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She didn’t like it. It made her feel—vulnerable.
And vulnerable was something she never, never wanted to feel.
Quickening her pace, she headed up the broad sweep of stairs up to the function suite. Inside, she saw that the other nine girls were already there—and so was Mr Big, talking to the most important suit. Deliberately not looking at him, Kat took her place beside the group, standing quietly to one side.
Angelos looked up. Immediately his eyes went to girl he’d added to the short list. His gaze stilled.
She was looking stunning. With part of his mind he tried to analyse why—and failed. Every girl here looked outstandingly beautiful, yet there was something about the edgy blonde that made her stand out even from them—that made him want to look at her …
Was that quality, whatever it was, enough to make him break the brief he’d given his creative team? That the models for this campaign should have the glossy, upmarket look that went with the new line of luxury yachts Petrakos Marine was launching? He turned to his creative director, taking a seat at the table and tilting his chair back slightly.
‘Have the girls walk,’ he instructed.
Deliberately he studied the other girls as they paraded up and down as if they were on a runway. Then, equally deliberately, he let his eyes go to the edgy blonde.
She doesn’t like it, surmised Angelos. She doesn’t like parading up and down on command. Doesn’t like taking orders. Showing herself off. He could see her resentment in every stiffened line of her body as she stalked up and down.
‘That’s enough.’
The girls stopped, came back to the table. The creative director leant forward to say something to Angelos, but he held out a hand to silence him. His gaze remained on the girls clustering around. He worked his gaze along them, his face expressionless.
Then he simply said, ‘You, you, you,’ nodding at each he’d chosen in turn.
One was blonde, with long hair down to her waist—clearly her particular asset—the second was an aristocratic brunette, and the third was Eurasian and any man’s private fantasy. They would all be ideal for the campaign.
Having made the required decision, he left everything else to his staff. But as he got to his feet his eyes went to the girl at the end of the row. She looked even more apart than before. The other rejected girls were peeling off into a group, some shrugging, some looking unconcerned, while the favoured three were taken off by two of his staff to get more details of the forthcoming shoot.
For a long moment the girl in the eau de nil silk just stood there, very still. Her face was quite expressionless. Then she turned away, walking back to the door.
There wasn’t any sign of resentment now. Only deliberate indifference.
Except that it wasn’t indifference. He could see exactly what it was—defiance. Not by the slightest slump of her shoulders letting any trace of having been rejected show. He watched her a moment, ignoring whatever it was his creative director was saying to him.
Then he went after her.
He caught her up just in the upper foyer, as she was heading for the stairs down and out of the hotel. He took her arm.
She stopped dead and jerked around. Her eyes flashed.
‘Don’t handle the merchandise, sunshine!’ she said, and made to tug away. It had no effect on his grip.
Angelos looked down at her upturned face. There was antagonism bristling in her eyes, but more than that. Something behind the antagonism.
‘There may be room for one more model. I’m prepared to consider it,’ he said.
Something flashed in her eyes, then disappeared.
He let go of her arm. ‘I’ll discuss it with you in my suite.’
Her eyes flashed again, but not with the emotion that had just been in them.
‘Get stuffed,’ she said, and wheeled round. He caught her again.
‘You mistake me,’ he said, and his voice was icy. ‘This concerns merely whether you are, or are not, suitable for this campaign. Nothing else.’ He walked towards the bank of lifts, not bothering to see if she was following. She would be, he knew.
She stepped into the lift beside him, standing as far away from him as possible, staring straight ahead, her shoulders rigid. Wary as a cat, but with a hunger, he knew perfectly well, for what he had in his power to offer her. As the elevator lifted away he caught the faintest tang of perfume—something citrusy. Sharp. It suited her, he realised.
Beside him, Kat stood, every nerve end bristling. It had been a rollercoaster all afternoon—from realising she wasn’t going to be short-listed to the exultation that she had been, and then, just now, the bitter knowledge that she still hadn’t made it, despite her best shot and her evening gown.
Only to have hope flare all over again—
She felt pincers snip away inside her stomach. And now it was not just because of the job she wanted so much. It was because of the man she was standing beside. Something about him was setting her nerves jangling.
It’s because he’s an arrogant s.o.b—that’s why! Mr High-and-Mighty, Filthy-Rich-Big! Looking at me like I’m nothing more than meat.
And it was in his power to give her a job she really, really wanted.
No other reason. Absolutely no other reason.
As she walked after him into the suite she stopped dead, gazing round, mouth dropping open. So this was how the rich lived! The place was like some kind of apartment, with rooms opening off a lounge that had a balcony on one side and a dining table in a huge alcove. Two huge sofas faced each other across an acre of coffee table.
‘Sit down and wait.’
The voice was indifferent, assuming obedience. She did as she was told, still looking around her, and then her eyes went to him without her volition, watching as he extracted some papers from a briefcase, setting them down upon the dining table and standing to look through them. He started to make phone calls in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before, so maybe it was Greek—the guy was Greek, the model who’d told her about him downstairs had said. Greek—and loaded.
And not just with money.
Kat found herself looking at him. Staring at him.
He might be an arrogant s.o.b, but she knew exactly how he was getting away with it. With looks like his—all that height and toughness and hard, planed features and dark, measuring eyes, plus that magnetic Mediterranean appeal with his olive skin tone and sable hair and that indefinable aura of being ‘foreign’—he must have women slavering for him!
Oh, not her. No chance. Because she didn’t slaver over any man, and never would. But she could still feel her nerves jangling, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Every impulse told her to jump to her feet and run, but she had to sit there, like a good little girl, because this man—however much her made her hackles rise—could give her the job she craved.
Her eyes flashed momentarily. But I’m still not kow-towing to him! He can take the job and stuff it before I do that!
She set her jaw, forcing her eyes away from where he stood, looking as if he owned the place. Which he might very well do, she realized. He was stuck giving orders in Greek, or whatever it was, down the phone. Her eyes went back to looking over this room where the rich folk hung out, taking it all in—the décor, the furniture, the deep carpets, the vast bouquet of flowers on the sideboard. All the trappings of luxury that a man as rich as Mr Big took for granted every moment of his gilded life.
A world away from her own life.
Well, she would never get to this level—she knew that—but then she didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. All she needed was something a lot better than she had—a clean, nicely furnished flat, not the squalid, mouldering bedsit she was holed up in now, and enough money coming in for her not to be cold in winter and watching every penny every minute of the day. Something that was hers and hers alone—a decent life.
And one day she’d have it. One day—
Her focus snapped back to the present. The phone calls had stopped, and he slid the phone away in his inside jacket pocket, coming across to sit down opposite her in an armchair. He’d helped himself to a drink from somewhere, but wasn’t offering her one, she noticed. Just as well. She wouldn’t have touched it.
He hooked one leg over his knee and relaxed back into his seat, holding his glass in his hand. His eyes rested on her.
Kat made her face expressionless. She was learning how to do that.
‘So …’ said Angelos Petrakos. His voice was deep, but with hardly a trace of accent, she realised, only the clipped, curt tones of a posh Englishman—a million miles away from the London voice she spoke with. ‘Shall I hire you, or not?’
Kat’s expression didn’t change. Was she supposed to answer, or just sit there like a dummy? She chose to answer. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but sitting voiceless was more than she could make herself do.
‘No point asking me,’ said Kat. ‘I’m just the meat.’ Her voice was deadpan.
‘Meat?’ The word fell into the space, ready frozen.
She tightened her mouth. ‘Clothes horse. Dress rack. Dummy. AKA body. AKA meat.’
His eyes seemed to narrow minutely. ‘You have a problem with that?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s what modelling’s all about,’ she answered.
‘But you object?’ The voice was sardonic.
‘Not if I get paid. And if I don’t get any hassle,’ she added pointedly.
For a moment he did not answer. Then the dark eyes narrowed again. For a moment Kat felt she was skating on thin ice—very thin ice—that might suddenly crack, disastrously, and send her plunging down into dark, drowning water …
Then it was gone.
‘And if … hassle… were part of the deal?’
For answer, Kat held up a single finger, her face expressionless.
Angelos’s eyes flickered to it, then back to the girl’s face. Why was he doing this? He had no intention of sleeping with her. His assessment was purely professional. But something made him say, his tone suddenly dulcet, ‘You might find it enjoyable—’
‘And you,’ Kat retorted sweetly, ‘might find the attempt painful.’
For a second, the barest portion of one, she felt the ice give an ominous crack. As if he might actually find her answer amusing. Then the hard features hardened even more, and he simply levelled upon her a glance that crushed her like an insect.
Oh, God, thought Kat. My big mouth.
But Angelos Petrakos was reaching for his mobile phone. It was answered instantly. He didn’t look at her. ‘Add Kat Jones to the shoot,’ he said.
She stared, eyes widening. Then elation soared through her.
A moment later it dissipated. Those sharp dark eyes were back on her again.
‘Provisionally,’ said Angelos Petrakos.
She looked at him warily. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked. She sounded blunter than she’d meant to, but her nerves were jangling for a hundred reasons which had a lot more to do with the hard-featured face of the man with the power to hire her than the job he was dangling in front of her.
‘It means,’ he answered, ‘that I want to check whether you can behave appropriately. Fit in. I don’t tolerate,’ he said cuttingly, ‘attitude.’
Kat bit her lip. She could feel herself doing it. Forcing herself to do it.
‘Exactly,’ said Angelos Petrakos, a mordant expression in his night-dark eyes. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet. ‘If you have any engagements for this evening, cancel them.’
She stared. Wariness radiated instantly from her again, like a beacon switch thrown to high. He saw it—just as he’d seen her forcing herself to bite her lip.
‘I’m taking you to dinner,’ he enunciated. ‘There will be a considerable amount of socialising in Monte Carlo. The other girls will find it easy. You need practice,’ he told her coolly. ‘If, that is, you are to go at all.’
CHAPTER THREE
KAT had got the message, loud and clear. She was on trial. And, whilst one part of her wanted to tell him what he could do with his ‘provisional’ offer, the other side of her brain managed to hold down that predictable but destructive reaction.
The trouble was, she realized, as she stiffly and selfconsciously followed Angelos Petrakos down in the lift to the hotel restaurant with determined docility, that trying to behave ‘appropriately’—she mentally gave the patronising term a vicious nip—for going to Monte Carlo was being impeded by the very man who was judging her behaviour. Because as she jerkily took her place opposite him in the ultra-swanky restaurant—all dim lights and designer seating and damask linen—the tension she felt was not just because of her surroundings—or the fact this job depended on her behaviour, but predominantly and overwhelmingly because spending any time at all in the man’s company was stringing her nerves out like wires.
She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want a bevy of waiters hovering around, flicking out napkins, proffering water, bread, menus, so that she didn’t know what to do or what to take or what to say. And she didn’t want to open a huge leatherbound menu and stare blankly at the entire thing, written in French, not understanding a word of it. It made her feel like a fool, and she resented it. And the man who was putting her through it. Above all she didn’t want to be anywhere near him.
Because—well, just because. That was good enough, wasn’t it? she told herself aggrievedly. She didn’t have to say she didn’t like the way his strong features made her want to look at them, even though they damn well shouldn’t have, or the way his dark, glinting eyes seemed to flick over her like a blade and do things to her that they shouldn’t, or the way his handmade suit eased across his broad shoulders and the silk slash of a tie accentuated his aura of Mr Big, so that everyone flunkeyed around him and he didn’t even notice it.
‘Chosen what you want yet?’ His voice was cool as he addressed her.
She pressed her lips together. ‘I don’t know. I can’t read it. It’s in French.’
She was being truculent, she knew, but couldn’t stop herself. The place was getting to her. He was getting to her.
‘You’ll find,’ replied Angelos Petrakos, his sarcasm silky, ‘that French is the de rigueur language in Monte Carlo.’
Kat gave a shrug, doggedly resistant to his putdown. ‘Well, I’ll be stuffed then, won’t I?’ She shut the menu. ‘I’ll have a green salad, no dressing. That OK in a place like this?’
She was sounding belligerent, and she really, really didn’t mean to. It was stupid to be like this—just stupid! But she couldn’t help herself. She felt wired all along her nerve endings, a tightness in her chest.
He was frowning. ‘That’s all?’
‘Yeah. Model—diet—you know.’
She was being daft, not just flippant. This was free food. She should eat a week’s worth and starve till the weekend! But right now she didn’t think she was going to be able to swallow easily she was so strung out.
A second later her nerves twanged like a bass guitar. His eyes were resting on her. Just—resting.
But it was all they had to do. Suddenly her dress seemed skimpy, her breasts too noticeable beneath the slinky fabric, her shoulders and arms far too exposed. She felt—naked.
Not in the way that photographers and stylists made her feel—although she hated that, no mistake—but what was happening now was … different.
Worse. Much, much worse.
Because when photographers and stylists made her feel like meat it didn’t make her feel like this.
As if she was suddenly burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. As if she wanted to jump to her feet and bolt, and yet was glued immobile. As if her breathing had stopped completely, and yet her heart-rate was racing as if she’d just injected adrenaline straight into it …
And then suddenly the gaze was gone, and there was, instead, a faint frown line between his brows, as though yet again something had annoyed him.
Then the waiter was hovering, ready to take orders. She repeated her request for salad, her voice sounding tight and breathless. When he’d gone, Angelos Petrakos turned his attention back to her.
‘You’d look better with more flesh on you,’ he said. He sounded critical, and it galled her. But then, everything about him galled her. Or did something like that to her …
‘Tell that to the camera,’ she riposted. ‘It puts weight on if you just breathe.’
‘So you live on air?’
‘Just about. You get used to it.’
The frown between his eyes snapped deeper. ‘With the aid of drugs?’ he shot at her.
‘No,’ she retorted instantly. She said nothing else. It was a subject she never discussed. Never.
‘Good,’ he said brusquely. ‘I don’t tolerate drug-users, for any reason.’
She didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. She knew drugs were prevalent in the modelling business, both for recreation and weight control, but since she didn’t socialise she saw very little of it.
Then a guy with a little metal cup beetled up, with a minion in tow bearing a bottle as if it was some kind of baby. Kat stared, nonplussed, at the ritual that then proceeded.
‘What was that all about?’ she heard herself asking, as the flunkey and his minion beetled off again, having eventually filled two glasses.
Angelos found himself explaining the role of the sommelier. While he did so he wondered, for the dozenth time, what the hell he was doing right now. Bringing this ill-mannered, back-talking, street-sharp girl here to dinner. Oh, he knew what he’d told her—but that wasn’t the reason and he knew it. He couldn’t care less if she was gauche and unsophisticated on the shoot, provided she took instructions and shot well. No, he had different reasons for extending his time with her—reasons he didn’t want to focus on right now, simply continue with.
She was totally not the type of female he was ever interested in—too thin and too raw, with an unlovely London accent exacerbating her sharp tongue. A universe away from the sophisticated and soignée women he chose for company.
So why was he wasting his valuable time on this mouthy, angular, bony female who’d brought her back-street behaviour with her from whatever sink estate she’d been dragged up on?
The question probed at him, finding no answer. None but whatever it had been about her that had made him subject her to his scrutiny from the moment she’d pushed past him in the hotel doorway to now, having her sit here opposite him, clearly completely out of her social depth and radiating resentment, hostility and, most obvious of all, having to force herself not to jump to her feet and march out of the restaurant and hightail it back to wherever she hailed from.
Was that it? he found himself wondering. Was that why he was wasting his time on her? Because she didn’t want him to? Because she so obviously didn’t want his attention?
Something he’d never known in any female. Oh, the women he associated with were sufficiently sophisticated not to let their assiduous desire to please him be conspicuous, but it was there all the same—all the time. He took it for granted that it would be, even if it was just his wealth alone that drew them. And if the kind of women he selected for his relaxation were of that mind, how much more so all the other females who crossed his path in more workaday, humbler roles? A girl in this model’s circumstances should be desperate to court his approval, impress him with her suitability for the assignment.
For a fleeting moment he examined the possibility that the girl was deliberately trying to make herself noticeable by being as belligerent and hostile as she was. Then he dismissed it. No, her body language—bristling and protective—was genuine. So was her resistance and suspicion. His eyes darkened momentarily. She’d repulsed very clearly, very crudely, his deliberately voiced and entirely theoretical proposition. Had she meant it? It had seemed entirely spontaneous, entirely genuine. But … He found his thoughts turning over. Would that resistance last if he let her think that his selection of her as an extra model for the yacht shoot was contingent on her supplying sexual favours?
Was she really, despite her sharp tongue and bristling body language, that virtuous?
His thoughts idled. Perhaps he should put it to the test …
Out of nowhere, like an image illuminated by dark light, he saw her in his mind’s eye, her elongated, coltish body lying on a bed, her small breasts bared, her head tilted back, pale hair jagged on the pillow, eyes blinded by a moment of sexual whiteout—
He thrust the mental vision aside forcefully. The last thing he was interested in was taking her to bed! Forcibly, he focussed his mind on the present circumstances—wondering what on earth had possessed him to waste dinner in her company. She was as far from his type as it was possible to be, and with every minute that passed she confirmed it. Her ignorance was total. She had clearly never dined in a restaurant like this before, and clearly never made conversation over a dinner table before. Her brusqueness was comprehensive, at every question or comment he made, whether from nerves or belligerence.
On top of the ludicrous green salad she’d insisted on, she was ignoring the wine poured for her. Instead, she reached for her water glass and drank it down. Angelos watched her.
‘You won’t try the wine?’
She set down her empty glass and shook her head. ‘I don’t drink,’ she said. ‘Empty calories.’
It was all the reason she would give. Besides, she found talking hard. Her jitters were getting worse. She didn’t like the way she was getting more aware of the man opposite her. He seemed to be crowding her consciousness, making her look at him, and she didn’t want to. For a searing second she could feel an urgent impulse to grab the glass of wine and knock it back. A second later she crushed the impulse. No. No alcohol. Ever. End of story. Instead she took a steadying breath, swallowing air to calm her.
He made no reply to her terse rebuff, only lifting his own wineglass, taking a slow mouthful of wine, swirling the ruby liquid in the large glass, his eyes still resting on her. She shifted position, wishing she could just get up and go. It was like being under a microscope. She hated it. Then, like a release, he set down his glass and turned his attention to his food. Kat felt her stomach cramp with hunger as he forked the rich, fragrant dish of seafood.
He started a new topic. ‘Tell me—have you been to Monaco before?’
‘No. I’ve never been anywhere.’ Why had she said that? He didn’t need to know she’d never been anywhere.
His fork stilled. ‘You’ve never been abroad?’
‘No.’ She collected herself, clamming up.
The dark eyes rested on her. She hadn’t a clue what was going on in them. Didn’t care, anyway. Why should she? If he wanted to make stupid conversation with her, she didn’t have to make it back. Couldn’t anyway. She knew that. Knew she knew nothing. And didn’t care either.
I just care about getting this job.
He was speaking again, taking another considered mouthful of wine. ‘That’s rare, these days, even for the British,’ he observed.
Kat shrugged.
‘You never went abroad on holiday as a child, with your parents?’
‘No.’ She’d never been on holiday, period. As for her parents—a junkie, prostitute mother and an unknown, could-be-anyone father didn’t really cut the mustard when it came to taking their darling daughter off on foreign jaunts …
Anger spiked through her suddenly. Anger at what this man was digging out of her. She turned it towards him to get rid of it—the quickest way she could. ‘Look, what is this?’ she demanded belligerently. ‘What’s it to you whether I’ve ever been abroad or not? I haven’t—OK? Is that some kind of crime in your book?’
The hard features hardened abruptly. ‘I told you I don’t tolerate attitude,’ he bit out at her. ‘Do you really have no idea how to conduct yourself? Because, if so, perhaps I should reconsider my decision.’