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‘And I’ll have the rib-eye.’ He handed the menus to the waiter, thinking that her soft English accent managed to do erotic things with the single syllable of his name. He fixed her with a questioning look. ‘Wine?’
She thought she probably shouldn’t. In fact, she definitely shouldn’t. Wine might make the meal seem like a pleasure, rather than the necessity it clearly was. But Emma was strung out—and the idea of having to endure an evening facing Zak Constantinides without something to help relax her was more than she was prepared to tolerate.
‘A glass would be lovely.’
He nodded and the sommelier was dispatched, returning with two glasses of red wine so rich that Emma could smell it from five paces away. She took an eager sip and put the glass down with a little sigh, looking up to meet the curiosity lancing through his grey eyes. ‘The wine’s very good,’ she said politely.
‘Of course it’s good—do you really think I’d drink anything but the best?’
‘Silly of me not to realise that everything you do is a testimony to how wonderful you are.’
‘Very silly. But I haven’t brought you here to talk about the wine, Emma. Or about me.’
‘I didn’t think you had,’ she said, her heart suddenly beginning to race, because suddenly she suspected what was coming next.
‘I want to know what it’s like being back in New York,’ he questioned—and now his voice took on a harsh tone. ‘You lived here when you were married, didn’t you?’
So he hadn’t forgotten that she’d lived here—and he hadn’t cared that she might be upset by that fact. Of course he hadn’t—for he had made his hostility towards her very clear, right from the start. He didn’t care how much she hurt—because he saw her simply as an obstacle to be removed from his brother’s life.
She wanted to tell him that her past was none of his business and yet a feeling of resignation made the words die in her throat. Because in a way, hadn’t this conversation been inevitable from the moment she’d first walked into his office? He was determined to know more about her and she couldn’t keep stonewalling questions which were bound to keep coming, could she? It all boiled down to whether she was ashamed of her past. Maybe a little—but she was proud of the way she’d risen from the ashes of it to start all over again.
‘What is it you want to know?’ she questioned.
‘I want to know how a small-town English girl managed to meet and marry someone like Louis Patterson. And whether the price you paid for your ten minutes of fame was worth it.’
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_98070cfa-10fd-5c49-b92d-7773e1badd46)
EMMA’S fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass as she met the accusation which glittered from Zak’s grey eyes. ‘I’m surprised you need to ask me anything about my past—I thought you’d already had me investigated thoroughly by some sleuth you’d hired.’
He took a sip of his own wine. ‘I know the facts. What I’m interested in are the reasons behind those facts. And let’s face it, Emma—if your relationship with my brother does survive this separation …’ He paused, not wanting to acknowledge the dark thoughts which flashed into his mind as he tried to envisage this particular scenario. ‘If you really were to become my sister-in-law—then surely you owe it to me to tell me more about your background.’
‘I don’t owe you anything!’
‘No? Then what’s the big mystery? Are you ashamed of what you’ve done? Maybe dabbled in a few things which aren’t strictly legal?’ he speculated.
‘No, I have not!’
‘And does Nat know about your past?’
‘Of course he does.’
‘So why not tell me, too?’
Emma drank down an angry mouthful of wine. Because Nat hadn’t judged her as she suspected this man would judge her. Because she didn’t fancy being dissected by those cold grey eyes and made to feel like some animal in a laboratory, which was vulnerable to the cruel scalpel of the scientist.
Yet she wasn’t supposed to be ashamed of her upbringing, was she? Not any more. Not when she had coped with it as well as she could. Was it her fault that she’d been given a vacuous and man-hungry mother who had always put her little girl second? Who had taught her daughter all the wrong lessons in life, which had taken a while to unlearn.
‘You know I’m illegitimate?’ she questioned bluntly.
Her candour took him by surprise and, to his astonishment, something in the darkening of her eyes made him want to offer an unlikely chunk of reassurance. ‘That’s no longer the stigma it was.’
‘In theory it isn’t,’ she contradicted. ‘In practice it isn’t so good if everyone knows that you’ve never even seen your father—or that you don’t have a clue who he is. Or that your mother seeks the comfort of strangers to warm her bed at night.’
Zak’s mouth tightened, all sympathy now fled. ‘Your mother was a—’
Emma shook her head. ‘Oh, she wasn’t a prostitute—if that’s what you’re thinking. She was just very …’ she swallowed ‘… fond of men. And not very good at choosing men. Something she seems to have passed on to me.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’
‘Oh, I’m not talking about Nat,’ she amended hastily, remembering a little too late that she was supposed to be masquerading as the lovelorn girlfriend of his brother. ‘Nat has been the best thing that ever happened to me.’
‘I’m not here to talk about my brother,’ he bit back, his blood growing heated with what he suspected was more than a feeling of sibling protectiveness. ‘I asked you about Patterson. How did you meet him?’
For a moment Emma said nothing, because it was still painful to relive it. To remember her naivety—a naivety which had been almost laughable in view of the bizarre nature of her upbringing.
‘How did I meet Louis?’ she repeated. ‘Circumstance, I guess.’
‘Circumstance?’ he echoed.
‘That’s right. You could never have planned for what happened.’
‘Oh?’
There was a moment of silence. ‘My mother was a brilliant dancer,’ she said at last. ‘In another life, she might have done it professionally, but that was almost impossible as a single mother with very little in the way of regular income. Her life was one of constant frustration. Domesticity bored her—she saw it as drudgery—and so did motherhood. So she didn’t play board games or read me any bedtime stories, or any of the normal stuff that children get—but she did have a great sense of style, and colour, which I did inherit. And, as I say—she was a great dancer.’
Zak nodded as her incredible posture suddenly made sense. The way she had seemed almost to float out of his office. ‘She taught you to dance?’ he guessed.
‘Yes,’ said Emma simply, leaning back as the waiter deposited elegant layers of aubergine and pasta before her and trying not to shudder at the sight of Zak’s bloody rib-eye steak. ‘They were the best times I ever had with her. She’d put the music on really high—sometimes the neighbours would bang on the ceiling with a broom—and we’d wrap ourselves up in floaty shawls, and just dance.’
‘And Patterson saw you dancing?’ he guessed.
Unwillingly, she gave a nod to his perception. ‘Yes, he did. I was exactly eighteen when I met him and had gone to the most fashionable nightclub in London. It was my birthday present from Mum—she’d been saving up for it for ages. She said that every girl on the brink of womanhood should get a glimpse of what the world could offer—that there was glamour out there if only you looked for it. I’d never been anywhere like it before.’
‘Never?’
She shook her head. ‘It was dark with flashing lights, and the music was thumping out. I didn’t really like it. It felt false … unreal. There was a big podium at the front—all silver and sparkling—and my favourite song came on. I was feeling a bit out of my depth but that was something familiar. One of my friends egged me on, so I got up and danced my heart out and Louis was sitting in a corner, watching. He said afterwards that—’
‘Don’t tell me. It was love at first sight?’ he questioned cynically, imagining the tawdry chat-up lines which must have ensued.
She shrugged. ‘That’s what he said.’
Hearing the defensiveness in her voice, Zak pushed his plate away. He could imagine just what an arresting sight she must have been. Young. Blonde. Presumably virginal. He felt the jerk of some dark emotion he didn’t want to analyse. ‘You inspired him?’ he asked slowly.
‘I guess so. He wrote “Fairy Dancer” that same night. When it hit the top of the charts, he decided that I was his number-one muse and he couldn’t live without me. That kind of thing can easily go to a young girl’s head.’ Especially when your mother was egging you on and telling you that you’d never get another chance quite like this one.
Louis had showered her with gifts and attention—and, more importantly, he hadn’t leapt on her. He told her he respected her virginal status and that he would gladly wait until after they were married. And Emma had agreed, carried along on that unreal wave she was riding—as well as her mother’s excitement. By the time her doubts had set in on the night before the wedding, it was too late. Her mother told her it was nothing but ‘nerves’ and to pull herself together.
‘So I married him. And the rest of the story is well documented. I found him dead a year later from a combination of drink and drugs. It’s not something I care to dwell on. Anything else you want to know, Mr Constantinides?’
Unexpectedly, he said, ‘I thought I told you to call me Zak.’
She stared at him, shaken by the emotional catharsis of recounting a story which she’d buried deeply, wanting to tell him that calling him by his first name seemed ridiculously intimate. That she wanted to keep as much distance between them as possible. Because something about him was making her feel stuff. The sort of stuff she was scared to feel because it was what had made her mother’s life such a mess. Desire and lust and a yearning to be kissed. A longing to be loved and cherished and made to feel the centre of someone’s world. And yet, if she told him that—wouldn’t she look hopelessly vulnerable as well as a hopeless judge of men?
‘I’m very tired, Zak. How’s that?’
‘Better.’
‘And I think I want to go to bed now.’
‘But you haven’t touched your meal.’
‘Neither have you.’
‘No.’ Once again, Zak stared at his plate. Never had a steak seemed more unappetizing, but then he’d never found himself in a situation such as this. Parts of her story had aroused in him an unwilling empathy and yet that didn’t change the fundamental problem. It didn’t matter that she had turned her life around—she had done that mainly because she aroused fierce passions in very rich men. Bottom line was that she was still the wrong kind of woman for Nat and she always would be.
‘I’ll see you up to your room,’ he said abruptly.
‘There’s no need.’
‘There’s every need,’ he argued. ‘You’re jet-lagged and probably feeling disorientated.’
She certainly was—but her disorientation wasn’t being helped by the fact that he was there. That the closeness of his powerful body was taunting her with the elusive promise of pleasure. And it was wrong for all kinds of reasons. Wrong because of Nat and wrong because it was Zak.
Weariness swept over her—a potent combination of not enough sleep or food, with a glass of rich red wine thrown in to further complicate it. Her body felt drained and her legs were shaky as they walked to the elevator, which was fortunately busy enough to preclude any kind of conversation. The lift doors opened on to the thirty-second floor and Zak followed her out, but as she reached her room and began to fumble in her bag for her key-card she felt herself stumble slightly. Felt Zak’s hand automatically reach out to steady her and Emma stiffened as he gripped her.
His fingers seemed to sizzle through the thin material of her floaty top—almost as if they were scorching the skin which lay beneath. She could feel the thready patter of her heart and her breathing suddenly became as laboured as if she’d been running.
For a moment they stared into each other’s eyes as time and place merged, the background of his fancy hotel blurring into insignificance so that all she could see was the darkened pewter of his burning gaze. And in that moment she wanted him. Wanted him in a way which wiped all reason from her sleep-deprived brain.
‘Zak,’ she whispered, although she didn’t know why she said it—and, in view of her reluctance to say it earlier, it now seemed like an intimacy too far.
Zak heard the soft temptation of her voice and a powerful desire washed over him. Let her go, he urged himself savagely—but his body stubbornly refused to obey. Still his hand gripped the slim column of her arm and he was loath to pull his fingers away from the softness of her flesh.
He looked down at her, mesmerised by her closeness and the way she was looking at him. Her green eyes had grown smoky and her lips had parted in unconscious invitation and he knew that if he were to dip his head, he could claim them in a kiss which would combust. He imagined pulling her hungrily into his arms. The jut of his hips against hers and the silent circling of his heavy erection against her feminine softness. The urgent journey to her room and then the discarding of clothes until he felt her naked against him.
He could hear the powerful beat of his heart as the idea became a tantalising possibility and he could almost taste the desire which hovered in the air around them. She would let him do it. He knew she would. She would part her thighs and urge him into her sweet, molten tightness. Sweet heaven. Should he take her? Should he?
The vivid images playing in his head were almost his undoing until he forced himself to picture the sordid aftermath of such a coupling. Of confessing to his brother what he had done. Of having to look into her cheating face the next morning. He let his hand fall to his side, self-disgust hardening his lips into a savage line of contempt, appalled at his own weakness.
Was this how she had lured Louis Patterson? And then Ciro D’Angelo? And after that his brother? Like an earth-bound siren who could captivate men with her pale eyes and hair and the promise of her soft, curvy body?
He took a step back. ‘You said you were tired,’ he said harshly. ‘In which case, I’ve always found it better to go to bed on your own.’
And with that, he turned on his heel—leaving Emma staring after him, her lips trembling as she registered his withering contempt. Aware that she had been chastised for something she hadn’t even realised she’d been doing.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_3faf7800-2b17-58da-9ed8-c02abe1e7785)
THE next morning Emma found an envelope shoved underneath her door and knew who it was from, even before she’d opened it. The stark black words seemed to leap off the expensive cream paper as her trembling fingers ripped it open.
“We neglected to talk about your work last night. Meet me in the lobby at ten. Zak.”
And that was it. No endearment. No polite wishes expressed that he hoped she’d had a comfortable night. Which of course, she hadn’t. The long hours of travel hadn’t helped at all, and she’d woken at four thirty absolutely buzzing and unable to get back to sleep. She’d lain staring at the unfamiliar room and remembering those strange and provocative moments in the corridor, when she could have sworn that Zak was about to kiss her. When she’d wanted him to kiss her. And that had only been the beginning of what she’d wanted—she who had sworn off men and all the bitter fall-out of emotional attachment.
Had she gone completely crazy last night—or had she just been suffering from the potency of jet lag and wine? Opening up the blinds, Emma stared out of the window at the green oasis of Central Park. Either way, she wouldn’t be making a fool of herself by repeating it.
Putting Zak’s note down on the dresser, she showered and dressed—and ordered breakfast from room service. She crunched her way through toast and jam, forcing the food down because she knew she needed it, rather than because she really wanted it. But at least the coffee was good and strong and afterwards she felt much better.
But she was nervous when she arrived in the lobby and more nervous still when she saw Zak with his back to her, standing talking into his cellphone. How she hated the fact that her nerve-endings prickled into life when she saw him—when all she wanted to feel towards him was a cool impartiality. He was wearing a steel-grey suit and she was suddenly glad that she’d pulled something smarter from her wardrobe. She got the feeling that, in this city, clothes meant business.
He turned and saw her, terminating his call in a couple of brief words. His grey eyes narrowing, they scanned her with unwilling assessment.
Emma wondered what he saw. Had she failed on the sartorial front again? she wondered. Were a new sweater and pale jeans—stretchy enough for any ladder-climbing—still a little on the casual side for the wealthy hotelier’s taste? He was coming towards her now and it was impossible to read his thoughts from his expression. The pewter eyes were shaded by thick black lashes and his rugged olive features were as hard as marble.
To Emma’s embarrassment, her own colour had started to rise—along with the realisation that the cold light of day had done nothing to lessen her desire for him. That last night had not been some erotic, one-off blip.
But now she had to act normally. As if she hadn’t poured out her life-story to him over dinner last night and let the daylight in on the shadowy world of her past.
‘Good morning,’ she said, summoning up the brightest smile from her repertoire.
Zak noted the dark shadows beneath her eyes, which were at odds with the studiedly cheerful note in her voice. ‘You look tired,’ he observed.
‘That’s because I am.’
‘Been emailing my brother all night, I suppose?’ he enquired caustically.
Emma thought he couldn’t have been further from the truth if he’d tried—why, she’d barely thought about Nat since the moment she’d arrived.
‘Actually, no. I wasn’t.’ Because what on earth would she have said? I’m sorry, Nat—I know I said that he was a tyrant and a control-freak, but last night I was longing for your brother to make love to me. I lay there waiting in my bed, imagining what I would do if he came to me, knowing that I would have opened the door and opened my arms to him. ‘I was too busy counting sheep to try to get to sleep,’ she said hurriedly. ‘But sadly, to no avail. So you’ll have to excuse any absent-mindedness and blame it on the jet lag.’
Some of the tension left his body, her words placating him in a way they shouldn’t have done. Had he been worried she’d tell Nat that his big brother had been coming on to her? And hadn’t an extra layer of guilt begun to gnaw away at him, knowing that it would have been the truth? ‘Have you eaten?’ he questioned.
‘Yes, thanks. I had breakfast in my room.’ She smiled again, determined to dispel this damned atmosphere with a little professional crispness. ‘It’s a beautiful autumn morning and I’m looking forward to my first working day in New York! And you still haven’t told me anything about which part of the hotel needs restyling.’
Her smile did strange things to him. Made that damned heaviness start throbbing at his groin again. He’d lain awake for a long time last night, going over what she’d told him about her growing up. About her flighty mother and the dancing which had angered the neighbours. He’d wanted to think less of her—but the stupid thing was that her story had produced the opposite effect. He’d thought about the reality of what her young life must have been like and had found himself experiencing a reluctant tug of sympathy. What Emma had experienced had been nothing short of neglect, he realised—some people might even have called it abuse. Somehow it made her early marriage to the dissolute rock-star almost understandable.
Until he told himself fiercely that this was how she operated. She knew exactly what she was doing. Her marriage to Patterson would have given her an inkling of her own power and taught her that such fragile beauty was rare. With that pale waterfall of hair and amazing body, she must have quickly learnt what effect that delicate vulnerability could have on a man. Especially a man with all the clout to protect her. Had she told Ciro her pathetic story the way she’d told him—and had that been what had prompted the ruthless Italian to give her such a cushy job? Was that what had made his own brother curtail his philandering ways after all these years of messing around with women—to devote himself to her so wholeheartedly?
Zak’s mouth hardened. Well, she could use her charm on some other poor sucker than Nat—because there was no way that some illegitimate junkie’s widow was going to end up marrying into the Constantinides family.
‘Come with me,’ he said abruptly, turning as he began to walk in the direction of the function rooms, obviously expecting her to follow him.
Emma tried to take in the general mood and feel of the hotel as she scurried to keep up with him. She’d done her homework on the plane over by studying all the literature—but seeing the Pembroke’s interior for herself was much more impressive than in the glossy pages of a brochure.
The Granchester was massive—but this hotel was like its small and perfectly formed little sister. Its understated elegance only reinforced the amount of money which must have been spent on it—and she found herself wondering if all this had been inherited from his wealthy father. Hadn’t Nat told her some complicated story about the family money, which had gone in one ear and then out the other? And hadn’t that been one of the things which had been so obvious to Nat—that she truly wasn’t interested in the might of the Constantinides fortune? She sighed. Not that Zak would ever believe that, of course.
‘This is the room you will be restyling,’ he said, stopping at last in front of some art-deco double doors, which were decorated with exquisite stained glass. He pushed them open and Emma stepped into a room that was almost completely empty—but who needed furniture when a room looked as amazing as this? The proportions were generous, the high ceiling a shimmer of silver mosaic which looked as if it were composed of moving water—and best of all was the terrace, with its stunning views of Central Park and the quiet gleam of the lake beyond.
‘Oh, Zak—it’s lovely,’ she said, looking up to find his eyes fixed on her. And something in that hard and searching gaze made her quickly amend her words—as if suddenly she wanted to encourage him to revise his poor opinion of her. ‘I’m sorry, that’s right up there as the most unoriginal observation I could have made. Of course it’s lovely. You don’t need me to tell you that.’
