despised her … Mortification twisted her insides into hard knots.
‘Angel—’
His voice was suddenly too close, and Angel jumped up in a reflexive surge of horrified anger at how she’d reacted. Too late she saw that Leo had been holding out a glass of what looked like brandy, and she could only watch dumbly as it was knocked out of his hand with the force of her jerky movement, spinning away to crash into the corner of the room, glass shattering, alcohol staining the parquet floor.
She looked at Leo in shock. ‘I’m so—’
He cut her off, his face all sharp angles and forbidding lines. Jaw tense. ‘You could have just refused, Angel. There was two of us involved in what happened just now, so don’t try the outraged virgin act.’
If only he knew! His words fell like tiny cuts all over her skin. Angel quivered with a rush of contradicting and mixed emotions. Right then she was glad the glass had smashed, and yet she also wanted to rush to clean it up. She wanted to smack Leo across the face, when she’d never hit a soul in her life, but she also wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to kiss her again. Her body still tingled and burned.
She made a monumental struggle and tipped up her chin. ‘I didn’t see the glass. I’m sorry.’
His eyes flashed in response. In a bid to put space between them Angel went on jelly legs to where the glass had smashed and started to pick up the bigger pieces. She heard something inarticulate behind her, and gasped as she was pulled up, a hand under her arm.
‘Leave it. I’ll get someone to look after it.’
They were very close again, and all of Angel’s recent humiliation rushed back. Something caught Leo’s eye and he looked down at her hands, saying harshly, ‘You’re bleeding.’
Angel looked down stupidly. She hadn’t felt a thing, but saw that her finger was bleeding from a nasty-looking gash. Leo expertly took the glass out of her hands and put it on the table behind them. Then, holding that hand carefully in his, he picked up the phone, dialled a number and bit out terse instructions in accentless Greek.
Angel would have been impressed if she’d been able to think clearly. All she could do was follow Leo when he led her from the room and up the main staircase, her hand held in front of him so she had to hurry to keep up with his much longer strides.
He brought her into a huge bathroom, switched on the light, and rummaged around for something in a cupboard. Angel could see that it was a first aid kit, and blustered, ‘Oh, no, don’t. Let me—’
‘Sit down and be quiet.’
Angel was forced to sit down on the closed toilet seat, and she watched incredulously as Leo knelt before her and inspected the cut. And then he brought her finger to his mouth and sucked it deeply.
Angel’s breath stopped. She tried to pull back, but he was too strong. Finally he let her finger go and said tersely, while inspecting it again, ‘I want to make sure there’s no glass in it. It’s a deep cut, but I don’t think you need stitches.’
Thoroughly bemused, and feeling as if reality as she knew it had morphed out of all existence, Angel watched as Leo expertly and gently cleaned the cut and placed a tight plaster around the top of her finger.
Then, just as perfunctorily, he led the way back downstairs, this time into a drawing room adjacent to the other side of the hall. She saw someone scurrying out of the study with a dustpan and brush. Leo let go of her hand and Angel scooted over beside a couch, sitting gingerly on the edge because she didn’t think she could stand.
Leo poured a measure of something dark and golden—like his eyes—into a glass and brought it over. His mouth was set in a grim line. Angel accepted it with both hands, while avoiding his eyes. She didn’t drink much alcohol at all, but right now she welcomed the prospect of its numbing quality.
CHAPTER THREE
LEO watched Angel take the glass in both hands, a curiously child-like gesture that made something in his chest twist. He wanted to wring her pretty neck. But he also wanted to flatten her back against the couch and finish what they’d started in the study. He could still remember how it had felt to roll his tongue over her small tight nipple, the way she’d arched into him, and he had to use iron will right now to control the rush of response.
He had not meant to ravish Angel standing in the study like that. The impulse to kiss her had been born out of his inarticulate rage that she had such a visceral effect on him, especially when he knew exactly who and what she was. But the kiss had got out of control very quickly. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so consumed, to the extent that he’d shut out every clamouring voice in his head. Until she’d said Leo with that husky catch, and her hips had jerked against his hand, and he’d emerged from what had felt like a trance.
He’d touched down in Athens barely three hours ago and was still reeling slightly at facing the reality that he’d willingly upended his life. Feeling acutely vulnerable again, Leo turned and strode back to the sideboard, to pour himself a drink and try and gather his scattered thoughts. They’d scattered as soon as he’d taken the call from the security guard and seen who was at the gate. For a disturbing second he’d almost believed he was imagining her.
And yet he couldn’t deny that he’d felt a rush of pure sensual excitement at seeing Angel approaching the house. It had eclipsed the disappointment he’d felt that her effect on him hadn’t grown less in the interim.
Her guilt had been obvious from the moment she’d gone straight to the kitchen entrance rather than come to the main door. And then, when he’d seen her creeping through the house like the little thief she was, something hard had solidified in his chest.
He hated to admit it but he had thought that perhaps he’d judged her too swiftly. Seeing the evidence of her avarice in front of his eyes tonight had made a fool of him again. She was no innocent. Hadn’t years of witnessing hardened New York socialites in action taught him anything?
As he poured himself a drink now, and threw it back in one gulp, he told himself that his decision to come home and the speed with which it had been expedited had absolutely nothing to do with the woman sitting on the couch behind him. He knew exactly how he was going to deal with her and get her out of his system, so that he could get on with his new life here in Athens.
Angel sat on the couch, cradling her glass, and felt as if she was waiting to hear a sentence pronounced. Leo kept his broad back turned to her for long moments, and the tension in her body was beginning to ratchet up, despite the calming effects of the alcohol.
Eventually he turned around, and Angel almost breathed a sigh of relief. Leo’s face was stark, unreadable. Not once had he cracked a smile, shown a glimmer of humanity … apart from when he’d tended her cut. Angel remembered the way he’d sucked her finger into his mouth and quivered deep in her belly.
She swallowed. She thought of how his lazy, easy American accent had made her assume he was just one of the guests at the villa that night … She’d never have suspected she’d ever hear the steel running underneath the velvet caress of that voice. But he was Leonidas Parnassus. Practically the uncrowned King of Athens. And she was his bitter enemy. Even more so now.
There was a final reckoning to be had between their families, and Angel was very afraid this was going to be it. She tried to force the fear down—after
