For Pleasure...Or Marriage? Page 2

  Familiar grief pierced through her. Her grandparents had brought her up since the tragic death of her parents in a car crash when she had been too young to remember them. But though her grandparents had been caring and loving, they had also been over-protective. For their sakes she had repressed her adolescent yearnings and restlessness. When she was a child, her grandparents had been her life, her safety—as a young adult, she had become theirs. She could not abandon them.

  So she had forgone much of what girls of her age seized with eagerness. She had contented herself with studying librarianship at her local college, instead of art or languages at a distant university, so she could continue to live with her grandparents in their comfortable Victorian house in the pleasant town in the south of England where she’d always lived. Instead of travelling the world in the vacations she had worked in the local library as an assistant, reading books about faraway places rather than visiting them with backpack and boots. And instead of parties and clubbing and boyfriends she had taken her grandparents to the local theatre, to see classical plays and nostalgia concerts.

  It had been a life frozen in time, sedate and confined, but she had not begrudged it. She had known, after all, with a dull pain in her heart, that it would not last for ever. Her grandmother’s death had been sudden, her grandfather’s protracted, his decline such that she had given up her work at the library to nurse him, restricting her life even further. But she had known she must make the very most of loving them, and being loved, while she still had them.

  And now they were both gone, and she had all the time in the world for herself. It was freedom, but tinged with sadness, knowing she was alone in the world, with no one at home for her any longer.

  Yet, for all her haunting sadness, she could not help the fizz of excitement that had bubbled perpetually through her veins since she had arrived at the airport to take her budget airline flight to Paris. Everything had seemed wonderful, enchanting, exciting—taking the Metro, trying out her French on real Parisians, walking, open-mouthed, through the streets with her hand luggage to the old-fashioned little pension tucked away in a small side street on the Right Bank. She was determined to see everything she could fit in.

  Starting with Nôtre Dame. She had seen the great cathedral like a ship in sail in the River Seine and made a beeline for it.

  Just as every male in Paris had seemed instantly to make a beeline for her.

  Frustration nipped through her again. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? She wasn’t the slightest bit interested, but she just couldn’t shake them off! It was exasperating, threatening to spoil her visit.

  Her eyes flickered sideways from the carvings above the arches that the audio guide was drawing her attention to.

  She wasn’t being pestered now, though. The man at her side was seeing to that. And he, thank heavens, was not trying to pester her either!

  If he did, would it be pestering?

  The rogue thought wandered into her mind. She crushed it at once, but it had done its damage. Something she had read somewhere came to her. It’s only harassment if you don’t fancy them…

  Cynical, yes, but it had some truth to it.

  And the man at her side was, she had to admit, incredibly fanciable, by any woman’s demanding standards…

  She gave herself a mental shake. He’d simply offered to keep the pests off her, nothing more! He was just being a good compatriot, that was all. Protecting her from all those ‘foreign johnnies’. A smile tugged at her mouth at his gentle mockery of traditional British xenophobia.

  I wonder what nationality he is other than English?

  Covertly, her eyes flickered to him again, just for an instant. He was gazing along the length of the chancel, towards the altar, and did not see her look at him. She was glad. She could not, after all, feel anything other than awkward about this whole thing. If it hadn’t been for the pests she would never have been walking around Nôtre Dame with a complete stranger as a bodyguard!

  Her stolen glance gave her no more illumination other than Mediterranean. He really could have been anything. Oh, well, it was none of her business anyway. And any moment now the guide would end, and she would thank him politely, and off he would go, his good deed done for the day.

  She would never see him again.

  ‘All done?’

  The girl was taking off her headphones, clicking the audio machine to off. She nodded in reply to Markos’s enquiry.

  ‘Yes. Isn’t it the most amazing place?’ Her voice was breathy, eyes shining. They were like pools of gold, he thought.

  She went on speaking. ‘I was worried it might not be as wonderful as everyone says, but it is! The rose window is just unbelievable! And I love the way they’ve painted the ceilings in the chapel—apparently in the Middle Ages they painted lots of the stonework, which seems a bit strange to our eyes. But of course I expect you’ve seen it lots of times before—’

  She broke off, as if conscious of running on, and made a business of putting the audio guide away.

  ‘Not for many years. And one thing I’ve never done,’ he went on, making his voice sound ruminative, ‘is go up into the towers. I always meant to.’ His eyes flickered down at her, meeting hers briefly as she glanced up at him, open surprise in her face. He smiled. ‘Were you planning on making the ascent?’

  He could see her swallow. ‘Well, yes. I was going to, actually.’ She sounded a bit awkward, and still delightfully breathy. Markos felt that spear of satisfaction go through him again. She might have paid scrupulous attention to her audio guide, but now she was very much back to being aware of him.

  Just the way he wanted her to be.

  ‘Good.’ His voice was smooth as butter. ‘Well, what are we waiting for?’

  She looked blank for a moment. He quizzed an eyebrow at her. ‘The entrance to the towers is around the side—from the outside, I believe.’ He started to usher her towards the cathedral’s exit. Automatically she moved forward, as he directed.

  Once back out in the warm bright sunshine again, he saw her pause and start to turn. She was going to say something very English, and polite, and dismissive, he could see.

  So he gave her no chance to do so.

  ‘This way,’ he said, and ushered her forward again, heading sideways across the arched west face.

  ‘Um…’ said the girl.

  He smiled. A courteous, civil smile, that he might bestow on a fifty-year-old female. Nothing like the kind of smile he would direct at a woman he found desirable.

  It had the effect he’d intended. She subsided into compliance.

  There was, Markos could see, as he gained the north side of the cathedral, a slight queue to gain entrance to the towers. He ushered the girl into the last place, and stood behind her.

  ‘It shouldn’t be long,’ he said, giving her another brief, courteous, civil smile. ‘Do please excuse me a moment.’

  He slid a long-fingered hand inside his jacket pocket and took out his mobile. From the corner of his eye he could see Taki and Stelios, who had emerged from the cathedral where they had been assiduously shadowing him, and punched their number. When Taki answered he spoke briefly in Greek, telling him to cancel his lunch appointment, give Monsieur Dubois suitable apologies and say he would be happy to call on him at his convenience to make amends. Then he cut the connection and replaced his mobile.

  The girl was looking at him, a slightly curious expression in her eyes.

  ‘Greek,’ elucidated Markos, guessing what her question was.

  ‘I wondered what the other half of you was!’ she exclaimed.

  He smiled. This time it was distinctly not the smile he’d give to a fifty-year-old female. He saw her expression change, deep in those lustrous amber eyes, and the shaft of satisfaction went through him again.

  ‘Greek father, English mother,’ he told her.

  ‘You don’t look at all English. What part of Greece do you come from?’

  Markos thought of the dozen homes he’d had since a child—half of them in England and anywhere else in Europe that was fashionable—with his mother as she fought her interminable divorce battle with his father, and wondered which one would qualify as the part of Greece he came from. He’d never felt particularly at home in any of them.

  Or anywhere.

  So he gave the answer he always gave instead.

  ‘My family originally came from Turkey, one of the many Greek communities there. In the nineteen twenties my great-grandfather settled in Athens. But these days—’he smiled at her, his eyes privately washing over her ‘—I am footloose, calling nowhere home. Ah, the queue is moving at last.’

  He was glad to change the subject. Home was not a word that had meaning to him.

  ‘More coffee?’

  Vanessa shook her head. ‘No, thank you.’ She looked hesitant a moment, then said, ‘Um, I really ought to go.’

  She was sitting under an awning outside a restaurant in a little square close to Nôtre Dame. Quite how she had ended up having lunch here she still wasn’t sure. It just seemed to have happened, she thought, bemused.

  Markos Makarios. That was his name. He’d introduced himself on the topmost portion of the tower that they’d climbed up to, with all of Paris at their feet.

  ‘Now you’ll always associate me with the Hunchback of Nôtre Dame.’ He’d smiled at her, a teasing light in those dark, slate-grey eyes, the eyes she kept wanting to gaze into but knew she mustn’t.

  Just as she should not have given her own name in return, or let him shake hands with her in mock solemnity, on the rooftop of Nôtre Dame, in the warm September sunshine, sliding her fingers into his strong, lean grip.

  And she certainly should not have allowed herself, on their descent, to have her elbow taken, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, be strolled off across the parvis, and be informed that it was time for lunch by Markos Makarios, who was, despite his kindness in removing pests from her, still a stranger.

  But somehow she had.

  ‘To Paris—and to your enjoyment of it.’ Markos lifted his glass to toast her, and she smiled back at him, and just for the merest moment something glinted in his eyes—something very deep, very brief—and a frisson went through her that had nothing to do with the wonder of being here in Paris, eating lunch in a little square on the Ile de la Cité, under an awning, surrounded by other Parisiens attending to that most important of all French pastimes: the consumption of beautifully cooked food.

  But then the glint was gone, and the frisson was once again nothing more than the wonder of Paris itself.

  Nothing to do with the man who, for some reason she could not quite explain, was having lunch with her.

  It’s only lunch. That’s all. He’s just being polite. Civil. Kind. Friendly. Taking pity on an English tourist in Paris for the first time.

  And who still had a busy itinerary ahead of her for the day.

  She started to free her shoulder bag, secured by one of the chair legs—she could not afford to be careless with her belongings—and lifted it up on to her lap, delving into the interior for her wallet.

  ‘Would you be kind enough to ask for separate bills?’ she said.

  Markos looked at her. He had wanted novelty—now he’d got it. No woman of his entire acquaintance had ever made even a token objection to his paying for her lunch, or anything else.

  ‘I will take care of that,’ he said dismissively, and beckoned the waiter. Normally he would have left such mundane details to Taki or Stelios, but they were seated in the square, apparently reading newspapers. Vanessa had not noticed them.

  Vanessa. He played the name around in his mind. She had had to give it to him when he’d told her his. And that was another source of novelty. Women were usually extremely keen to be on first-name terms with him as soon as possible—hoping for more than the mere intimacy of names. This pre-Raphaelite beauty had seemed almost reluctant to give her name.

  Almost shy.

  His eyes flickered over her.

  And yet she’d had lunch with him. He could see, with some amusement, that she wasn’t sure how that had come about. There was a faintly bemused look in her face, as though she could not really believe she had done it. Though it amused him, it also pleased him.

  It was rare to find a woman who wasn’t all over him like a rash.

  But then, Vanessa Ovington was a rare find indeed.

  One he would enjoy—relish—to the full.

  The waiter appeared, and Markos slipped out his wallet, handing the man one of his cards. Hurriedly Vanessa fumbled for some euro notes, and pushed them across the table.

  ‘I think that covers my share,’ she said.

  Markos looked blankly at her. There was, he could see, a glint in those golden eyes. A sudden smile tugged at his mouth.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said smoothly, and took the notes. ‘Sometimes it is a case of reculer pour mieux sauter.’

  It was Vanessa’s turn to look blank.

  ‘To retreat in order the better to advance,’ Markos translated.

  She still looked blank. Clearly she had no idea why he had said what he had.

  But Markos did not mind. He did not mind at all.

  There was one very clear destination to which he was advancing, and that this exquisite redhead did not yet seem to realise it only added a piquancy that was as pleasurable as it was novel.

  ‘Now,’ he said urbanely, ‘where shall we go? Les Invalides or the Rodin museum? You said you couldn’t decide which to see first.’

  Somehow—and Vanessa really couldn’t work out how afterwards, even though she thought about it and thought about it—she went with him, as meekly as a lamb.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT TOOK HIM a week to get her to bed. He did not rush it. Indeed, the novelty of her company was such that he savoured the slow, leisurely seduction. Not that she was aware of it—and that, as ever, added its own piquancy. That first afternoon he had taken her to the Musée de Rodin, taking pleasure in watching her make her slow, absorbed way among the works of France’s greatest sculptor.

  He’d watched her gaze, awestruck, at the famous Le Penseur in the museum grounds, the sunlight playing on the red-gold of her tumbled pre-Raphaelite locks. No sculptor could catch that, he’d thought. Even paint on canvas would be inadequate—stiff and lifeless. Her hair was almost a living thing, and he’d wanted to spear his fingers through it, draw her face towards him, lift her mouth to his, taste the bounty of her parted lips…

  A leaf had fluttered down from one of the overhanging trees, catching in her mane of hair.

  ‘Hold still,’ he’d instructed softly.

  She had halted, half twisting her head up towards him. Deftly his fingers had freed the trapped leaf and sent it spinning down to the path. Yet he had not released her, one hand resting on her shoulder, one still held against her hair. For one long moment he had luxuriated in the way she was looking up at him.

  The lustrous, amber eyes gazing helplessly up at him had been rich with emotions—part afraid, part tantalised, part bewildered—and he had been able to tell with every experienced sinew of his body, part dawning with the awareness that was quivering through her.

  For that long moment, in the dappled sunlight, in the afternoon warmth, there had been a stillness netting them. At the very edge of his consciousness, Markos had felt something stir. Something quite alien to him.

  He had not known what it was.

  What he had known, with a sure and certain knowledge, was that he was about to embark on an affair that would banish his ennui very, very effectively.

  And that, right then, was exactly what he’d wanted.

  As the days had unfolded his certainty had been confirmed. Vanessa Ovington was different from any other woman he had pursued. Not just because she was so completely unaware of being pursued, not just because she seemed to be genuinely interested in seeing the sights of Paris, around which he escorted her assiduously—from the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe to the splendours of Versailles and the Sacré Coeur and everything in between—not just because she kept insisting on paying her share of entrance tickets and restaurant bills—an insistence that amused him so much that he continued to banish Taki and Stelios and resort to taxis instead of his customary limo, and he made no attempt to take her to any of Paris’s fabled couture houses and lavish on her the wealth she seemed to have neither inkling of nor interest in—but because…because…

  It wasn’t something he found he could quite put into words—either in English or in Greek. Vanessa was different, that was all—and her difference intrigued and fascinated him almost as much as her beauty captivated him.

  And on the night that he finally brought his leisurely pursuit to its inevitable conclusion he discovered something else about her that was quite unique in his experience of women.

  She came willingly to his apartment, situated in a fashionable Right Bank arrondissement. She was in no state of mind by then to do otherwise, and like someone in a dream she let him lead her inside. Her eyes widened as she took in the rich interior, but she said nothing. He was not surprised. In the time they had spent together she had shown absolutely no interest in discovering the state of his wealth. So far as she was concerned, he concluded, he was merely a businessman—what his business was, or whether it was lucrative or not, she had never asked. A single enquiry by her the first time he took her to dinner had been more for politeness than anything else, and when he’d replied, ‘Oh, import and export,’ she’d simply nodded vaguely and left it at that. She’d clearly never heard of the Makarios Corporation, let alone that it was worth several billion euros, or that he was owner of a substantial portion of it.

  But if she were indifferent to whether he was rich or not, she was not, he knew, indifferent to him. Day after day, in his slow, leisurely seduction, he had been making her more and more aware of him—of his desire for her. But he had done so with infinite slowness, infinite care. She was not a woman to rush; she was a woman to bring, step by step, to this point in time where, at last, after longer than he had ever had to wait for a woman—another source of pleasurable novelty—he would finally taste her sweetness to the full.

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