indisputable—he was the most arresting male she had ever set eyes on.
She could not pull her eyes away.
But she must.
She must because it did not matter that he was the most arresting male she’d ever seen. There was absolutely no point in thinking him so. No point in standing here gazing at him like some gawky teenager. No point feeling this sudden dryness of her mouth, the breathlessness in her lungs, the senseless racing of her heart-rate. No point at all.
She wasn’t here to go stupid over a man. Any man.
She never went stupid over a man. Not since she’d realised, after she’d left school and started to look out at the adult world, that being Eve Hawkwood was not exactly an advantage when it came to romance. Whatever beauty she possessed, very few men ever saw past the looming presence of Giles Hawkwood.
She certainly could not, she knew bitterly.
And tonight—here—of all times and places—her father’s shadow was darkening everything.
So there was only one thing to be done. Look away. Tear her eyes away from the man walking towards where she stood and let him walk by. Take no further notice of him—because, after all, what would be the point of doing otherwise?
No point, she knew.
With a huge effort, more than she’d thought she would have to make, she tried to tear her eyes away.
It was too late.
Out of nowhere, suddenly, as he strode past the last of the vingt-et-un tables, the man’s eyes flicked to hers.
And the breath was crushed from her lungs.
It was like a blow impacting. But not with pain.
With something quite different.
Almost, Alexei paused in his stride. But not quite. It didn’t stop his eyes fastening to hers, though. Didn’t stop the sudden instinctive tightening that he felt.
She was blonde. Incredibly blonde. Pale hair and pale skin. With the fine-boned looks that only the English possessed.
And she was stunning with it. Perfect wide-set grey eyes, a slender nose, and a mouth that was slightly, very slightly parted.
Her body was tall, graceful, and perfectly proportioned. Long legs, rounded hips, hand-span waist and two perfect orbs for breasts. All covered by a silver-grey evening dress that was as subtly understated as her extraordinary beauty was not.
He felt the tightening again.
Hell, this was not the moment for this to happen—
He didn’t need this. Not now. Not here. Not when all his energies had to be focussed on the one thing he was so close, so close, to achieving. The thing that had driven him, possessed him, all his adult life.
I haven’t got time for this…
The hard, pitiless knowledge slammed through him.
He had to stop this. Now.
It was too late. His eyes had locked on to hers.
It lasted only a few seconds, but it was enough. Enough to send a shockwave through him that he could feel resonating in every cell in his body.
Desire bit through him.
And something else. Something he was not used to feeling. Something he could not identify.
For a handful of seconds his eyes held hers, as the distance between them shortened. She stood absolutely immobile, doing nothing, nothing at all, except locking her eyes to his. As if that was all that was keeping her upright.
He felt his stride slowing, preparing to stop, to pause. To veer towards her…
No! He hadn’t got time for this—this was the wrong time, the wrong place.
But the right woman?
The voice whispered in his head. He silenced it. Ruthlessly he slammed it down with all the rigid self-control he steered his life by. He swept his lashes down over his eyes to shut her from his sight.
As the lashes swept upwards again he realised that she had gone.
Eve bolted. Slipping sideways, she twisted away and hurried as fast as her high heels would let her towards the plate glass doors that led out towards the pool deck overlooking the sea. Her heart was beating like a wild thing, and her cheeks were suddenly burning.
Oh, dear heaven—
Her mind was in chaos. She felt as if a jolt of electricity had just been blasted through her body without warning.
Those eyes, looking straight into hers…
Heat fanned through her again. She took a tumbling breath and kept walking as rapidly as she could, not paying the slightest attention to where she was going.
Nothing like this had ever happened to her before! Where on earth had it come from? What was it about that man that had overset her like this? She sucked air into her stomach and tried to steady her breathing, deliberately slowing her hectic pace.
As she did, determinedly calming her breath, even if there was nothing she could do for her racing heart-rate, she tried to get a grip of herself.
You just saw a fantastic-looking male. That was all. You’ve seen a lot of them in your time. They’re not exactly uncommon in the world.
Even as she reasoned with herself, she knew what she said was not true. There might be fantastic-looking males in the world, and she might have seen a lot of them—but none had ever made her react like that to them. None had made her just want to stare, and stare, and stare at them, while her heart-rate went crazy inside her and her breathing stopped.
His image leapt into her mind’s eye. She could recall it perfectly, and even just recalling it sent a frisson through her.
Something about him…
Again she felt that frisson go through her, as she remembered the endless moment when his eyes had locked to hers, jolting electricity through her with a voltage she’d never experienced before.
His eyes had done something to her that she couldn’t explain. It wasn’t lust. God knew she’d been on the receiving end of looks like that ever since she was a teenager. This was something much, much more powerful. Much more disturbing.
Much more devastating.
Her heart-rate started to clatter again, and she felt her pace increase. This time she let it. She’d realised where she was now. On a paved terrace that led along the rocky edge of the sea between the hotel’s gardens and the Mediterranean. The path led through pine trees, which blessedly shielded the lights from the hotel, and ended, she knew from previous visits to the hotel—one of her father’s favourites, thanks both to the casino and the marina where he had his yacht moored—at a miniature promontory overlooking the sea, set with stone seats from which to look at the view in daytime.
She
