withdrew a silver card case, flicking it open and withdrawing one of its contents, proffering it to her with another of those quick, quirking smiles that seemed to have such a powerful effect on her in disproportion to their duration.
She found herself taking the card, staring at it. It was written in Latin script and it said simply, ‘Teodarkis Holdings’. There was a Mayfair address, and a discreet name in the corner: Athan Teodarkis.
Athan watched her peruse the card. There was a lot riding on her reaction. A whole, game-changing lot. He was taking the gamble that Ian had never mentioned the name of his wife’s family to her, or the company that owned the one he worked for himself. As he studied her face he could see nothing that would indicate, even under high-focus scrutiny, that it meant anything to her at all. He could feel relief rippling through him.
He gave her a moment or two to study the business card, then addressed her again.
‘Does that convince you I am totally harmless?’ he asked.
There was a touch of light humour in his voice, and she let her eyes glance up at him from the white card in her fingers.
Harmless? The word reverberated in her head. Harmless? As she looked straight at him, at his breathtaking dark good-looks, the word seemed to mock her.
‘So,’ he was saying, ‘will you come? I hate going to the theatre on my own.’
‘Surely there must be someone you already know that you could invite?’ she countered. There was just a trace of acidity in her voice, because a man like this, who was the very last man any female would ever describe as ‘harmless’, must have a very long list of women who would drop everything for a date with him.
‘No one who likes Chekov,’ he responded promptly. ‘He’s not to everyone’s taste.’
Hmm, thought Marisa, for not ‘everyone’ read ‘the kind of high-maintenance glossy woman whose idea of a hot date with a man like him would not be a play by a nineteenth century Russian dramatist about a bunch of gloomy, indecisive provincials who drifted about aimlessly and got depressed’.
‘And you think I would?’ she challenged, suddenly and illogically stung that he clearly did not consider her the kind of female he usually asked out. ‘Is that your reason for asking me?’ she said pointedly.
Long lashes dipped down over gold-flecked eyes. ‘Part of it,’ he agreed.
The dark eyes rested on her, conveying their message. A message that told her that whatever she might have thought about not being the kind of woman he usually asked out, she had, in fact, been mistaken …
There was something new in his voice—something that told Marisa this was a very experienced operator indeed. For a second panic beat in her throat. She was out of her depth—way, way out! Oh, he might be seeing a woman living in a luxury apartment, dressed in designer clothes and looking svelte and groomed, but she knew that beneath that glossy surface she was only a raw country girl. Even her short time with Ian couldn’t eradicate that.
She suddenly realised he was speaking again.
‘Well—have I persuaded you?’ There was nothing more than the familiar quizzical enquiry in his voice, his expression.
Marisa swallowed. ‘Um … I—I … ‘
He smiled. The full on smile that changed his face, turned her insides out, parted her lips and made her stare gormlessly at him.
‘Great. OK—so, can you be ready by seven?’
‘Um—’
‘Good girl,’ he said approvingly, as if she’d agreed to his invitation. He made as if to step away, then suddenly paused, as if something had just struck him. ‘I’ve just realised,’ he said, and there was self-reproof in his voice, ‘I’ve absolutely no idea what your name is.’
He made the omission sound like a cause for humour, not an indication that she was a complete stranger to him. He looked at her expectantly.
There was a strange sensation in Marisa’s head. As if everything that was going on was completely, totally unreal. Then, as if in a haze, she said slowly, ‘It’s Marisa—Marisa Milburne.’
The long lashes swept down again. Then, before she had the faintest inkling of what he was about to do, she felt, of all things, her hand being taken, and lifted.
‘I’m delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Milburne,’ he murmured, holding her wide-eyed gaze.
Instantly she held her breath, and he inclined his head and kissed her hand.
It was fleeting, it was momentary, it was over in a second, but it left her bereft of rationality.
‘To compensate for the informality of our acquaintance,’ he murmured.
Then, with a final stomach-dissolving smile, he turned and headed down to the lift. Marisa stared, incapable of movement, until the doors had opened, then closed again, shutting him off from her view. Then, very slowly, in a total daze, she went back into her apartment.
Inside, she stood, staring at her hand for several seconds, bereft of both speech and all rational thought.
Least of all any sense of danger …
‘WELL, what do you think? Should she stick to Hollywood?’
The curtain had fallen, and Marisa was making her slow way out of the stalls. Athan Teodarkis’s tall presence behind her was almost tangible as he followed her. But then it had been tangible the entire evening. Tangible even when he’d been on the far side of a taxi seat from her on the way to the theatre, let alone when he’d been sitting right next to her in the plush stalls seat, his sleeve almost brushing hers, even though she’d tried to make sure she kept her hands in her lap, not resting on the chair arm like he had.
A hundred times she’d told herself that she should never have accepted his invitation. That it was completely unacceptable to have done so, and a big, big mistake.
She didn’t know the man. Didn’t know him from Adam. However prestigious a business card he possessed, he was a stranger—a stranger who had quite blatantly picked her up. Not quite off the street, but even so—being some random guy in the flat next to hers was not exactly a formal introduction, was it? But the moment she thought about the total absence of any kind of formal introduction the memory of that hand-kiss was there, and the fleeting sensation of his lips scarcely brushing her knuckles …
No wonder Victorian maidens swooned when men kissed their hands!
How, she wondered for the millionth time, could such a formal gesture be so incredibly … intimate? For intimate was the only word for it. And swooning the only word for the sensation it had created … ?.
The sensation that permeated her still. Not quite as intense, but there all the same, like a very low-level fever that had been running in her veins constantly, all evening. She’d sought to ignore it, sought to make herself behave with this man as if he weren’t
