by Penny Jordan
Her uncle was getting more agitated, looking slightly shifty. ‘The thing is, Kallie…I didn’t tell you before now as I knew it might upset you, but I’ve started doing business with him again. Since your parents died, that is. Obviously your father wouldn’t have approved but, you see, I had to, Kallie. I had no one else to turn to and when he gave me an appointment…’ He laughed a sudden brief laugh, sounding like a little boy. ‘Me! An appointment. It would appear he’s willing to let bygones be bygones, with me at least. Now, if it had been your father, that would have been a different story—’ He seemed to catch himself, realising he was starting to babble, and gripped Kallie’s hands tighter. ‘But if he sees you…’
The familiar clench of grief at the mention of her parents went unnoticed for once. Her uncle was referring, of course, to the scandal that had gripped Greece for weeks. The press had devoured the story of how Alexandros Kouros had taken advantage of his family friend’s young daughter. Just when he was about to become engaged to Pia Kyriapolous. And even though Kallie had cried tears of frustration, trying to defend him, no one had listened, too intent to paint him the villain and her the poor innocent victim.
It had been even more futile trying to assert her own innocence with regard to the photo and story, and only recently had she confirmed for herself who the real culprit was. The story had since faded, of course, and since her grandmother’s death the summer after that, Kallie had only been back to Greece a couple of times. She’d never seen him again.
Her uncle looked so comically terrified that it brought her back to reality. Kallie’s heart went out to him. No doubt he was watching his entire business float down the river if Alexandros Kouros took one look at her and decided to wreak belated revenge.
‘Alexei, I don’t care if you’re doing business with him…really. Look, I’ll go. Believe me, I have as little desire to see him as he must have to see me.’ Liar. You’d love to see how he’s turned out…
Her heart beat a staccato just at the thought. A whole Pandora’s chest was being opened and Kallie was helpless to stop it. This was too close a call and she had to get out, get away. She kissed her uncle on the cheek and squeezed his hand. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow, we can talk more then.’
He nodded with obvious relief and Kallie walked away quickly, head down, not looking left or right, just focusing on getting through the crowd in front of her. She comforted herself with the thought that even if he did see her, she’d changed a lot in seven years, and she would come so far below the radar of his usual women that he’d be unlikely to recognise her straight off, thus giving her time to escape.
Almost at the door, she had to duck out of the way of a waitress carrying a loaded tray and she careened into someone’s back. They twisted to look around and Kallie was horribly, familiarly aware of someone very tall, very broad, with black hair curling on his collar. The back of her neck prickled and afterwards she wondered at how she hadn’t had a stronger sensation, a stronger warning of imminent danger. Quite the opposite, it seemed, some evil force had directed her straight into the lion’s jaws. She couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot. Unable to flee the danger.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE looked up…and up again. And her eyes met all too familiar dark, fathomless depths. In a heart-stoppingly handsome face. A face she knew well, because it had stayed vivid in her consciousness. Her mouth, which had opened automatically to apologise, stayed open.
‘Alexandros Kouros…’ She wasn’t even aware of saying his name out loud. It was as if she had to say it to make it real or to pray that he was a figment of her imagination. But he was no figment of anyone’s imagination. He was too vital…too dark…too big and too…gorgeous. Why did she have to bump into him? It was too cruel.
‘Do we know each—?’ He stopped and turned fully. Black brows pulled together, frowning.
It was her! The woman…But he knew her…
His eyes raked her up and down. They both knew that the way she had said his name had been more than just the banal recognition of someone famous.
Kallie, while praying he wouldn’t recognise her, was conversely stung somewhere very vulnerable when he clearly had no idea who she was. She forced her stricken limbs to move, to try and get away. She couldn’t believe her awful luck. Why hadn’t she just stayed where she was? Why hadn’t she taken more notice of where she was going? Why was he looking at her like that? She had to get away.
‘Sorry…’
She turned and just when she thought she could let her breath out, when she’d taken a couple of steps, her arm was taken in a punishing grip. His deep voice rang with stunned incredulity.
‘Kallie Demarchis?’
She closed her eyes. The worst thing had just happened. Her breath came back but it was painful. She longed to be able to keep going, to walk away. The burning humiliation was still so vivid that she had to open her eyes again to halt the images rushing through her mind. His grip was painful on her arm and yet it lit tiny fires that raced up and down over her skin. She finally turned, with little choice to do anything else.
She turned, hitched her chin and looked up. ‘Yes.’
His face was unreadable, but she saw something flare in the depths of his dark eyes. Anger. Shock and anger. He moved his intense gaze from hers and looked her up and down, slowly and thoroughly.
‘Well, well, well. Little Kallie Demarchis. All grown up.’
He spoke almost musingly, as if to himself. ‘Your eyes give you away. They’re such a distinctive colour. Blue and green. Only for that, I don’t think I would have recognised you. You must have had work done. If I remember, you always were insecure…but it’s definitely been worth it.’
It was only when his eyes insolently dropped to her breasts that Kallie gasped with outrage, welcoming it because it crashed through the numbing shock. She finally managed to tear her arm out from his grip. ‘How dare you? I’ve done no such thing. I’m sorry I bumped into you, believe me, but I’m sure you’ll be only too happy to excuse me.’
‘Don’t you mean you’re sorry for wrecking my engagement all those years ago…or sorry for dragging my name through the tabloids…or sorry for publicly humiliating me, for getting me thrown out of your house like a common thief?’
So much for hoping, or even praying that he might have forgotten…
Two spots of colour burned in her cheeks and her eyes flashed. Alexandros had to suck in a breath against his will.
She was magnificent…and how had she transported him back to a time he had believed he’d forgotten for good, so easily and so quickly?
He reeled. Reeled with the shock of coming face to face with the very woman who’d captivated him across the room. Reeled with the force of her beauty up close. And now reeled with the knowledge that it was Kallie Demarchis. The girl who had taken petty spite and used it to almost ruin him. He looked down at her. Except now she wasn’t a girl. She was a woman. A very sexy woman. A woman who was making the blood hum in his veins and an arrow of desire shoot straight to his groin. An instant chemical reaction.
Kallie had opened her mouth again to speak, but before she could do, a blonde vision appeared beside Alexandros, a scarlet-tipped hand on his arm. A blatant indication of ownership. And who could blame her? Kallie thought fuzzily, closing her mouth, words dying unsaid. Even without studying him—she didn’t have to—he was the most handsome man in the room, head and shoulders above all other men. A perfect, potent specimen of manhood, sexual energy radiating off him in waves that she fancied were almost visible to the eye.
He’d been a gorgeous young man but now…he was quite simply devastating. The years had filled out his frame, had added maturity to his face, the lines starker, harder but no less beautiful. He now had an edge of sexual charisma that came only with age, confidence and experience. His hair still had the curls of his youth though, and that made something poignant erupt in Kallie’s chest. The other woman’s slightly, delightfully accented tones broke through Kallie’s rever
ie.
‘Darling…aren’t you going to introduce me?’
Alexandros couldn’t stop staring at Kallie. Again. He’d been mesmerised again. To the exclusion of everything else. He could see Kallie flounder, too. As if they’d both forgotten they were in a public place, surrounded by people. But Isabelle had to be attended to. Kallie cut in, though, before he could speak. She looked apologetically at Isabelle, cutting out Alexandros.
‘Please, excuse me. I have to catch someone before they leave. It was…nice to see you again, Alexandros.’
And she was gone, had melted into the crowd. All he could see was her shining head every now and then as it bobbed and weaved away from him. The urge to snatch her back was strong. Very strong. And the gnawing, clawing feeling of boredom that Alexandros had felt earlier was gone. As though he’d just been injected with vital energy. And desire. The kind of desire he hadn’t felt in a long, long time. The fierce elemental kind that made his insides burn for completion, for fulfilment.
Reluctantly responding to Isabelle’s urging to go, he was already making plans in his head. Plans that didn’t involve her, but that did involve Kallie. He couldn’t believe how she’d strayed into his path, like a plump, succulent piece of fruit.
He hadn’t thought about her in years—hadn’t had the time—and only fleetingly had she crossed his mind when her uncle had approached him recently. Agreeing to meet with her uncle, he’d congratulated himself that he’d left all that behind…until now.
Kallie Demarchis.
He couldn’t stop repeating her name in his head.
He’d seen her uncle earlier, and had acknowledged him briefly across the room, but who would have known that she’d have come there, too? Who would have known that she’d be the very woman who was stoking the dying embers of his desire? And who would have known that he’d ever get the chance to do something about her petty, spiteful act all those years ago? An act with ripple effects that had vastly eclipsed the actual incident involved. She’d never been made accountable for those actions. The feelings of betrayal and anger from those days surprised him now with their resurgence, with their freshness. He didn’t like being reduced to such primitive emotions.
The initial anger that had gripped him fed his energy. Seeing Kallie again tonight, the timing was so perfect that he almost laughed out loud. The linkages that existed in place for him to take advantage of this opportunity were mind-blowing with their simplicity. If there was such a thing as karma, this was it. And he was going to enjoy every minute of it. And enjoy every piece of her.
Two days later, Kallie stared at the blinking light on the intercom of her phone. Her PA’s disembodied yet unmistakably awe-struck voice floated through again. ‘Kallie…did you hear me? Alexandros Kouros is on line one for you.’
Just like that. Alexandros Kouros is on line one…
Her heart, which had stopped, started to beat again, slowly. She’d somehow, in the past forty-eight hours, tried to convince herself that she hadn’t actually seen him. That it had been some sort of bad dream. She tried to speak but nothing came out and with a huge effort she shook herself out of the inertia that seemed to have taken control of her every limb. ‘Thank you, Cécile. I’ll take it now.’
She picked up the phone, pressed the button under the blinking light and took a deep breath.
‘Hello?’
‘Kallie.’ The deep authoritative voice sounded close in her ear and made her sit up straight.
‘Alexandros.’ She marvelled that she could sound so cool when her head and insides seemed to be self-combusting. The treacherous unfurling of desire that had started the minute she’d seen him again was still there. And that knowledge scared her. What did he want? Kallie swivelled around in her chair and didn’t take in the view of Paris outside her third-floor window, the Eiffel Tower going unnoticed in the distance. Her voice was clipped, tense.
‘What can I do for you, Alexandros? I’m sure this isn’t a social call.’
Even if they didn’t share history, the most successful Greek shipping magnate in the world wouldn’t be ringing up her small Anglo-French PR firm.
His slightly accented tones came like silk down the phone into her ear again. ‘It was certainly a shock to see you the other night. It’s been, what, six years?’
‘Seven.’ She had answered far too quickly and easily. Her hand tightened around the phone, hoping that he hadn’t noticed. He didn’t seem to as he spoke again. And took the wind out of her sails.
‘I was sorry to hear about your parents…’
Kallie was feeling more and more bemused. This man had been thrown out of their house by her father. Slapped by her mother. He had told her he never wanted to see her again. He must have picked up something in the silence because he said, ‘Despite the past, Kallie, I was sorry to hear of their deaths.’
The shock at hearing his voice was beginning to wear off. ‘Well…thank you.’
She repeated her question again. ‘What…what can I do for you, Alexandros?’
He didn’t speak for a long moment, and she was almost about to repeat her question when he said with devastating banality, ‘I want you to have dinner with me tonight.’
Kallie took the phone away from her ear for a second and looked at it. Alexandros was up to something. That was one thing she was sure of. She existed on his list of people to call for dinner somewhere alongside Attila the Hun. He whizzed around the world on his private jet, doing billion-dollar deals, meeting heads of state and dating what seemed to be an endless stream of models and actresses, like Isabelle Zolanz. It was only afterwards, when she’d got away from him, that she’d realised who the other woman had been: a famous French actress. He certainly didn’t ring people he despised to ask them out for dinner. People who had ruined his chance for marital happiness. And even by some accounts a huge merger with his fiancée’s family shipping company, but she wasn’t sure about that. She’d avoided listening to anyone talk about it at the time and in England, at least, it hadn’t hit the news with the same force.
‘Somehow I don’t think you do, Alexandros.’
‘But I do, Kallie. I’d like us to catch up,’ he returned easily. Far too easily. As if he’d anticipated exactly how she’d respond.
Kallie’s hand tightened even more on the phone and she felt dizzy. This had to be some kind of bad dream, a sick joke. He was playing with her.
‘Alexandros, I don’t want to go out for dinner. You said you never wanted to see me again.’
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind.’
‘Why?’ she almost pleaded.
‘Let’s just say you owe me at least this, don’t you think?’
Kallie closed her eyes weakly. What could she say? She searched frantically for an excuse but, as if reading her mind, his voice trickled down the line like dark honey, weaving around her senses.
‘I had a nice chat with your assistant. She was most helpful in informing me how clear your diary is this evening.’
Kallie cursed Cécile mentally. And yet she couldn’t stop the entirely uncontrollable part of her that was intrigued…that wanted to be able to say yes. She had no excuse not to, and to fight was to invite him further into a dialogue that might take them down a path she didn’t want to go.
Her voice was stiff with obvious reluctance. ‘It would seem that I have no choice. I’m finished work around six this evening…when would suit you?’
‘I have a table booked for dinner at the Hotel de Crillon at the Place de la Concorde. Eight o’clock. I can pick you up…or send my driver?’
Kallie thought of her tiny flat in the Marais district and spoke quickly. ‘No. There’s no need. I can meet you there.’
She could almost feel him shrug on the other end of the phone. ‘As you wish. Eight, then. I’ll wait for you in the bar.’
CHAPTER THREE
ALEXANDROS put down the phone and stood up from the leather chair. In custom-made Italian trousers and shirt, he walked over to the window of his offi
ce and stuck his hands deep in his pockets. The action drew the fabric taut over his buttocks, the shirt stretched over broad shoulders. He cut an impressive, very masculine figure silhouetted against the window. He thought back to the other night. The remnants of the shock of seeing Kallie again still lingered. Along with the shock of how much she’d changed, and the desire that had pounded through his entire body. That still pounded through it just from hearing her voice.
It had been harder to extricate himself from Isabelle than he had thought. It had taken two nights. More jewellery. And dinner in the newest, most expensive restaurant. She’d been more tenacious than he’d realised and he was relieved the episode was over. She’d begun to fancy herself as perhaps being in line for marriage and had not been pleased to discover that, instead, he’d wanted to end things.
He looked out at the horizon, his gaze skipping absently over the Eiffel tower in the distance. His thoughts centred on Kallie. Her blue-green eyes flashed again in his mind’s eye. Seven years might as well have been seven seconds. He’d been transported back in time that quickly. Felt all the old emotions surge up. Emotions he’d long thought he had under control. Apparently not.
He’d been such a fool all those years ago. How had he missed seeing her true colours? How had he ever thought for a second of her family being closer to him than even his own? His hand clenched into a fist as he remembered how vindictive she’d been. And how he hadn’t seen it coming at all.
He’d been fooled into somehow believing that she of all people wouldn’t have changed. He could still remember seeing her across the room that night, smiling sweetly at him. It had been like balm to his ravaged spirit. A cool reminder of happier times, more carefree concerns. And then to have her morph into some kind of temptress, right in front of his eyes. He could still feel the astonishment that had slammed into him. So immobilising that he hadn’t even pulled away from her kiss immediately.
