stared in disconcertion at Alex Kolovos. He must have seen what was happening as he was leaving the building. Jason’s face was livid, his stance openly threatening.
‘Let go of Rosie,’ Alexius instructed curtly, his face hard as granite in the street light.
‘Don’t get involved in this,’ Rosie urged, trying once again to pull free of Jason’s grip.
Although coming to the rescue of a damsel in distress was not his style, Alexius experienced not an ounce of hesitation. He had seen the encounter as he emerged from the building and had known that he had to intervene. She was clearly in trouble.
‘Yeah, that’s right … don’t get involved or you’ll be sorry!’ Jason shouted in a rising rage, at the sound of which Rosie paled and shivered in the cool night air. ‘This is a private conversation—’
‘Not when you’re manhandling a woman,’ Alexius interrupted in a tone of undisguised condemnation.
Rigid with raging tension, Jason swore and took a violent swing at Alexius. A gasp of dismay escaped Rosie but, faster than she would have believed possible, Alexius ducked the incoming fist and punched Jason squarely in the solar plexus. Winded, Jason reeled back a step in shock at the hit and thrust Rosie away from him with a brutal shove so that he could more easily move in to attack again. As Rosie lost her footing and went flying across the pavement with bruising force a cry of pain was wrenched from her lips. Almost simultaneously, she heard a shout, Jason’s roar of fury and finally the sound of running feet.
In the space of a minute, Alex Kolovos was bending over her and raising her up. ‘Don’t try to move,’ he urged, already noting the blood that had seeped through the legs of her cotton uniform trousers on which she had gone skidding across the pavement. ‘Something might be broken.’
‘Don’t think so … it just hurts,’ Rosie was suddenly painfully conscious of the ache of her bruises and the sting of the abrasions inflicted on her legs and arms. She grimaced, feeling ridiculously like a child who had fallen down, reckoning that the skinned knees and elbows she could feel had borne the brunt of the damage.
He was talking urgently in Greek into a mobile phone and her brow furrowed in discomfiture until he switched back to English. ‘I’m taking you to a doctor.’
Instantly, Rosie tried to sit up on her own. ‘That’s not necessary—’
But the sudden movement made her head swim and she felt horribly queasy and just as fast she rested back again on the strength of his supporting arm while struggling to master her body’s unfamiliar weakness. She thought she would die of shame if she threw up in front of him.
‘What happened?’
‘Having met more resistance than he had bargained on, your assailant ran off. You will have to make a complaint against him with the police.’
‘I don’t want to call the police about Jason,’ Rosie said, knowing that she didn’t want the fuss or the complications of getting the law involved but, beneath it, helplessly concerned that Jason might make another attempt to corner her when she was alone. What the heck did Jason want from her?
A car drew up beside them. Alexius vaulted upright as the driver jumped out to yank open the rear door. Alexius crouched down to lift Rosie and was shocked by how very little she weighed in his arms, deciding that below the concealment of her clothes she had to be pure skin and bone. He fed her slender body carefully into the back seat of the car so that she could continue to lie down. He climbed in beside her. The door closed. The car moved off.
Still fighting the queasiness in her stomach, Rosie glanced at Alex Kolovos, only to discover that he was frowning down at her. Light eyes bright as stars in his taut, darkly handsome face surveyed her with none of the chill that had confounded her in the conference room, and a flock of butterflies was unleashed in the pit of her stomach. When he looked at her like that, she found him irresistible and the reaction unnerved her. She was terrified that she was behaving like a teenager with a bad crush; her gaze skimmed off him to examine the interior of the car in which she lay. ‘Whose car is this? Who’s driving?’ she asked in dismay.
‘It’s my car. One of the security guards brought it and offered to drive so that I could keep an eye on you.’
‘If you’re so convinced that I need to see a doctor why didn’t you call an ambulance?’ she prompted curiously.
‘I knew this would be faster and more efficient,’ Alexius responded smoothly. ‘And you do need to see a doctor. You were assaulted.’
Rosie lowered her eyelashes again, feeling too weak and nauseous to fight him. Even if he was no longer freezing her out, he was domineering and she had never liked men of that ilk. Jason’s ilk, she labelled ruefully. Her one-time flatmate, Mel, had gloried in what she had seen as Jason’s essential masculinity until she saw the downside of his unpredictable moods and rages, not to mention his habit of making passes at other women whenever the notion took him. But it wasn’t fair to compare Alex Kolovos to Jason, Rosie thought guiltily. He was virtually a stranger yet he had risked life and limb to free her from Jason, which astounded her, for strangers usually put their own welfare first.
‘Did Jason hurt you?’ she whispered, wondering what had happened in the struggle that must have taken place after she had gone careening across the pavement.
Alexius rubbed his hard jaw line thoughtfully. ‘He got in one blow before I knocked him down. I was on the boxing team at school. I will have a bruise, nothing more …’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Rosie muttered. ‘I didn’t know he was going to be waiting for me. I wasn’t expecting to ever see him again—’
‘Is he your ex-boyfriend?’
‘My goodness, no! I would never get involved with someone like him. He was dating a friend of mine.’
Alexius watched her succulent pink lips compress on that closing remark, which explained nothing. He wondered what the real story was, whether she had encouraged that Neanderthal, who, unless he was very much mistaken, was pumped up both physically and mentally on steroids. He studied her. Her wealth of pale hair was spilling off the edge of the seat in a silken swathe, the big green eyes that dominated her triangular face dark with anxiety. She was still trembling with shock. She was so tiny and vulnerable that he was tempted to put his arms round her to offer comfort. But the very thought of such an unnatural urge shook Alexius to his very depths. When had he ever offered comfort to a woman? Why would he even want to touch her in that way? Sex was one thing and always acceptable, comfort and its complications, something else altogether. It was fitting that he had saved her from further harm and would now ensure that she received medical attention, but there was no need of any more personal element in their dealings. He had already decided to recommend her to her grandfather. While the way she had addressed him earlier had angered him, she was honest and forthright and a hard worker. The next time he saw her she would be in Greece with Socrates. When he had told her to leave, the strangest bad mood had settled over him at the awareness that the masquerade was at an end: he should be rejoicing that the job was done.
The car came to a halt outside a brightly lit town house in an imposing Georgian square. Rosie frowned while Alexius sprang out and turned to scoop her up into his arms before she had the chance to object. ‘I can walk!’ Rosie protested. ‘Where on earth are we? I thought you were taking me to Casualty.’
‘Where we would wait for hours before receiving attention. Dmitri Vakros
