthless, selfish women-eaters.

He reached across the desk and touched a thumb to her mouth, drawing it downwards to part her lips a little. The softly padded flesh beneath his touch grew hot as blood began pumping into it, swelling it, assailing her with the most erotically sensual experience of her life.

‘No strings,’ he murmured so softly that she barely caught the words above the sudden roaring inside her head. ‘No commitments other than that while we are together we neither of us turn to anyone else. When it is over, we part honestly, as friends. I will be your only lover. And I will give myself exclusively to you.’

The hand moved, sliding beneath her hair to curve her nape, then he was leaning towards her, drawing her towards him across the width of the desk, and he replaced the caressing finger with his mouth. It was cool and firm, her own hot and excruciatingly sensitised flesh contracting in reaction so that she jumped, startled as if stung.

‘Think about it,’ he murmured as he drew away again. ‘And I will call you soon. Now.’ While she blinked, still lost in the sensual daze he had so easily wrapped around her, Leon Stephanades straightened up and became the cool businessman. ‘I will take Cassandra home. Tell Tanner I will be out of the country for a about a week. If he wishes to deal with me then he had better be available when I get back.’ He turned to go back to Josh’s office, then spun back again, his expression darkening when he saw how thoroughly he had incapacitated her, but that was all; he gave no other indication that he had just made the most audacious proposition Jemma had ever heard. ‘You can also tell him that, no matter what his decision will be about Cassandra’s condition, as her good friend, I expect her to be treated with respect. She is only human, after all, and humans are by nature fallible.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘FALLIBLE?’ Josh snarled, prowling around his office like an angry bull. ‘The bitch isn’t fallible. She’s like an armoured tank, equipped with the most modern killing devices known to man!’

He had been in the office ten minutes—arriving just ten minutes after Leon had taken a wilting Cassie away.

‘She said to tell you she’d be in touch.’ Jemma relayed that message too. But she did not inject the same amount of tight defiance into it that Cassie had done. She hadn’t dared. As it was, he hit the roof.

‘I don’t wish to set eyes on the conniving bitch again!’ he bit out, then swung on Jemma, his grey eyes as hard and as sharp as glass. ‘Did she tell you she did it deliberately?’

Jemma nodded. ‘Leon Stephanades got it out of her.’

‘And how fortunate for her that he was around!’ The jeer was bitter and cutting. ‘For all I know, they probably planned it between them!’

‘What, that man aiding and abetting in stitching up another of his kind?’ She only heard her own contempt once the words had left her tongue. ‘He would rather cut his own throat first!’

‘And what do you know about him?’ Josh challenged deridingly. ‘As far as I am aware, you only met him for the first time today.’

And what a meeting, Jemma thought with a small shiver. ‘It doesn’t take much to recognise the type, Josh,’ she murmured drily. ‘I recognised it in you on first sighting, too.’

His eyes sharpened, something in her tone diverting his attention from his own problems for a moment. ‘Proposition you, did he?’ he mocked. She blushed—enough of an answer in itself. ‘Well, I hope you had the good sense to give him the same put-down you gave me,’ he said grimly. ‘Because that guy is big-league. He plays to different rules from the rest of us.’

‘As far as I can see,’ she retaliated, simply because she felt uncomfortable in knowing that, far from putting Leon Stephanades down, she had virtually thrown herself at him, ‘you’re both tarred with the same brush!’

‘Only he’s a darn sight more powerful than me,’ Josh pointed out.

‘How powerful?’ Jemma asked curiously, beginning to tingle again, just talking about him.

‘Among the top twenty richest families in the world—that powerful,’ Josh answered, then ran his fingers through his straight blond hair in frustration. ‘And God help any woman who tried to pull Cassie’s dirty trick on him!’ he grunted, slumping down in a chair.

‘Josh...’ Jemma put out a hand to touch his arm in appeal. ‘Cassie loves you! I know she does! What she’s done is stupid and wrong,’ she acknowledged. ‘But I am sure she did it out of love! Doesn’t that count for anything?’

He shook his head. ‘Does love deceive, Jemma?’ he challenged. ‘Does it betray trust, connive to trap? Is it selfish and greedy and bloody ruthless?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied, hurting for him because she could see the real hurt his anger was trying to hide. ‘Because I’ve never been in love to know.’

‘I feel betrayed,’ he confessed. ‘Bloody betrayed!’

They sat in dull silence for a while after that, Jemma completely sympathising with Josh even though she could partly understand Cassie’s motives. The woman had not tried to hide her ultimate goal, after all. Marriage and children. The full works. But the really sad fact among all of it was that Jemma had a sneaking suspicion that Cassie would have got it all from Josh if she’d only been a bit more patient. He’d been crumbling, she was sure of it. But now...?

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him huskily.

He sighed and got up. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered flatly. ‘All I do know is that she’s had it as far as I—me personally—am concerned. She’s pregnant; there isn’t a damned thing I can do about that now. If she wants to keep it, then I’ll support her and it. If she wants an abortion, then I’ll pay for it. But if she wants me, she can go to hell before she’ll get me again.’

Fagged to death by the time she let herself into her flat that night, Jemma just dropped her bag and sank into the nearest chair. They had managed to get some work done during the afternoon, but not much, and what there was had been achieved in a grim mutual silence that had eventually left its mark on her throbbing head.

Trina walked into the room, chewing on a banana. ‘Bad day?’ she enquired when she saw Jemma’s drained face.

‘Hmm,’ was all she could manage.

‘Want cheering up?’ Trina, the sexiest Mrs Mop in the domestic cleaning game, tended to finish work several hours before Jemma, simply because most people liked their homes cleaned and vacated before three o’clock in the afternoon. She ran her own business from the flat with the help of a veritable army of part-timers who worked in teams, and not one of them wore a turban on her head or dared have a cigarette hanging out of the corner of her mouth. They wore uniforms which rivalled the smartest airline ones, and they travelled around in neat little vans with neat little smiles and a brisk friendly manner. They were all paid well, but then Trina’s charges were high. You get what you pay for, was her motto, and London, especially up-market London, had accepted and acknowledged that long ago. Trina had a waiting-list of potential clients almost as long as her list of real ones. She’d wanted to expand at one time, but the current recession had put paid to that idea—that and her super-sharp accountant-cum-boyfriend Frew. Trina was a tall, slim, easygoing redhead, with green eyes, a sharp tongue and a nasty sense of humour.

Jemma opened her eyes long enough to scrutinise Trina’s deadpan face, then closed them again and shook her head. ‘Not tonight, thank you,’ she refused the offer. ‘I don’t think I’m up to one of your nice surprises.’

‘Shame,’ Trina pouted. ‘Because this one is rather a cut above the ordinary. Still...’ Jemma sensed her friend’s shrug as she turned to leave the sitting-room-cum-office again ‘...I suppose it will keep.’

Jemma sighed, remained exactly where she was and how she was for the space of thirty delicious seconds, then sighed again and hauled herself out of the chair. ‘All right!’ she called after Trina. ‘You win! I can’t stand not knowing. What’s the nice—? My God!’ she choked. ‘Where did those come from?’

She had walked out of the sitting-room and down the hall to the kitchen while she was talking; now she just stood, rooted to the spot in the kitchen doorway, staring at the largest basket of out-of-season fruit and flowers she had ever seen.

‘Looking at them,’ Trina said sardonically, ‘from all over the world, I’d say.’

It filled their small kitchen table. The basket, an exquisitely woven affair of rich golden cane with a tall rounded handle, simply spilled over with flowers. Pretty, star-shaped lilies, sensually scented pure white jasmine, blood-red hibiscus heads that were almost too heavy for their stems. Pink, purple and the palest lilac sprays of bougainvillaea clustered everywhere, and at the base were oranges with the dark green leaves still attached to their short stems. Peaches as big as grapefruits. Grapes, green and black, in huge, succulent bunches. And figs, fresh, plump, juicy figs that made the mouth water just to look at them.

There was a card. Trina plucked it from the centre and mockingly passed it over to Jemma. ‘For you, ma’am,’ she drawled, watching her face as she took the card then dragged her rounded eyes down to focus on it. ‘Methinks you have a passionate admirer. The writing on the envelope is sexy, too,’ she pointed out. ‘All sharp strokes and dramatic curves. I wonder who it can be?’

Jemma wasn’t listening. She was trembling instead, staring at the envelope and frightened to open it. She knew who it was from; there was a little voice inside her head repeating his name over and over again. How he had found out her address she had no idea, but that cynical part in her she hadn’t known existed until today was telling her that for a man like him it wouldn’t be that hard.

What had Josh said about him? From one of the richest families in the world, was what he had said. Powerful. A man not to mess around with.

And Cassie? What had she said about him? Sexy. Loyal. Invincible. Even his own father could not dictate to him.

And what have you learned about him yourself, Jemma? she asked herself shakily. Beautiful, she replied. Dangerous. Fair-minded but cocksure and arrogant with it. Determined, if this basket was a sign of determination to get his own way. Honest, if his proposition was serious. Deadly, if her own tangled feelings were anything to go by. He had succeeded in tying her in sensual knots within seconds of setting eyes on him.

She sucked in a shaky breath, her fingers trembling as she slowly broke the seal on the envelope and took out the gold-embossed card inside.

The words blurred then slowly cleared before her wary eyes.

Today was no way to meet someone who is destined to become the most important person in my life. It was a day of bad smells and acid tastes. So I send you these. Fruits to sweeten your mouth and the flowers of my homeland to freshen the air around you. Keep the flowers warm and moist or they will wither and die before I can see you again. Eat the fruit, enjoy the sensual tastes of my native land and think of me.

Leon.

The air left her lungs on a tremulous sigh as she looked back at the basket filling the table, only to find its beauty superimposed by his darkly attractive and smoulderingly sensual face.

God in heaven. She pulled out a chair and sat down, the hand holding the card going up to cover her eyes.

‘Bad news, then—not good?’ Trina prompted, curious at Jemma’s reaction.

She held out the card for her friend to take. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,’ she murmured, and left Trina to make of that what she may.

‘Who is this Leon?’ she asked after smothering several muffled chokes as she read the blatantly evocative words. ‘I’ve never heard you mention a Leon before.’

‘That’s because I hadn’t met him before today,’ Jemma explained, and sat back in the chair, grateful to find his face had disappeared from the basket. ‘He is one Leon Stephanades. A—business colleague of Josh’s.’

‘Wow,’ Trina gasped, and sank down in the other chair.

‘You’ve already heard of him, I see,’ Jemma mocked.

Trina nodded. ‘But Jemma,’ she exclaimed, searching her friend’s face worriedly, ‘he’s way out of our league, love!’

‘I know it.’ A funny expression crossed Jemma’s face; she didn’t even recognise it herself, except that it felt as if it came somewhere close to desolation. ‘But try telling my senses that, will you?’ She grimaced self-deridingly. ‘I made an utter fool of myself today, Tri,’ she confessed. ‘He walked into Josh’s office and I felt the earth move beneath me! I couldn’t stop staring at him!’ Her expression was pained. ‘I couldn’t think! I couldn’t breathe! I couldn’t even focus! There were birds flying around in my head and puffy white clouds floating across my vision! He smiled and my heart did somersaults! And—God,’ she choked, covering her face with her hands, ‘he would have had to be blind not to know what was happening to me!’

‘Well,’ Trina murmured slowly, looking down at the card still in her hand, ‘he must have experienced something similar to respond with this.’

‘Did he?’ Her expression was cynical to say the least. ‘What he saw, Tri, was a peach ripe for the plucking!’ She picked a peach from the basket and brandished it bitterly in front of her. ‘And does a man like that turn an easy meal down? Does he hell!’ she answered herself scathingly. ‘And he’s all man, Tri,’ she added helplessly. ‘Big, tough and lean. So damned attractive he knocks your eyes out, and so disgustingly sure of himself that he quite coolly propositioned me!’ The contempt was back, but aimed at Leon instead of herself this time.

‘How?’ Trina’s eyes were round like saucers and eager with interest.

‘How does a man like that proposition a potential lover?’ Jemma snapped. ‘He laid down the ground rules. If you want to play in my league then this is how it’s done—and so on. I wanted to slap his arrogant face, but all I did do was let him kiss me!’ Self-disgust rattled in her throat. ‘By the time he let me up for air again, I was so dizzy I couldn’t think, never mind hit out!’

‘So?’ Trina prompted. ‘How did it get to the point that he sends you something like this?’ she wanted to know. ‘And I don’t mean the basket—I mean this card. It reads like a fait accompli to me—except the talk about smells and acid, of course,’ she frowned, not able to work that bit out. ‘He expects to see you, Jemma, when he gets back from wherever he’s gone off to. A man doesn’t make that assumption unless you’ve let him.’

‘This one does,’ she grunted. ‘Especially when the girl in question gave him no encouragement to think otherwise.’

‘You mean—you just let him get away with kissing you and propositioning you like that?’

‘I would have let him take me on the office floor if he’d wanted to,’ Jemma said drily. ‘That was the level I’d sunk to!’

‘My God!’ Trina sat back and stared. ‘I can’t believe it! Wait till I tell Frew! He’ll go bananas! He claims the man hasn’t been born who can get through your thick shell!’

‘Well, thanks very much, Frew!’ Jemma cried. ‘And what gives him the right to think he knows anything at all about me?’

‘Come off it, Jemma!’ Trina scoffed. ‘You and me both know you’re as picky as a worm in a barrel of apples! How many twenty-four-year-old virgins do you think Frew knows?’

‘That’s a horrible thing to say!’ Jemma flared, jumping to her feet and dropping the lovely peach on to the table. The soft velvet skin split open, allowing the sweet, sensual scent of its juicy fruit to seep out. It assailed her nostrils, whetted her tastebuds, and she had to close her eyes because she was suddenly thrown into a storm of sensation that was all directed by one cleverly manipulative man.

‘Your parents are entirely to blame for that!’ Trina went on, unaware of the torment going on inside Jemma. ‘If it wasn’t your father having some torrid affair with another woman it was your mother paying him back by putting it about with some other man! What an example they set you! And now look at you!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’re standing there, trembling with indignation over Frew’s impression of you when you know damned well it’s only the truth! You’re afraid of starting your sexual ball rolling, Jemma,’ she stated bluntly, ‘just in case you discover that you’ve got more of your parents in you than you can deal with!’

‘Do you want me to bed the very next man who walks in that door just to prove you wrong?’ she flared, her eyes snapping open to glare at her so-called best friend.

Trina’s mouth twitched. ‘Not if it’s my Frew, you’d better not,’ she warned. ‘Or it will be your first and last experience.’

‘Oh, go to hell, Tri,’ Jemma sighed, deflated by her flatmate’s unfailing sense of humour.

‘Don’t you see what’s happened to you today, Jemma?’ Trina appealed on a more serious note. ‘You’ve been so determined to keep your emotions under a tight lid that when a man like Leon Stephanades came along your senses boiled up and the lid flew off so they all came shooting out like steam under pressure! That’s why you made such a damned fool of yourself with him!’

‘Thanks for the analysis,’ Jemma grunted, and sat down again. ‘You’ve made me feel so much better!’

‘I was not attempting to make you feel better,’ Trina sighed. ‘Only understand why you responded to him as you did! The man is a god among men. You’ve ambled along quite nicely while only confronted with mere mortals, but when it came to a godlike being you blew your emotional top!’

‘Josh would not take kindly to being classed as mere mortal,’ Jemma pointed out.

‘Josh Tanner,’ Trina stated deridingly, ‘does not even get a look-in compared to your Leon.’

‘Tell that to Cassie,’ Jemma grimaced. And she told Trina the rest of what had happened today.

‘Oh, my,’ her friend drawled when she finished. ‘Now I see what your Leon means when he writes about nasty tastes and smells. The whole thing stinks and tastes bad.’

‘He is not my Leon!’ Jemma angrily pointed out.

‘No?’ Trina quizzed. ‘Then what are you going to do about him?’

‘Nothing,’ she shrugged. ‘Just ignore him until he goes away.’

But that was not as easy as it sounded. Mainly because Leon Stephanades refused to be ignored. Over the coming week, Jemma was barraged with reminders of his existence and his intentions.

First there was a long velvet case hand-delivered to her flat with the logo of a very exclusive jeweller embossed on its lid. It contained a fine gold bracelet, linked at its clasp by a single turquoise. ‘The colour of your eyes, don’t you agree?’ the accompanying note said. Jemma closed the lid and put it away, determined to give it back to him at the first opportunity she got. The next day came the matching earrings. On Thursday the matching necklace. ‘Wear them for me on our first night together,’ the accompanying note said.

Her mouth tightened, the idea that he thought he could buy her like this filling her with an icy anger, and she discarded the necklace into her dressing-table drawer with the same contempt with which she had discarded the bracelet and earrings. On Friday there was nothing. No special delivery to come home to, no note, nothing. Trina studied her face sagely, and Jemma lifted her chin in a defiant refusal to utter a single word.

That night she accepted a date with a man who had just moved into the flat below. He was an architect, just finding his feet in the big London company he had recently joined. He was good-looking, pleasant and companionable, and by the time the evening was drawing to a close Jemma was beginning to feel at peace with herself for the first time in a week.

If it hadn’t been bad enough having Leon obsess her every waking thought, then trying to work with Josh in the mood he was in had been just as bad. Not that she blamed him for it—he had every right to behave like a bear with a sore head. But Cassie’s constant phone calls, pleading to speak with him, had taken their toll on Jemma’s nerves. And when his persistent refusal to speak to her had only had Cassie pouring out her heart on Jemma’s ears instead, the tension inside her had begun to hit an all-time high.

So she was quite happy to give herself up to the light, congenial company of Tom MacDonald. As his name suggested, he was a Scot, and eager to make new friends. They talked about anything and everything over a quiet dinner in a small Italian restaurant a short walk away from their flats. He told her about his life in a small Scottish village just outside Edinburgh where his rector father and forbearing mother had reared a family of six boisterous children in the big, rambling vicarage home, and where he had sometimes been willing to sell his soul for a bit of privacy. And she told him about her life as an only child who’d spent her childhood worrying which of her parents was going to walk out next—or, worse, whether they both would at the same time. It surprised her that she told him all of this since the only other person she had ever discussed her lonely uncertain childhood with had been Trina—or maybe, she decided later, it was because of what Trina had said to her the other night that had made her open up to Tom. Whatever. By the time they walked back home, she was feeling comfortable enough to make another date with him for the next night.

They parted at his flat door since it was on a lower landing than her own, and she let him kiss her, half relieved, half disappointed that fireworks had not gone off in her head as they had done when Leon had kissed her.

Trina was still up when she got in, reclining across Frew, who was stretched out on the sofa watching the end of a cops and robbers film.

‘Guess who’s been calling you all night?’ Trina taunted lazily.

Jemma went cold inside. ‘I’ve no idea,’ she said, hoping to God that she was right, and she didn’t know.

‘Mr Macho Stephanades himself, no less.’ Frew dashed Jemma’s hopes in one sardonically uttered sentence. ‘I answered the last time,’ he told her drily. ‘And received the kind of reply that had me running to the mirror to see if my throat had been cut.’

‘Ha-ha, very funny,’ Jemma jeered and turned a cool face on Trina. ‘I hope you told him to get lost,’ she said.

‘Me?’ her flatmate squeaked. ‘Why should I tell him to get lost? He’s not my problem! Although...’ she added with a teasing glance at Frew ‘...hearing that gorgeous sexy voice purring down the line at me had me thinking it would be quite something to have him as a problem.’

‘He’d eat you for breakfast and not even notice,’ Frew scoffed, refusing to rise to the bait.

‘If he could eat me, what do you think he could do to Jemma?’

‘Excuse me if I leave you to discuss me while I go to bed,’ Jemma put in sarcastically. ‘But please do continue none the less.’

‘He’s back in London!’ Trina called as Jemma turned to leave the room. Her spine began to tingle, as though just knowing he was in the same city was enough to make her flesh respond to him. ‘And he was not happy when I told him you were out on a date!’

‘When I answered the phone on his last call,’ Frew tagged on, ‘he mistook me for your date and actually threatened to come around here and eject me!’

‘I do hope you put him right,’ Jemma drawled, turning to send Frew a deriding look. ‘Only I would hate him to have the wrong impression about my taste!’

‘Whoa there, tiger!’ Trina warned. ‘That’s the love of my life you’re insulting!’

‘Well, tell the love of your damned life to keep his nose out of my business!’ Jemma snapped, wondering helplessly where all that lovely relaxed contentment she had rediscovered tonight had gone.

The phone began to ring. She stiffened up like a board. So did the other two, watching her with curious eyes.

‘Want me to answer it?’ Trina offered gently.

Oh, yes! Jemma thought frantically. Please yes! Anyone but me! I just can’t let myself be— ‘No,’ she heard herself mumble gruffly. ‘I’ll do it.’

She walked into the kitchen and stared at the wall set for all of ten seconds before slowly lifting off the receiver.

‘Jemma?’

She closed her eyes, swallowing thickly because just the sound of her name on his lips sent her mouth dry. ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

There was a short, very telling silence, and it didn’t take much to sense the anger simmering within it. ‘I want to see you,’ he said tightly.

‘Well, I don’t—’

‘Now.’ Arrogantly, he cut right through her attempted refusal. ‘I shall be around to collect you in half an hour.’

‘But it’s eleven-thirty!’ she protested. ‘I don’t—!’

‘I will sound my car horn when I arrive,’ he interrupted yet again. ‘You have three minutes from that moment to get in the car or I shall come up—do you understand me, Jemma?’ he persisted. ‘I am a man who does not play games—any kind of game.’

The line went dead. Jemma stared at it. He had just threatened her. He had actually had the gall to threaten her!

CHAPTER THREE

LEON didn’t need to sound his car horn. Jemma was already waiting outside, huddled in her pale blue wool duffel-coat and simmering with resentment when the sleek silver-grey Mercedes drew up beside her.

She had a brief glimpse of his dark, chiselled features when the lamplight caught his face as he leaned across the luxurious interior to open the door for her.

He was angry, tight with it.

Well, she thought indignantly, so am I! And refused to so much as look at him as she climbed into the car and stared coldly at the windscreen.

‘Seatbelt,’ he snapped.

She opened her mouth to tell him to get lost, then shut it again on an inward gasp as the car shot forward on an angry burst of power. Fumbling, she fastened the belt around her, having to drop her purse and the small plastic carrier bag she had brought with her on to the car floor to do it.

Pausing at the next junction, he turned his dark head to slash her with an icy look; she gave it back defiantly, but just allowing her eyes to clash with his was enough to set her trembling, and it was he who broke the hostile contact. She had not been able to, he affected her so badly.

This is crazy, she told herself as they joined the late rush of traffic crowding the London streets. How could she be so acutely aware of a man she barely knew?

Perhaps Trina was right after all, and she had been heading for this kind of emotional fall-out for years, bottling it all up, refusing to acknowledge that she had the ability to feel this way.

Trying to smother a helpless sigh, she obviously wasn’t very successful, because the black eyes raked her again. She felt their touch all the way down to her toes. Don’t, she wanted to say. Don’t look at me—don’t do this to me! But she pressed her trembling lips together and stared fixedly ahead, and after a moment he returned his attention to the road while the tension surrounding them grew so tight she could barely breathe.

He turned into a quiet, salubrious square that she recognised instantly, and a wry smile touched her mouth. Big-league wasn’t in it; this man existed on a higher plane altogether than she could ever aspire to.

Good, she thought. It only helped to shore up her resolve to get out of this situation before it became impossible. She didn’t want this—it—him. She did not need it, nor could she cope with it.

The car stopped, the engine dying. Leon unclipped both seatbelts then opened his car door. She watched balefully as he climbed out and came around to open her door. When she hesitated, he said coolly, ‘Don’t make the mistake of challenging me, Jemma. I am tired and my temper is worn thin. I could get nasty.’

Could? If he thought he was making this a pleasure then she did not want to be around when he did get ‘nasty’! Bending, she scooped up her purse and the small plastic carrier bag, then slid out of the car, scorning the outstretched hand he offered her in assistance.

He closed the car door, pressed a sensor pad on his keyring which activated the car central-locking system and the alarm at the same time, then turned without sparing her another glance to climb the steps to a black-painted front door.

By the time she had joined him, he was standing inside an elegant hallway. The plain grey-carpeted floor and pale peach-painted walls blended superbly with the rich mahogany woodwork.

He glanced at a silver tray on the hall table where a stack of envelopes lay unopened. Long fingers flicked idly at them then dismissed them as unimportant. It was only then that it hit her that he must not have been here since his return to London.

So, where had he been? Working in his office? Eating dinner at some exclusive restaurant? With another woman?

Jealousy swirled up from the pit of her stomach and burned its way into her brain. Shocked and appalled by her own reaction, she stumbled as she tried to turn and walk out of the house again before he saw what was happening to her.

But Leon was too quick, and in one stride was at her side, his hand like a clamp around her arm as he turned her back again.

‘Going somewhere?’ he enquired silkily.

‘I don’t want to come in here with you,’ she objected, having now to fight her response to his heated touch as well the crazy jealousy.

For an answer, he reached over her shoulder and gave the door a shove. Jemma quivered as she heard it click shut behind her. Without a single word, he took her purse and the silly plastic carrier bag from her, unbuttoned her coat and drew it off her shoulders while she just stood there in front of him, cheeks hot, eyes lowered, trembling from head to toe at his domineering closeness.

Then he just turned and walked off down the hall, arrogantly taking her possessions with him.

It’s getting worse, she noted tremulously as she meekly followed. Ten minutes in his company last time and her senses had been so responsive to him that she could barely breathe or think. Another ten minutes and she was now so acutely conscious of him that she was actually afraid.

She paused on the threshold of a beautiful pale lemon and white sitting-room, seeing her coat casually discarded on the back of a chair. Leon was standing across the room, pouring a drink into a fine crystal glass, his dark business suit moulding his muscled body with little attempt at hiding the power beneath.

Her stillness had him glancing around at her. ‘Come in,’ he drawled. ‘I am in no mood to jump on you if that is what is making you hover like a frightened bird.’

She still didn’t move, her eyes too big in her face as she continued to stand there staring helplessly at him, her loose hair flowing like liquid toffee around her face and shoulders. His thick lashes lowered, half hiding his eyes while he let them travel slowly over her, lighting candles inside her wherever his gaze touched. She was still wearing the cool blue slinky stretch Lycra dress she had worn for her date with Tom. It lay off the shoulder and moulded her figure to halfway down her slender thighs. It wasn’t a cheap dress, but neither was it of the expensive designer kind he was probably used to seeing his women in. And where with Tom she had only felt pretty, with Leon’s eyes on her she felt vulnerable and self-conscious beneath his connoisseur’s gaze.

‘You dressed for him like this tonight?’

The question startled her, putting a wary light into her eyes, but it also served to remind her of why she was here at all, and Jemma lifted her chin, her mouth firming as she looked back at him.

‘Yes,’ she said, adding defiantly, ‘not that it’s any of your business.’

‘No?’ The smile on his lips held no humour, nor did the mocking tone. ‘You have a lot to learn, if you truly believe what you say.’

He turned, gathering up another glass and bringing it with him as he walked towards her. Jemma held her ground, but only on the outside. Inside she was a broiling mass of panic. If he touched her—if he so much as laid a finger on her—she had a fear she would go up in flames.

‘Here.’ He held out the glass. ‘Drink this.’

She looked down at the dark golden liquid gleaming in the glass. ‘What is it?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘The national drink of Greece,’ he replied. ‘Come—’ He gestured with the glass. ‘I drink the same, so you can be assured it is not drugged. Try it. It is called metaxa—a carefully matured brandy that is kind to the palate.’

She took the glass reluctantly, lifting it to her lips to take a wary sip. Like brandy, it heated the sensitive tissues of her mouth as it flowed across it, but, unlike brandy, it did not burn. She swallowed. ‘It’s nice,’ she allowed, sounding surprised.

He smiled, a brief smile that had gone as soon as it had arrived. Then he was staring at her again, the anger she had sensed simmering in him when he’d spoken on the phone still burning in his eyes.

‘You—care for him?’ he asked. ‘You want this man you went out with tonight?’

‘How can I say?’ she cried, objecting to his proprietorial tone. ‘It was our first date! Far too soon to make a decision like that!’

‘Yet you knew you wanted me at the first clash of our eyes,’ he pointed out.

She shrugged, unable to deny what had to be the biggest humiliation of her life. ‘Which doesn’t mean I have to jump right into bed with you,’ she snapped. ‘Wanting and having are two completely different things.’

‘I am here.’ He held out his arms, mocking her reply and inviting her at the same time. But she wasn’t fooled; the anger was still there in his eyes. ‘For the—having. Yet you decide to play this—little game with your fresh-faced young man with the winsome smile and thatch of light brown spiky hair.’

Shocked by his accurate description of Tom, she stared at him. ‘How do you know what Tom looks like?’ she gasped.

He took a sip at his drink, dark eyes thoughtful on her while he took his time swallowing. Her head began to spin, that awful track of uncontrollable attraction spiralling its way through her system. It was the eyes that did it, she acknowledged hazily, feeling her breath begin to shorten and her body begin to pulse to a rhythm that was strange to her yet unbearably exciting. Those deep, dark, beautiful eyes could hold her captive at a single look.

‘Thomas MacDonald,’ he said suddenly, bringing her sharply back into focus. ‘Aged twenty-nine. Recently employed by Driver and Lowe, architects.’ Jemma’s mouth fell open. ‘Moved into the flat below your own on Tuesday last week. Has a passion for Simply Red and never misses a concert if he can help it. His current bank account rests at one thousand and fifty-two pounds. He caught the bus to work with you on Wednesday. Borrowed teabags from your enchanting flatmate Trina Beaton on Thursday. Trina Beaton...’ He moved on while Jemma could only stand there gaping. ‘A delightfully enterprising creature with bright red hair and a—satirical disposition. You have shared a flat with her since you arrived in London four years ago. She runs an interesting little business called—Maids in Waiting.’ He actually smiled with amusement at that. ‘An idea which began during her college years in an effort to make some extra money to prop up her grant and grew into the flourishing business it is today because she had the courage and foresight to see its potential. Her accountant is also her lover—though they never use your flat for their—intimate activities—reputedly in respect of your...finer feelings. His name is Frew Landers and he’s clever and sharp. Upwardly mobile, I think is the popular term. His favourite pastime is teasing you. Jemma Davis,’ he continued levelly, never for one second taking his eyes from her stunned face. ‘Parents dead, killed in an automobile accident four years ago. Attended secretarial college for two yours and graduated with distinctions at the age of nineteen. Has worked for three companies, TDC being the last and current one. Josh Tanner employed you—not particularly for your exemplary secretarial skills, but because he wanted to take you to bed. But—and I compliment you on your good sense—you made him see the error of his—judgement. Since then you have become his right-hand man, though he does not realise it himself. And his complicated love-life has hit the doldrums—how is Cassie, by the way?’ he concluded lightly.

‘I n-need to sit d-down,’ Jemma said weakly.

‘Of course,’ he said, immediately the indulgent host and taking her arm to lead her over to one of the comfortable damask sofas set before the flower-filled grate of a beautiful mahogany fireplace.

She lowered herself carefully, aware that the slightest puff of wind was likely to toss her into a crumpled heap. He watched her sink into a corner, her face gone quite blank, then sat himself down beside her. She was still holding her glass, and he gently curled his own fingers around it and lifted it to her ice-cold lips.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured, watching the colour take its time returning to her face. ‘But you made me very angry or I would not have said any of that.’

‘Why?’ she managed to enunciate, but only just. In truth, he had completely knocked the stuffing out of her.

‘I want you,’ he shrugged as if that explained everything. ‘By necessity I have to be a careful man. Power makes you dangerous, and your enemies do not always wear intentions on their sleeves. Danger can come in many guises—hostile take-overs, industrial espionage—’

‘And you suspect me of being some kind of Mata Hari trained to seduce you for all your powerful secrets?’ she gasped, disbelief and scorn warring in her anger-bright eyes.

He smiled, unrepentant. ‘Or just a lady,’ he suggested, ‘with the kind of past that could affect me?’

‘My God! You arrogant swine!’ she choked, not for one second missing his meaning. Furiously, she shot to her feet. ‘Well, hear this, Mr Stephanades,’ she flung at him. ‘This lady with a past is just a bit choosy herself!’

‘I know,’ he confirmed, his lazy smile enough to shoot the lid right off her temper.

‘Oh, go to hell,’ she muttered, and turned, her trembling legs barely able to support her as she stalked angrily for the door.

‘Virgin,’ he chanted cruelly after her. ‘And proud of it. Friends call you “one-date Jemma” and lay bets on who will be the first to crack the ice.’ She stopped, her spine stiffening in horror. ‘Speculation has it that you must have suffered a bad experience at some time to make you so unresponsive to men. But I know better, do I not?’

Jemma closed her eyes, appalled that his investigators could dig that deep!

‘I am not a promiscuous man, agape mou,’ he informed her smoothly. ‘The days of passing from one woman to another long ago lost its appeal with the risks it brings with it. I value my good clean bill of health, and am therefore very careful whom I share my body with.’

‘My God,’ she whispered, turning to stare at him. ‘I don’t believe I’m really hearing this!’

‘I want you, but not at any price—you understand?’ he said, a slight hint of apology in his tone as he came to his feet. ‘So I had to have you thoroughly checked out.’

‘So virgins are all you allow yourself these days, are they?’ Jemma threw scathingly at him.

His open-palmed shrug said it all. ‘In general, these days, I steer clear of intimacy with any women,’ he confessed. ‘You, are the exception.’

‘And I suppose you expect me to be honoured by that confession?’

‘No,’ he denied. ‘But I thought you may gain some comfort in knowing that I can offer you the same risk-free pleasure you will be giving me.’

‘Go to hell,’ she said again, her contempt of him only slightly overshadowed by the severe sense of disgust she felt at herself for being so obvious with him that he felt he could do and say all of this to her. ‘I would rather take my chances with Tom MacDonald’s more dubious sexual history than with a cold-blooded, calculating devil like you!’

On that, she spun away again, grabbing up her belongings before storming out of the room, feeling angry enough just maybe to put her words into practice and offer herself to Tom, if only to get back at all of them—both her so-called friends and the man she had just left standing there—for daring to make her personal life their business!

She’d reached the front door before he caught up with her, his hands like manacles as they closed around her upper arms to swing her round to face him. Her coat went one way, her purse the other. She saw the fury leaping in his eyes, the threat of violence, then his mouth was landing punishingly on hers and all hell broke loose inside her.

Her shock, the anger and utter contempt she was feeling, all colluded with her hungry senses to send them wild. Her arms snapped up to push him away, fists thumping at his shoulders and chest while she wriggled and squirmed and kissed him back with a vengeance. Her lips parted, wantonly drawing his tongue into contest with her own, and he made a husky little groan deep in his throat which she answered with an animal growl of her own, elated that she had actually managed to shake him.

‘You think I would let you give all of this to him?’ he grated, thrusting her to arm’s length so that she fell heavily against the hard wood panel of the door behind her.

‘Good, was it?’ she taunted thickly, her eyes spitting her contempt at him, even while her swollen mouth invited more of the same mind-blowing kisses. Breasts heaving, hands shaking, she challenged the harsh rasping of his breath. ‘Want it all? Shame,’ she jeered. ‘Because I’d die before I would let you have me!’

‘Then die!’ he decreed, dragging her back against him, the desire in him flaring up like her own, full of angry passion. ‘For I am the only man who is going to have you!’

And his mouth took hers again, his arms moulding her writhing throbbing body to his with no chance of escape. And it went on and on—a battle that was a crazy one because they were both using the same angry weapons to strike sparks from each other. Jemma’s fingers found his hair and gripped, but not to pull him away. Instead they held his mouth down on hers while his own hands curved into the flesh at the tops of her legs, pushing up the fabric of her skirt and pressing her hard against him so that the mad gyration of their bodies inflamed them to full, throbbing arousal.

It was terrible. Jemma saw in a brief flash of sanity how they must look together like this, and she whimpered in horror, hot tears burning into her eyes and running down her cheeks.

He felt them, tasted them on his tongue, and groaned as he dragged his mouth away from hers. ‘God,’ he choked, ‘what are we doing here?’

Raping each other, Jemma thought wildly as he muttered something in a harsh guttural Greek before burying his face in her hair, holding her tightly against him while the wild storm raged on inside them both.

It was a long while before they began to calm. And by then Jemma was feeling so ashamed of herself that she did not know how she was going to lift her head and face him. She was glad of the solid wall of his pounding chest to hide against. His arms had relaxed their suffocating grip on her body and were gently stroking her now. He, like herself, made no attempt to move, but slowly, as the seconds ticked by, she became conscious that one of them was going to have to break the crazy deadlock.

He did it, as if reading her mind, taking on the responsibility and slowly dropping his arms. She didn’t move, didn’t think she had the strength left to try! He turned his back, a hand going up to grip the back of his neck while he stared grimly at the carpet. The silence was gnawing.

‘I’ll make some coffee,’ he said suddenly and strode off down the hall.

Jemma watched him go with empty eyes. Empty because he had just managed to drain her of every emotion she possessed. It would be better if she just opened the door and sneaked quietly away, she told herself as she continued to stand there. She was sure she would be able to hail a cruising black cab. Ten minutes and she would be home, safe in her flat with Trina’s mocking presence to keep her safe. A few determined steps, she told herself, and you could end all of this for good. He would not follow. Like herself, he couldn’t want this violent kind of passion.

It wasn’t good. It wasn’t even enjoyable. Just a hostile, bitter slaking of an ugly lust, that was what it was. Lust.

She managed to turn, legs trembling as she made the vital manoeuvre which had her facing the door.

‘Where are you going?’

Gentle as the question was, it froze her in terror. ‘H-home,’ she whispered tremulously. ‘I w-want to go h-home.’

Silence. She didn’t move and she was almost sure he didn’t either. Then she heard his heavy sigh. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘But I shall take you.’

He began walking towards her, and the closer he got, the more she trembled until she shook in violent spasms that brought the tears back to her eyes. It was stupid, but when his arms came gently around her to draw her back against him she sobbed with relief, turning to bury her face in his shirt-front. ‘I’ve never felt so ashamed of myself!’ she whispered thickly.

‘You and me both, agape mou,’ he murmured grimly. ‘But I think my shame has to be worse than yours right now. Come.’ He shifted until he held her beneath the crook of his arm. ‘You are in no fit state to go home as yet, and my guilty conscience will not let you go like this.’ Gently he led her back along the hall. ‘We will talk, I think,’ he decided. ‘Of things other than ourselves and what we seem to want or not want.’ His dry tone made her smile, and she glanced up to find him smiling ruefully too.

Then their eyes locked. And even as she felt the upward surge of all that awful tension again, she saw him heave in a harsh breath in an effort to control his own feelings.

Sighing, he leaned back heavily against the wall behind him, his grip loosening on her. ‘This is not going to work, is it?’ he sighed. ‘Talking is the last thing we both need to do right now.’

She lowered her face, shaking her tumbled mass of hair. ‘I don’t even know you,’ she whispered helplessly. That seemed to shame her as much as the emotions running wild inside her.

‘Our bodies seem to know each other well enough.’ Reaching out, he threaded gentle fingers through her hair. Her eyes closed, face lifting on a sigh of such helpless pleasure at his touch that he breathed once, fiercely. ‘Upstairs,’ he murmured, ‘I have a bed. A warm and comfortable, very large bed where, with a bit of trust on your side and a lot of control on mine, I think I could manage to salvage some of our self-respect from this night if you would let me.’

Her stomach muscles contracted, sending a flutter of appeal winging out across her body. ‘Violence is not my way, Jemma,’ he said quietly. ‘What took place here just now was a—a culmination of my bad temper and your angry retaliation to it. But it does not alter the most fundamental reason as to why we are here together like this. We want each other—need would be a better word. Please,’ he murmured huskily, ‘will you let me make love to you as gently and as beautifully as I know how?’

‘No strings attached?’ She heard the words leave her lips in the shape of a surrender, her kiss-swollen mouth twisting wryly as she acknowledged it. ‘No other lovers? No other commitment other than a pledge of loyalty while this thing lasts?’ she quoted his own words back at him drily.

‘Do you want a deeper commitment from me?’ he asked, his expression quite serious.

Jemma thought about it. Thought about the man he was and the power he wielded. She thought about the social circles he moved in and the nice little Greek girl at home somewhere in his own country waiting for him to give in to family pressure and marry well. And she shuddered. ‘No,’ she answered. ‘I want nothing more from you than—this...’

She moved into his arms, unable to stay out of them for a moment longer. Their mouths met and her eyes closed over the helpless need radiating from her dark blue irises. Leon came away from the wall, folding her against him as he deepened the kiss.

The anger had gone, lost in the surrendering of the battle. But what replaced it was far, far more intense. With the aid of his kiss he seemed to absorb her into him, her mind, her body, her every sense opening up and closing hungrily around him.

He whispered something, a stunned expletive, it sounded like, though she barely registered it because whatever it was was groaned against her burning mouth and she was more aware of him picking her up and cradling her in his arms then moving, carrying her in a floaty haze up the stairs.

The kiss broke when he lowered her feet to the ground again, and Jemma lifted heavy lids to find herself gazing into eyes flowing with passion. It startled her, the look of fierce arousal, and her mouth parted on a protest—never uttered because he stopped it with a small shake of his head.

‘Trust me,’ he said, brushing his lips across hers. ‘This is no empty seduction. I am as much a slave to this as you are, agape mou.’

A statement he quickly proved when her fingers flexed in an instinctive response against his shoulders and he shuddered, the breath rushing shakily from his lungs.

Taking hold of her hand, he led her across the room—a room, she realised for the first time, that was a bedroom, big and gracious, its green and grey furnishings softly lit by a bedside lamp.

By the big double bed he turned her to face him, eyes still black with need but gentle now as they gravely explored her face. She blushed, feeling shy suddenly and awkward now that he had given her a moment to realise just what they were doing.

‘No,’ he murmured, lifting her chin with softly stroking fingers when she tried to hide her face from him. ‘Passion becomes you, agape mou. Don’t hide it all away from me.’

He lowered his head again, silk lashes brushing tantilisingly against her flushed cheeks as he kissed her nose then each corner of her mouth and ran his fingers in a feather-like caress down her throat and over naked shoulders before sliding them into her hair, pushing the long, thick fall back from her face and making her senses leap as he lowered his head to run his tongue around her exposed ear.

She closed her eyes, preening sensually as the sweetest sensation turned her muscles to liquid. Her fingers curled into the lean, tight flesh at his waist. His tongue slid lower, forcing the breath from her lungs in short, sharp gasps as he licked his way to the other ear to wreak the same havoc there.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.