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‘Leandra,’ echoed Theo Atrides drawlingly, ignoring the irrelevance of her surname. Women like her had no need of anything other than a first name—preferably something exotic.
‘You are very lovely, Leandra.’ He paused infinitesimally. ‘Very lovely. All over.’
The heavy-lidded dark eyes washed over her. She felt they were stripping off every last vestige of clothing. Then he helped himself to her hand.
His touch was as electric as his look. To her shame, Leandra believed that she actually trembled as he made contact.
His hand was large and smooth. Warm and strong. And very powerful. Hers looked pale and fragile within its olive-tanned grasp.
Leisurely, Theo lifted her scarlet-tipped, freshly manicured fingers to his lips. But instead of grazing her knuckles in a courtly fashion, as Leandra was steeling herself to expect, he turned her hand over to expose her palm and bent his head.
As his lips touched her flesh she felt them part slightly. Then, in a caress that exploded every nerve-ending in her palm, they laved her skin softly and sensuously. She felt a prickle of arousal all over her body, delicious and enticing. Warm, liquid coils of heat pooled in her veins. Then suddenly, shockingly, she felt the tip of his tongue flicker exploringly at the junctions of her fingers.
Shock, outrage and a sizzle of raw sexual excitement electrified her, searing the breath in her fractured lungs. She couldn’t move even as he released her from his shockingly intimate caress.
She grabbed her hand back into her own possession. It felt as if every nerve-ending in it had been set on fire, humming like flame racing along her veins. For one long, overwhelming moment she felt as if the world was whirling round her, and the only still point was the flare of sensation echoing in her hand.
Her lips parted and she stared, helplessly, at Theo Atrides.
He smiled down at her. A warm, intimate smile. A knowing, indulgent smile. A dangerous, sexy smile.
Almost, almost she felt herself moving blindly towards him, to press herself up against his lean, hard body and give herself to him absolutely. He was like a powerful magnet sucking her towards him.
But she had to resist. She must! She was here to play his cousin’s mistress—nothing more. Forcibly she relaxed her muscles, and by sheer effort of will—still reeling from the sensual onslaught of Theo Atrides’s terrifyingly skilful, insolent mouth on her exposed, defenceless skin—she managed to pull her body back from leaning into his.
Thee mou, thought Theo, as she drew back with obvious reluctance, the girl couldn’t have come on stronger if she’d given him her telephone number! She’d all but gone up in flames for him! What the hell would she be like if he got her horizontal?
A sudden, overpowering image of her lying beneath him, naked and aching for him, yielding her body to him with soft moans, filled his mind with devastating, vivid clarity. He thrust it aside brutally. This was no time to get the hots for a woman who was threatening the stability of his family and its very future! All her sizzling reaction to his deliberate sexual provocation had proved was that, whatever she felt for Demos, it wasn’t anything that stopped her lighting up for any other man. The faithful type she wasn’t!
He turned back to his cousin.
As his attention snapped off Leandra wondered why she felt bereft, instead of relieved—as if a source of heat suddenly turned off had revealed how cold she had been feeling.
All her life.
In a daze she tried to make herself concentrate on what Theo was saying to his cousin. It was hard, because her brain felt like mush.
‘So,’ Theo said to Demos, his deep voice sounding amused, ‘this is what is keeping you in London so long, I see! I can’t say I’m surprised, now I’ve met this delicious morsel of female flesh—’ His eyes worked over Leandra once more, so brazenly she felt her stomach drop even as anger leapt in her throat at such a description. ‘But,’ he went on, holding up a hand peremptorily and focusing back on his cousin, ‘all good things come to an end, Demos. Sofia is waiting for you. It’s time to come home.’
Leandra could feel Demos tense.
‘I’m not ready,’ he replied tersely. His usually mild voice sounded strained.
‘Then be ready,’ said Theo unforgivingly. He reached out and closed his hand around his cousin’s shoulder, turning him slightly away from Leandra as if she were an intruder on the scene.
He switched to Greek, reinforcing her exclusion.
‘Milo’s on the way out, Demos. It’s only a matter of time. His doctors know it and he knows it. He’s old—he’s had too much to bear in his life—don’t do this to him. Come home and get engaged to Sofia. It’s all he asks. He needs to know that the next generation is assured—you can’t blame him for being anxious. He knows, Christos, he knows, just how uncertain life is! He needs to know that a great-grandson could be on the way soon—he needs an heir.’
He spoke rapidly, in a low voice.
Stiffly, Demos answered. ‘Milo has two grandsons, Theo. Why don’t you oblige?’
Theo’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m not the marrying kind, little cousin.’
For a second something showed in Demos’s eyes.
‘And suppose I’m not either?’ he said.
There was something in Demos’s voice that stayed his cousin. Theo looked at him narrowly.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ he asked slowly.
For a long moment Demos just looked across at him, as if he was going to say something. Then, with a fling of his hand, he shook Theo off his shoulder.
‘It means I’m having too much fun to want to settle down! I’m not ready to marry anyone, let alone Sofia Allessandros!’ An urgent note entered his voice. ‘Make Milo see that, Theo. Make him!’
Anger lashed through Theo. Anger at both of them—Milo for wanting to arrange other people’s lives because he was taking leave of his own, and Demos for insisting on living his own life when he had responsibilities to meet!
And most of all anger, irrational but powerful, against the girl plastered against Demos—the cause of all this trouble.
He wanted out of this! He hadn’t wanted to come here, and now he was here he wanted to wash his hands of the whole business. He wanted to get away—away from the endless demands of family, of business—go some place where all he had to do was gaze out over the blue Aegean, hear the cicadas calling, inhale the heady scent of the maquis, feel the zephyred wind from the south on his body.
With a soft, compliant woman in his arms…
Like the one at Demos’s side…
He gave a rasp in his throat, banishing the dangerously enticing vision.
‘Enough!’ His hand slashed the air with a short, brusque slash. ‘I’ll expect you tomorrow, Demos. Milo wants to see you at nine. We’re in the penthouse suite here. Be on time.’ He eyed his cousin darkly, his harsh gaze sweeping out to Leandra. ‘And get some sleep tonight!’ he finished, reverting to English.
His eyes flickered briefly over her face. The expression in them made her want to hit him. His thoughts were naked. With a woman like her at his side what man would want to sleep?
He, for one, could think of a thousand better things to do with her—
He snapped his mind away again. The woman was an irrelevance.
Soon her brief intrusion into his family affairs would be over—permanently.
Demos Atrides opened the door to his apartment and ushered Leandra inside. Immediately she was tightly enveloped in a bear hug.
‘Well,’ demanded the extremely handsome blond embracing her with long familiarity. ‘How did it go? Did he show?’
Leandra extricated herself, tossing her evening bag on the silk-covered sofa, and kicked off one of her high heels. Her feet were killing her. She said nothing. She didn’t think she could for the moment.
‘Oh, yes, he showed all right,’ said Demos behind her. His voice was tight.
‘And?’ demanded the other young man. ‘Did he fall for it?’
Demos gave a short laugh, displaying the tension he was still under.
‘Hook, line and sinker—isn’t that what you say?’
The blond laughed, showing an expanse of gleaming white teeth in a brilliant smile that lit his handsome face. Leandra laughed too, but hers was short, with an edge to it.
‘With the emphasis on hook—as in hooker,’ she said bitingly. ‘God, Chris.’ She kicked off her other shoe and flexed her aching ankles. ‘Thanks to that dress you poured me into, Theo Atrides looked at me like I was some kind of tart!’
A shiver went through her at the memory of the way Demos’s cousin had looked her over—and more than looked…
But Chris was not dismayed. ‘That’s brilliant, Lea—just what we wanted! He’s got to think Demos is totally captivated by his sexy little mistress! Speaking of sexy—’ he caught her shoulders ‘—you, darling, look absolutely edible! Yum, yum!’
Leandra was in no mood for his foolery. Reaction and revulsion were setting in with a vengeance.
‘Leave off, Chris!’ she said, pushing his hands off her shoulders and heading towards the bathroom. ‘I need to get out of this ridiculous costume!’
The evening had been far more of an ordeal than she had thought it would be—thanks to that wretched dress and Theo Atrides! She stepped out of the shower and towelled herself vigorously. It had seemed so easy, as well as a good deed, to pretend to be Demos’s mistress. All she’d had to do was move into the spare bedroom in Demos’s luxury apartment and spend the last three weeks appearing to be living with him—until his family finally got the message that he wasn’t coming home to marry Sofia Allessandros.
Leandra stared at her reflection as she combed out the knots in her wet hair, her face set. Had tonight’s performance been sufficiently convincing? Would the Atrideses finally leave him in peace now?
She hoped so—with a shudder she knew she couldn’t face another encounter with Theo Atrides. Her nerves couldn’t stand it.
A sudden shaft of depression hit her. Theo Atrides was the most incredibly attractive male she’d ever laid eyes on, and he’d seen her as nothing more than a sexy, trashy tart.
But what if he hadn’t?
Her comb paused and her imagination took flight. She saw herself, gowned in black still, but soft velvet, long, sweeping the ground, its modest décolletage set with a single white rose, her hair caught in a low, elegant chignon at the nape of her neck, her make-up subtle, her perfume elusive…
If Theo Atrides had seen her looking like that then perhaps those heavy-lidded eyes would have gazed at her quite differently, mused Leandra dreamily. Sensually, yes, but without that offensive glint of contempt he hadn’t bothered to hide. His eyes would have shown nothing but the desire of man for woman. As old as time. An eternal hunger yearning to be sated.
She sighed, beguiled by her own impossible vision. Then, abruptly, she sobered. Struggling actresses, whatever they wore, were not his fare. And even if they were, she added crushingly, it wouldn’t do you any good! Even filmstar Madeleine Fareham with her precious Oscar hadn’t gone the distance! The papers were full of her marrying her latest costar on the rebound from Theo Atrides!
Decisively, Leandra tugged the last of the knots from her newly washed hair as if she were tugging something out of her that had just taken root—a weed that looked like an orchid but was really nothing more than poison ivy.
Back in the lounge, Chris and Demos were drinking coffee. Leandra, swathed in a towelling robe, poured herself a cup and collapsed next to Chris. He put his arm around her shoulder.
‘Better now?’ he asked sympathetically.
She nodded. ‘Yes. Sorry—but, honestly, the way you dressed me up—I just felt so exposed! And Demos’s cousin looked at me like I was some kind of total floozie! It was horrible! Still…’ she took a deep breath ‘…it’s all over now. Thank goodness. Oh, Demos.’ She leant forward and tossed the diamond earrings in his lap. ‘Here you go.’
He caught them and put them on the coffee table. Then he met Leandra’s eyes.
‘Lea—thank you. Thank you a thousand times.’ He sounded embarrassed. ‘And I am sorry that my cousin behaved towards you in such a disrespectful way.’
Leandra held up a hand. She didn’t want Demos feeling bad about it.
‘It’s OK,’ she said lightly, playing it down. ‘I’ll survive. And, hey, it’s like Chris says—that was the whole plan—to make me look like a rich man’s sex toy. I should be glad he believed it!’
She looked down into her coffee cup. Oh, Theo Atrides had believed she was a sex toy all right! Memory leapt at her, searing her belly with its heat as she felt again the echo of his hand taking hers, kissing her palm…the touch of his flickering tongue…
Beneath the protectively thick towelling robe she could feel her breasts tighten.
Angry mortification filled her. She could tell herself all she liked that it had been hateful to be treated like that, but she knew she was a liar.
Theo Atrides had had an effect on her that she had never encountered in her life before. It had overwhelmed her, blasted her out of the sky like a fireball…
She’d been helpless, totally helpless. If he’d wanted, he could have taken her hand and led her away from Demos—led her away to a private room and folded her against his body, lowered that hard, mobile mouth to hers and done anything he wanted to her…anything at all…
She stared down into her coffee, appalled by this shaming realisation.
A shudder went through her as she fought to throw his image, his memory, out of her mind.
‘Lea—are you all right?’
She jerked her head up. ‘I’m fine—fine. Just tired, that’s all.’
Chris was looking at her closely.
‘Did the bastard get to you, Lea?’ he asked quietly. At his side Demos stiffened at this cavalier description of the cousin he had always looked up to, but he said nothing.
Leandra bit her lip. She could deny the way she’d reacted to Theo Atrides, but it wouldn’t fool either of them for long. She might as well admit it now.
‘Yes,’ she acknowledged. ‘But it doesn’t matter—all that matters is that he leaves Demos alone now.’
She made her voice bright and cheerful and decided she had to just pull herself together. It didn’t matter a jot that she had all but melted over Theo Atrides. It didn’t matter that he was the most devastating male she had ever seen. It didn’t even matter that he thought her nothing but a wind-up sex toy.
She would never set eyes on him again.
Theo Atrides had come and gone in her life. He wouldn’t be back.
CHAPTER TWO
THEO stared moodily out over Hyde Park from the penthouse suite where he and his grandfather were staying. The trees had turned autumnal already; summer was over.
His mood was grim. Demos had just left, and the exchange with Milo had not been pleasant. When his grandfather had finished lecturing him on duty, responsibility, family and Sofia Allessandros waiting in Athens for him to deign to turn up, Demos had stubbornly repeated what he’d said to Theo the night before. He wasn’t ready to get married. That was all. He was enjoying his bachelor life.
Then he’d walked out.
Theo turned back towards Milo.
‘You are so sure of this marriage?’ he heard himself ask.
Milo flashed him a dark look from eyes which, though wrinkled, were still keen and sharp.
‘Demos needs a good marriage. Sofia Allessandros is just the girl for him.’
Theo paused. ‘I know,’ he said carefully, ‘that you are in a hurry. But can’t you give him more time? It’s his life, Milo.’
The dark, shrewd eyes stared at him.
