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Taking her by surprise, he slid his fingers around her wrist in a warm, close grip. “Can we at least talk about it, and try to find a way?”
She wrenched her arm free and stepped back, horrified by the way her pulse leaped at his touch.
She’d have done better to stand her ground because he took her retreat as an invitation to march right into the room and close the door. It was all she could do not to run for cover behind the love seat. Trying not to hyperventilate, she clutched the cashmere shawl tightly at her throat.
The suite was generously proportioned. Even allowing for what the furniture occupied, there was still almost enough floor area left for a Las Vegas chorus girl to put on a show. Yet he seemed to swallow up the space until it shrank to the size of a shoe box. “What’s the matter, Brianna?” he inquired silkily, closing in on her. “Are you afraid I might kiss you—or just afraid you might like it too much to try to stop me?”
“Neither,” she replied, and suppressing a tug of something suspiciously like desire, she drew herself up to her full five foot nine in an attempt to stare him down.
She might as well have spared herself the effort. “Really?” he purred. “Why don’t we find out?”
His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close. The feel of his body against hers sent the blood thrumming through her veins. The lightning rod that was his mouth brought back in vivid recall the memory of the first time he’d kissed her, and where it had led: to a rendezvous in his stateroom, and an introduction to the pleasures of lovemaking, of sex, that had spoiled her for any other man.
But she remembered, too, what came afterward. The betrayal, the abandonment, had almost killed her. Although she’d honored her modeling assignments, smiling through her pain, covering up the dark circles under her eyes, everyone had noticed something was wrong. Rumors that she was ill—anorexic, bulimic, on the verge of a break-down—had circulated like wildfire and almost destroyed her career.
You’ve got to show them you’re still on top, Carter had urged. And she had. Because her career was all she had left. Dimitrios had robbed her of everything else.
She couldn’t let him do it again.
Lifting her hands, she pushed against the solid wall of his chest with all her might. “That might be your idea of starting over, but it’s certainly not mine.”
He released her willingly enough. “Forgive me for allowing my baser instincts to get the better of me,” he said, aloof disdain written all over his cold, beautiful face. “Believe me, I know better than anybody that what happened between us in the past is long ago over and done with, and nothing either of us can say or do will ever change that.”
“At least we’re agreed on one thing.”
“More than one, I hope. I’m calling for a truce, Brianna, because the future—Poppy’s future—is all that matters now.” He wiped a hand down his face, and all at once weariness softened the severe cast of his mouth and left him looking achingly vulnerable. “They tell me what’s happened to her isn’t my fault, but I blame myself anyway. If I’d been a better father, paid closer attention to her, she might not be in such bad shape now.”
Touched despite herself, Brianna said, “I’m sure you were, and are, an exemplary father, Dimitrios.”
“No.” Restlessly, he paced to the French doors and stared out. “I ignored her symptoms. She had what appeared to be a cough and a cold, and I did nothing about it for the better part of two months. It wasn’t until I noticed she had bruises that couldn’t be accounted for that I insisted on a more thorough investigation into the possible causes.”
“Surely you’d consulted a doctor before that?”
The question was out before she could contain it, and he swung around, his face a mask of hurt and anger. “Of course I did! Within a week of her cold first appearing. I’m not a complete imbecile.”
“Then if indeed there’s blame to be assigned, surely it lies with her doctor?”
Again the fire went out of him. “It lies with me,” he muttered, dropping down on the love seat. “It’s a parent’s job to protect his child. He should instinctively sense when something’s not right, and maybe I would have, if I hadn’t been away half the time, looking after business.”
“But, Dimitrios,” she said, “that’s what fathers do. They go out and make a living so that their children have a decent roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their backs.”
“There’s a big difference between working to live, and living to work.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
He cast her an oddly cynical glance. “Ambition can consume a person—and you ought to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Nothing,” he said, averting his gaze. “Just that, in your line of work, you have to…stay on top of your game.”
“Well, yes. But don’t you think that’s true of anyone who wants to succeed, regardless of what they do?”
“Not if winning becomes more important than anything else. Because somebody always ends up paying. In my case it happened to be my daughter.”
“You give yourself too much credit, Dimitrios. You aren’t responsible for Poppy’s illness. It happened despite you, not because of you. None of us ever has total control of the world around us. Sometimes fate plays a dirty trick and all we can do is find a way to live with it.”
He pinned her in a mesmerizing stare. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”
Not five minutes earlier he’d said that the past was over and done with and the future was all that counted. But the way he was looking at her now was all about the past. It hung between them, as vibrantly alive as if it had happened just yesterday. The memories tore at her, making her ache for what might have been. And for the man she’d thought he was.
“Brianna?”
He felt it, too. It was there in the sudden deepening of his voice when he spoke her name. It swirled in the air between them—an awareness so acute she felt herself melting in its heat.
“Yes,” she said, hating that she sounded so breathless. “I learned to move on when dreams I held dear didn’t materialize.”
“Any regrets? Ever wish you’d held on to those dreams, instead of letting them go?”
Cecily’s triumphant voice echoed down the years. Face it, Brianna, it’s over. He tried both of us and chose me. We were married, just last week. Sorry there wasn’t time to send you an invitation….
Hardening her heart, Brianna said, “No. Do you?”
“Hell, yes,” he said grimly. “I wish I could have given Poppy a mother who cared. But there are some things money can’t buy.”
“Are you always so uncomplimentary about my sister?”
He flung another forthright gaze her way. “What do you want me to say, Brianna? That she was the best wife a man could wish for? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but there’s a limit to how far I’m willing to go to preserve your illusions. The plain fact is, marrying Cecily was the second-biggest mistake of my life.”
“What was the first?”
“You were,” he said, surging to his feet and towering over her. “You and that damnable cruise to Crete. I should never—” He blew out an exasperated breath and raked his hand through his hair.
“Well, don’t stop now. You never should have what?”
“Never mind! I’ve already said too much.” He strode to the door and yanked it open. “Thank you again for coming. Get some rest. You’re going to need it.”
And having stirred up memories of the most painful period of her life, he left her.
So much for leaving the past in the past….
They’d stopped in Athens en route to London and Vancouver; a two-day rest between flights only. At least, that was the original plan, until the invitation was hand delivered to their suite at the Grande Bretagne, the evening before they were scheduled to leave.
In marked contrast to Brianna’s uninterested reaction, Cecily had almost fallen over herself with glee. “It sounds divine! I want us to accept, I really do! If you won’t go for yourself, do it for me.” She’d pinned on her most beguiling smile. “Please, Brianna? Pretty please?”
“Honestly, Cecily, I’d rather not. This is the first break we’ve had in months, and I’m ready for a rest. But there’s no reason you can’t go, if you’re all that keen. We’re not joined at the hip.”
“You know full well having both of us there is the coup they’re after. One of us doesn’t have the same cachet.”
“For heaven’s sake, we’re professional models, not a circus act.”
“And all you ever think about is work.” Cecily’s tone crossed the line from wheedling to whining. “If you’re so damned eager to take a rest, why can’t you do it floating around the Mediterranean on a luxury yacht? What’s so hard to take about that?”
“We don’t know anyone else, for a start. These people so anxious to have us on board aren’t friends, Cecily, they’re collectors whose idea of scintillating dinner conversation is dropping the names of the celebrities they’ve rubbed shoulders with.”
“And we’re highly collectible!”
Brianna sighed. They’d argued this point more times than she cared to count, and were never going to agree. “We’re a couple of reasonably pretty women who look so much alike, most people can’t tell us apart. They might recognize our faces, but they haven’t a clue who or what we’re really about, and nor do they care. We’re nothing more than novelties.”
“Maybe it’ll be different this time. Maybe these hosts enjoy meeting new people and showing them a good time.”
Tired of riding the same pointless merry-go-round yet again, Brianna had welcomed the arrival of their manager, Carter Maguire, who occupied the suite next door. As usual after a successful assignment—and this last had been a triumph both on the runway and at the photography shoots—he’d brought a bottle of champagne. Her relief, though, was short-lived when he told them that he, too, was to join the yachting party. Was, in fact, largely responsible for the three of them having been invited in the first place.
“Too bad you wasted your time,” Cecily informed him petulantly, when she heard. “Brianna’s refusing to go. Thinks I should put in a solo appearance.”
“Out of the question.” Calmly he uncorked the champagne and filled three flutes, handed one to Cecily and shooed her out to the balcony. “Go enjoy the view, and leave me to talk to her.” When she was well out of earshot, he faced Brianna. “This isn’t so much an invitation as a command performance, sweet pea. These people are big names in the fashion industry and we need the contacts. You’ve been at the top for a long time now, but we’re in danger of losing that spot, and I think we both know why.” He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. “Cecily’s screwed up a few times too many, and word’s getting around that she’s not reliable. That business in Bali last month made big headlines.”
The reminder of her sister’s drunken display at a night club made Brianna blush all over again. “I know. People don’t forget that kind of thing in a hurry.”
“Especially not in this business. And not to put too fine a point on it, but time isn’t exactly on your side anymore. You’ll be twenty-four in August. The next couple of years are critical—for all of us.” He’d given her the lopsided grin she knew and loved so well. “Come to that, I’m no spring chicken myself. The way I see it, when you decide to call it quits, I will, too.”
“That’s ridiculous, Carter! You’re only fifty-three, and there are hundreds of models who’d give their right arms to have you represent them.”
“Not interested.” He shook his head. “When I’ve worked with the best, why settle for the rest? There’ll never be anyone like the two of you, Brianna—or at least, there never used to be. Now…” He shrugged and raised his eyebrows in a way that spoke more eloquently than words.
Cecily wandered back into the room at that point and helped herself to more champagne. “Straightened her out yet, Carter?”
“I’m not sure.” He turned a smiling glance on Brianna, but the message in his eyes was sobering. “Have I?”
She knew how much she and Cecily owed him. Until he came into their lives, they’d been pawns; children at the mercy of a mother who’d exploited them for their appearance, without any regard for their moral or intellectual well-being. She’d looked at her daughters and seen only dollar signs. The money they brought in, she spent. On herself.
Brianna and Cecily had grown up on a litany of familiar refrains.
I don’t care if your feet hurt in those shoes….
Forget about joining the library. Reading books isn’t going to pay the rent….
And always, as regularly as one season followed another: You owe me…. I could’ve gotten rid of you and had some sort of life for myself, but I didn’t. I carried you to term…raised you all by myself because your dumb-ass father fell off a ladder and broke his neck before you were even born, and left not a red cent of insurance to provide for his brats….
The ultimate irony, of course, was that “the brats” had inherited their father’s looks, as was evident from the one photograph, taken on his wedding day, which their mother had for some reason chosen not to throw away.
Fortunately, when the awkward teenage years had arrived and “the brats” weren’t quite as saleable, she’d handed over the job of marketing them to an agency, and Carter had come into their lives. It had taken him less than an hour to ascertain their mother’s measure and half that time to draw up a contract giving him sole control of their professional future.
Through his intervention, they’d received a decent education. He hired a lawyer and a financial consultant to protect and invest their earnings against the day when they might not be in demand as models any longer, or decided they’d rather pursue a different career. He became the family they’d never known, the one person in the whole world they could always rely on.
And now, for the first time, he was asking for something in return. How could she refuse him, especially for so small a favor?
“Yes, you’ve convinced me,” she said. “Lazing around on board a luxury yacht for two or three weeks isn’t such a bad idea, after all.”
Nor was it, until Dimitrios Giannakis taught her the folly of trusting a stranger, and broke her heart in the process….
She hated the kind of people functions such as the one on the yacht attracted: women in desperate search of a rich husband, and if he happened to be ninety and so frail he could drop dead at any minute, so much the better; men who drank too much and felt their wealth and importance entitled them to paw any women who caught their fancy. She’d fended off dozens in her time, revolted by their excesses, enraged by their arrogance and condescension. She was not impressed by their studiously acquired tans, their expensively capped teeth, their hair implants. She had nothing but contempt for their boastful swaggering. Did they think what showed on the surface defined who they really were? Did they ever look at her and see past the glamorous veneer to the person underneath—one with a working brain and a heart that felt hurt and embarrassment just as keenly as anyone else?
But Dimitrios Giannakis was different. Slightly aloof and rather amused by the jostling for attention, the artificial laughter, the superficial conversation, he appeared content to socialize mostly within his own exclusive circle of friends and acquaintances. Yet when called upon to mingle, he did so with grace and charm. An acknowledged billionaire in his own right, he was rumored to be enigmatic, reserved, powerful and, when occasion called for it, utterly ruthless.
Not a man to lock horns with, from all accounts, but definitely one to admire from a distance for his cosmopolitan sophistication, his wit and, yes, his extraordinary male beauty to which even she, accustomed as she was to the most handsome of the species, was not immune.
He stood a good head taller than anyone else on board. Had a cleft in his chin, eyelashes an inch long and a mouth designed to stir a woman to outrageous fantasies. By mid-afternoon, his square, clean-cut jaw was dusted with a five-o’clock shadow. His high, patrician cheekbones were surely the legacy of some royal ancestor.
Below the neck he was no less impressive. His body, whether clad in an elegant dinner jacket or swimming trunks that defied gravity and clung to his lean hips by sheer willpower was, in a word, perfection. Strong, lean, sleekly muscled and, like his rare smile, dauntingly sexy, it epitomized masculine virility at its most potent.
She caught his attention when she sat across from him at dinner on the verandah deck, on the fifth night. Between courses, a few couples danced under the stars. Cecily sat at another table, engrossed in the leader of a rock band who was busy plying her with flattery and probably too much alcohol, but Carter was keeping an eye on her.
Not in the least interested in the latest celebrity gossip among those remaining at her own table, Brianna had smothered a yawn and glanced up to find Dimitrios’s amused gaze fixed on her face.
“Do I take it,” he murmured, his English so fluent only a trace of accent betrayed his Greek heritage, “that you find the conversation less than enthralling?”
“Oh, dear!” she said ruefully. “Does it show?”
“I’m afraid so.” He rose and extended his hand. “Allow me to come to the rescue.”
She’d have liked to say she wasn’t in such dire straits that she couldn’t rescue herself, but hypnotized by his faint smile and the hint of dark mystery in his eyes, she responded without a moment’s hesitation. Docile as a lamb, she placed her hand in his.
Love at first sight? Until she met Dimitrios Giannakis, she hadn’t believed in it. Fifteen minutes in his arms, with her body pressed close to his and his breath ruffling her hair, and she decided differently.
And paid a terrible price for doing so.
CHAPTER THREE
THE private clinic where she was to meet with Noelle Manning was in Kifissia, a northern suburb of Athens, just over half an hour’s drive west of Rafina. The road wound over Mount Penteli, a fairly sparsely populated area of pine-scented forests, with the occasional very grand house interspersed among acreages whose little old cottages were as much a part of the landscape as the grape vines and olive trees planted on the land. Traffic was light, consisting mostly of agricultural vehicles, although once the Mercedes passed a truck carrying massive slabs of marble.
Set in spacious grounds on a quiet crescent high above the city, the clinic rose sleek and white against a backdrop of leafy green trees and brilliant blue sky. A receptionist in the lobby took her name and spoke briefly into an intercom. Within minutes Brianna was escorted to Noelle’s consulting room on the second floor, where the doctor wasted no time getting down to business.
For the next hour she outlined the various stages of testing a potential donor to determine if she fulfilled all the requirements for a traditional bone marrow harvest, explaining each step with the succinct clarity of a true expert in her field.
“Naturally, we’ve combed the international registry of unrelated donors hoping to find a perfect tissue match, but so far we’ve unfortunately come up empty-handed,” she concluded. “And since time is very much of the essence in Poppy’s case, we’re faced with settling for what we call an alternative donor such as a parent, who offers a half match. Poppy’s mother is deceased—”
“Yes, but what about Dimitrios?”
“He’s been tested, but is unable to help his daughter.” Noelle lowered her glance to the open folder on her desk and closed it with gentle finality. “Obviously, I can’t discuss the details with you. Professional confidentiality and all that, you understand.”
“Of course.”
“We’re very lucky that Poppy’s mother happened to have an identical twin. If it turns out that you’re a suitable donor and you’re willing to go through with this procedure, Brianna, you really will be giving your niece the gift of life.”
“I’m absolutely willing. Nothing you’ve told me today has changed my mind about that.”
“Do you have any questions?”
