Книга - Forgiven but not Forgotten?

Forgiven but not Forgotten?
ABBY GREEN


‘Much as I hate to admit it, you might just be worth paying an astronomical amount of money to bed.’Siena DePiero might have blue blood in her veins, but she’s never coveted her family’s champagne lifestyle – it’s only ever brought her misery. But when the family’s bubble bursts they are all left destitute, and Siena’s only tradable asset is her virginity…Andreas Xenakis has waited years to get his revenge, and he’ll willingly pay to have Siena in his bed and at his mercy. But after just one night together everything Andreas once believed about poor little rich girl Siena is shattered…‘Finished but definitely not forgotten! A sizzling tale full of twists!’ – Hattie, 69, Bristol www.abby-green.com







‘You’ve learnt your lessons well, DePiero…in the beds of however many countless lovers you’ve entertained. Were they the ones to teach you that intoxicating mix of innocence and artless sensuality designed to ensnare a man?’

Siena looked at Andreas, stunned at his words. He had no idea. He couldn’t tell her gauche responses were all too real. And she vowed then that he never would know, however she had to do it.

She fought to find some veneer of composure and said, as cynically as she could considering she was shaking inwardly like a leaf, ‘What else did you expect? A real bona fide virgin heiress? This is the twenty-first century, Xenakis. Surely you know better than most that virgins are as mythical as unicorns?’




About the Author


ABBY GREEN got hooked on Mills & Boon


romances while still in her teens, when she stumbled across one belonging to her grandmother in the west of Ireland. After many years of reading them voraciously, she sat down one day and gave it a go herself. Happily, after a few failed attempts, Mills & Boon bought her first manuscript.

Abby works freelance in the film and TV industry, but thankfully the four a.m. starts and the stresses of dealing with recalcitrant actors are becoming more and more infrequent, leaving her more time to write!

She loves to hear from readers, and you can contact her through her website at www.abby-green.com. She lives and works in Dublin.

Recent titles by the same author:



EXQUISITE REVENGE

ONE NIGHT WITH THE ENEMY

THE LEGEND OF DE MARCO

THE CALL OF THE DESERT


Did you know these are also available as eBooks?

Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk




Forgiven but not Forgotten?

Abby Green







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


This is especially for Crispin Green, Polly Green,

Barney Green and Katie Green.

I’m so proud to be your half-sister

and one of the ‘Greens in Cornwall’.




PROLOGUE


SIENA DEPIERO HELD her older sister’s hand tightly as they left their palazzo. Even though she was twelve and Serena was fourteen they still instinctively sought each other for support. Their father was in an even more mercurial mood than usual today. Their car was waiting by the kerb, a uniformed driver standing by the open door. Siena knew that her father’s bodyguards were nearby.

Just feet away from the car a tall young man with dark hair seemed to spring from nowhere, stopping their father in his tracks. He was gesticulating and calling their father Papà. Siena and Serena had come to a halt too, with burly guards standing between them and this confrontation.

Siena looked around the bodyguards. She could instantly see the resemblance of this young man to their father. He had the same shaped face and deep-set eyes. But how could he be related? Suddenly there was a dull crunching sound and the young man was sprawled on the ground, looking up with shock on his face, blood running from his nose. Their father had hit him.

Siena gripped Serena’s hand tight in shock at the sudden violence. Their father turned back and gestured angrily for them to follow him. The path was so narrow that they had to step over the young man’s legs. Siena was too scared to look at him—he was so wild and feral.

They were ushered into the back of the car and Siena heard their father issue terse instructions to his men. Just then she heard the young man roar, ‘I’m Rocco, your son—you bastard!’

When their father got into the car and it pulled away, Siena couldn’t stop herself from looking behind them. She saw their father’s men dragging the young man out of sight. She felt sick. Serena was looking stonily ahead but her hand gripped Siena’s.

Their father caught Siena by the ear painfully and jerked her head round. Siena clamped her mouth shut. She knew better than to make a sound.

He forced her to look at him. ‘What do you think you are doing?’

‘Nothing, Papà.’

His mouth was a thin line of anger. ‘Good, because you know what happens if you anger me.’

Serena’s grip on Siena’s hand was so tight she nearly cried out. Quickly Siena said, ‘Yes, Papà.’

After a long, tense moment their father let her go and faced the front again. Siena knew very well what happened when she angered him. He would punish her sister Serena. It was never her. Always her sister. Because that was what amused him.

Siena didn’t look at her sister, but they kept their hands tightly gripped together for the rest of the journey.




CHAPTER ONE


ANDREAS XENAKIS DIDN’T like the strength of the thrill of triumph that moved through him. It signified that this moment held more importance for him than he’d care to admit. Bitterly, he had to concede that perhaps it did. After all, practically within touching distance now was the woman who had all but cried rape for her own amusement, to protect her untarnished image in her father’s eyes. She’d merited him a savage beating, losing his job, being blacklisted from every hotel in Europe and having to start over again on the other side of the world. Far away from anyone he’d known or who had known him.

She was still exquisite. More so. Andreas had found himself imagining that she couldn’t possibly be as stunning as she’d been since he’d seen her five years ago. But she was. She was a woman now, not a teenager.

Her hair was so blonde it shone almost white under the soft lighting of a hundred chandeliers. It was pulled up into a high bun. She held herself with the same effortlessly regal bearing he’d first noticed in that glittering ballroom in Paris. His mouth compressed. She was a thoroughbred in the midst of lesser beings. He could see how women near her instinctively shut her out, as if sensing competition.

His eyes moved over the curve of her cheek and jaw. The patrician line of her nose more than hinted at the blue-blooded heritage of her Italian ancestry, diluted only in part by her half-English mother who had been related to royalty. Her skin was still pale and looked soft: as soft as a rose petal. Andreas’s belly clenched hard to recall just how soft it had felt under his fingers.

He’d touched her reverently, as if she were an ethereal goddess, and he’d felt as if he was marking her, staining her purity with his touch. His hands were fists by his sides now as he thought of how she’d urged him on with breathy, sexy entreaties in his ear: ‘Please…I want you to touch me, Andreas.’ Only to turn on him almost in the same breath and accuse him of attacking her…

She turned then, to face towards him, and that low, simmering anger was eclipsed when blood rushed to his head and to his groin, making him simultaneously dizzy and hard.

He couldn’t escape the impact of those huge, glittering bright blue eyes ringed with long dark lashes. But it was her mouth which drew his gaze and kept it. Sinfully lush and pink. Just waiting to be kissed…crushed under his. Andreas had to consciously will down the intense desire. He was fast being reduced to the instincts of an animal, and he hated her for having this effect on him. Still. For ever, mocked the small voice in his head.

No. Andreas rejected it fiercely. Not for ever. Just until he’d had her. Until they’d finished what she’d started when she’d upended his life so cruelly and comprehensively. Because she’d been curious and bored. Because she’d had the power. Because he’d been nothing.

Resolve firmed in Andreas’s gut. He was far from nothing any more, and thanks to a cruel twist of circumstances Siena DePiero was reduced to lower than he’d ever been, rendering her exposed and vulnerable—to him.

Her blonde head dipped out of view momentarily and Andreas’s insides contracted with something indefinable that went beyond where he wanted to investigate. He didn’t like the fact that he was uncomfortably aware of other men’s interest, of their gazes after her, covetous and even lascivious. It made him feel possessive and that was not welcome.

She’d had the gall to play with him once. Andreas desired her. That was all. His eyes caught sight of her bright blonde head again and he watched and waited as she drew ever closer to him in the crowd.

Siena DePiero was in the act of navigating through the crowd with a heavy tray, trying not to upend the contents over someone’s feet, when a broad chest at her eye level stopped her from moving forward.

She looked up and had the impression of a very tall man, broad all the way through to his shoulders. A pristine tuxedo with a white bow-tie marked him out as slightly different. As Siena’s mouth opened to say excuse me her gaze reached his face and her heart stopped.

He was no stranger.

Andreas Xenakis. Here.

The recognition was instantaneous. The knowledge was cataclysmic. It was as if mere minutes had passed since she’d last seen him, yet it had been five years. He looked bigger, darker, leaner.

She could instantly read the unmistakable light of cold hatred in his eyes and her insides contracted painfully. Of all the people to meet in this situation… No one would get more mileage out of it than Andreas Xenakis. And could she even blame him? a small voice mocked.

‘Well, well, well.’

His voice was painfully familiar, immediately twisting her insides into a knot of tension.

‘Fancy meeting you here.’

Siena could feel his eyes rake her up and down, taking in her server’s uniform of white shirt, black tie and black trousers. The effect he had on her now was as devastating as it had been five years before. It was as if she had been plugged into an electrical socket and the current was running through her blood, making it hum, as disturbing and disconcerting as she remembered—especially in light of what had happened.

Her insides contracted even more painfully.

Dark slashing brows framed his incredible navy blue eyes. High cheekbones drew the eye down to a strong jaw. And his mouth…that beautiful sensuous mouth…was all at once sexy and mocking. He lifted one brow, clearly waiting for a response.

Struggling to retain some sense of composure, when she felt like a tiny boat being lashed on high seas, Siena managed to find her voice and said coolly, ‘Mr Xenakis. How nice to see you again.’

His arched brow went higher and he let out a curt laugh. His voice wasn’t so heavily accented any more. It had more of a mid-Atlantic twang. ‘Even now you can make it sound as if you’re greeting me at your own dinner party—not serving drinks to people you once woudn’t deign to look in the eye.’

Siena flinched minutely. She didn’t have to be psychic to recognise that the man who stood before her now was a much harder and more ruthless creature than the man she’d met in Paris. Xenakis’s meteoric rise to become one of the world’s most prominent hoteliers at the ridiculously young age of thirty had been well documented in the press.

‘I’m flattered you remember me,’ he drawled, ‘After all we’ve met only once—as memorable as that meeting was.’

He mocked her. Siena felt like pointing out pedantically that it had actually been twice. After all, she’d seen him again the morning after that catastrophic night. But that memory was far too much to handle right now.

‘Yes.’ She glanced away for a minute, uncomfortable under that dark gaze. ‘Of course I remember you.’

Suddenly it was too much. The tray of glasses started to wobble alarmingly in Siena’s hands as the full magnitude of seeing him again hit her. Surprising her, Andreas took it competently out of her white-knuckled grasp and put it down on a nearby table before she could object.

Just then they were interrupted by Siena’s boss, who was shooting none too subtle daggers at Siena while smiling obsequiously at Andreas.

‘Mr Xenakis, is everything all right here? If my staff have been in any way remiss—’

‘No.’ His voice was abrupt, cold. He truly was Lord of all he surveyed now. Exuding power and confidence and that tangible sexual charisma.

Feeling a little dizzy, Siena tuned back in to Xenakis’s voice, being directed to her boss.

‘Everything is fine. I am acquainted with Miss—’

Siena cut in urgently before Xenakis could say her hated name, ‘Mr Xenakis, like I said, it was nice to see you again. If you’ll excuse me, though, I really should get back to work.’

Siena picked up the heavy tray again and, without looking at Andreas Xenakis or her boss, fled on very shaky legs.

Andreas followed the progress of the bright blonde head, inordinately annoyed with this small rotund man for interrupting them. He was saying now, in a toadying voice, ‘I’m so sorry about that, Mr Xenakis. Our staff have the strictest instructions not to make conversation with any of the guests, but Miss Mancini is new—’

Andreas bit out coldly, ‘I spoke to her, actually.’ Then he realised something and looked at the man, ‘You say her name is Mancini?’

‘Yes,’ her boss said absently, and then he smiled even more slimily, saying sotto voce to Andreas, ‘Of course her looks are a bonus—she could be a model, if you ask me. I don’t know what she’s doing waitressing, but I can’t complain. I’ve never had so many requests for her phone number.’

Andreas desisted from informing the man that she was waitressing because she was persona non grata in polite society across Europe. He pushed aside the fact of her name-change and felt something like rage building inside him. He fixed the manager with a look that would have felled many. ‘I presume you do not give out her number, of course?’

The man immediately went puce and blustered, ‘Well, I… Well, of course not, Mr Xenakis. I don’t know what kind of a service you think I’m running here, but I can assure you—’

‘Don’t worry,’ Andreas sliced in cuttingly. ‘I will be assured once I’ve checked out your company thoroughly.’

With that he turned and walked in the direction he’d last seen Siena moving. He had something much more urgent to take his attention now: making sure Siena DePiero didn’t disappear into thin air.

A couple of hours later Siena was walking quickly through the moonlit streets around Mayfair. She still hadn’t fully processed that she’d seen Andreas Xenakis, here in London, where she’d come to hide and move on with her life. To her everlasting relief she hadn’t bumped into him again, but she’d been horribly aware of his tall form and had endeavoured to make sure she stayed on the far side of the room at all times.

Now, as she walked and felt the blisters on her heels, she cursed herself for letting Andreas get to her like that. Yes, they had history. She winced inwardly. It wasn’t a pretty history. She didn’t want to be reminded of the blazing look of anger and betrayal on his face when she’d stood beside her father five years ago, holding her dress up over her chest, and agreed shakily: ‘Yes, he attacked me, Papa. I couldn’t stop him…’

Andreas had cut in angrily, his Greek accent thick. ‘That’s a downright lie. She was begging me—’

Her father had held up an imperious hand and cut Andreas off. He’d turned to face Siena and she’d looked up at him, terrified of his power to inflict punishment if he chose to believe Andreas.

He’d said quietly, ‘He’s lying, isn’t he? You would never let a man like this touch you, would you? Because you know you’re infinitely better than him.’

Struggling to hide her disgust and hatred, Siena had given the only answer she could. She’d nodded and felt sick. ‘Yes, he’s lying. I would never allow someone like him to touch me.’

Thinking of the unpalatable past made Siena feel trembly and light-headed. She didn’t want to contemplate the very uncomfortable fact that he still had such a profound effect on her.

Once again, though, she marvelled at how far removed he was from the man who had once presided over servers in a hotel. In all honesty she was surprised he’d recognised her at all from his lofty position. She knew how easy it was to see only the hand that served you, not the person. Siena recalled her father’s blistering anger when he’d berated her once for aiding a waiter who’d dropped a tray at one of his legendary parties. He’d hauled her into his offce and gripped her arm painfully.

‘Don’t you know who we are? You step over people like him. You do not stop to help them.’

Siena had bitten back the angry retort on her lips. Just like you stepped over your own illegitimate son in the street? Our own brother? That audacious comment alone would have merited her sister a severe beating. That was his preferred twisted form of torture—if Siena provoked him, Serena would be punished.

Siena saw the bus stop in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow she would have forgotten all about bad memories and running into Andreas Xenakis. Her insides lurched, mocking her assertion. For one second earlier, when she’d first seen Andreas, she’d imagined she was dreaming.

She’d never forgotten what she had done to that man by falsely accusing him. More often than she cared to admit she remembered that night and how, with just a look and a touch, he’d made her lose any sense of rationality and sanity. On some level, when she’d read about his stellar success in the newspapers, she’d been relieved; to see him flourishing far better than she would have ever expected assuaged some tiny part of the guilt she felt.

Resolutely Siena pushed down her incendiary thoughts. Familiar nagging anxiety took their place. She wondered now, as she approached the bus stop, if the two jobs she had would be enough to help her sister. But she knew with a leaden feeling that nothing short of a miracle could do that.

Siena had just arrived under the shelter of the bus stop when she noticed a sleek silver sports car pulling up alongside where she stood. Even before the electric window lowered on the passenger side Siena’s heart-rate had increased.

The starkly handsome features of Andreas Xenakis looked out and Siena backed away instinctively. His presence was evidence that he wasn’t about to let her off so easily. He wanted to torture her and make the most out of her changed circumstances. In a second he’d jumped out of the car and was lightly holding her elbow.

‘Please.’ He smiled urbanely, as if stopping to pick up women at bus stops resplendent in a tuxedo was entirely normal for him. ‘Let me give you a lift.’

Siena was so tense she felt as if she might crack in two. Very aware of her ill-fitting thin denim jacket in the biting early spring breeze, and the fatigue that made her bones ache, she bit out, ‘I’m fine, thank you. The bus will be along shortly.’

Andreas shook his head. He had that same incredulous expression that he’d worn when she’d spoken to him before. ‘Are your co-workers aware you could probably have conversed with every foreign guest in that room in their own tongue?’

Hurt at this back-handed compliment, and his all too banal but accurate assessment of her misery Siena pulled her arm free. She acted instinctively, wanting to say something to prick his pride and hopefully push him away. ‘I said I’m fine, thank you very much. I’m sure you have better things to do than follow me around like some besotted puppy dog.’

His eyes flashed dangerously at that, and Siena hated herself for those words. They reminded her of the poison that had dropped from her lips that night in Paris. They were the kind of words Andreas would expect her to say. But they weren’t having the desired effect at all. She should have realised that he wasn’t like other men—she remembered the way he’d stood up to her father with such innate pride. One of the very few people who hadn’t cowered.

He merely looked even more dangerous now, and grabbed her arm again. ‘Let’s go, Signorina DePiero. The bus is coming and I’m blocking the lane.’

Siena looked past Andreas and saw the double-decker bus bearing down. A sharp blast of the horn made her flinch. She could see the others waiting at the bus stop shooting them dirty looks because their journey home was being held up.

Siena looked at Andreas and he said ominously, ‘Don’t test me, Siena. I’ll leave the car there if I have to.’

Another blast of the horn had someone saying with irritation, ‘Oh, just take the lift, will you? We want to get home.’

For a second Siena felt nothing but excoriating isolation. And then Andreas had led her to the car and was handing her into the low seat before shutting the door. He slid smoothly into the other side.

‘Do up your belt,’ he instructed curtly, before adding acidly, ‘Or are you used to having even that done for you?’

His words cut through the fog of shock clouding her brain and she fumbled to secure the belt with hands that were all fingers and thumbs.

She retaliated in a sharp voice. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Andreas expertly negotiated the car into the stream of traffic. It was so smooth it felt as if they were gliding above the ground. It had been long months since Siena had been in such luxurious confines, and the soft leather seat moulded around her body, cupping it in a way that was almost sensual. Her hands curled into fists on her lap against the sensation and her jaw was taut.

She unclenched it. ‘Stop the car and let me out, please. I can make my own way home. I got in purely to stop you causing a scene.’

‘I’ve spent six months looking for you, Siena, so I’m not about to let you go that easily.’

Six months ago her father had disappeared, leaving his entire fortune in tatters, and leaving Siena and Serena to stand among the ashes and take the opprobrium that had come their way in their father’s cowardly absence. Siena looked at Andreas with horror on her face and something much more ambiguous in her belly. Tonight hadn’t been an awful coincidence?

Shakily she said, ‘You’ve been looking for me?’

His mouth tightened and he confirmed it. ‘Since the news of your father’s disappearance and the collapse of your fortune.’

He glanced at her and she held herself tightly, wanting to shiver at the thought of his determination to find her again. To punish her? Why else? a small voice crowed.

Softly, lethally, he said, ‘We have unfinished business, wouldn’t you agree?’

Panic constricted Siena’s throat. She wasn’t ready for a reckoning with this man. ‘No, I wouldn’t. Now, why don’t you just stop the car and let me out?’

Andreas ignored her entreaty and drawled easily, ‘Your address, Siena…or we’ll spend the night driving around London.’

Siena’s jaw clenched again. She saw the way his long-fingered hand rested on the steering wheel. For all of his nonchalance she suddenly had the impression that he was actually far more intractable than her father had ever been. He’d certainly proved that he had a ruthless nose when it came to business.

Siena had on more than one occasion closeted herself in her father’s study to follow Andreas’s progress online. She’d read about him shutting down ailing hotels with impunity, his refusing to comment on rumours that he didn’t care about putting hundreds out of work just to increase his own growing portfolio. In the same searches she’d seen acres of newsprint devoted to his love-life, which appeared to be hectic and peopled with only the most beautiful women in the world. Siena didn’t like to admit how she’d noticed that they were all lustrous brunettes or redheads. Evidently blondes weren’t his type any more.

Suspecting now that he would indeed drive around all night if she didn’t tell him, Siena finally rapped out her address.

‘See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?’

Siena scowled and looked right ahead.

There was silence for a few minutes, thickening the tension, and then he said, ‘So, where did you get Mancini from?’

Siena looked at him. ‘How did you know?’ Then she remembered and breathed out shakily. ‘My boss must have mentioned it.’

‘Well?’ he asked, as if he had all the time in the world to wait for an answer.

Tightly, Siena eventually replied, ‘It was my maternal grandmother’s maiden name. I didn’t want to risk anyone recognising me.’

‘No,’ the man beside her responded dryly, ‘I can imagine why not.’

Anger at his insouciance, and the ease with which he’d just turned up to humiliate her, made Siena snap, ‘You really shouldn’t have followed me, you know.’

He replied all too easily. ‘Look on it as a concerned friend merely wishing to see how you’re doing.’

Siena snorted scathingly but her heart was thumping, ‘Friend? Somehow I doubt you’ve ever put yourself in that category where I’m concerned.’ It was more likely to be a definite foe.

Andreas Xenakis shot her a look then, and Siena recoiled back in her seat. It was so…so carnal and censorious.

He growled softly, ‘You’re right. We were closer to lovers. And friends don’t, after all, cry rape when it suits them to save face.’

Siena blanched. ‘I never used that word.’

Andreas’s jaw clenched hard. ‘As good as. You accused me of attacking you when we both know that only seconds before your father arrived you were begging me to—’

‘Stop!’ cried Siena, her breathing becoming agitated.

She could remember all too well how it had felt to have Andreas Xenakis pressing her down into the chaise longue, the way she’d strained up towards him, aching for him to put his hands on her everywhere. And when he’d moved his hand up between her stockinged legs she’d parted them…tacitly telling him of her intense desire.

‘Why?’ Andreas drawled. ‘You can’t handle the truth? I thought you were made of sterner stuff, DePiero. You forget you showed your true colours that night.’

Siena turned her head and looked stonily out of the window. The truth was that she had no excuse for her reprehensible behaviour that night. She had begged Andreas to make love to her. She had kissed him back ardently. When he’d pulled her dress down to expose one breast she’d sighed with exquisite pleasure and he’d kissed her there.

The car pulled up to a set of traffic lights at that moment, and the urge to escape was sudden and instinctive. Siena went to open her door to jump out, but with lightning-fast accuracy Andreas’s arm restrained her with a strength that was awesome. Long fingers wrapped around her slender arm, and the bunched muscle of his arm against her soft belly was a far more effective restraint than if he’d locked the doors. Her skin tightened over her bones, drawing in and becoming sensitised. Her breasts felt heavy and tight, her nipples stiffening against the material of her bra.

The car moved off again and Siena pushed his arm off her with all her strength. That brief touch was enough to hurtle her back in time all over again and she struggled to contain herself. The fact that he was so determined to toy with her like this was utterly humiliating.

He pulled up outside a discreetly elegant period apartment building on a wide quiet street. He’d hopped out of the car and was at her open door, holding out an expectant hand, before she knew what was happening.

Siena shrank back and looked up at him. ‘This isn’t where I live.’ It’s a million miles from where I live, she thought.

‘I’m aware of that. However, it is where I live, and as we were passing I thought we’d stop so we can catch up on old times over a coffee.’

Siena held back a snort of derision and crossed her arms, looking straight ahead with a stony expression. ‘I am not getting out of this car, Xenakis. Take me home.’

Andreas’s voice was merely amused. ‘First I couldn’t get you into it and now I can’t get you out of it. They say women are mercurial…’

Before she knew it Andreas had bent down to her level and reached in to undo her seat belt. Siena flapped at his hands in a panic until he stilled them with his. His face was very close to hers and Siena could feel her hair unravelling. She was breathing harshly. His scent teased her nostrils, exactly as she remembered it. Not changed. Oaky and musky and very male.

A voice came from behind Andreas. ‘Mr Xenakis? Do you want me to park the car?’

Without taking his eyes off Siena’s, Andreas answered, ‘Yes, please, Tom. I’ll be taking Ms DePiero home shortly, so keep it nearby.’

‘Aye-aye, sir,’ came the jaunty response.

Siena struggled for a few seconds against Andreas’s superior strength and will. She saw the boy waiting behind him. Innate good manners and the fear of causing a scene that had been drummed into her since babyhood made her bite out with reluctance, ‘Fine. One coffee.’

Andreas stood up, and this time Siena had no choice but to put her hand in his and let him help her out of the low-slung vehicle. To her chagrin he kept a tight hold of her hand as he tossed his keys to the boy and led her into the building, where a concierge held the door open in readiness.

Once in the hushed confines of the lift Siena tried to pull her hand back, but Andreas was lifting it to inspect it. He opened out her palm and his touch made some kind of dangerous lethargy roll through her, but she winced when she followed his gaze. Her palm sported red chafed skin, calluses. Proof of her very new working life.

He turned it over and Siena winced even more to see him inspecting her bitten nails—the resurgence of a bad habit she’d had for a short time in her teens, which had been quickly overcome when her father had meted out a suitable punishment on Serena, her sister.

Her hands were a far cry from the soft lily-white manicured specimens they’d used to be. Exerting more effort this time, and knowing that she’d just been cured of her nail-biting habit once again, she finally pulled free of Andreas’s grip and said mulishly, ‘Don’t touch me.’

With a rough quality to his voice that resonated inside her, Andreas asked, ‘How did they get like this from waitresssing?’

Siena fought against the pull of something that felt very vulnerable. ‘I’m not just waitressing. I’m working as a cleaner in a hotel by day too.’

Andreas tipped up her chin and inspected her face, touched under her eyes where she knew she sported dark shadows. That vulnerability was blooming inside her, and for a second Siena thought she might burst into tears. To counteract it—and the ease with which this man seemed to be able to push her buttons—she said waspishly, ‘Feeling sorry for the poor little rich girl, Andreas?’

At that moment the lift bell pinged and the doors opened silently. Siena and Andreas were locked in some kind of silent combat. Andreas’s eyes went dark, their blue depths becoming distinctly icy as he took his fingers away from her face and smiled.

‘Not for a second, Siena DePiero. You forget that I’ve seen you in action. A piranha would be more vulnerable than you.’

Siena couldn’t believe the dart of hurt that lanced her at his words, and was almost glad when he turned. With his hand on her elbow, he led her out of the lift and into a luxuriously carpeted corridor decked out in smoky grey colours with soft lamps burning on a couple of tables.

The one door indicated that Andreas had no neighbours to disturb him, and Siena guessed this must be the penthouse apartment in the building. The lift doors closed behind them and then Andreas was opening the door and standing aside to allow Siena to precede him into his apartment. Only his assurance to the car park valet that he would be taking her home shortly gave Siena the confidence to go forward.

She rounded on him as he closed the door and blurted out belatedly, ‘Don’t call me DePiero. My name is Mancini now.’

After a long second Andreas inclined his head and drawled, with a hint of dark humour, ‘I’ll call you whatever you like…’

Stifling a sound of irritation, Siena backed away and turned around again, facing into the main drawing room. Her eyes widened. She’d grown up in the lap of luxury, but the sheer understated level of elegance in Andreas’s apartment took her breath away. She’d been used to seeing nothing but palazzos laden down with antiques and heavy paintings, everything gold-plated, carpets so old and musty that dust motes danced in the air when you moved…but this was clean and sleek.

Siena only became aware that she had advanced into the drawing room and was looking around with unabashed curiosity when she saw Andreas standing watching her with his hands in his pockets. The sheer magnificence of the man in his tuxedo shocked her anew and she flushed, wrapping her arms around herself in an unconscious gesture of defence.

Andreas shook his head and smiled wryly before walking towards a sideboard which held several bottles of drink and glasses. He said now, with his back to Siena, ‘You really know how to turn it on, don’t you?’

Siena tensed. ‘Turn what on?’

He turned around, a bottle of something in his hand, eyes gleaming in the soft light. ‘It must be automatic after years of acting the part of innocent virginal heiress…’

When Siena was stubbornly silent, because he had no idea how close to the truth he skated, Andreas gestured half impatiently and clarified, ‘That air of vulnerability, and looking as though butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth.’

Hating herself for being so transparent, and hating him for misjudging her so comprehensively while knowing she couldn’t very well blame him for his judgement, Siena schooled her expression. She carefully uncrossed her arms and shrugged one shoulder negligently. ‘What can I say? You have me all figured out, Mr Xenakis.’

He poured a dark liquid into two glasses and came over, holding one out. ‘I know I offered you a coffee, but try this. It’s a very fine port. And you didn’t have a problem using my name when we first met. Mr Xenakis is so…formal. Please, call me Andreas.’

Siena took the glass he offered, suddenly glad of something to hold onto—anything to will down the memory of how she had used his name before, ‘Andreas, please kiss me…’

He gestured to the comfortable-looking couch and chairs arranged around a low coffee table which held huge books of photographs that looked well thumbed. ‘Please, take a seat, Siena. Make yourself comfortable.’

Siena was torn for a moment between wanting to demand he take her home and curling up in the nearest chair so she could sleep for a week.

A little perturbed by how weak she suddenly felt, she went and sat down in the nearest chair. Andreas sat on the couch to her left, his long legs stretched out and disturbingly close to her feet, which she pulled primly close to her chair.

He smiled and it was dangerous.

‘Still afraid you might catch some social disease from me, Siena?’




CHAPTER TWO


‘DON’T BE SILLY,’ Siena replied quickly, humiliated when she thought of what had happened, of the vile untruths she’d uttered and all to protect her sister.

When she thought of how innocently she’d wanted him that night in Paris and how it had all gone so horribly wrong she felt nauseous. This man hated her. It vibrated on the air between them and Siena had the very futile sense that even if she tried to defend herself and tell him what her reasons had been for acting so cruelly he’d laugh until he cried. He looked so impervious now. Remote.

Andreas sat forward, the small glass cradled between long fingers. ‘Tell me, why did you leave Italy?’

Siena welcomed this diversion away from dangerous feelings and looked at him incredulously, wondering how he could even ask that question. She hated the familiar burn of humiliation that rose up inside her when she thought of the odious charges that had been levelled at her father after his business had imploded in on itself, revealing that he’d been juggling massive debts for years and that everything they possessed, including his precious family palazzo in Florence, was owned by the banks.

Her mouth twisted. ‘As you can imagine, the price on myself and my sister’s heads fell dramatically when it became apparent that we’d lost our fortune. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that we became personae non grata overnight.’

Andreas’s eyes narrowed. ‘No. It would be untruthful of me not to admit that I knew your father had been soliciting prostitutes for years, and about the evidence of his involvement in drugs and political corruption. But proof that he’d been trafficking women all over Europe for sex must have been the killer blow for two penniless heiresses. No one wants to be seen to be associating with a scandal of that level.’

The shame Siena felt nearly strangled her. Her father had solicited prostitutes while married to their mother because it had excited him. He’d fathered a son with one of those women. She’d thought she’d hated her father before…but she’d hated him even more when he’d disappeared into thin air to avoid the numerous charges levelled against him. To this day no one knew where he was, and Siena never wanted to see him again.

The thought of all those poor defenceless and vulnerable women being sold into a life of torture and degradation… Even now bile rose in her throat, because it had also been proved that her father had been more than just involved in a peripheral sense. He’d been an active participant.

Andreas must have seen something in her expression and he said quietly. ‘Your father’s sins are not your sins.’

Siena was taken aback at this assertion. She looked at him, unable to read his face. ‘Perhaps not, but people don’t want to believe that.’

‘Did the press in Italy gave you a hard time?’ He answered her disbelieving look with a shrug. ‘I was travelling in South America for work when the full extent of your father’s scandal hit. By the time I got back to Europe your father had disappeared and a new scandal was unfolding. I missed most of it.’

Siena thought of the relentless days of headlines like: Heiresses no more. Who will marry the poor little rich girls now? And: Serena DePiero caught in flagrante just days after disgracedfather’s disappearance! That had been the moment Siena had known she had to get herself and Serena out of Italy. Her sister had been spiralling dangerously out of control, and she’d been barely clinging onto sanity after everything they’d known had been ripped asunder.

Siena hadn’t expected any quarter from the press—she’d seen how they delighted in savaging the once lofty and untouchable of society—and thanks to her father’s extreme hubris the DePieros had had it coming. Nevertheless she voiced an understatement in a flat voice. ‘Yes, you could say they gave us a hard time.’

Andreas was surprised at the lack of emotion in Siena’s voice. The lack of reproach or injury. He could well imagine the field-day the press had had at seeing two blonde and blue-eyed princesses reduced to nothing.

Once again he had to marvel at her sheer natural beauty. She wore not a scrap of make-up but her skin glowed like a pearl. In this world of artifice and excess she really was a rare jewel. Even in the plain shirt and tie, that threadbare denim jacket, he could see the tantalising curves of her body. Fuller now that she was a woman, not a teenager.

Desire was hot and immediate, tightening his body. A fit of pique went through Andreas when he realised that he’d subconsciously avoided blonde women in the last five years, seeking out the complete opposite and telling himself that she’d burned his taste for blondes. But she hadn’t. He just hadn’t wanted any blonde except her.

Women didn’t usually reduce him to such immediate carnal reaction, no matter how desirable or beautiful. And yet she had from the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her…

Andreas looked at her now with fresh resolve filling his belly and lifted his glass. ‘To whatever the future might bring.’

Siena had a very scary suspicion that the future Andreas was envisaging had something to do with her. Very deliberately she ignored his toast and drained her glass, put it down on the nearby table. The alcohol blazed its way down her throat.

Andreas looked merely amused and chided softly, ‘A 1977 port should be savoured a little more delicately than that, but each to their own.’

He downed his too. Siena blanched. She could just imagine how much it had cost. Her father had thought of himself as an expert in fine wines so she’d learnt something by proxy.

Thinking of her father made her think of her sister, and that made her stand up jerkily, only vaguely aware of the stunning view of London on the other side of the huge windows. ‘I really do need to get home. I have an early start in the morning.’

Andreas rose too, as fluidly as a panther, rippling sinew and muscle very evident despite the severe cut of his suit. As if it barely contained him. Siena would have taken a step back, but the chair was behind her.

She sensed a spiking of electricity in the air and there was a pregnant pause just before he said innocuously, ‘Very well.’

He went to a discreet phone on the sideboard and picked it up, saying to someone, ‘I’m coming back down. Please have my car brought round. Thank you.’

He extended his arm to allow her to precede him from the room, and to Siena’s utter chagrin her overwhelming feeling wasn’t one of relief. She was a little confused. She’d expected…more. More of a fight? And yet he was happy to let her go so easily. Something bitter pierced her. Perhaps he’d just wanted to amuse himself by seeing the disgraced heiress up close and he was already bored.

So why did she feel so desolate all of a sudden?

Andreas stepped into the lift behind Siena and pressed the button. He might be giving her the illusion of letting her go, but that was not his intention in the slightest. Seeing her again had merely solidified his desire to have her in his bed. Finally. Acquiescent and his. That disdain she did so well would have no place in the relationship they would have. She was in no position to argue or resist him, and the thought of seeing her come undone was heady in the extreme.

His car was waiting by the kerb and a young security guard jumped out, giving the keys to Andreas, who held the passenger door open for Siena to get in.

Siena stood stiffly by the open door and looked at Andreas without meeting his eye. She was still trembling at the way his hand had rested lightly on the small of her back the whole way down in the elevator. And also at the speed with which he now appeared to want to get rid of her.

‘If you can point me in the direction of the nearest tube I’ll make my own way home.’

Andreas’s voice was like steel. ‘It’s almost eleven-thirty at night. There is no way you’re taking the tube alone. Get into the car, Siena, or I will put you in myself. Don’t think I won’t.’

Siena looked at him properly and saw how stern he seemed. She felt a shiver of something go through her—recognition of how huge and broad he was against the night sky. And yet she wasn’t scared of him. Not as she’d been of her father. She somehow knew instinctively that Andreas would never lash out like that. Violence towards women was born of weakness and fear. Andreas didn’t have that in him. And it surprised her to admit that she trusted this gut feeling so much.

Knowing that if she walked off now he’d just follow her again, Siena gave in and slid into the car, its luxurious confines once again surrounding her like a cocoon. Until Andreas got in beside her and the atmosphere turned from relaxing to electric.

As they pulled away from the kerb Andreas asked easily, ‘Did your sister come to London with you?’

Instantly Siena tensed. She answered carefully, ‘No… She went to…to the south of France to stay with friends of hers.’

Andreas glanced at Siena, who was looking stonily ahead. He had to concede that she’d never taken after her more obvious sister by appearing in the gossip columns. Siena clearly preferred to clean toilets rather than to be seen in polite society again and be exposed to ridicule or censure.

He had to admit to a grudging and surprising respect that Siena was doing the sort of work she would have taken completely for granted her whole life. Perhaps now that their father was gone Siena saw no need to be responsible for the precious family name and was happy to wash her hands of her infamous sister, who had been well known as a party girl.

In truth, Andreas didn’t really care about Serena. The sister he was concerned about was sitting right beside him, her legs looking very long as she angled them well away from him. He allowed himself a small predatory smile to think of a time when they would be wrapped around his hips as he finally exorcised this demon from his blood for good.

He hadn’t elaborated on the fact that he had been actively looking for her for six months. In fact he’d been thinking about her ever since Paris. However, it had only been six months ago, when he’d finally had the luxury of time after establishing himself, that he’d begun to focus on such a personal pursuit. Siena DePiero had always been in his sights…

To Siena’s relief Andreas seemed to be done with questioning her, and they drove in silence through the empty London streets. Rain started to spatter gently on the windscreen. For the first time since she’d left Italy Siena felt a pang of homesickness and it surprised her. She’d left Italy never wanting to see it again.

She’d spent many a night looking out of her window dreaming of another life—one without constrictions and pain and tension and always the unbearable pressure to act a certain way. She’d dreamed of a life full of love and affection. The only affection she’d really known had come from her sister—her poor, damaged sister. Their mother had died when they were both small girls. Siena had only the vaguest memories of a fragrant blonde woman who’d used to come into their room at night dressed in glittering finery.

She realised that they were close to her street already, and she directed Andreas into the labyrinth of smaller streets that led to her home. He pulled to a stop and looked out incredulously at the bleak, lonesome apartment block standing on wasteground.

‘You’re living here?’

Defensively Siena said, ‘It’s near the tube and the bus.’

Andreas was shaking his head in disbelief. He undid his seat belt and got out. Siena noticed that he’d taken an umbrella from somewhere and was holding it up now, as he came to her door and opened it.

She got out and the wind whipped around her, tugging her hair out of its bun completely. Feeling flustered, she said, ‘Look, thanks for the lift…’

She moved to walk around Andreas and go into the flats, but stopped when Andreas kept pace beside her. She looked at him. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

He was grim. ‘I’m walking you to your apartment. You are not going in there alone.’

A new sense of pride stiffened Siena’s backbone. ‘I’ve been living here alone for months now and I’ve been fine. I can assure you that—’

Andreas wasn’t listening. He’d taken her elbow in his hand and was guiding her across the litter-strewn ground. Irritation raced up Siena’s spine. This was exactly what her father had used to do.

Once inside the main door, which hung haphazardly on broken hinges, and under the unforgiving flourescent lights, Siena pulled free, ‘This is fine.’

Andreas was folding down the umbrella, though, and then he spotted a sullen youth lurking in a corner. He called the boy over and handed him a folded note and the umbrella. ‘Keep an eye on the car for me?’ he said.

The boy looked at the money and went white, then looked back to Andreas and nodded his head vigorously.

He took the umbrella before speeding off to stand guard.

Siena didn’t like how the tiny gesture of Andreas giving him the umbrella made her feel soft inside. Churlishly she said, ‘It’ll be up on blocks by the time you leave.’

‘O, ye of little faith,’ Andreas murmured, and hit the elevator button.

Siena watched as he grew impatient when the lift didn’t materialise straight away, and stood back to point at the stained concrete stairs. ‘It’s a cliché, I know, but the lift isn’t working—and I’m all the way up on the fourteenth floor.’ She couldn’t quite keep the satisfaction out of her voice.

The light of determination was a definite glint in Andreas’s eye as he said, ‘Lead the way.’

Siena was huffing and puffing by floor ten, and very aware of Andreas right behind her. When they finally reached the door to her flat she turned to face him. She felt hot, and the hair on the back of her neck felt damp with perspiration. Her heart was hammering.

‘Thank you. This is me.’

Andreas barely had a hair out of place, and not so much as a hint of the effort of climbing up fourteen sets of hard concrete stairs. Although somewhere along the way he had tugged his bow-tie loose, and the top button of his shirt was open, revealing the top of his olive-skinned chest and some springy dark hair.

Siena’s belly clenched hard. She could remember impatiently undoing his shirt buttons that night in Paris, ripping his tie open…

Andreas was looking around the bare corridor. Someone was shouting in a nearby flat and then something smashed against a door, making Siena flinch.

Andreas cursed and took the keys out of her numb fingers. ‘Let’s get you inside.’

He was doing it again. Taking command, all but pushing her through the door into a bare and forlorn-looking space filled with stained carpet. Siena had done her best to get rid of the stains, with little success. She only hoped that they weren’t what she thought they were…

Siena put on her one small lamp and regretted it as soon as she did so, because it sent out a far too seductive pink and warm glow. Feeling thoroughly threatened now, she put out her hand for her keys and snapped, ‘You’ve seen me safely in—now, please leave.’

Looking supremely at ease, Andreas just shut the door behind him and said softly, ‘This must be hard for you…’

Siena went very still and her hand dropped to her side. He had no idea…how easy this had been for her. To leave behind the tainted trappings of suffocating wealth and excess had been a relief. But that was something no one would ever understand. She’d certainly never be explaining it to this man, who had grabbed onto success and wealth with both hands and was thoroughly enjoying it. And could she begrudge him that? Even if his methods were dubious? Of course not. She had given up that right five years before.

She put her hand out again for her keys. ‘I have to be up early for work.’

Andreas didn’t move. He just looked at her, those dark, unreadable eyes roving over her face and over her hair, which was tumbled around her shoulders now, making Siena want to drag it back, tie it up.

Feeling desperate, she said, ‘Please.’

‘But what if you didn’t have to get up early?’

Siena blinked at Andreas, not understanding him. She shook her head. ‘What do you mean? I start work at six-thirty a.m. It takes me an hour to get there…’

Andreas’s face was so starkly beautiful in the dim light that she could feel herself being hypnotised. Much as she had been when she’d stood in front of him in that hotel boutique shop, in that dress. She’d taken it off after that night and thrown it in the bin, unable to look at it and not feel sickened.

He said now in a silky tone, ‘What I mean is that you have a choice, Siena… I’d like to offer you an alternative.’

It took a second…but then his words sank in along with the very explicit look in his eyes. Since she’d been in England other men had posed much the same question—like the man who had come back to get something from his hotel room and found her making his bed. Except what he’d been offering had been stated in much cruder terms.

Shame and something much hotter curled through her belly, making self-disgust rise. She took a sidestep back and injected as much icy disdain as she could into her voice. ‘If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting then clearly you refuse to believe that I want you to leave me alone.’

Andreas took a step closer and panic spiked in Siena, making her take another step back. She felt out of her depth and unbelievably vulnerable. All of the familiar surroundings of her old life were gone. The part she’d played had been as good as scripted. Now she was utterly defenceless, and the one man in the world who hated her guts was propositioning her. And she hated that it didn’t disgust her the way it should.

He reached out to trail a finger down one cheek, across her jawbone and down to where the pulse beat hectically under her skin at her throat. ‘Even now you affect disgust, but your body betrays you. What happened in Paris…you were as involved as I was—as hot and eager as anything I’ve ever seen. And yet you didn’t hesitate to shift the blame to me to keep yourself pure in your father’s bigoted eyes. God forbid the untouchable heiress had been rolling around on a chair with a mere hotel employee.’

Siena slapped his hand away and stepped back, hating how breathy she sounded. ‘Get out of here now, Xenakis. Rehashing the past is of no use.’

The anger Andreas had been keeping in check spilled over into his voice. ‘You can’t bring yourself to offer up even the most grudging of apologies, can you? Even now, when you don’t have a cent to your name or a reputation to safeguard.’

Shame gripped Siena—and guilt. Ineffectually she said, ‘I…am…sorry.’

Derision laced Andreas’s voiceas he sneered, ‘Spare me the insincere apology when it’s all but dragged from you.’

His face was suddenly etched with self-disgust, and he half turned from Siena, raking his hair with a hand. She had a vivid memory of seeing him the following morning, shocked at his black eye and swollen jaw. Evidence of her father’s men’s dirty work. She’d tried to apologise then, but hadn’t been able to speak over his very justified wrath.

Contrition and a stark desire to assure him that she was truly sorry made her reach out impulsively to touch his sleeve. She dropped her hand hurriedly when he looked at her suspiciously. She gulped under his almost black gaze and said truthfully, ‘I never intended to…to lie about what happened. Or that you should lose your job.’

Andreas smiled, but it was harsh. ‘No, possibly you didn’t. You would have had your fun with me on the chaise longue of that boutique and then you would have gone on your way, with another notch on your busy bedpost. You forget that I know exactly what you girls were like: avaricous, bored and voracious. But you hadn’t counted on Papà finding you in flagrante delicto, and you made sure that he would not suspect his precious daughter had such base desires. It was much easier to accuse a poor Greek hotel employee.’

Siena blanched. That was exactly what she had done. But not for her survival, for her sister’s. That was something she could never imagine explaining to this intractable, vengeful man. Especially not when Serena was still so vulnerable. And not when Siena was still reeling with the effect he had on her.

Andreas slashed his hand through the air and said curtly, ‘You’re right, though. Rehashing the past is of no use.’

Those dark blue eyes narrowed on Siena again, with a renewed gleam of something that looked suspiciously like determination.

‘Are you really telling me you’re so proud that you relish living like this?’ His voice became cajoling. ‘Don’t you miss sleeping until lunchtime and having nothing to worry about other than what time you’ve scheduled your beauty appointments or which dress you’ll wear that evening?’ He continued relentlessly. ‘Are you really expecting me to believe that you wouldn’t have all that back if you could? That you wouldn’t seize the opportunity to walk amongst your peers again?’

Siena felt sick. The thought of allowing this man to get any closer, where he could possibly discover the vulnerability hidden deep inside her, made her break out in a cold sweat. He thought she had the wherewithal to handle him, that it would be second nature, when she didn’t have the first clue about handling a man like him.

She pushed aside the fact that her apology had been as futile as she’d believed it would be and tossed her head in her most haughty fashion, eyes flashing. ‘I would prefer to clean your toilets rather than do as you’re suggesting. Perhaps you think that because I’m desperate I’ll say yes to becoming your mistress. Is that it, Xenakis?’

Andreas smiled and bared his teeth. ‘I thought I told you to call me Andreas—and, yes, I think you’ll agree because you miss your life of luxury. But, more than that, because despite everything you want me…’

Siena went cold. She did want him, but he had no clue who she really was, or why she’d had to betray him so awfully. He had no idea about the tender beating inner heart of her that had very fragile hopes and dreams for a life far from the one she knew. He only saw a spoilt ruined heiress and a way to humiliate her. Because she’d rejected him. He had no idea who she’d had to protect, and that that was why she’d let him be accused in the worst way possible. She’d had no choice.

She knew now that, if given a chance, this man would take her and humiliate her for his own pleasure. For revenge.

In her most cutting voice Siena said, ‘Contrary to your over-inflated view of your own levels of attraction, I do not want you. I may well be in a desperate situation Mr Xenakis, but I still have my pride and I wouldn’t become your mistress for your sick amusement if you were the last man on this earth.’

Andreas looked at the woman standing just a few feet away from him and felt like clapping. Her clothes were crumpled and stained, her hair was tumbled around her face and shoulders in messy golden abandon, but she could have been a queen berating a lowly subject. And he wanted her with a hunger bordering on the very word she’d used herself: desperation.

He growled, ‘I’m not in the habit of propositioning women who don’t want me, Siena.’

She backed away at that, and reiterated with not a little desperation, ‘I don’t want you.’

‘Liar.’

She saw the danger in Andreas’s eyes. He advanced on her and she backed away, panic constricting her vocal cords, stopping her from saying anything. Panic at the awful, traitorous way her body was already getting hot, tingling with anticipation. If he kissed her now… Her mind blanked at the thought.

‘Once again you’re just too proud to admit you want me, Siena DePiero, and I’m going to prove how much you want me right now.’

It was insulting how easily Andreas was able to gather her into his arms and pull her close. From somewhere deep inside Siena dredged up the fight she needed. This man was far too dangerous to her. When he pulled her even closer and his head started to descend Siena acted on a visceral reflex to protect herself. She stiffened in his arms and lifted a hand to try and block his mouth from touching her. He obviously misread her intention and caught her wrist with lightning-fast reflexes. The strength of his grip made her gasp.

‘Oh, no, you don’t.’

Siena protested, ‘But I wasn’t—’

‘No?’ Andreas’s mouth was hard.

He didn’t believe her. Siena had never hit anyone in her life, and she felt sick at the thought that he could believe her capable of such violence.

‘I wouldn’t have hit you…’ she whispered, willing him to believe her, staring directly into fathomless deep blue eyes.

Andreas’s expression was stern. ‘And you won’t ever get the chance.’ The threat in his voice was a very sensual one.

He kept her close with one arm secure around her waist and let her wrist go to bring his other hand up to cup her jaw with surprising gentleness, considering what he’d believed her about to do. And then, before she could make another move, Andreas angled his head down and his mouth closed over hers.

Shock rendered Siena helpless against the sensual attack Andreas administered. His mouth moved over hers with a confidence that was heady, eliciting an immediate response from Siena that she wasn’t even aware of giving.

He was the only man who’d kissed her like this and she’d gone up in flames the first time. Nothing had changed. Heat pooled in her lower belly and spread slowly outwards, incinerating everything in its path. Her breasts tightened and felt heavy, achy. His arms around her were like a steel cage, but it was one she was pathetically loath to escape.

Siena was drowning in the scent of musky male, dimly aware of Andreas’s hand moving down her jaw, caressing, and his fingers undoing the tie at the throat of her shirt, opening the top buttons.

His tongue teased her lips, making her strain to get closer, to allow him access so that he could stroke his tongue along hers. This was the headiest of illicit pleasures…

Unbeknownst to Siena, her hands had unfurled from the fists they’d been against Andreas’s chest and were now spread out wide. She was up on tiptoe, as if to get closer to him. Andreas’s hand cupped the back of her head, fingers tangled in long, silky blonde strands of hair. His other hand gripped her hip, kneading the flesh, making Siena move against him.

It was only when she felt air touch the exposed flesh of her neck and throat that Siena came to her senses and pulled back. She looked up, completely dazed, into dark blue eyes. Heavy-lidded and explicitly sexual.

Slowly realisation came over her like a chill wind, making all that heady sensuality wither away. One touch and she’d become a slave to her senses. Unable to rationalise anything.

Siena used her hands to push back violently, almost falling over in the process.

A million and one things were clamouring in her head, but worst of all was that she’d spectacularly—in neon lights and with fireworks—humiliated herself. She winced when she recalled her haughty tones—‘I don’t want you.’ And what had she just been doing? Proving herself a liar again.

She grasped at her open shirt and couldn’t look Andreas in the eye. ‘I’d like you to leave now.’ Her voice sounded rusty and raw to her ears.




CHAPTER THREE


ANDREAS LOOKED AT Siena, holding onto her open shirt, looking almost shell-shocked, pale as the moonlight outside. His chest felt tight. This reaction was not something he’d expected. And then he realised: acting was second nature to this woman. It was in her blood—that made his blood boil. To have been duped again, even for a nanosecond…

His voice was harsh. ‘There’s no one here to cry wolf to now, Siena. You have to take responsibility for your actions.’

He started forward and suddenly her head came up. Her blue eyes were once again sparkling like jewels, her chin determined. Andreas stopped, his body still throbbing with heat. But he forced it back. Something hardened inside him. To think that for a second that he’d seen some kind of vulnerability…? Ludicrous.

He forced himself to be civilised when he felt anything but. ‘You still want me, Siena, and you can deny it all you want but it’s a lie. I am not leaving here without you tonight. You’ll pay for what you did: in my bed.’

Siena opened her mouth and shut it again, shock pouring into her body. He sounded so utterly determined. As if he was prepared to carry her bodily from this place. Siena’s mind skittered away from that all too disturbing scenario to think of his other assertion. How could she deny she wanted him after that little display of complete lack of control? His words terrified her, though—his easy assumption that she would just go with him. Just as her father had always expected her to do his bidding.

She’d tasted personal freedom for the first time since their father had disappeared and it terrified her to think of someone dictating her every move again.

Siena dropped her hand from her open top buttons and lifted her chin. ‘You seriously think that I’ll just walk out of here with you? How unbelievably arrogant are you?’

Andreas’s eyes darkened ominously. ‘I paid a high price for your petulant need to save face with your father that night, Siena. I was sacked and blacklisted from every hotel in Europe overnight, and I had the very unsavoury rumour of my having forced myself on a woman dogging my heels. My fledgling career was ruined. I had to go to America to start again.’

Siena couldn’t bear to feel that shame again and she lashed out. ‘So—what? I pay you now by becoming your mistress?’

Andreas smiled and it was feral. ‘That and more, Siena DePiero. You pay me by admitting to yourself and me just how much you want me.’

She looked at this man in the soft light of her grotty flat. He was standing like a maurauding pirate, legs firmly planted wide apart. Chest broad and powerful. Strip away the civilised veneer of the tuxedo and this man was a pure urban animal of the most potent kind.

He’s been looking for you for six months. He’s not just going to walk away… The realisation sent tendrils of panic mixed with something much more humiliatingly exciting through Siena’s blood. The confines of the tiny flat seemed to draw in around them even more.

She emitted a curt laugh to hide her trepidation. ‘So—what? You’d lock me into your penthouse apartment and take me out like a toy of some kind for your pleasure only?’ She’d been aiming to sound scathing but her voice betrayed her, sounding almost as if she was considering this.

Andreas’s eyes gleamed in the dim light and he smiled. ‘I can’t deny that that image does have its appeal, but, no, I’d have no problem being seen with you in public. I don’t have an issue with public opinion—unlike some people.’

Andreas was looking at her coolly, clearly waiting for her to say something.

‘And what then?’ she asked, feeling a little hysterical at being in this situation, discussing this with Andreas Xenakis. ‘You just drop me back here at the side of the road when you’re done?’

Andreas’s mouth firmed. ‘I take care of all my…lovers.’ He shrugged negligently. ‘They’re usually self-sufficient, but with your range of language skills alone I don’t doubt that with a little help you could find a decent job…certainly something better than menial labour.’

Siena laughed. The hysteria was taking over. Controlling herself with an effort, she looked at Andreas. ‘This truly is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it? You offering to help me find a job…’

Siena’s cutting voice was hiding one of her deepest vulnerabilities: the fact that she had no qualification beyond her exclusive education. Yes, she had numerous languages and could speak them fluently. Yes, she knew how to host a dinner party for fifty people and more. Yes, she knew how to arrange flowers and how to behave in front of royalty and diplomats, how to conduct conversation ranging from world politics to the history of art… But when it came to the real world—real life—she knew nothing. Had no skills or qualifications. She’d been destined for a life of social politics. And Andreas knew that.

She prayed he wouldn’t touch her again and moved around him on wobbly legs to open the front door. There were no more disturbing sounds coming from her neighbours. She looked back into the room with relief, to see that Andreas had followed her. But the relief was short-lived when he gently but firmly pushed the door shut again.

Sounding eminently reasonable, Andreas said, ‘I’m offering you an opportunity, Siena, a chance to move upwards and make a life for yourself again.’

Siena crossed her arms against this threat. He wasn’t moving. She forced herself to look up at him. Her mouth twisted and she spoke her fears. ‘We both know it’s not an offer, Andreas. You haven’t spent six months searching for me to just walk away.’

He smiled again and agreed equably, ‘No, I haven’t. It really wouldn’t be such a chore, Siena… I’d see to it that you enjoyed yourself. You’d want for nothing.’

‘For as long as your interest lasts?’

His face immediately became more stark and Siena knew she’d hit a nerve. She was intrigued despite herself. ‘That’s all I’m offering, Siena. A finite amount of time as my lover until we’re both ready to move on. I have no desire for anything more permanent—certainly not with you.’

Siena barely registered his insult. She was fighting against his dark pull and she opened the door again—only to have Andreas reach out lazily and shut it. She wanted to stamp her feet and glared at him.

‘Look, Xenakis—’

‘No!’

His voice stopped the breath in her throat. He looked fierce and magnificent in the gloom. He came closer and her heart thudded painfully.

‘You look. This is only going to end one way: by you agreeing to come with me now. If you want a further demonstration of how susceptible you are to me then by all means I’m happy to provide it here and now, but—’ He cut himself off and looked around the room with clear disgust, then back to Siena. ‘I personally would prefer to make love to you for the first time in more…luxurious surroundings.’

The thought and, worse, the knowledge that he could take her here if he so wanted made Siena move further away. She felt as if a noose was tightening around her neck.

Andreas watched as Siena distanced herself and curbed the almost animalistic urge he had to put her over his shoulder and carry her bodily out of this pathetic, stinking place. His blood was boiling with lust and determination. As soon as his mouth had touched hers he’d known with a visceral certainty that he would not be leaving her behind in this place. He didn’t like to admit that a part of him couldn’t bear to think of her in these surroundings. It was like dropping a perfect diamond into the filthiest of stagnant ponds.

Trying to curb the impatience he felt, Andreas pointed out, ‘You don’t have anyone to turn to, Siena. If you’re hoping for some blue-blooded knight to ride up on a white horse and forgive you the sins of your father it’s not going to happen. Don’t forget—I know your sins.’

Siena turned to face Andreas again, hugging her arms even tighter around herself, unaware of how huge her eyes looked in her face.

His words had cut her far deeper than she wanted him to see. He was right. She didn’t have anyone to turn to. She and Serena did have an older half-brother, but she had little doubt that after the treatment he’d received at the hands of their father, not to mention the way Siena and her sister had ignored him so blatantly when they’d seen him in the street the day he’d confronted their father, he would not relish her getting in touch out of the blue. He had become a billionaire financier against all the odds and must despise her just as he must despise their father, for humiliating him like a dog in the street.

Her sister was in no position to be of any support and never really had been, despite being the older by two years. And that brought Siena back to the stark realisation that she might have no one to turn to, but Serena was expecting to turn to Siena when she needed her. And she needed her now. Dismay filled her. How could she have forgotten even for a moment about Serena?

The hectic pulse of her blood mocked her. The reason was standing just feet away from her. Siena could feel the fight draining from her weary body. A sense of inevitability washed over her. It had been no coincidence that Andreas had met her tonight. He’d searched for her. And he would not rest now he knew where she was. She had nowhere else to go. Nowhere to hide. No resources.

As if he sensed the direction her thoughts were taking, Siena could see Andreas’s eyes flash triumphantly in the gloom.

Suddenly, as if she’d been injected with a dose of adrenalin, her brain became clear. Thinking of her sister focused her thoughts. If she was going to walk out of this apartment with this man she had to make sure that the one person who needed her was going to benefit.

The thought of telling Andreas about her sister, appealing to his humanity, was anathema. If anything, this evening had proved just how far Andreas was willing to go to seek his revenge. If she told him about Serena he might very well use her against Siena in some way, exactly as her father had. Siena shivered at the very thought. No way could she ever let that happen again.

She knew, though, that the very audacious plan forming in her head would ensure Andreas’s hatred of her for ever.

Andreas’s blood hummed with anticipation as he watched the woman who stood just feet away, her chin still lifted defiantly, even though they both knew she was about to give in. She would be his. Her little act of pride had just been an exercise in proving to Andreas that he was still the last man she’d choose on earth, even if there was enough heat between them to melt an iceberg. And even if she was desperate.

His mouth tightened into a line. If anything it just proved that he was right: Siena wanted out of her challenging circumstances and back into the world she knew so well.

All he cared about was sating this burning desire inside him. Witnessing Siena DePiero swallow her pride and her denial of their mutual attraction would be a delicious revenge, and the very least he deserved after suffering so acutely at her hands.

‘Well, Siena? What’s it to be?’

Siena hated the smug tone of arrogance in Andreas’s voice. She couldn’t believe she was even contemplating what she was about to do, but assured herself she could do this. She had to.

In a way it should be easy—she’d merely be reverting to the type she’d played well for as long as she could remember: that of a privileged heiress with nothing more on her mind than the dress she’d wear to the next charity function. No one except for Serena had ever known of her deep hatred of that vacuous world where people routinely stabbed one another in the back to get ahead. Where emotions were so calcified that no reaction was genuine.

Before she could lose her nerve altogether, Siena blurted out, ‘I will come with you—right now if you wish.’ She saw Andreas’s slow smile of triumph curling his mouth and said quickly, before he thought he was about to have everything his way, ‘But I have terms for this…if we’re to embark on…’ Words failed her. She simply could not articulate what he wanted and expected. What she’d agreed to in her head.





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