housed some of the UK’s most dangerous criminals. Ava had visited her father once, but she had found the experience traumatic. It had been bad enough having to suffer the indignity of being searched by a warden to make sure she was not smuggling drugs or weapons into the jail.
Seeing her father in prison had been like looking at a stranger. She had found it impossible to accept that the man she had trusted and adored had, unbeknown to his family, been a violent criminal and ruthless gangland boss. The name Terry McKay was still feared by some people in the East End of London. Perhaps if Sam had seen the grim reality of life behind bars he might not hero-worship his father as a modern-day Robin Hood character, Ava thought heavily. She was prepared to do everything in her power to prevent her brother from turning to a life of crime, and keeping him out of a young offender institution was vital. Giannis had offered her a way to give Sam another chance, but could she really be his fake fiancée?
She had assumed after they had spent the night together that she would never see him again. Memories of her wildly passionate response to his lovemaking made her want to squirm with embarrassment, but she remembered too how he had groaned when he had climaxed inside her. Did he intend that they would be lovers for the duration of their fake engagement? The little shiver of anticipation that ran through her made her despair of herself. If she had an ounce of common sense she would refuse to have anything more to do with him.
But there was Sam to consider.
Desperate to stop her thoughts from going round in circles, she searched for something to say to Giannis. ‘Do you have a good relationship with your father?’ If she could build up a picture of him—his family and friends, his values, she might have a better understanding of him.
He was silent for so long that she thought he was not going to answer. ‘I did,’ he said at last in a curt voice. ‘My father is dead.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Evidently she had touched a raw nerve, and his forbidding expression warned her to back off. She sighed. ‘This isn’t going to work. We are two strangers who know nothing about each other. We’ll never convince anyone that we are madly in love and planning to get married.’
To her surprise, Giannis nodded. ‘We will have to spend some time getting to know each other. I can’t afford any slip-ups when we meet Stefanos. Let’s start with some basics. Why do you and your brother have different surnames? Have you ever been married?’
‘No.’ Her voice was sharper than she had intended, and she flushed when he threw her a speculative look before he turned his eyes back to the road. For some reason she found herself explaining. ‘There was someone who I was sure...’ She bit her lip. ‘But I was wrong. He didn’t love me the way I’d hoped.’
‘Did you love him?’
‘I thought I did.’ She did not want to talk about Craig. ‘After my parents divorced I took my mother’s maiden name.’
Ava breathed a sigh of relief when he did not pursue the subject of her brother’s surname. Giannis was Greek and it was possible that he did not associate the name McKay with an East End gangster. If he knew of the crimes her father had committed she was sure he wouldn’t want her to pose as his fake fiancée and he was likely to refuse to drop the charges against Sam.
Giannis slowed the car to allow a bus to pull out. ‘Where did you learn Greek? I did not think the language is routinely taught in English schools.’
‘My family lived in Cyprus when I was a child, although I went to boarding school in France and then spent ten months at a finishing school in Switzerland.’
‘Why did your parents choose not to live in England?’
‘Um...my mother hated the English weather.’ It was partly the truth, but years later Ava had learned that the real reason her father had taken his family to live abroad had been the lack of an extradition agreement between the UK and Cyprus, which had meant that Terry could not be arrested and sent back to England.
Her thoughts were distracted when a cyclist suddenly swerved in front of the car. Only Giannis’s lightning reaction as he slammed on the brakes saved the cyclist from being knocked off his bike.
‘That was a close call.’ She looked over at Giannis and was shocked to see that he was grey beneath his tan. His skin was drawn so tight across his face that his sharp cheekbones were prominent. Beads of sweat glistened on his brow and she noticed that his hand shook when he raked his fingers through his hair.
Ahead there was an empty space by the side of the road and Ava waited until he had parked the car and switched off the engine before she murmured, ‘You didn’t hit the cyclist. He was riding like an idiot and it was fortunate for him that you are a good driver.’
Giannis gave an odd laugh that almost sounded as though he was in pain. ‘You don’t know anything about me, angel-face.’
‘That’s the point I’ve been making,’ she said quietly. ‘We are not going to be able to carry off a fake engagement.’
‘For your brother’s sake you had better hope that we do.’ The stark warning in Giannis’s voice increased Ava’s tension, and when he got out of the car and walked round to open her door she froze when she recognised an area of London that was painfully familiar to her.
‘Why have we come here? I thought you were taking me home.’ It occurred to her that he had not asked where she lived, and she had been so stunned after he’d told the photographers she was his fiancée that she had let him drive her away from the hotel without asking where they were going.
‘Hatton Garden is the best place to buy jewellery.’
‘That doesn’t explain why you have brought me here.’ She was aware that Hatton Garden was known worldwide as London’s jewellery quarter and the centre of the UK’s diamond trade. It was also the place where her father had masterminded and carried out his most audacious robbery.
Ava remembered when she was a little girl, before the family had moved to Cyprus, her father had often taken her for walks to Covent Garden and St Paul’s Cathedral. They had always ended up in Hatton Garden and strolled past the many jewellery shops with their windows full of sparkling precious gems. She had loved those trips with her father, unware that Terry McKay had been assessing which shops would be the easiest to break into.
‘For our engagement to be believable you will need to wear an engagement ring. Preferably a diamond the size of a rock that you can flash in front of the photographers,’ Giannis drawled. He glanced at his watch. ‘Try not to take too long choosing one.’ He took his phone out of his jacket pocket. ‘I need to tell my pilot to have the jet ready for us to leave earlier than I’d originally planned.’
Ava stared at him. ‘You own a jet?’
‘It’s the quickest way to get around. We should be in Paris by lunchtime. I’m going to be busy this afternoon but I’ll arrange for a personal shopper to help you choose some suitable clothes. This evening we will be attending a high-profile function at the Louvre that is bound to attract a lot of media interest. By tomorrow morning half the world will believe that we are in love.’
‘Wait...’ She stiffened when he slid his hand beneath her elbow and tried to lead her towards a jewellery store. Her heart plummeted when she saw the name above the shop front.
Ten years ago her father had carried out an armed robbery at the prestigious Engerfield’s jewellers and stolen jewellery with a value of several million
