thank you.’ Damon shook his head as the servant proffered wine to top up his glass.
‘Come, come, Damon.’ His host waved an arm impatiently across the table. ‘No need to be abstemious. It’s not as if you’re driving. Drink up, man.’ He nodded to the waiter and watched as his own glass was filled with premium vintage champagne. ‘You’ll only find the best quality in this house.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ Damon responded. He looked from the uniformed servants clearing away plates to the ostentatious gold cutlery laid with such meticulous precision on the damask tablecloth. Not many people seeing the luxury in which Aristides Manolis lived would suspect how parlous was his financial state. How close he was to ruin.
Damon knew. Damon was the man whose money could save Manolis and his family company.
Or destroy it.
He’d worked his adult life for the day he’d have Manolis in his power. The need to acquire and then take apart his precious company piece by piece had driven Damon for years. Revenge for what this family had done to his would be sweet.
A flash of light caught his eye and he turned. Callista’s necklace caught the light. A fabulous piece, white gold and several carats of diamonds. Yet it was too obvious for his taste. Too showy. A blatant statement of wealth.
She reminded him of so many other rich, spoiled women he’d known. It was the cost of the gems that mattered to them, not the merit of the design.
Looking at her now, in her exquisite couture gown, her expression bland, he couldn’t believe her the same woman who’d seduced him so wantonly. That woman had revealed such vitality and innate sensuality. There’d been something honest about her abandon. Something warmly generous and, he’d almost believed, special about her.
He’d responded to her with a hunger that stunned him. He’d spent the hours since anticipating the next day. When, he’d vowed, he would learn more about the woman who intrigued him more than any lover he could recall.
How could he have been so gullible?
‘You’re admiring my niece’s jewellery?’ There was gloating satisfaction in his host’s voice. He enjoyed flaunting what he had, or pretended to have. Any man who required two staff members to serve a meal for four was trying too hard to impress. ‘It’s quite something, isn’t it?’
Callista looked up then, her face a polite, gorgeous mask. But when her gaze met Damon’s he felt again that visceral pull, the drag of spiralling anticipation.
It infuriated him. He should be able to master this raw craving now he knew who and what she was. A pampered member of the Manolis family who’d targeted what she thought was a bit of rough on the side.
Her sensual abandon, her responsiveness had enchanted him on the beach. But from the moment tonight she’d stared at him with blank eyes and chilly hauteur he’d realised today’s interlude had been just a jaded socialite’s cheap thrill.
If not something more contrived.
He shot an assessing look from his host to Callista.
‘The necklace is stunning,’ he murmured.
His gaze followed the fall of diamonds on her pendant, the way they dipped into the valley between her ripe breasts, visible in the low-cut gown.
She knew how to show off her assets. The thought annoyed him. Or perhaps it was the cool way she surveyed him with those amazing green eyes that infuriated him. He wasn’t used to women, particularly women he’d made love to so thoroughly, being indifferent to him. Or telling him he was unworthy to share their table.
One taste of her had left him craving more. He’d planned to look for his siren lover tomorrow. Now he discovered his fantasy woman was nothing but a spoiled rich girl who was ashamed of what they’d shared.
Ashamed of him.
That idea scored his pride, uncovering old wounds he thought he’d buried a lifetime ago. His slow-burning anger ignited at her dismissal, and at the fact he even cared.
Perversely her cool-as-a-cucumber air ignited his desire. He couldn’t resist a challenge. Not while she tried to put him in his place like a dirty secret. As if, despite his wealth and power, a blue-blooded Manolis wouldn’t sully her fair skin by letting a man with his working-class roots touch her again.
‘Alkis’ taste was always excellent, wasn’t it, my dear?’
‘He certainly knew what he wanted, Uncle.’ Her voice was crisp and uninflected, as if she discussed tonight’s meal rather than the thousands of euros of gems that dripped down to her breasts. She took her wealth and her life of pampered indolence for granted.
‘Alkis?’ Damon queried.
‘My husband.’ Her eyes dropped in an expression that might have been demure if not for the flamboyant glitter at her slender neck, ears and wrist.
Her husband. The syllables thrummed in his ears. Something hard and cold lodged in his belly. Fury sizzled along his veins.
He should have guessed. She was a bored society wife, looking for a little diversion. That was what today’s escapade had been.
She’d used him.
Unbidden, memories crowded thick, of the days before he’d made his money. When his only assets had been his determination and his flair for commerce. And his looks. Rich women had clustered round him then, eager for adventure, the thrill of walking on the wild side.
As if he’d swallow his pride to be any woman’s plaything.
‘Your husband isn’t here with you?’ Damon reined in brewing anger and self-disgust at having given his libido free rein without checking exactly who she was.
Wide eyes lifted to meet his across the table. They were the colour of the sea in the secluded cove where his yacht was moored. The sea whose lapping waves had muffled the sound of this woman’s cries of ecstasy as she found release in his arms.
For a moment he felt again that illusion of oneness they’d experienced as their bodies joined. He’d felt more pleasure with her than he could remember with any woman.
That alone stoked his distrust. And his disgust that he’d fallen for the fantasy she projected.
‘My husband died some months ago, Kyrie Savakis.’ A chill shuttered the momentary warmth in her eyes.
Too late, Callista! She might act the ice maiden now but he’d already discovered the sensuous fire that blazed inside.
Her passion today hadn’t been the by-product of grief for her husband. There’d been no shadowy spectre between them, no yearning for the past. Just untrammelled lust.
A merry widow indeed.
‘My condolences,’ he said and she inclined her head fractionally. She was so aloof. Not a trace of bereavement or even regret. Damon wondered what sort of female could lose a spouse and not feel anything. Instinct told him, whatever she concealed with that cool expression, it wasn’t a broken heart.
‘Alkis always chose the best,’
