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CHAPTER THREE

‘WELL, well, well—if it isn’t Ms Evangeline Grey come to call at last!’ Markos observed dryly from where he sat in his high-backed leather chair behind the mahogany desk in his office.

Lena had shown the interior designer in at exactly five o’clock on Monday evening, before quietly closing the door behind her as she left them alone together.

Markos and the interior designer Evangeline Grey.

The same Evangeline Grey who had introduced herself to him as ‘Just Eva’ on Saturday evening, in the knowledge that she had cancelled two appointments with him earlier in the week.

Markos had wasted no time after she and Glen had left the party on Saturday in asking one of Senator Ashcroft’s many aides about the identity of the woman in the red dress. Only to be informed that she was the interior designer Evangeline Grey.

Those amber-gold eyes flashed her displeasure now, as she marched into the centre of the spacious office, allowing Markos to see that she managed to look sexy even wearing a business suit—a fitted black jacket and knee-length black skirt, the latter revealing long and silky-smooth legs. Her silk blouse was the same unusual colour as her eyes; her long ebony hair neatly gathered and secured at her crown.

‘Your telephone call this morning made it clear you expected me to be here promptly at five o’clock, whether it was convenient or otherwise,’ she reminded him with barely concealed impatience.

‘Indeed.’ Markos stood up and moved slowly round his desk to lean back against it as he looked down at her between narrowed lids. ‘And the fact that you are here would seem to imply that you were no happier than I was on Saturday at the possibility of having a slur cast upon your reputation?’

A frown appeared on that smooth alabaster brow. ‘That’s hardly a fair comparison, Mr Lyonedes, when the threats you made to me this morning were in regard to my professional reputation, not my personal one.’

‘I believe the saying is “payback can be a bitch”?’ He gave an unrepentant shrug. This woman had wilfully—deliberately!—played with him on Saturday evening by not revealing her true identity, and no doubt been highly amused at Markos’s expense because of it.

Markos had thought about it long and hard over the weekend, finally deciding that if Evangeline Grey wanted to play games then he was happy to oblige her. With that in mind he had telephoned her office himself that morning and demanded to speak to her personally. After a short delay there had been a more or less one-sided conversation during which Markos had informed her that there would be no more cancelled appointments. If she didn’t want him to tell anyone and everyone who cared to listen just how unreliable he had found her professional services she would come at five.

Her only answer had been to end the call abruptly, causing Markos to chuckle wryly as he slowly placed his mobile down on his desktop.

Nevertheless, he had been sure that Eva would be here at five o’clock. He knew that she was now aware that it was well within his power to seriously damage her professional reputation if he chose to do so.

‘You’re unusually quiet today,’ he remarked, lifting his dark brows mockingly.

Oh, Eva had plenty she wanted to say to this man. She was just erring on the side of caution—for the moment.

She had realised after leaving Senator Ashcroft’s cocktail party on Saturday—her feelings of anger on behalf of her cousin aside—that it probably hadn’t been a wise move on her part to antagonise a man as powerful as Markos Lyonedes by making appointments with him which she’d never had any intention of keeping. Unwise and not a little childish, she now accepted reproachfully. As if it would really matter to a man as powerful as Markos Lyonedes if some little interior designer chose to snub him by not keeping her appointments!

Except, having met her on Saturday evening, it obviously did matter to him. It didn’t help, having duly arrived at Lyonedes Tower at five o’clock, that Eva was now totally aware of the way in which Markos Lyonedes managed to exude a predatory air—despite the expensive elegance of his tailored dark grey suit and paler grey silk shirt, with matching tie knotted meticulously at his throat.

‘Did you and Glen enjoy your late dinner on Saturday evening?’ he prompted softly.

Eva’s mouth tightened at this reminder of the time she and Glen had spent together at an Italian restaurant after leaving the Senator’s party. Several hours during which she had desperately tried to dredge up some of her former approval of Glen as an IVF donor, only to find that, rather than appreciating Glen’s healthy good looks, she was comparing them to the hard and chiselled features of the man now standing in front of her.

A man she wouldn’t even consider putting on a shortlist of potential donors for her baby.

Oh, Markos Lyonedes was definitely handsome, and obviously he was healthy and intelligent, but there all suitability as the possible father of her child ended. Markos might have more than earned his reputation for avoiding serious relationships, but Eva knew there was no way that a man as powerful as one of the Greek Lyonedes cousins would ever agree to clinically, calculatedly father a child by donating his sperm for IVF.

In fact her experience with Glen now made her wonder if it might not be better to opt for an anonymous donor after all. In the meantime, she had to cope with knowing she was physically responsive to Markos in a way she hadn’t experienced in the three years since her divorce—if ever!

Jack had been several years older than her when they’d married, and more experienced. Their lovemaking had been fun to explore at the start of their marriage. That interest, for obvious reasons, had eventually faded. To the point that by the end of their marriage, they hadn’t made love in months.

Eva’s self-esteem had been at a very low ebb after the divorce, her confidence in her desirability even lower, and it had taken months for her even to go out on a date with another man—only to discover that her emotions were completely numb, and the most she could feel for any of those men was a distant liking.

But it wasn’t anything as lukewarm as liking—distant or otherwise!—she felt in regard to Markos Lyonedes.

Eva had been convinced—with the experience of her disastrous marriage behind her, and after listening for hours to Donna’s broken-hearted meanderings down the telephone as her cousin mourned her lost love—that she was destined to be the one woman who wouldn’t ever be stupid enough to fall under the sensual spell of all that lethal Lyonedes charm and charismatic good-looks.

Which only went to prove what an arrogant fool she had been.

Because Eva now knew she only had to be in the same room as Markos Lyonedes to be aware of every single thing about him. She could feel the tug of that desire even now, causing her hands to tremble slightly, her breasts to feel hot and swollen, and a dampness between her thighs.

She could see the same desire reflected towards her in the warmth of those dark green eyes. It was a physical attunement that seemed to make the very air between them crackle and dance.

‘It was fine,’ Eva dismissed abruptly. ‘Now, if we could—’

‘Have you and Glen been together long?’

Eva frowned slightly. ‘I’m not sure that it’s any of your business, but we haven’t “been together” at all.’

Eva had gently but firmly refused Glen’s suggestion, before they parted on Saturday evening, that the two of them might go out together again this week, having lost all interest in him with regard to approaching him about IVF.

Markos raised questioning brows. ‘Yet…?’

‘Really, Mr Lyonedes—’

‘Markos.’

‘Markos.’ She gave a brief, meaningless smile of acknowledgement. ‘I really didn’t come here to discuss my personal life—so if we could we just get down to business?’

Markos settled more comfortably against the front of the desk and folded his arms across his chest. He considered Eva with narrowed but appreciative eyes. Her features really were extremely delicate: those gold-coloured eyes, high cheekbones, slender jaw, those full and sensuous lips glossed a deep peach today. With her hair secured at her crown it was now possible to see the slender arch of Eva’s delicious throat, with skin as delicate as pale china.

It was a delectable delicacy that Markos found himself aching to taste. Presumably that wasn’t completely out of the question, if Eva and Glen really weren’t together.

He straightened slowly. ‘That’s a pity, because the only thing that I’m in the least interested in talking about this evening is your personal life.’

Those gold eyes widened warily. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘No?’

Markos found himself watching intently as she moistened those peach-glossed lips before speaking again.

‘I understood from our telephone conversation earlier today that you wanted me here at five o’clock so that we could discuss possible new designs for the décor in your apartment.’

Markos smiled slightly. ‘I don’t remember so much as mentioning any designs for my apartment during our brief conversation this morning.’

‘Well…no,’ she conceded slowly, after a few seconds’ thought. ‘But that was the reason for our two earlier appointments.’

‘Two appointments which you didn’t ever have any intention of keeping.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

Eva felt about two inches tall as she realised she had behaved like an idiot. But it had just been so tempting, when she had received the call the previous week from Markos Lyonedes’s secretary, asking if she would come to his office to discuss the possibility of redesigning the interior of his apartment. Tempting to accept and then cancel as a small way of showing him that not every woman jumped at the click of his fingers.

She should have realised—given more consideration to the repercussions of her behaviour if the powerful Markos Lyonedes decided to make an issue of it.

Her gaze didn’t quite meet his now. ‘I really did have to be somewhere else on Monday evening.’

‘And Friday?’ He quirked dark brows. ‘Did you really have an emergency appointment with your dentist?’

‘Er—yes.’

Markos eyed her warily. ‘Would you care to explain?’

She grimaced. ‘Perhaps when I introduced the two of you on Saturday evening I should have mentioned that Glen is a dentist.’

His mouth thinned. ‘I see.’

She winced. ‘Do you…?’

‘Oh, I think so.’ Markos nodded slowly, his interest well and truly piqued by the woman now standing in front of him. More than piqued, if he were honest. Markos had no idea why it should be, but he found everything about Eva Grey intriguing. From her lippy conversation to her desirable hourglass figure. ‘You obviously felt an urgent need to have a cavity filled.’

Those golden eyes widened in blank shock, her cheeks filling with colour as she gasped her indignation.

Now it was Markos’s turn to chuckle at Eva’s expense. And for that chuckle to develop into full-throated laughter as he saw that he really had succeeded in rendering this complicated woman speechless. ‘My God, Eva, you should see your face!’ he finally managed through his laughter. ‘Or maybe not; you look a little like a fish out of water at the moment.’

Probably because Eva felt like a fish out of water at that moment. Mouth opening and shutting, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she gasped for breath, her eyes wide and staring. ‘I can’t believe you just said that!’

‘Actually, neither can I.’ He sobered. ‘My Aunt Karelia would consider my conversation most ungentlemanly. Unfortunately for you, I’m more than happy to risk her disapproval if I’ve succeeded in rendering you speechless for once!’

‘Really?’

‘Really,’ Markos confirmed teasingly, aware that Eva was still having trouble regaining her usual spiky confidence.

She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘Your Aunt Karelia would be perfectly correct in her assessment of your behaviour just now.’

‘She usually is,’ he acknowledged ruefully.

A frown appeared between those golden eyes. ‘Who is your Aunt Karelia, exactly? And why does her opinion matter to you?’

Markos gave an affectionate smile. ‘My cousin Drakon’s mother. She’s also been a mother to me since I was eight years old—after I went to live with her and my Uncle Theo when my parents were killed in a plane crash.’

Eva drew her breath in sharply as she heard the pain underlying the practicality of Markos’s tone. She hadn’t known that about him—hadn’t cared to know that about him—and she frowned slightly as she acknowledged that his confiding that information to her had introduced a different sort of intimacy between the two of them from their previous physical awareness, which had seemed to sizzle and crackle in the air only minutes ago. An intimacy that was emotional rather than physical.

‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she murmured finally.

‘Thank you,’ he accepted gruffly.

Eva shifted uncomfortably. ‘Did you like living with your cousin and his parents?’

His grin warmed his eyes to the colour of emeralds. ‘Eventually. I was pretty traumatised the first year or so, and probably gave my Aunt Karelia a few grey hairs. But eventually I settled down, and I really couldn’t have asked for a better surrogate family.’

‘You and Drakon are close?’

‘As brothers,’ he confirmed without hesitation.

Eva raised dark brows. ‘I met him a couple of times when he was in New York. I didn’t find him a particularly warm man.’ Tall, dark and gorgeous, yes—just like his cousin Markos—but there was a single-minded ruthlessness to Drakon Lyonedes that he made no effort to hide.

Was it a trait his cousin also possessed…?

Probably, Eva concluded, remembering how Markos had changed on Saturday evening, his manner going from lazily charming to coolly precise, after she had made the comment concerning how he ended his relationships. In fact, apart from the heat of desire that glinted in Markos’s eyes when he looked at her—something that had certainly never been present on the two occasions when Eva had met the coldly remote Drakon Lyonedes—the cousins were very much alike: heart-stoppingly gorgeous and lethally powerful.

Markos’s grin widened. ‘That’s probably because you aren’t a blonde with sea-blue eyes named Gemini!’

‘Gemini is your cousin’s new wife?’

‘It’s been very much a case of “how the mighty are fallen”!’ Markos nodded. ‘One look at Gemini and Drakon was knocked off his feet.’

‘I somehow can’t imagine anything knocking your cousin off his feet.’ Eva eyed him disbelievingly.

Markos shrugged. ‘Neither could I until it happened.’

This conversation had become altogether too personal for Eva’s liking. ‘Interesting as this conversation is, it’s getting late, Markos,’ she said briskly.

He raised those dark brows. ‘Do you have yet another appointment to go to this evening?’

She could so easily have said yes. But instead…’Well…no. But—’

‘But what?’

‘But it’s Monday evening, and I always clean my apartment on Monday evenings,’ Eva rallied weakly.

He eyed her mockingly. ‘I thought that was what the weekends were for?’

She gave a disbelieving snort. ‘Admit it, Markos, you’ve never had to clean your own apartment, or anywhere else you’ve lived, at the weekends or any other time!’

‘Not true. I had to keep my own rooms clean when I was at university in Oxford.’ He grimaced. ‘Admittedly I couldn’t see the bedroom carpet for the clutter after the first few weeks, and I ran out of clean clothes on a regular basis, but I coped.’

‘By ignoring the clutter and buying new clothes, probably,’ she guessed derisively.

‘Guilty as charged,’ Markos admitted with an unrepentant grin.

‘That is so—Oh, wow…!’ Eva gasped as she noticed the view from the huge picture window behind him for the first time—surely testament to exactly how powerfully attractive she found Markos, because the view from the window was amazing. New York City in all its glory.

Eva continued to look at the New York skyline as she slowly walked over to the window, dazzled by the combination of the tall, gleaming buildings and the lush green park.

‘I seem to recall you said you thought of Lyonedes Tower as just another tall building blocking the view,’ Markos reminded her as he joined her at the window.

Eva gave a wince at this reminder of the bluntness of her conversation when they first met. ‘I may have been a little…impolite to you at the party on Saturday evening.’

‘May have been?’ he taunted softly.

‘I was impolite,’ she conceded.

‘Any particular reason why…?’

‘Does there have to be a reason?’ Eva glanced sideways at Markos, totally aware of how close he was now standing to her. Close enough for her to inhale the heady combination of the lemon soap and sandalwood aftershave. Close enough that their arms were almost touching. Close enough that Eva was now fully aware of the heat emanating from Markos’s body.

Close enough that Eva could barely breathe for wanting to close that short distance between them and lose herself to the feel of those sensuously chiselled lips devouring her own.

Instead she rushed into speech. ‘I behaved badly—unprofessionally—and I apologise.’

He arched dark brows. ‘Does that mean you’ve reconsidered and are now willing to give me—and my reputation—the benefit of the doubt…?’

‘I’m not sure I would go that far,’ she said warily.

‘Liar,’ Markos murmured huskily. He’d seen the way those luscious golden eyes had darkened to amber, the slight flush appearing in Eva’s porcelain cheeks. Her lips were slightly moist and parted. As if waiting to be kissed.

As if she realised that was Markos’s intention, Eva took a step back and away from him. ‘I really do have to go now. If you’ve changed your mind about considering my designs—’ She broke off as Markos took another step forward, until they were now once again standing so close they were almost touching. She gave a determined shake of her head. ‘Markos, if you’re trying to intimidate me then I think I should warn you—’

‘Warn me of what…?’ Markos murmured throatily, even as he raised one of his hands to cup the warmth of her cheek, before moving the soft pad of his thumb over the softness of her lips, feeling the warmth of her breath against his fingers as he parted those lips in preparation for his kiss.

His own arousal intensified at the feel of that sensual warmth against his skin. His shaft was hard and pulsing, demanding…

Eva’s eyes were wide, deep amber pools as she stared up at him. ‘I should warn you—’

‘Yes…?’ Markos prompted softly, holding that wide and startled gaze with his own as his head began to lower towards hers.

She breathed softly. ‘I really should warn you—’

‘Warn me later, hmm?’ he dismissed gruffly, before finally claiming those full and pouting lips with his own.

Eva totally forgot what it was she wanted to warn Markos about as his other arm moved firmly about her waist and he pulled her in tightly against the heat of his body, angling her face up to his before his mouth finally took possession of hers.

Markos’s kiss was everything that Eva had known it would be—not in any way a gentle exploration, but an instant explosion of the senses, taste, smell, feel, and it felt so good to be against the hard heat of his body as they kissed hungrily, deeply, lips devouring, tongues duelling.

Eva tightly gripped Markos’s shoulders, her legs feeling weak as he crushed the ache of her breasts against his chest. Heat pooled between her thighs as she felt the hard throb of his arousal pressing insistently against her.

The sky could have fallen at that moment, the building collapsed around them, and Eva wouldn’t have noticed, too lost in the heat that consumed them both as Markos’s hands moved down to cup her bottom and pull her in more tightly. He ground his erection against and into her even as their mouths drank greedily of each other.

Eva was on fire, her inner ice melting, and her fingers became entangled in the dark hair at Markos’s nape as she returned that heat, needing, wanting—

She wanted Markos Lyonedes…!