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She knew, sadly, how protective it had made him over her. She had lost her mother—he would not let her lose the home she loved so much, her beloved Greymont, the one place where she had felt safe after her mother’s desertion. Life could change traumatically—the mother she’d loved had abandoned her—but Greymont was a constant, there for ever. Her home for ever.
Guilt tinged her expression now. Her father had sacrificed his own chance of finding happiness in a second marriage in order to ensure that there would never be a son to take precedence over her, to ensure that she would inherit Greymont.
Yet if she were to pass Greymont on to her own children she must one day marry—and, whilst she would not risk her heart in love, surely she could find a man with whom she could be on friendly terms, sufficiently compatible to make enduring a lifetime with him not unpleasant, with both of them dedicated to preserving Greymont?
A nip of anxiety caught at her expression. The trouble was, she’d always assumed she would have plenty of time to select such a man. But now, with the dire financial situation she was facing, she needed a rich husband fast. Which meant she could not afford to be fussy.
Her eyes rested on Toby as he listened to the speaker and she felt her heart sink. Toby Masterson was amiable and good-natured—but, oh, he was desperately, desperately dull. And, whilst she would never risk marrying a man she might fall in love with, she did at least want a man with whom the business of conceiving a child would not be...repulsive.
She gave a silent shudder at the thought of Toby’s overweight body against hers, his pudgy features next to hers, trying not to be cruel, but knowing it would be gruelling for her to endure his clumsy embraces...
Could I endure that for years and years—decades?
The question hovered in her head, twisting and cringing.
She pulled her gaze away, not wanting to think such thoughts. Snapped her eyes out across the lofty banqueting hall, filled with damask-covered tables and a sea of city-folk in dinner jackets and women in evening gowns.
And suddenly, instead of a faceless mass of men in DJs, she saw that one of them had resolved into a single individual, at a table a little way away, sitting on the far side of it. A man whose dark, heavy-lidded gaze was fixed on her.
* * *
Nikos lounged back in his chair, long fingers curved around his brandy glass, indifferent to the after-dinner speaker who was telling him things about capital markets and fiscal policies that he knew already. Instead, his thoughts were about his personal life.
Who would he choose as his trophy wife? The woman who, now that he had achieved a vast wealth to rival that of his despised father, would be his means to achieve entry into the socially elite world of his aristocratic but heartless mother. Proving to himself, and to the world, and above all to the parents who had never cared about him, that their unwanted offspring had done fine—just fine—without them.
His brow furrowed. Marriage was supposed to be lifelong, but did he want that—even with a trophy wife? His affair with Nadya had lasted two years before boredom had set in. Would he want any longer in a marriage? Once he had got what a trophy wife offered him—his place in her world—he could do without her very well.
Certainly there would be no question of love in the relationship, for that was an emotion quite unknown to him. He had never loved Nadya, nor she him—they had merely been useful to each other. The foster couple paid to raise him had not loved him. They had not been unkind, merely uninterested, and he had no contact with them now. As for his birth parents... His mouth twisted, his eyes hardening. Had they considered their sordid adulterous affair to be about love?
He snapped his mind away. Went back to considering the question of his future trophy wife. First, though, he had to sever relations with Nadya, currently in New York at a fashion show. He would tell her tactfully, thanking her for the time they’d had together—which had been good, as he was the first to acknowledge—before she flew back. He would bestow upon her a lavish farewell gift—her favourite emeralds—and wish her well. Doubtless she was prepared for this moment, and would have his successor selected already.
Just as he was now planning to select the next woman in his life.
He eased his shoulders back in the chair, taking another mouthful of his cognac. He was here in London on business, attending this City function specifically for networking, and he let his dark gaze flicker out over the throng of diners, identifying those he wished to approach once the tedious after-dinner speaker was finally done.
He was on the point of lowering his brandy glass, when he halted. His gaze abruptly zeroed in on one face. A woman sitting a few tables away.
Until now his view of her had been obscured, but as other diners shifted to face the after-dinner speaker she had become visible.
His gaze narrowed assessingly. She was extraordinarily beautiful, in a style utterly removed from the fiery, dramatic features of Nadya. This woman was blonde, the hair drawn back into a French pleat as pale as her alabaster complexion, her face fine-boned, her eyes clear, wide-set, her perfect mouth enhanced with lip-gloss. She looked remote, her beauty frozen.
One phrase slid across his mind.
Ice maiden.
Another followed.
Look, but don’t touch.
And immediately, instantly, that was exactly what Nikos wanted to do. To cross over to her, curve his long fingers around that alabaster face and tilt it up to his, to feel the cool satin of her pale skin beneath the searching tips of his fingers, to glide his thumbs sensually across that luscious mouth, to see those pale, expressionless eyes flare with sudden reaction, feel her iced glaze melt beneath his touch.
The intensity of the impulse scythed through him. His grip around his brandy glass tightened. Decision seared within him. A trophy wife might be next on his list of life ambitions, but that did not mean he had to seek her out immediately. He had been with Nadya for two years—no reason not to enjoy a more temporary liaison before seeking his bride.
And he had just seen the ideal woman for that role.
Ideal.
* * *
With an effort, Diana sheared her gaze away, heard the speech finally ending.
‘Phew!’ Toby exclaimed, throwing Diana a look of apology. ‘Sorry to make you endure all that,’ he said.
She gave a polite smile, but in her mental vision was the face of the man who had been looking at her across the tables. The image was burning in her head.
Darkly tanned, strong features, sable hair feathering his broad forehead, high cheekbones, a blade of a nose and a mouth with a sculpted contour that somehow disturbed her—but, oh, not nearly so much as the heavy-lidded dark, dark eyes that had rested on her.
Eyes that she still felt watching her, even though she was not looking at him. Did not want to. Didn’t dare to.
She felt her heart give a sudden extra beat, as if a shot of pure adrenaline had been injected into her bloodstream. Something that she was supremely unused to—unused to handling. She was accustomed to men looking at her—but not to the way she had reacted to this man.
Urgently she made her eyes cling to Toby. Familiar, amiable Toby, with his pudgy face and portly figure. In comparison with the man who’d been looking at her, poor Toby seemed pudgier and portlier than ever. Her eyes slid away, her heart sinking. She was feeling bad about what she was contemplating. Could she really be considering marrying him just because he was rich?
Guilt smote her that she should feel that way about him, but there it was. Had seeing that darkly disturbingly good-looking man just now made her realise how impossible it would be for her to marry a man like Toby? But if not Toby then who? Who could save Greymont for her?
Where can I find him? And how soon?
It was proving harder than she’d so desperately hoped, and time was running out...
* * *
Speeches finally over, the atmosphere in the banqueting hall lightened, and there was a sense of general movement amongst the tables as diners started to mingle. Nikos was talking to his host, a City acquaintance, and casually bringing the subject around to the woman who had so piqued his interest. The ice maiden...
He nodded in her direction. ‘Who’s the blonde?’ he asked laconically.
‘I don’t know her myself,’ came the reply, ‘but the man she’s with is Toby Masterson—Masterson Dubrett, merchant bankers. Want an introduction?’
‘Why not?’ said Nikos.
There had been nothing in his brief perusal to indicate that the blonde’s dinner partner was anything more to her—an impression confirmed as he was introduced.
‘Toby Masterson—Nikos Tramontes of Tramontes Financials. Fingers in many pies—some of them might interest you and vice versa,’ his host said briefly, and left them to it, heading off to talk elsewhere.
For a few minutes Nikos exchanged the kind of anodyne business talk that would interest a London merchant banker, and then he glanced at Toby Masterson’s guest.
The ice maiden was not looking at him. Quite deliberately not looking at him. He was glad of it. Women who came on to him bored him. Nadya had played hard to get—she knew her own value as one of the world’s most beautiful women, and was courted by many men. But he did not think the ice maiden was playing any such game—her reserve was genuine.
It made him all the more interested in her.
Expectantly he glanced at Toby Masterson, who dutifully performed the required introduction.
‘Diana,’ he said genially, ‘this is Nikos Tramontes.’
She was forced to look at him, though her grey eyes were expressionless. Carefully expressionless.
‘How do you do, Mr Tramontes?’ she intoned in a cool voice. She spoke with the familiar tones of the English upper class, and only the briefest smile of courtesy indented her mouth.
Nikos gave her an equally brief courtesy smile. ‘How do you do, Ms...?’ He glanced at Masterson for her surname.
‘St Clair,’ Masterson supplied.
‘Ms St Clair,’ he said, his glance going back to the ice maiden.
Her face was still expressionless, but in the depths of her clear grey eyes he was sure he saw a sudden veiling, as if she were guarding herself from his perusal of her. That was good—it showed him that despite her glacial expression she was responsive to him.
Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Toby Masterson, moving their conversation on to the EU, the latest manoeuvres from Brussels, and thence on to the current state of the Greek economy.
‘Does it impact you?’ Toby Masterson was asking.
Nikos shook his head. ‘Despite my name, I’m based in Monaco. I’ve a villa on Cap Pierre.’ He glanced at Diana St Clair. ‘What of you, Ms St Clair? Do you care for the South of France?’
It was a direct question, and she had to answer it. Had to look at him, engage eye contact.
‘I seldom go abroad,’ she replied.
Her tone still held that persistent note of not wanting to converse, and he watched her reach for her liqueur glass, raise it to her lips as if to give her something to do—something to enable her not to answer more fully. Yet her hand trembled very, very slightly as she replaced her glass, and satisfaction again bit in Nikos. The permafrost was not as deep as she wanted to convey.
‘That’s not surprising,’ Masterson supplied jovially. ‘The St Clairs have a spectacular place in the country to enjoy—Hampshire, isn’t it? Greymont?’ he checked. ‘Eighteenth-century stately pile,’ he elaborated.
Do they, indeed? thought Nikos. He looked at her with sudden deeper interest.
‘Do you know Hampshire?’ Toby Masterson was asking now.
‘Not at all,’ said Nikos, keeping his eyes on Diana St Clair. ‘Greymont? Is that right?’
For the first time he saw an expression in her eyes. A flash that seemed to spear him with the intensity of the emotion behind it. It made him certain that behind the ice was a very, very different woman. A woman capable of passion.
Then it was gone, and the frost was back in her eyes. But it had left a residue. A residue that just for a moment he thought was bleakness.
‘Yes,’ she murmured.
He made a mental note. He would have a full dossier on her by tomorrow—Ms Diana St Clair of Greymont, Hampshire. What kind of place was it? What kind of family were the St Clairs? And just what further interest might Ms Diana St Clair have for him other than presenting him with so delectable a challenge to his seductive powers to melt an ice maiden?
His eyes flickered over her consideringly. Exquisitely beautiful and waiting to be melted into his arms, his bed... But could there be yet more to his interest in her? Could she be a candidate for something more than a fleeting affair?
Well, his investigations would reveal that.
For now, however, he had whetted his appetite—and he knew with absolute certainty that he had made the impact on her that he had intended, though she was striving not to let it show.
He turned his attention back to Masterson, taking his leave with a casual suggestion of some potential mutual business interest at an indeterminate future date.
As he strolled away his mood was good—very good indeed. With or without any deeper interest in her, the ice maiden was on the way to becoming his. But on what terms he had yet to decide.
He let his thoughts turn to how he might make his next move on her...
CHAPTER TWO (#ue5223050-7f38-5c92-a2b2-65eee9465b62)
DIANA THREW HERSELF back in the taxi and heaved a sigh of pent-up relief. Safe at last.
Safe from Nikos Tramontes. From his powerfully unsettling impact on her. An impact she was not used to experiencing.
It had disturbed her profoundly. She had done her best to freeze him out, but a man that good-looking would not be accustomed to rebuff—would be used to getting his own way with women.
Well, not with me! Because I have no intention of having anything to do with him.
She shook her head, as if to clear his so disturbing image from her mind’s eye. She had far more to worry about. She knew now, resignedly, that she could not face marrying Toby—but what other solution could save her beloved home?
Anxiety pressed at her—and over the next two days in London it worsened. Her bank declined to advance the level of loan required, the auction houses confirmed there was nothing left to sell to raise such a sum. So it was with little enthusiasm that she took a call from Toby.
‘But it’s Covent Garden. And I know you love opera.’
The plaintive note in Toby’s voice made Diana feel bad. She owed him a gentle let-down. Reluctantly she acquiesced to his invitation—a corporate jolly for a performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo.
But when she arrived at the Opera House she wished she had refused.
‘You remember Nikos Tramontes, don’t you?’ Toby greeted her. ‘He’s our host tonight.’
Diana forced a mechanical smile to her face, concealing her dismay. With her own problems uppermost in her mind, she’d managed to start forgetting him, and the discomforting impact he’d had on her, but now suddenly he was here, as powerfully, disturbingly attractive as before.
Then she was being introduced to the other couple present. Diana recognised the man who had brought Nikos Tramontes over to their table. With him was his wife, who promptly took advantage of the three men starting to talk business to draw Diana aside.
‘My, my,’ she said conspiratorially, throwing an openly appraising look back at Nikos Tramontes, ‘he is most definitely a handsome brute. No wonder he’s been able to hold on to Nadya Serensky for so long. That and all his money, of course.’
Diana looked blank, and Louise Melmott promptly enlightened her.
‘Nadya Serensky. You know—that stunning redheaded supermodel. They’re quite an item.’
It was welcome news to Diana. Perhaps she’d only been imagining that Nikos Tramontes had eyed her up at the livery dinner.
Maybe it’s just me, overreacting.
Overreacting because it was so strange to encounter a man who could have such a powerfully disturbing physical impact on her. Yes, that must be it. She tried to think, as she sipped her champagne in the Crush Room, if she had ever reacted so strongly as that to any other man, and came up blank. But then, of course, she didn’t react to men. Had schooled herself all her life not to.
The men she’d dated over the years had been good-looking, but they had always left her cold. A tepid goodnight kiss had been the most any of them had ever received. Only with one, while at university, had she resolved to see if it were possible to have a full relationship without excessive passion of any kind.
She had found that it was—for herself. But eventually not for her boyfriend. He’d found her lack of enthusiasm off-putting and had left her for another woman. It hadn’t bothered her—had only confirmed how right she was to guard her heart. Losing it was so dangerous. A policy of celibacy was much wiser, much safer.
Anxiety bit at her. Except such a policy would hardly find her a husband rich enough to save Greymont. If she was truly still contemplating so drastic a solution.
