But then he nodded, as if she had said exactly what he had expected her to say. Not a mind reader, then. Well, not this time. Her breath came out in a whoosh of relief.
‘How long have you been a workaholic, Annis Carew?’
She glanced briefly at her father, at the head of the table. He was looking restless. Wives sitting next to him, rather than businesswomen, deduced Annis fondly.
‘It’s in the genes,’ she said.
Konstantin Vitale followed her eyes.
‘Ah, yes, of course. The phenomenal Tony Carew.’
There was something in his voice that made Annis uneasy. According to Lynda, it was her father who had insisted on inviting him, after all.
‘Don’t you like him?’ she demanded.
‘We have our disagreements.’
Not many people disagreed with her father and stayed on his payroll.
‘What about?’ asked Annis, intrigued enough to forget her uneasiness.
‘Lots of things. Buildings. My timekeeping. Rights and obligations of ownership.’
‘Good grief.’ She looked at him with genuine respect. ‘You’ve been lecturing my father on his obligations?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in ownership.’
‘Don’t believe—’ Annis choked. Tony Carew was a master capitalist with very pronounced views on what was his.
‘The moment you own something you want to put it in a box and stop anyone else enjoying it. That’s a miserable way of living.’
Annis swallowed. ‘And you’ve told my father as much?’
He laughed suddenly. ‘Sure. He wasn’t very receptive. But I said to him, “Look, there are some things you may be able to lock up and keep for yourself but major buildings aren’t among them. Too many people use them. Too many people see them, for God’s sake.’”
Annis gave a choke of startled amusement. ‘He must have had apoplexy.’
That gave him pause. ‘You are very—frank,’ he said slowly.
‘I’m my father’s daughter.’
Their eyes met. For a moment his were not unreadable. She had disconcerted him, thought Annis. And he did not like it.
Yes, she thought exultantly.
And then the mask was in place again and he was laughing gently.
‘You are indeed. Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t have the Carew—er—frankness.’
‘You mean rudeness,’ said Annis, interpreting without difficulty.
‘You both certainly make yourselves understood.’
‘Do we?’
‘Clear as crystal,’ he said dryly, as if he could read her like a book.
It was an unsettling thought. And she was even more unsettled when he said in quite a different voice, ‘Though you’re more of chameleon than your dad.’
‘What?’
‘I like the transformation. Turquoise suits you.’
He did not actually touch her breast where the evening-sky silk was draped. But Annis recoiled as if he had put his hands on her. The green eyes lifted, intrigued. She saw the sudden speculation there and could have kicked herself.
To hide it, she said, ‘Don’t be deceived. The plumes are borrowed.’
‘I wasn’t deceived,’ he said softly.
Damn!
She said hastily, ‘What exactly do you do for my father? I know you work for him but are you on the payroll of Carew Electronics?’
‘In a way.’
‘That means you don’t want to tell me,’ Annis said wisely. ‘Why not?’
He shrugged. ‘Business confidentiality,’ he said vaguely.
Annis smiled. ‘My father is in the process of poaching you,’ she deduced.
‘No. I’m my own boss. And going to stay that way. Though I guess Carew does a lot of poaching where he can.’
‘Doesn’t every businessman?’
He looked at her curiously. ‘You tell me. Isn’t that the sort of thing you advise on? Where to poach key staff?’
Annis laughed. ‘If you don’t already know that, then your business is way beyond the help of a management consultant.’
She thought he would laugh. But he did not. Instead there was an unnerving silence while he watched her.
At last he said slowly, ‘You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’
Annis tensed. She could feel the frown coming and fought it. ‘Am I supposed to apologise for that?’
‘No. No of course not. It’s just—’
But Lynda had got everyone seated at last and the waiter was beginning to take the first course round the table. Annis helped herself to cheese soufflé and Konstantin Vitale’s attention was claimed by the woman on his other side. Annis felt reprieved. By contrast, the massive but uncomplicated ego of Alex de Witt was a piece of cake.
‘So who’s here, then?’ he said, smiling across the table at one of his admirers.
Annis hid her amusement. ‘The usual mix. Carew Electronics. My stepmother’s charity committees. A couple of neighbours.’
Alex de Witt was not very interested in neighbours.
‘Have you seen Totality yet?’
And then she slotted him into place. He was starring in a new play which had hit the headlines. She almost snapped her fingers as she realised.
‘No, I haven’t managed to get there yet but it’s on my list.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Come to think of it, why aren’t you on stage tonight?’
He beamed. ‘We’re transferring to the West End. Opening next Thursday. Provided the director can get his act together, of course.’
Annis recognised a cue when she heard it. She took it effortlessly.
‘Do you have to rehearse all over again when you transfer from one theatre to another?’
The actor’s monologue carried them through the first course, second helpings, the removal of plates, a change of wine and the appearance of new china for the second course. Waiters arrived with large serving dishes of boeuf en croûte and Annis sighed. She had been well brought up. She knew you talked to the neighbour on your right for the first course, left for the second. Her respite was over.
Mentally girding herself, she turned back to Konstantin Vitale and pinned on a social smile.
‘Have you been in London long?’
He did not answer that directly. ‘Very smooth.’
Annis could feel her social smile stiffening. ‘What?’
‘Only it won’t work, you know.’
Annis’s smile felt like a rictus on her stiff mouth. ‘What do you mean?’ she said in a voice that was not social at all.
‘If we’re going to talk at all, tell me something I don’t know. Like what your sort of management consultant does. And what turned you into a workaholic. Don’t bother asking me pretty questions about myself because I don’t play that game. It bores me.’
Her skeleton smile disintegrated abruptly.
‘Well, we mustn’t have that, must we?’ said Annis furiously.
‘I’ll trade. One secret—that’s all, just one—for everything you want to know about me.’
‘I don’t want to know a thing—’ Annis began with heat, until she saw the mocking glint in his eyes. Oh, how quickly she had risen to his baiting! She drew a long, careful breath and said, ‘Anyway, I don’t have secrets.’
She did not sound encouraging. She did not mean to. Konstantin Vitale’s eyes narrowed appreciatively.
‘Yes, you do.’
‘What?’
‘Mystery lady,’ he said, so softly that only she could hear.
‘I am not a mystery,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And if you are trying to flirt with me, you can just stop right now.’
He did not say anything, waiting.
‘I don’t play that game,’ she quoted back at him, goaded.
He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging a hit. Annis nodded coolly, half in triumph, half in simple relief.
Kosta Vitale looked at his companion thoughtfully. He really had been drawn to her the moment he
saw her across the room. More than that, he had felt a shock. It was as if he had been waiting for her, or as if she was someone he’d recognised from a long distant, idyllic past. In fact, he had looked twice to make sure that he did not know her. But he knew he had never met Tony Carew’s daughter.
And then, as soon as Tony had introduced them, Kosta had known this was going to be a whole new experience.
Annis Carew was not the sort of woman who usually attracted him. For one thing, from that first handshake, she had turned him into an opponent. For another, though she duelled well, she seemed to wince away from ripostes that she had asked for. He did not like women like that. They handed it out, but any man they went to war with was expected to pull his punches. Maybe it came from being a millionaire’s daughter.
And yet…And yet…Her eyes were full of mysteries. Kosta was shocked to find how much he wanted to explore those mysteries. But he did. Through and through. From the height to their depths.
I’ll have to be careful with this, thought Kosta, shaken.
‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘No secrets,’ adding silently, Yet. ‘Tell me about your career. Unless that’s on the classified list too.’
She bit back a nasty remark and said with icy civility, ‘I trained as a management consultant with Baker Consulting. I set up a partnership with a colleague six months ago.’
‘That’s why you’re a workaholic?’
Suddenly she smiled with real amusement. It turned her eyes gold, like the lamplight. Kosta watched, fascinated.
‘No, I’ve always been a workaholic.’ She drew a deep breath and the gold died out of her eyes. ‘Now can we talk about something that interests me?’
Raise your foil, Kosta, off we go in the next bout, he thought dryly.
But there was something he wanted to know first. No, not wanted. Needed to know.
‘So who is this partner? The reason you don’t date?’
Annis put a lid on her annoyance and registered a private resolution to rock the damned man off his complacent axis if it was the last thing she did.
In pursuit of this end, she sat back in her chair and sighed elaborately.
‘I don’t date because I don’t want to,’ she drawled. ‘To use your own words, it bores me.’
It was not true. But Annis was in too much of a temper to remember that. Especially as she seemed to score a hit. Not the bull’s-eye maybe. But a definite hit. The steady green eyes even blinked for a second.
‘Dating bores you?’
He sounded outraged, thought Annis, pleased.
‘I’m not keen on competitive games,’ she explained sweetly.
‘Competitive?’ He sounded disbelieving. ‘You must have dated some real oddballs.’
She flinched. He’s telling me I’m so weird no normal man would take me out. It hurt. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t have hurt if it had not been exactly what she was already afraid of. Annis felt her temper fly straight through the top of her head.
But she was too used to controlling her feelings to allow it to show. ‘No, no. Standard issue,’ she assured him affably.
His eyes flickered. ‘They have my sympathy.’
Annis flinched inwardly. That’s what comes of mixing it with the sexiest man in the room, she told herself, rejecting the hurt. You started it. So have your fun. Just expect to pay for it.
The woman on his other side said something. He inclined his head courteously for a moment, not taking his eyes off Annis. A smile began to lift one corner of his mouth. Not a nice smile.
‘I don’t think Ms Carew would agree with you. She’s just told me she doesn’t date. I don’t imagine she flirts, either.’ He leaned back so the two women could talk to each other.
That, thought Annis, was not playing fair. Theirs was supposed to be a private battle. He knew it as well as she did. But she set her teeth and prepared to meet him on this new ground. ‘Flirt?’ she echoed, smiling. ‘Me? Why not?’
‘You were the one who just told me to stop,’ he reminded her, enjoying himself.
Her eyes glittered.
Before she could retaliate, however, Kosta was addressing the subject to the table at large. ‘And I’m sure you’re right. Flirting,’ he announced ‘takes Mediterranean flair. The English don’t trust flirting any more than they trust garlic. Quite apart from the individual temperament.’
He glanced down at Annis quizzically.
He’s mocking me. He wants everyone else to join in, she thought. Her heart twisted. She concentrated on her anger.
The other woman frowned him down. Annis had met her before. She was on one of Lynda’s charity committees, a media personality. Now she was looking apologetic.
‘I was just saying to Kosta that flirting is one of the great lost skills.’
Konstantin Vitale smiled straight into Annis’s indignant eyes. ‘And I told Sally that you wouldn’t agree.’
Annis widened her eyes at him. ‘Oh? Why? It seems pretty lost to me. No sign this evening that either you or I know how to flirt, is there?’
Sally drew in a startled breath. Konstantin Vitale ignored her. He sat bolt upright and stopped smiling.
‘And no sign that you regret it for a moment,’ he told Annis crisply. ‘Like I said, no temperament for it.’
Sally murmured. ‘Fifteen-all.’
Annis was hotly indignant. It felt great. ‘You can’t expect someone to flirt with you if you make her account for herself as if you’re interviewing her for a job.’
Sally gave a soft laugh. ‘Ta-da. She’s got you there, Kosta.’
‘What else is a man to ask her about when the first thing she tells him is that she lives for her work?’
‘Thirty-all.’ Sally was enjoying herself hugely.
‘And when she tells him she’s at the party to network.’
‘Thirty-forty.’
Annis stared up at him. His eyes were curiously intent. She found she could not think of one thing to say.
‘And that dating bores her.’
‘Game, set and match,’ crowed Sally.
He did not take his eyes off Annis. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Not yet.’
And smiled.
Annis felt as if all her clothes had fallen off.
She did something she had not done since she was a child. She pushed her chair back with a harsh scraping noise and scrambled to her feet. ‘Excuse me.’
She fled.
CHAPTER TWO
ANNIS took refuge in her old room.
There was an old sycamore whose leaves brushed her window, sending strange patterns across the moonlight. She would watch the shadow pictures from her bed. Now the late autumn branches were nearly bare. Annis shivered. They looked as exposed as she felt.
Why had she let Konstantin Vitale get to her like that?
She went to the window and leaned her hot forehead against the glass.
She could not remember ever feeling like this, so angry and muddled and helpless. Even when Jamie had decided that she did not add anything to his street cred she had not felt like this. She had just cleared all his belongings out of the flat and set about turning it back into her own exclusive island. Since then she had defended her home against the world and her heart against sexy, confident men. Defended them successfully, what was more.
So how had Konstantin Vitale managed to turn her defences upside down with a drawling quip that he probably hadn’t even meant?
You’re not a clumsy adolescent any more. You can handle any amount of drawling sophistication. So why have you let him throw you into a spin?
Annis put her fingers to her throbbing temples. The scar was rough under her left forefinger. She dropped her hands as if she had burned them. It was not often that she forgot the scar. Yet she had not given it one thought since she sat down next to him at the dinner table.
Well, at least her unaccustomed temper had done that for her, she thought wryly.
Come on, get a grip.
There was a small
vanity unit in the corner. Annis splashed cold water on her face. She blinked at the shock of it but at least when she straightened she felt more normal.
‘No more anger,’ she said aloud.
She peered at herself in the well-lit mirror. Too well-lit. It showed the puckered skin from eyebrow to hairline as if a special effects’ artist had just drawn it on. It looked as it had done when her mother had picked her up and had recoiled, her face a mask of revulsion. So long ago and yet Annis could still see it as clearly as if it was happening right in front of her eyes now.
Deliberately she put the thought away from her.
‘Come on, Scarface,’ she told herself wryly. ‘You can hold it together. You’ve done it before. You’ll never see Konstantin Vitale again after tonight. He’s not worth wasting anger on. Just treat him as a short-term project.’
She patted her face dry and pulled the softly curling hair forward to hide the scar. Then, straightening her shoulders, she went back to face the music.
It was not as bad as she’d feared. At the end of the second course Lynda decided that she wanted to mix her guests around. So all the men were told to move six chairs to their left.
‘I’ll see you after the musical chairs,’ Konstantin told Annis graciously.
‘I’ll look out for you.’
He looked at her sharply and she realised that the ambiguity was not lost on him. Sexy, arrogant and shrewd. Oh, Lynda had really excelled herself this evening.
But somehow the perfectly nice men who sat next to her during the cheese and dessert courses were insipid by contrast.
Crazy, thought Annis, applying herself hard to the finer points of widget design as described by her father’s newest head of research. She greeted Lynda’s discreet sign to the ladies to leave the table with relief.
They all congregated in Lynda’s bedroom, fluffing up shining hair that did not need it and reapplying colour to make-up that already looked perfect.
And talking about the men left behind at the table. Of course.
‘He’s so gorgeous,’ said Gillie Larsen.
‘And tonight he’s got Annis’s name on him,’ murmured Bella naughtily as she swished past with a box of tissues.
Annis frowned at her. ‘Behave.’
The Millionaire's Daughter (The Carew Stepsisters Book 1) Page 3
