as she sat in the kitchen of her apartment. But here and now, on her way to goodness’ knew where, with a hatchet-faced man who looked as if he was more than capable of killing with his bare hands, it seemed far less so.
It was all Drakon Lyonedes’s fault, of course. If the man didn’t make it so impossible for people to see or speak with him then there would be no reason for her to resort to such drastic measures as she had this morning. As it was…
Her chin rose defensively as she chanced a glance at the grimly silent man standing beside her. ‘Kidnapping is a serious offence, you know.’
‘So is making a public nuisance of yourself,’ he came back remorselessly.
‘Lyonedes Tower isn’t exactly public!’
‘Keep telling yourself that, love.’ Once again she thought she caught a glimpse of humour in those steely blue eyes, before it quickly dissipated and only the steel remained.
‘There’s nowhere for me to escape to, stuck in this lift, so it’s probably safe to let go of my arm now—’ She broke off abruptly as the lift came to a gliding halt and the doors slid silently open in front of her.
Not into a basement. Or a dungeon. But into the unlikeliest-looking office Gemini had ever seen…
Probably because it wasn’t an office, she realised as Mr Grim pulled her with him into a huge and elegant sitting room. The thick-pile carpet beneath her booted feet was a rich cream colour, and several brown leather armchairs and a huge matching L-shaped sofa were placed near the marble fireplace. Occasional tables bore vases of cream roses, and a matching cream piano stood in one corner of the room, a bar area in another. She easily recognised some of the numerous paintings on the cream walls as being priceless works of art by long-dead artists, and the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the wall directly in front of her displayed an amazing view of the London skyline.
So—definitely not the basement, then!
‘I will ring you when it is time for Miss Bartholomew to leave, Max.’
‘Sir.’
Gemini only vaguely registered the Head of Security as he stepped silently back into the lift and departed. She turned sharply to locate the owner of that deep and authoritative voice, her eyes widening in shock as she saw the man silhouetted in front of a second wall of windows, instantly knowing she was looking at the tall, powerful, olive-skinned Drakon Lyonedes himself.
It was perfectly obvious that he was far from pleased. The expression on his handsome face was even grimmer than the one on his Head of Security’s.
Drakon Lyonedes was over six feet tall, with wide shoulders, a powerful chest, and long legs clearly defined in a tailored and obviously expensive charcoal-grey suit worn over a white silk shirt and pale grey tie. His dark hair was cut ruthlessly short, and piercing coal-black eyes were set in a face that looked as if it had been hewn from granite. None of the rare photographs of Drakon Lyonedes that had very occasionally appeared in the newspapers over the years had even begun to scratch the surface of the aura of power that surrounded him like an invisible cloak.
Not just power, Gemini realised as an icy shiver ran the length of her spine, but danger—like that of a deadly predator waiting to pounce on its prey.
A powerful and deadly predator who now had her firmly fixed in his sights!
Drakon’s expression remained unreadable as he took in the colour version of the determined Miss Bartholomew. The straight, shoulder-length hair he had thought might be a pale blonde was in fact an unusual white-gold—the same colour as the long stretches of sandy beach that surrounded his private island off the coast of Greece. Her complexion was the palest ivory, and a perfect background for her eyes, which he could now see were the same deep aquamarine colour as the warm Aegean Sea, and shielded by thick dark lashes. Her full and sensuous lips were an unglossed and natural rose.
In fact she did not appear to be wearing any make-up at all, which was most unusual in his experience…
‘Mr Lyonedes, I presume?’ she enquired softly, moving with a natural grace as she stepped further into the private sitting room of the penthouse apartment.
‘Miss Bartholomew.’ Drakon remained unsmiling in response to what had obviously been an attempt at humour on her part. ‘Max informs me that you have been most…insistent in your desire to speak with me.’
‘Does he?’ She continued to stare at him with those aquamarine eyes.
‘Sitting on the floor of the reception area and refusing to move till you had either spoken to myself or my cousin would appear to be an act of determination, yes,’ he pointed out.
‘Oh, yes. That.’ Gemini grimaced as she tried to gather her scrambled thoughts together—a situation she readily admitted had been brought about by this man’s totally overpowering presence! ‘Max soon took care of that for you, though,’ she said, remembering the ease with which the security man had placed his hands beneath her elbows and just lifted her up from the floor and out of the reception area to that secure room.
Dark brows rose. ‘You are on a first-name basis with my Head of Security?’
‘I think it’s fair to say I’m on an only name basis with him—he didn’t introduce himself to me earlier, so I know him by the name you just called him.’ She shrugged. ‘And I wouldn’t have needed to be quite so determined if you’d made yourself more accessible,’ she said lightly. After all, she could afford to be a little more amenable now that she was actually in the presence of the man himself.
‘And why would I wish to do that?’ He seemed genuinely baffled by her statement.
‘Because—Oh, never mind.’ Gemini gave a dismissive shake of her head.
Drakon noticed how the movement caused that cascade of white-gold hair to be caught in the sun’s rays, and found himself wondering if the colour was natural or from a bottle. Only to add an inner admonishment for allowing even that small personal interest to creep into this meeting. ‘You do realise that causing a nuisance of yourself on private property is—’
‘A serious offence,’ she finished heavily. ‘Yes, your Head of Security has already made it more than clear that you would have been quite within your rights to call the police and have me arrested rather than agree to see me.’
Drakon gave a hard and humourless smile. ‘Oh, believe me, that possibility has not yet been dismissed.’
‘Oh.’ Uncertainty briefly flickered in her eyes as she drew herself up to her full height of possibly five feet ten inches in the two-inch-heeled boots she was wearing. The shirt that fitted so flatteringly over her breasts and the flatness of her abdomen was black in colour, the jeans that clung to that enticingly curvaceous bottom a light blue. ‘I only did what I did because I so badly needed to talk to you—’
‘Would you care for coffee?’
She blinked. ‘What?’
‘Coffee?’ Drakon indicated the bar area, where a full pot of coffee had been brought up to him earlier and left on the black marble surface along with several black mugs.
‘Is it decaf?’
He raised dark brows. ‘I think possibly Brazilian, as that
