Shackled by Diamonds Page 18

  She stopped apologising abruptly.

  ‘Well, you are. You turned up in my room in your Schloss and just thought you could help yourself.’

  Leo’s eyes darkened. ‘You’d been inviting me all evening!’

  She pulled back, jerking her hand free.

  ‘I had not!’

  ‘Good God, do you think I can’t tell when a woman lights up for me?’ Leo demanded.

  ‘Well, that can’t be hard—considering they all do!’ she snapped.

  His heavy eyes drooped. ‘Not like you, they don’t, Anna Delane. No woman has ever lit up for me the way you do. No woman ever will. You made me so angry,’ he said contemplatively, looking at her from his weary pose against the pillows. ‘Denying what was happening. I thought you a hypocrite. When I caught you with the bracelet I was almost glad, you know. Furious, but glad.’ His eyes drooped even more. ‘It gave me the leverage I needed.’

  ‘Gave you the chance to blackmail me into bed!’ she flashed back.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to let you go to jail, was I?’ he riposted. ‘Not when I wanted you so much. And when I knew, knew you wanted me too. Whatever you said or did! And you did want me, Anna. You wanted me every night, every time.’

  She jumped to her feet. How could he make her so angry, so fast?

  ‘You didn’t give me any choice!’ she exclaimed seethingly.

  ‘No,’ he said smugly. ‘I didn’t, did I? But—’ his expression changed ‘—I could never get you to purr out of bed. You wouldn’t, would you, Anna Delane?’ He sighed. ‘You’re a hard case, yineka mou, and if I had any sense at all I’d send you packing on the first plane back to London. Coach class,’ he said darkly. His voice changed again. ‘But I’m damned if I got myself shot full of holes just to lose you now. Not when I’ve finally got you being nice to me. And, speaking of being shot full of holes…’ Yet again his voice changed, hardened, his eyes flashing—the familiar, imperious Leo. ‘I need the truth about the bracelet, Anna—the police will want to talk to both of us, and if my security chief doesn’t have a full dossier on your abductors by the time I get out of here he’ll be looking for a new job!’

  There was no baiting tone in his voice now—it was grim and bleak.

  Anna opened her mouth, then closed it again.

  She owed Leo the truth. He’d risked his life for her.

  But she had to protect Jenny. More than ever now, she had to protect her. But she wanted to tell him the truth so much.

  He saw her face working and pressed on.

  ‘Anna—I’m not going to press charges about the bracelet. I got it back—and I got you back. But are you involved in other criminal activities? Are you involved with the likes of the scum who took you and damn near killed you? I need to know.’

  The harsh edge in his voice showed her he wanted answers. Yet what he had said had made her expression lighten.

  ‘Do you mean that?’ There was an eagerness in her voice that took him aback. ‘You won’t press charges about the bracelet?’

  His eyes narrowed again. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Do you promise, Leo? Do you?’

  ‘I just told you—’

  Anna took a deep breath.

  ‘It wasn’t me who took the bracelet!’

  Leo looked at her measuringly. If she had not had the truth to protect her a frisson of fear would have gone through her. His voice was harsh when he spoke.

  ‘Anna, I caught you red-handed—’

  She shook her head. Surely, after nearly losing his own life, he would see what had driven Jenny to theft? Dear God, even she had not thought Khalil that vicious, sending in rabid, murdering gunmen like that to find her.

  She swallowed.

  ‘You caught me trying to return the bracelet, not stealing it,’ she said. ‘But the place was swarming, so I had to keep walking. I was trying to think what to do, where I could leave it so it wouldn’t point any finger of suspicion at—’

  She fell silent again.

  ‘At…?’ prompted Leo. His voice was quiet, dangerously quiet.

  She took a breath.

  ‘At Jenny.’

  Leo looked at her blankly.

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘The blonde model; the skinny one!’ said Anna, with some of her old asperity.

  ‘That one? The neurotic-looking one? Are you telling me she stole the bracelet?’ Leo demanded.

  ‘Yes. She took it when the jewels spilt on the floor. She must have slipped it inside her shoe to get it into the changing room. I found her with it in her bedroom and made her see sense! I said I’d get it back and no one would know! But—but you caught me. Red-handed.’

  She fell silent, biting her lip.

  Emotions were working inside Leo. Strange, strong emotions. He was having difficulty controlling them. But he had to. It was essential that he did.

  In his head, the world was turning upside down.

  ‘You never stole the bracelet? You were covering for the other model?’ His voice was flat.

  Anna nodded dumbly.

  ‘And you took the rap for it.’ His eyes flashed suddenly. ‘My God, you let me go on thinking you a thief,’ he said wrathfully.

  ‘I had to!’ Anna cried. ‘I couldn’t let Jenny be blamed. Oh, God, Leo, she’s in so much trouble already.’

  ‘She makes a habit of stealing?’ jibed Leo harshly. He seemed angry—far angrier than Anna had thought he would be when she told him the truth.

  ‘No! I told you—she was desperate, terrified. It was just an impulse thing—opportunistic. Oh, God, Leo, she needs money to hide—and even I didn’t know just how badly she needs to hide. Those gunmen weren’t after me—they were after her. They thought I knew where she was—I told them I didn’t know, but they didn’t believe me. They were going to torture me to make me talk. And if they find her they’ll—’

  Her voice broke off, high with fright.

  ‘Why are they after her?’ Leo’s voice was grim.

  Anna took a sharp, painful inhalation of breath.

  ‘She had an affair with some rich sheikh. I warned her not to. I warned her. But the idiot just went ahead anyway—and now he’s trying to find her. So she’s got to go into hiding. I know it sounds insane, but it’s true, Leo. Look—she’s right to be terrified. Those gunmen were killers.’

  He was just lying there, looking at her. His eyes were still dark with anger.

  ‘Leo.’ She bit her lip. ‘Please, please don’t be angry—she isn’t really a thief. Not really. She was just so frightened—’

  ‘I’m not angry with Jenny,’ he said in a flat voice.

  She looked at him anxiously.

  ‘If you’re angry with me, I accept it. I lied to you, and covered up the truth. And I’m sorry—I really, really am. But I had to protect Jenny—’

  A burst of staccato Greek came from Leo. His dark eyes glittered.

  ‘Christos, it’s me I’m angry with. For being stupid enough to let you get away with fooling me that you were a thief. I was so convinced about you. It tied in with everything I thought about you. Oh, God, Anna, it made me such a brute to you—I can’t bear to think of it. And all the time—’

  Remorse and guilt shot through his eyes. ‘And even when I thought the worst you were getting to me. I kept thinking it was just sex, but it was so much more—so much more. And that day we spent together, when you were nice to me—oh, God, that really started to open my eyes to what was happening to me. And then you turned me down again, as if I were nothing to you—nothing at all. I was so angry with you—angry that you were calling me things I knew were true about me and didn’t want to hear! Then, when I heard you’d been abducted…’

  He fell silent, and she saw remembered fear stark in his eyes.

  Then they flashed again. But something in them seemed lighter. Brighter. ‘Damn you, Anna Delane. What I’ve gone through for you. I had you pegged as a troublemaker—and you are.’

  ‘What do you mean, a troublemaker?’ she demanded
indignantly.

  His eyes were glinting. The harshness had gone, quite gone.

  ‘Oh, you’re a troublemaker, all right, Anna Delane. I knew that from the first moment I saw you, lashing out at that jerk Embrutti. Quoting your contract at him. And it went on, didn’t it? Thinking you knew better than me about not wearing all the damn Levantsky diamonds at once. Let alone not even caring that they were the Levantsky diamonds. And as for your pièce de reśistance—turning virtuous on me at the last possible moment and slinging me out of your room as if I were some kind of animal in rut. Thee mou, what do you call that except a troublemaker?’

  She bridled. ‘Just because I stand up for myself you call me a troublemaker? That is just so bloody typical! I said you were spoilt and arrogant, but I let you off lightly. You’re the most—’

  But what he was the most Leo never heard. Because he simply grabbed her hand, hauled her down against him, and kissed her.

  It silenced her completely.

  For a considerable length of time.

  And when, at length, Leo released her, he cupped her cheek.

  ‘Once a month,’ he said to her, gazing into her eyes, which were not flashing or glinting now, but simply glowing with a light that had never been in them in her life before, ‘on a Friday evening, for one hour, yineka mou, you can yell insults at me. For the rest of the time…’ he brushed her mouth caressingly with his ‘…you purr. You purr for me, Anna Delane, because I am the only man who can make you purr, and you are so very, very good at it. You’ll purr for me in bed and out, and you will be very, very happy. And so will I,’ he added.

  She tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her. She didn’t try again. It might hurt his wounds. Wounds he had taken for her sake—to save her life.

  So she just lay there in the crook of his arm.

  It felt a good place to be.

  A very good place.

  ‘You see,’ he said, smoothing her hair, ‘you’re doing it already—aren’t you, yineka mou. Purring away in my arms.’

  She eyeballed him suspiciously. ‘What’s yineka mou mean? Troublemaker in Greek?’ she demanded.

  He gave a wry smile, his eyes softening.

  ‘Truer than you know, Anna Delane. It means my woman—and you are my woman. For the rest of our lives you are going to look after me, and cosset me, and do everything you can to please me and—Ouch!’ He looked at her, outrage in his face. ‘I took bullets for you, woman. And, besides, I hadn’t finished.’ He laid a hand against her cheek, gazing into her green, green eyes. ‘For the rest of our lives I am going to look after you and keep you safe—from psycho gunmen, from anything and everything—and I’m going to cosset you and cherish you and take care of you and buy you everything I want to buy you—including cups of coffee, and all the jewellery you don’t want—and I’m going to do everything I can to please you and—’

  He broke off, eyeing her again sternly.

  ‘Why does the prospect of that reduce you to tears?’

  It was hard to explain to a man who asked stupid questions, so Anna didn’t. She just went on crying.

  Leo’s arm tightened around her.

  ‘You’re getting my bandages wet,’ he complained.

  She went on sobbing.

  There was a low knock on the door, and then it opened. The doctor standing on the threshold stopped. Anna jerked upright, face swollen, eyes bleary, nose running.

  ‘Tsk, tsk, I told her you needed to see a beautiful face when you surfaced,’ the doctor told Leo, shaking his head.

  ‘I know,’ agreed Leo. ‘She looks awful, doesn’t she? Fortunately, I love her, and she loves me, so it’s all right.’ He looked back at Anna. ‘You do love me, don’t you, yineka mou?’ he asked conversationally.

  ‘Yes!’ wailed Anna, and burst into tears again.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘WHAT would you say to having our wedding right here on the island?’ Leo asked Anna as they walked along the beach towards the villa, barefoot in the silvery sand.

  He’d been out of hospital for a week now, and though his gait was slower than normal he was well on the way to a full recovery. And every day, and every night, Anna gave thanks to all the powers that be for his safety. She loved him so much she thought her heart would overflow and burst. She cherished him and fussed over him and cosseted him.

  It was a daily miracle to her that he had forgiven her for nearly getting him killed, for lying to him about having stolen the rubies, for having so stupidly, idiotically, kept on denying that he had only to touch her to melt every bone in her body. And he kept feeling so bad about the way he had treated her when he’d thought her a thief—so completely different from the way he was treating her now. Cosseting her as if she were made of porcelain. Cherishing her and fussing over her, day and night, all the time. Desperate to undo the way he’d treated her.

  But now, as he spoke about a wedding, she halted, staring at him.

  ‘Wedding?’ she echoed.

  ‘It’s the usual way to get married,’ he said.

  ‘Married?’ she echoed again. She swallowed. ‘I—I didn’t know you were thinking of marrying me.’

  It was his turn to stare. ‘You have some objection?’ he posed. She could hear the slightest, just the slightest, edge in his voice.

  Her expression was troubled. ‘Leo, I know what you think about women wanting to marry rich men—you think they’re gold-diggers, trying to trap them.’

  This time it was her voice that had an edge in it.

  ‘Thee mou, of course I don’t think that of you! No gold-digger gives a man as hard a time as you gave me!’ He shook his head in sorry memory. ‘So, any more objections, matias mou?’

  But her expression stayed troubled, despite the lightness of his tone.

  ‘Leo—we come from very different worlds. I was brought up in a two-up, two-down next to the gasworks. Whereas you—’

  He placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘So now you think me a snob, do you?’ He sighed. ‘Anna, my family fled Turkey in the 1920s with nothing. They lived in the slums of Athens for years. It was my late grandfather and my father who made the Makarios fortune—it’s all new money.’

  ‘But there’s so much of it!’ she wailed. ‘And you keep making more!’

  He gave a laugh and dropped his hands.

  ‘Anna Delane, you’re the only woman I know who’d worry about that.’ He replaced his hands on her shoulders and looked at her, the expression in his eyes serious now. ‘If you’re worried I’m going to be the kind of husband who spends all his time in the office, obsessed with making money, you couldn’t be more wrong.’ His dark eyes searched hers. ‘I’ve got enough, more than enough, for the rest of my life—and for our children and their children. I want to be there for my children—our children—as my parents were not for me. So I’m not wasting any more of my life getting and spending—I’ve got two holes in my chest to remind me that life isn’t for ever.’

  Anna clutched at his arms, her eyes stricken.

  ‘Oh, God, Leo. I’m so sorry for—’

  He placed a hand over her mouth.

  ‘I cannot believe,’ he told her, ‘that I used to have fantasies about you saying sorry to me. It’s the biggest bore in the world!’

  She flushed and pushed his hand away.

  ‘But it’s all my fault that you—’

  He lowered his mouth and kissed her.

  ‘There’s just no stopping you, is there?’ he asked rhetorically.

  ‘No,’ she said.

  And kissed him back.

  Then, reluctantly, she drew away.

  ‘Leo, I still don’t think you should marry me. We could just—well, you know.’

  ‘Live in sin?’ His voice was wryly caustic.

  ‘Yes. You see…’ She gazed up at him earnestly, her eyes troubled. ‘None of this was meant to happen, was it? You only really wanted a night with me—maybe one or two, whatever else any other woman you went after got. It was only because you wanted you
r pound of flesh after the stupid rubies, and then all that nightmare with the gunmen, and you nearly dying, and—well, all that stuff. Otherwise it would have been over ages ago. I think we’re really still in post-traumatic shock—well, you mainly, I guess—and it’s making you a bit doolalley. Thinking about weddings and stuff like that. If you waited a few weeks you’d be back to normal again, I’m sure.’

  Leo had taken a step backwards. An expression of outrage was gathering strength on his features.

  ‘I have taken,’ he said grimly, ‘everything I am going to take from you, Anna Delane. You have been absolutely nothing but trouble since I laid eyes on you. But this—this is too much. You actually dare to stand there and look me in the eyes and tell me I must be insane to want to marry you. Good God, woman,’ he roared, ‘I love you! Do you understand? Yes, I was a fool, a total idiot, thinking it was just sex I wanted. But I’ve wised up now. It took a couple of bullets to wise me up, but I have. And so have you. Now we both know it’s love, not just sex. So from now on that’s what we both do. Love each other. For ever. All our lives. You see that sun out there, Anna Delane? It shines out of me. Understand? You’d better because I can tell you it damn well shines out of you. Now—’ he heaved a big breath ‘—I don’t want to hear any more of this. Understand?’

  ‘Yes, but I—’

  He silenced her with a kiss.

  ‘Stop arguing,’ he told her.

  ‘But I—’

  ‘Stop—’ he kissed her ‘—arguing.’

  When she surfaced, after a long, long time, she gazed up at him. He was right, damn it, she thought.

  The sun really did shine out of him. It was infuriating. But it was true.

  He read her expression, eyes twining with hers.

  ‘It’s the same for me, Anna,’ he told her softly. ‘It really, really is.’

  She went on gazing up at him adoringly.

  Leo let her do it, and did it back, because he was helpless, quite helpless to do otherwise—all his life. For ever.

  A stray memory flickered in his brain. The redhead at the Schloss, gazing adoringly up at his cousin. Markos ought to marry her, he thought. He must remember to tell him so. He would lend the girl the Levantsky emeralds for her wedding day.