ended the call as abruptly as he had started it. His second call to the pilot of the Lyonedes jet was even briefer as he sat and watched Gemini’s shadowy outline inside her apartment as she moved to pull the curtains across the two windows that faced down onto the street.
He was still sitting there in the silence of the Mercedes fifteen minutes later when a black Range Rover, with Max himself seated behind the wheel, pulled into the parking space behind. He turned in his seat, and the two men nodded brief acknowledgement of each other before Drakon started his engine and drove away.
‘Well!’ Gemini huffed indignantly as she slowly replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle.
‘Problems?’ Jo looked across at her curiously as she came to collect her jacket from the office of the shop in preparation for leaving for her lunch break on what was turning out to be a very busy Friday.
Drakon Lyonedes had been a problem before Gemini had even met him! And he had become even more of one—for totally different reasons—since she had first forced herself into his presence. Had that really only been a week ago? It somehow seemed so much longer.
Gemini still inwardly cringed every time she thought about the last time she had seen him three days ago.
Considering how the time usually flew by when she was at work, it had been a surprisingly long three days. Three days during which Drakon had completely disappeared from her life.
No, not completely…
She had slept badly the night after he’d left her so abruptly. Not because she had wasted any more of her time thinking about that awful scene with Angela, but because she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about Drakon and her response to him. Consequently it had taken her until late the following morning to notice the black Range Rover parked just down the street from the flower shop, and several more hours to realise that Max Stanford was seated behind the wheel, his steely gaze fixed unwaveringly on the flower shop. On her?
Gemini had decided she was being paranoid, and the Range Rover had disappeared when she’d gone out later that morning to buy her lunch from the deli two doors down the street. And then she had realised that another black car had taken the place of the Range Rover, and the man sitting inside seemed to be watching her from behind concealing sunglasses. By the time she’d shut up shop for the night the black Range Rover and Max were back, and the other car and its driver had disappeared.
Still feeling ever so slightly paranoid, Gemini had nevertheless felt no hesitation in walking over to the Range Rover and tapping on the window to ask an obviously less than pleased Max exactly what he was doing, parked outside her shop. His curt explanation had been enough to send Gemini hurrying back inside to put a call straight through to Markos.
Charming and roguish as ever, Markos had assured her that he was simply carrying out his cousin’s instructions, and that Max, or one of his security team, was to remain as her protection until Drakon told him otherwise.
Gemini had been stunned. And not a little annoyed. She accepted that Angela had been verbally abusive the last time the two women had spoken, and that Drakon had walked in on that heated scene just in time to prevent her stepmother from actually hitting her, but surely he didn’t imagine Angela would actually try to harm her?
That question had unfortunately remained unanswered, because Gemini’s efforts to contact Drakon in New York had proved as difficult as contacting him at Lyonedes Tower had been the previous week. She had managed to get as far as talking to his personal assistant this time, only to be informed that Mr Lyonedes was unavailable. Nor had Drakon bothered to return her call.
She had now received a telephone call from that same personal assistant, telling her that, ‘Mr Lyonedes has instructed me to inform you that he will be arriving in England later today and will be calling on you at your apartment at eight o’clock this evening.’ It just added insult to injury. Gemini had a good mind to make sure she was nowhere near her apartment at eight o’clock tonight!
Although she accepted that wasn’t likely to achieve very much when the current watchdog parked outside would no doubt tell Drakon exactly where she had gone. Still, it was the principle of the thing that mattered; damn it, Drakon couldn’t just walk in and out of her life and take charge whenever he felt like it! Well…apparently he could. But that didn’t mean that she had to make it at all easy for him.
She looked up now and smiled reassuringly at Jo. ‘It’s nothing I can’t handle,’ she assured her assistant firmly.
At least Gemini sincerely hoped she could handle seeing Drakon again…
‘ARE you expecting someone to join you?’
Gemini had been aware of Drakon the moment he entered her favourite Italian restaurant. Just as she had been aware of the female interest directed towards him as he inexorably made his way across that restaurant to where she sat at a table in one of the more private booths at the back of the happily noisy and crowded room. A table set for two.
Her own heart had skipped a beat at how dark and dangerously attractive Drakon looked this evening, in a casual black silk shirt, unbuttoned at the throat, and black trousers tailored to the long length of his legs. The darkness of his hair was slightly tousled and damp, as if he had recently taken a shower. Which he probably had, she accepted, if he had only flown in from New York a few hours ago.
She put down her glass of Chianti to lean back against the leather bench seat. She looked up and smiled at him. ‘Yes, I’m expecting someone to join me,’ she confirmed lightly.
Drakon looked more than a little irritated. ‘Did my assistant not telephone you earlier to tell you I would be calling at your apartment this evening?’
‘Oh, yes, he telephoned me,’ Gemini said blandly.
‘Then—’
‘Obviously I had plans for this evening other than sitting at home waiting for the great Drakon Lyonedes to grace me with his magnificent presence,’ she continued as though he hadn’t spoken.
He would have to be blind not to notice the way those sea-green eyes flashed with temper. And unfortunately he wasn’t in the least visually impaired where Gemini Bartholomew was concerned! ‘You are annoyed that I asked my assistant to telephone you.’ It was a statement not a question.
‘How astute of you, Drakon!’ she came back with saccharine sweetness.
If anything Gemini looked more beautiful this evening than when Drakon had last seen her: those sparkling eyes were surrounded by long dark lashes, colour highlighted her cheeks, the fullness of her lips was glossed peach, and her hair was a silky white-blonde curtain about her slender shoulders. The fitted cotton sweater she wore was the same sea-green colour as her eyes, and a short black skirt revealed the length of her legs.
Drakon’s mouth thinned as he realised he was not at all pleased to know she had dressed like that for the pleasure of another man. ‘Are you saying you would rather I had telephoned and spoken to you personally before I left New York?’ he queried.
Her eyes once more glowed with temper. ‘I’m saying I would rather you had bothered to return my call two days ago, or at the very least telephoned me yesterday and asked if it was convenient for us to meet this evening, rather
