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He felt acutely vulnerable; if Ari had recognised her, then who was to say that others hadn’t? He remembered how he’d led her outside with one thought in mind: getting her alone so he could explore his attraction, with no clue as to her identity. He let anger dispel the unwelcome feeling of vulnerability. Had she been planning some sort of incident? What the hell had she been playing at with him? Seducing him with those huge blue eyes and then trying to pretend she didn’t desire him? She’d been toying with him from that moment by the pool. Those widening eyes must have held recognition of who he was, not the mutual flash of attraction he’d believed it to be. The thought made bile rise. He hadn’t felt so exposed … ever.
Had her father sent her, like some sort of pawn? Had the whole thing been an act? Leo’s entire body stiffened in rejection of that thought. Just then he saw his own father approaching, with a delegation of other men. He had no time to process this now, and for the rest of the evening Leo would have to act and smile and pretend that he didn’t want to rip off his bow tie, throw his jacket down and go and find Angel Kassianides and get her to answer some very pertinent questions.
A week later, New York
Leo stood at the huge window in his office that looked out over downtown Manhattan. The view was familiar, but he didn’t see it. All he could see, and all he had seen every time he closed his eyes since Athens, was Angel Kassianides’ angelic face, tipped up to his, eyelids fluttering closed, just before he’d kissed her. He laughed caustically to himself. Angel. Whoever had named her had named her well.
He wrenched his mind away from Angel and thought of Athens. Not that he’d admit it to anyone yet, and certainly not his father, but Athens had changed something fundamental inside him. New York was spread out below him and he felt nothing. It was as if even though he’d been born and brought up here it had never claimed him. It didn’t resonate within him the way it once had. Now it was just a fast-living jumble of towering buildings.
He’d even rung his mistress that morning, after avoiding her all week, which was not like him, and broken it off. Her histrionics still rang in his ear. But he hadn’t even felt a twinge of conscience. He’d felt relief.
Angel. It irritated him how easily she kept inserting herself into his consciousness. He hadn’t been able to indulge in seeking her out and asking her just what the hell she’d been playing at in his father’s villa due to a crisis erupting here in his head office. A crisis that looked set to continue for at least a few weeks, much to his irritation. Not that it was serving to take his mind off her. He wasn’t used to women distracting his attention, and certainly not ones he hadn’t even slept with.
Anger bubbled low within him. The feeling that he’d been made a fool of was a novel one, and not something he was prepared to allow for a moment longer. Angel Kassianides was playing with fire if she thought she could make a fool out of a Parnassus. Out of him. How dared she? After everything her family had done to his? On the very night of his public introduction to Athens society?
Her sheer audacity struck him again. Evidently the Kassianides family weren’t content to let the past be the past. Did they want to rake up old enmity or worse, to fight to the death until they reined supreme again?
Leo frowned. Perhaps they had the support of some of the old Athens elite? Perhaps the threat was something to be concerned about …? And then, he chastised himself. Maybe it was all nothing. A pure coincidence that Angel had been there that night.
A small voice mocked: was it a coincidence that out of all the people there, she was the one you noticed? Leo’s hands fisted in his pockets. He was not going to let her get away with this.
He turned around and picked up his phone and made a call. His conversation with the person on the other end was short and succinct. When he was finished he turned back to the view. Leo had just made a momentous announcement with the minimum of fuss: he was going to return to Athens and take over Parnassus Shipping. A tingling anticipation skated over his skin, made his blood hum.
The thought of facing Angel Kassianides again and forcing her to explain herself made the blood fizz and jump in Leo’s veins. His jaw tightened as he fought the sudden surge of extreme impatience, a demand in his body that he act on his decision and go right now. He had things to do, his business in New York to sort out; a crisis at hand. He would bide his time and prepare, drive down this almost animalistic urge to leave. He assured himself that Angel Kassianides was not the catalyst behind his decision; but she was going to be one of his first ports of call.
CHAPTER TWO
A month later
ANGEL’S heart hammered painfully. She felt a cold sweat break out all over her body. For the second time in just weeks she was in the worst place in the world: the Parnassus villa. She felt sick when she remembered what had happened out on the terrace. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. She could not be thinking of that now. Of Leo Parnassus. Of how he’d made her feel just before she’d found out exactly who he was. Of how it had been so hard to forget him.
She opened her eyes again and tried to make out the rooms in the dim light. To her intense relief the place appeared to be empty, and she sent up silent thanks that for once the newspaper reports had been right. She’d read about Georgios Parnassus’ ailing health, and how he was taking a rest on a recently acquired Greek island. She felt the reassuring bulk of the document in the inside pocket of her jacket. This was why she was here. She was doing the right thing.
Ever since it had been announced in the press just a few days ago that Leo Parnassus was taking over the reins of the Parnassus shipping fleet, and leaving New York to come back to Athens permanently, Angel had grown more skittish and her father more and more bitter and vitriolic, seeing any chance of redeeming himself diminish. A young, vibrant head of the Parnassus Corporation was a much bigger threat than the ailing father had been, despite their success.
Angel had returned home from her new job yesterday to find her father cackling drunkenly over a thick document. He’d spotted her creeping through the hall and called her into the drawing room. Reluctantly she’d obeyed, knowing better than to annoy him.
He’d gestured to the document. ‘D’you know what this is?’
Angel had shaken her head. Of course she didn’t know.
‘This, dear daughter, is my ticket out of bankruptcy.’ He’d waved the sheaf of pages. ‘Do you realise what I’m holding here?’
Angel had shaken her head again, an awful sick feeling creeping up her spine.
Her father had slurred, ‘What I’m holding is the deepest, darkest secrets of the Parnassus family and their fate. Georgios Parnassus’ final will and testament. I now know everything. About all their assets, exactly how much they’re worth, and how he plans on distributing it all. I also know that his first wife killed herself. They must have hushed that up. Can you imagine what would happen if this was leaked to the right people? I can take them down with this.’
I can take them down with this. Nausea had risen from Angel’s gut to think that after all these years, and after what the Parnassus family had been through, her father still wanted to fuel the feud. He was so blinded by bitterness that he couldn’t see that doing something like this would make him and his family look even worse. Not to mention cause untold pain to the Parnassus family in revealing family secrets, if what he said about the suicide was true.
‘How did you get it?’
Her father had waved a dismissive hand. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
Familiar cold disgust had made Angel bite out, ‘You sent one of your goons to the villa to steal it.’
Her father’s face had grown mottled, confirming what she’d said, or at least the fact that he had stolen it. She’d no idea how he had actually done it, but some slavishly loyal men still surrounded her father.
Her father had become belligerent, clearly done with her. ‘What if I did? Now, get out of here. You make me sick every time I look at you and am reminded of your whore of a mother.’
Angel was so used to her father speaking to her like that she hadn’t even flinched. He’d always blamed her for the fact that her glamorous Irish mother had walked out on them when Angel had been just two years old. She’d left the room, then waited for a while and gone back. Sure enough her father had passed out in his chair, one hand clutching the thick document, the other clutching an empty bottle of whisky to his chest. He’d been snoring loudly. It had been easy to slide the sheaf of pages out from his loosened fingers and creep back out.
Early that morning she’d gone straight to work, taking the will with her, knowing that her father would still be passed out cold. And then, late that evening, she’d taken the journey up to the Parnassus villa, but had panicked momentarily when faced with a security guard and the enormity of what she had to do. She’d blurted out something about being at the function some weeks before and leaving something valuable behind.
To her intense relief, after the unsmiling guard had consulted with someone, she’d been let in. To her further relief, when she’d reached the kitchens, she’d found no one and had crept up through the silent house, praying that she’d find the study. She’d leave the papers in a drawer and slip away again.
She was not going to let her father create more bad feeling between the families. That was the last thing they needed, the last thing Delphi needed. Every day now Stavros was begging Delphi to elope, but she was standing strong and refusing, determined not to ruin Stavros’ prospects and be responsible for tearing his family apart.
The flaring up of their old feud with the most powerful family in Athens would make any prospect of marriage between them even more impossible. Angel heard her sister sobbing herself to sleep every night, and knew that a very real rift could break the young lovers apart for ever if something didn’t happen soon. On top of everything else, Delphi had important law exams to think about.
The enormity of it all threatened to swamp Angel for a moment.
She emerged into the huge reception hall and stood for a moment, trying to calm her nerves, to stop her mind from spiralling into despair. Her breath was coming fast and shallow. She felt a prickling across the back of her neck and chastised herself. There was no one there. Just get on with it!
Seeing a half-open door across the expanse of marbled floor, she held her breath and tiptoed across. Gingerly pushing the door open a little more fully, she breathed a sigh of relief once more when she saw that it was the study. Moonlight was the only illumination, and it cast the room in dark shadows.
Angel could make out a desk and went over, feeling for a drawer. Her fingers snagged a catch and she pulled it out, while reaching her hand into her pocket for the will at the same time. She’d just pulled it free and was about to place it into the drawer when the lights blazed on, with such suddenness and ferocity that Angel jumped back in fright.
Leonidas Parnassus stood in the doorway, arms folded, eyes so dark and forbidding that they effectively froze Angel from feeling anything but numb. And then he said quietly, but with ice dripping from his tone, ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Angel blinked in the intense light. She heard a roaring in her ears and had to fight against the very real need to faint. She couldn’t faint. But she couldn’t speak. Her brain and body were going into meltdown at being confronted with Leo Parnassus, standing just a few feet away, dressed in dark trousers and a plain light blue shirt, looking dark and intimidatingly gorgeous. Looking like the man who had invaded her dreams for the past seven weeks.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
With a few quick strides Leo had crossed the room, moving so fast and with such lethal grace that Angel just watched in disbelief when he effortlessly whipped the will out of her white-knuckle grip.
‘Well, Kassianides, let’s see what you came for.’
Angel watched dumbly as he unfolded the document. She heard his indrawn breath when he registered what it was.
He looked at her, his dark gaze like black ice. ‘My father’s will? You came here to steal my father’s will? Or just whatever you could get your dirty little hands on?’
Angel shook her head, registering that he’d called her Kassianides. It distracted her. ‘You … you know who I am?’
His jaw tightened. Angel saw the movement and felt a flutter in her belly. He threw the will down on the table and reached out, taking her arm in a punishing grip. Angel bit back a cry at his touch, more of shock than pain.
He unceremoniously hauled her from behind the desk and led her over to a chair in the corner. He all but thrust her into it.
‘I should have guessed after your last stunt that you obviously don’t have any qualms about trespassing where you’re not welcome.’
He didn’t answer her redundant question. Patently he now knew exactly who she was, and she realised that someone at the party must have told him after they’d seen him take her outside.
She knew it was probably futile, but she said it anyway. ‘If I’d known for a second where I would be working that night I wouldn’t have been here, I found out when it was too late.’
He all but sneered, towering over her now, arms crossed again over his broad chest. ‘Please, give me some credit. You might be able to distract other people with that seductively innocent face, but after what I’ve just seen I know that you’re rotten to your core. Your whole family are.’
Angel went to stand up on a fierce wave of anger. It was not fair to assume that she was like her ancestors, or her father, but before she could get a word out Leo had easily pushed her back down, not even using much force. Angel felt as weak as a rag doll, shaky all over. Once again the reality of his touch was more shocking than his action.
She clenched her fists and welcomed the rush of energy that anger brought. ‘You have it all wrong. I’m not here to steal anything. If you must know—’
Leo slashed a hand through the air, silencing her. Angel stopped abruptly. As much as she held no love for her father, she realised in that moment the futility of landing the blame at his door. Leo Parnassus would just laugh in her face. She’d quite literally been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and could blame no one but herself.
She watched as he paced back and forth, his hands on his hips. The fingers were long and lean, and a sprinkling of dark hair dusted the backs of his hands. Suddenly an image of him hauling himself out of the pool that evening in one sleek movement caused heat to explode low in her pelvis.
In a moment of blind panic, feeling intensely vulnerable, Angel sprang up again and stood behind the high-backed chair. As if that could offer protection! Leo stopped and turned around to face her, surveying her coolly.
Angel asked huskily, ‘What … what are you going to do? Are you going to call the police?’
He ignored her question and walked over to a sideboard, where he poured himself a measure of whisky. He downed the drink in one swallow, the strong bronzed column of his throat working, making Angel feel even more weak and trembly.
Leo’s eyes snared hers again, and she saw something flame in the dark depths, revealing golden lights.
‘Did your father send you here that night? Was it a recce for tonight? Or is this your own ingenuity?’
Angel’s hands clenched on the back of the chair; she could feel her ponytail coming loose. ‘I told you. The night of the party I had no idea where we were going. I worked for that catering company, they didn’t tell us until we were on the way for security reasons.’
He all but laughed out loud. ‘And once you and your father knew that Georgios was away, you took advantage of the opportunity. The only thing you didn’t factor in was my return.’
‘Th … there was nothing in the press.’
Leo glowered, and Angel quailed even more. Now she’d made it sound even worse. No way could she reveal that she’d been helplessly drawn to scanning the papers every day to read about his movements.
‘I came a week early, hoping to surprise a few people. We’re very aware—’ his mouth tightened ‘—more so now we’re in transition of power, that people will believe we’re an easy target to take over.’
Angel had a nauseating realisation. ‘You saw me arrive. The security guard checked with you …’
Leo indicated to Angel’s right-hand side, and she looked over to see an ante-room off the study, the door through which he had appeared. In it, she could clearly make out a glowing wall of cameras, showing flickering black and white images. CCTV cameras. One of which looked directly over the main gate. He’d watched nearly every step of her progress. She felt sick when she thought of how she’d crept through the house. Her naivety mocked her. Of course she’d never have got near this place if he hadn’t been here. She looked back.
Leo’s face was so harsh that Angel felt a jolt of pure fear go through her. This man was a million miles from the seductive stranger she’d met that night.
‘Your audacity is truly astonishing. Clearly you have the confidence born of your position in society, even if you don’t hold that position any longer.’
Angel could have laughed if she’d had the wherewithal. Tito might have been wealthy once, but he was a despot and had controlled all their lives with a tight fist. It hadn’t been audacity that had led her to that gate; it had been sheer fear and a desire to right a wrong.
‘I wasn’t coming to steal anything, I swear.’
Leo gestured back to the will sitting on the table and completely ignored her statement. ‘What were you hoping to glean from it?’ He laughed harshly. ‘That’s a stupid question. No doubt your father was hoping to use inside information on my father’s estate to undermine him in some way. Or were you going to use the information to do a bit of honey-trapping, maybe? You’d have enough information to try and winkle out some more? Take advantage of the kiss we shared that night?’
Angel flushed hotly when she thought of that kiss, and then remembered her father’s gloating talk last night. That was exactly how her father would think. Too late, she saw the hard, unforgiving look come into Leo’s eyes, his jaw tense. Clearly he was misinterpreting her misplaced guilt.
Once again she knew that it would be futile to tell the truth. Leo Parnassus would be more likely to believe in Santa Claus than in her innocence, especially when the circumstantial evidence was so damning. All she knew was that she needed to get out of there. She was feeling increasingly hot and bothered under his intense and concentrated regard.
Tentatively she came from around the chair. She reassured herself that he was an urbane man of the world. An American. She had to be able to appeal to some rational part of him.
‘Look. You have the will. I’m sorry for trespassing where I’m not welcome. I promise if you let me go that you’ll never see or hear from me again.’ Angel ignored the way her heart gave a funny little clench when she said that. She couldn’t even begin to contemplate her father’s reaction to what she’d done, and of course she couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t do something stupid again, but she kept her mouth shut.
Leo put down the glass silently on the table. Angel followed the movement warily. A strange charge came into the air between them and she found her eyes being helplessly drawn back to his. They were glowing with gold in their depths again, reminding her of how he’d looked at her just before he’d kissed her that night on the terrace. His eyes dropped then, insolently sweeping down her body, taking in her worn jeans, black top and jacket. Sneakers. And suddenly it was as if she was breaking out into little fires all over her skin.
Her heart started thumping. In a blind panic, to negate her reaction, she moved again, telling herself that he wouldn’t stop her if she just walked out. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d actually broken into the villa.
But just as she was about to pass him she felt her arm being gripped, and she was swung around so fast that she lost her balance and fell against him. All the breath seemed to leave her body.
In an instant he’d loosened her already unravelling hair, and it fell around her shoulders. His hand held her head, tilting her face up to him. His other arm was like a steel band around her back. Angel was afraid to move or breathe, because that would invite a contact that would scatter what remained of any coherent thought. As it was, she was barely clinging onto a shred of sanity.
‘Do you know that you’ve actually done me a favour, Kassianides?’
Angel winced inwardly at his use of her surname, hating the fact that it bothered her.
‘You’ve saved me a trip. Because I was going to confront you about why you’d come here that night. You couldn’t possibly have believed you’d get away with it, could you?’
It was a rhetorical question. Angel said nothing, too scared of the burgeoning feelings and sensations running through her body. When Leo spoke again his chest rumbled against hers.
‘I was also curious to know if perhaps I’d been too harsh in my first assessment as to why you’d been waitressing at our party. After all, just because you’re Tito’s daughter, perhaps it wasn’t entirely fair to assume the worst.’
Angel couldn’t believe it. She saw a glimmer of hope and started to nod her head. She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t giving her an opportunity to speak. His voice became harder and harsher.
‘But your actions here tonight have damned you completely. The minute you saw the opportunity you were back, and this time to steal something of real value that could be used in an effort to harm our family. That will has information about my own estate, so it’s not just my father you’ve committed a crime against, it’s me.’
Cold horror trickled through Angel. This was so much worse than she’d thought.
Leo continued, ‘It’s almost cute, how naive you were to think you could be so blatant. Do you really think if I hadn’t been here that it would have been so easy to get access to this villa?’
Angel’s fragile hopes died there and then. She tried to summon her strength and pull free, and regretted it immediately when it merely gave Leo more room to hold her even tighter against him. Her breasts were crushed against his chest. They were pressed together, torso to torso, hip to hip. His breath feathered near her mouth—when had his head moved so close?
She tried to pull back and his fingers tightened in her hair. She winced, even though he wasn’t really hurting her. His mocking smile sliced through her defences.
‘You can’t be so naive as to believe you’re getting away that easily, Kassianides, can you?’
Cold fear trickled through Angel. For a second she was distracted enough to ask, ‘What do you mean?’
‘There was another reason I was going to come for you.’
Angel shivered inwardly, he sounded so implacable. ‘There was?’
He nodded, his face so close now that she felt as if she was drowning in the dark golden depths of his eyes. Her hands were between them, resting on his chest, where they’d gone in an instinctive move to steady herself. She could feel his heart beating steadily underneath them and it made her want to move her hips. She stayed rigid.
‘You’ve kept me awake for weeks.’ He grimaced. ‘I tried to deny it, ignore it. But this desire wouldn’t abate. I’m not in the habit of denying myself anything, or anyone I want. As much as I despise myself for feeling this … I want you, Angel.’
Angel’s brain couldn’t compute the significance of what he was saying, and certainly couldn’t compute the tumult of emotions that had threatened to swamp her when he’d called her Angel. All those nights she’d woken sweating from torrid dreams … he’d been thinking of her too?
