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Her stammered half-question was cut short by a man used to making snap decisions. Leo turned and all but frogmarched her across the basement to where his own low sleek black car was parked.
‘I can drive myself!’ she protested when she realised what he was doing.
‘No, you cannot.’
‘But—’
‘That could be Rico about to walk out of the lift,’ he turned on her forcefully. ‘So make your mind up, Natasha, which one of us would you prefer to be with right now!’
So very brutal in its delivery. Natasha’s mind flooded yet again with what she had witnessed upstairs and she turned into a block of ice.
Opening the car door, Leo propelled her inside. She went without protest, accidentally dropping the water bottle as she did. Jaw set like a vice now, Leo closed the door as, like a man born with special mental powers, Rasmus reappeared not far away. Leo tossed her keys at him and didn’t need to issue instructions. His security chief just slunk away again, knowing exactly what was expected of him.
Ignoring the fallen water bottle, Leo strode around the car and got in behind the wheel. She was huddled in the passenger seat, staring down at her two hands where they knotted together on the top of her little black purse and she was shivering like crazy now as the classic reaction to shock well and truly set in.
Pinning his lips together, Leo switched on the engine and thrust it into gear, then sent the car flying towards the exit on an ear-shattering screech of tires. They hit daylight and the early afternoon traffic in a seething atmosphere of emotional stress. A minute later his in-car telephone system burst into life, the screen on his dashboard flashing up Rico’s name. A choice phrase locked in the back of his throat and he flicked a switch on the steering wheel that shut the phone down.
Ten seconds later and Natasha’s phone started to ring inside her bag.
‘Ignore it,’ he gritted.
‘Do you think I am stupid?’ she choked out.
Then they both sat there in thick, throbbing silence, listening to her phone ring until her voicemail took over the call. Her phone kept on ringing repeatedly as they travelled across London with the two of them sitting there like waxwork dummies waiting for her voicemail to keep doing its thing while anger pumped adrenalin into Leo’s bloodstream making his fingers grip the steering wheel too tight.
Neither spoke a word to each other. He didn’t know what to say if it did not include a string of obscenities that would probably make this woman blanch.
Natasha, on the other hand, had closed herself off inside a cold little world filled with reruns of what she had witnessed. She knew that her sister’s behaviour was out of control, but she’d never thought Cindy would sink so low as to…
She had to swallow to stop the bile from rising again as she replayed the moment when Cindy had seen her standing in the door. She saw the look of triumph hit her sister’s face followed by the oh-so-familiar pout of defiance that revealed the truth as to why she was doing that with Rico.
Cindy didn’t really want him. She did not even like him that much, but she could not stand the thought that Natasha had anything she hadn’t first tried out for herself.
Selfish to the last drop of blood, Natasha thought painfully. Spoiled by two parents who liked to believe their youngest daughter was the most gifted creature living on this earth. She was prettier than Natasha, more outward-going than Natasha. Funnier and livelier and so much more talented than Natasha ever could or wanted to be.
Blessed, their parents called it, because Cindy could sing like a bird and she was the latest pop discovery promising to set the UK alight. After a short stint on a national TV singing competition, Cindy’s was the face that everyone recognised while Natasha stood in the background like a shadow. The quiet one, the invisible one whose job it was to make sure everything ran smoothly in her talented sister’s wonderful life.
Why had she allowed it to happen? she asked herself now when it all felt so ugly. Why had she agreed to put her own life on hold and be drawn into playing babysitter to a self-seeking, spoiled brat who’d always resented having an older sister to share anything with?
Because she’d known their ageing parents couldn’t cope with Cindy. Because from the moment that Cindy’s singing talents had been discovered she’d realised that someone had to attempt to keep her from going right off the egotistic rails.
And, face it, Natasha. At first you were excited about being part of Cindy’s fabulous life.
Cindy, of course, resented her being there. Riding on her coat-tails, she’d called it. Natasha was unaware that she’d said it out loud until Leo flicked a gruff-toned, ‘Did you say something?’
‘No,’ she mumbled—but it was exactly what she’d let herself become: a pathetic hanger-on riding on the coat-tails of her sister’s glorious popularity.
Meeting Rico had been like rediscovering that she was a real person in her own right. She’d stupidly let herself believe he had actually fallen in love with her in her own right and not just because of whom she was attached to.
What a joke, she thought now. What a sick, rotten joke.
Rico with Cindy…
Hurt tears scalded the back of her throat.
Rico doing with Cindy what he had always held back from doing with her…
‘Oh,’ a thick whimper escaped.
‘OK?’ the man beside her shot out.
Of course I’m not OK! Natasha wanted to screech at him. I’ve just witnessed my fiancе bonking the brains out of my sister!
‘Yes,’ she breathed out.
Leo brought his teeth together with a steel-edged slice. He flashed her a quick glance to find that she was still sitting there with her head dipped and her slender white fingers knotted together on top of her bag.
Had Rico ever taken this woman across his desk the way he’d been having her sister?
As if she could hear what he was thinking, her chin lifted upwards in an oddly proud gesture, her blue eyes staring directly in front. She possessed the flawless profile of a chaste Madonna, Leo found himself thinking. But when he dropped his eyes to her mouth, he was reminded that it was no chaste Madonna’s mouth. It was a soft, very lush, very sexy mouth with a short, vulnerable upper lip and a fuller lower lip that just begged to be—
That sudden burn grabbed hold of him right where it shouldn’t—residue from what had happened to him as he’d travelled down in the lift, he stubbornly informed himself.
But it wasn’t, and he knew it. He had been fighting a hot sexual curiosity about Natasha Moyles from the first time he’d met her at her and Rico’s betrothal party. Her sister had been there, claiming centre stage and wowing everyone with her shimmering star quality, wearing a flimsy flesh-coloured dress exclusively designed for her to show off her stem-like figure and her big hairstyle that floated all around her exquisite face, accentuating her sparkling baby-blue eyes.
This sister had worn classic black. It had shocked him at the time because it was supposed to be Natasha’s party yet she’d chosen to wear the colour of mourning. He remembered remarking on it to her at the time.
One of his shoulders gave a small shrug. Maybe he should not have made the comment. Maybe he should have kept his sardonic opinion to himself, because if he had done it to get a rise out of her, then he’d certainly got one—of buttoned-lipped, cold-eyed ice.
They’d exchanged barely a civil word since then.
So, she’d taken an instant dislike to him, Leo acknowledged with a grimace that wavered towards wry. Natasha didn’t like tall, dark Greeks with a blunt, outspoken manner. He didn’t like loud pop-chicks with stick figures and big hair.
He preferred his woman with more softness and shape.
Rico didn’t.
Natasha had both.
Leo frowned as he drove them across the river. So what the hell had Rico been doing with Natasha, then? Had the stupid fool started out by playing a game with one sister to get him access to the other one, only to find he’d got himself embroiled too deep? Natasha wasn’t the type you messed around with. She just would not understand. Had his bone-selfish stepbrother discovered a conscience somewhere between hitting on Natasha and asking her to marry him within a few weeks?
If so, the bad conscience had not stretched far enough to make him leave the other sister alone, he mused grimly as he shot them through a set of lights on amber and spun the car into a screeching left turn.
‘Where are you going?’ Natasha burst out sharply.
‘My place,’ he answered.
‘But I don’t want—’
‘You prefer it if I drop you off at your apartment?’ Leo flicked at her. ‘You prefer to sit nice and neat on a chair with the bag on your lap waiting for them to appear and beg you to forgive?’
His English was failing, Leo noticed—but not enough to mask the sarcasm from his voice that managed to shock even him.
‘No,’ she quivered out.
‘Because they will appear,’ he persisted nonetheless. ‘She needs you to keep her life running smoothly while she struts about playing the pop-chick with angst. And Rico needs you to keep his mama happy because Angelina likes you, and she sees you as her precious boy’s saviour from a life of wild women and booze.’
Was that it? Had Rico been using her to appease his old-fashioned mother who’d taken a liking to her on sight? Natasha felt hot tears fill her eyes as she replayed the relieved smile Angelina had sent her when they’d happened to bump into her at a restaurant one night. ‘Such a nice girl,’ Angelina had said later.
Was that the moment when Rico decided that it might be a good idea to make her his wife? He’d asked her to marry him only a few days later. Like a fully paid-up idiot, she had jumped at the chance. They’d barely shared a proper kiss by then!
And no wonder. She wasn’t Rico’s type, she was hismother’s type. Cindy was Rico’s type.
Her heart hurt as she stared out of the car window. Beside her, Leo felt the truth hit him hard in the gut.
He had his answer as to what had made Rico want to marry this sister while lusting after the other one. He was keeping his mother happy because Angelina had been making stern warning noises about his lifestyle and Rico saw his loving mama as his main artery source to the Christakis coffers—next to Leo himself, of course.
Which made Natasha Rico’s love stooge as much as Leo was his family stooge. From the day eight years ago when his father had brought Angelina home as his new bride with her eighteen-year-old son in tow, Leo’s life had become round after round of making Rico feel part of the family because Angelina was so hypersensitive to the differences between the two sons. And his father would do anything to keep Angelina happy and content. When Lukas died so suddenly, Leo continued to keep Angelina, via Rico, happy because she’d been so clearly in love with his father and naturally devastated by his death.
Well, not any longer, he vowed heavily. It was time for both Angelina and Rico to take control of their own lives. He was sick and tired of sorting out their problems.
And that included the money Rico had stolen from him, Leo determined, a black frown bringing his eyebrows together across the top of his nose because he’d allowed himself to forget the reason he’d gone into Rico’s office in the first place.
Natasha was yet another of Rico’s problems, he recognised, winging another swift, frowning glance her way. She was sitting there with her face turned the colour of parchment, looking as if she might be going to throw up in his car.
What, this woman? he then cruelly mocked. This ultra-composed creature would rather choke on her own bile than to allow herself to do anything so crass as to throw up on his Moroccan tan leather.
Which then brought back the question—what had such a dignified thing seen in a shallow piece of manhood like Rico?
Fresh anger tried to rip a hole in his chest.
‘Think about it,’ he gritted, wishing he could keep his mouth shut, but finding out he could not. ‘They are more suited to each other than you and Rico. He famously likes them like your sister—surely you must have known that, heard some of his history with women? He’s been playing the high-rolling playboy right across fashionable Europe for long enough. Did you never stop to ask yourself what it was he actually saw in you that made you stand out from the flock?’
The hurt tears gathered all the stronger at his ruthless barrage. Feeling as if she’d just been knocked over by a bus then kicked for daring to let it happen, ‘I thought he loved me,’ Natasha managed to push out.
‘Which is why he was enjoying your sister over his desk when he should have been attending my board meeting, defending himself.’
‘Defending?’ she picked up.
Leo didn’t answer. Clamping his lips together, he climbed out of the car, annoyed with himself for wanting to beat her up for Rico’s sins. Rounding the car bonnet, he opened her door, then reached in to take hold of one of her wrists so he could tug her out, even though he knew she didn’t want to get out. Her phone started ringing again, distracting her long enough for him to get her into his house.
He pulled her into the living room and pushed her down into a chair then strode off to the drinks cabinet to pour her a stiff drink.
His hands were trembling, he noticed, and frowned as he splashed neat brandy into a glass. When he walked back to Natasha, he saw that she was sitting on the edge of the chair, all neat and prim with the bag on her lap as he’d predicted she would do.
Fresh anger ripped at him. ‘Here.’ He handed her the glass. ‘Drink that, it might help to loosen you up a bit.’
What happened next came without any warning at all that he was about to receive his just desserts when Natasha shot to her feet and launched the full contents of the glass at his face.
‘W-who do you think you are, Mr Christakis, to dare to think you can be this horrid to me?’ she fired up. ‘Listening to you, anyone would be f-forgiven for thinking that it had been you who’d been betrayed back there! Or is that it?’ she then shot out. ‘Are you being this downright nasty to me because you wished it had been you doing that with my sister instead of Rico—is that what your foul temper is about?’
Standing there with brandy dripping down his hard golden cheekbones, Leo Christakis, the dynamic and cut-throat head of one of the biggest companies in the world, heard himself utter…
‘No. I wished it had been you with me.’
CHAPTER TWO
IN THE thick, thrumming silence that followed that mind-numbing declaration, Natasha stared up at Leo’s liquor-drenched face—and wished that the brandy were still in the glass so she could toss it at him again!
‘H-how dare you?’ she shook out in tremulous indignation, eyes like sparkling blue diamonds darkening to sultry sapphires as the tears filled them up. ‘Don’t you think I’ve been h-humiliated enough without you poking fun at me as if it’s all been just a jolly good joke?’
‘No joke,’ Leo heard himself utter, then grimaced at the full, raw truth in his answer. There was definitely no joke to find anywhere in the way he had been quietly lusting after Natasha for weeks.
No, the real joke here was in hearing himself actually admit to it.
Turning his back on her, Leo dug a hand into his jacket pocket to retrieve the never-used handkerchief his various housekeepers always insisted on placing in his suits. Wiping the brandy from his face, he flicked a glance at the way Natasha was standing there in her neat blue suit and her sensible heeled shoes but with her very expressive eyes now blackened by shock.
‘You have a strange idea about men, Natasha, if you believe that the scraped-back hair and the buttoned-up clothes stop them from being curious about what it is you are attempting to hide.’
She blinked at him.
Leo laughed—oddly.
‘We don’t all go for anorexic pop-stars barely out of the schoolroom,’ he explained helpfully. ‘Some men even like a challenge in a woman instead of seeing it all hanging out and handed to us on a plate.’
His gaze dropped to the rounded shape of her breasts where they heaved up and down inside her jacket. It was pure self-defence that made her pull in her chest. His eyes darkened as he flicked them back to her face and Natasha knew then what it was he was talking about.
‘You want to unwrap yourself and fulfil my curiosity?’ he invited. ‘I didn’t think so.’ He smiled at her drop-jaw gasp.
‘Why are you doing this—s-saying these things to me?’ she whispered in genuine bafflement. ‘Do you think that because you witnessed what I witnessed it gives you the right to speak to me as if I am a slut?’
‘You would not know how to play the slut if your life depended on it,’ Leo grimly mocked. ‘It is a major part of your fascination to me that with a sister like yours, you are like you are.’
Natasha just continued to stare at him, trying to work out what it was she must have done to deserve any of this. ‘Well, you are being loathsome,’ she murmured finally. ‘And there is nothing in the least bit fascinating about being that, Mr Christakis.’
Her bag had fallen to the floor when she’d jumped to her feet. Natasha bent to recover it, then with as much dignity as she could muster, she turned to leave.
‘You’re right,’ he responded.
‘I know I am.’ She nodded, taking a shaky step towards the door, and heard him suck in his breath.
‘All right,’ he growled. ‘I’m sorry. OK?’
For mocking her situation just to get the clever quips in?
Straightening her trembling shoulders, ‘I didn’t ask you to bring me here,’ Natasha pushed out in a thick voice. ‘I have never asked you to do anything for me. So my sister is a slut. Your stepbrother is a slut. Other than that you and I have nothing in common or to say to each other.’
With that she took another couple of steps towards the door, just wanting to get out of here as quickly as she could do now and willing her legs to continue to hold her up while she made her escape.
