‘That’s business. In my personal life I’m very traditional,’ he drawled. ‘And it doesn’t matter whether it’s the boardroom or the bedroom, the important thing is to find the right woman for the job. As far as wife material goes, you don’t fit my ideal profile. Next time spend more hours on your research.’
‘Research?’ Chantal shook her head in confusion. ‘Did you think you were some sort of project, or something?’
Contempt flickered across his features. ‘Do you really think that I haven’t heard about you?’
So obviously Isabelle had a reputation as a gold-digger.
Floored by that piece of news, Chantal stood still, her brain a hopeless tangle of indecision. It was obvious that she needed to try once again to tell him that she wasn’t this Isabelle person, but doing that would mean admitting to an even worse crime. She was a thief, and strictly speaking she’d impersonated someone else. Could that be classed as fraud if the ticket had been in the bin? Possibly. Could she go to gaol? Possibly. She didn’t really know, but she did know that he was angry enough to make trouble.
Trouble that she didn’t need.
Better a gold-digger than a thief.
Deciding that for the time being the less she revealed the better, Chantal licked her lips. ‘You’re wrong about me.’
‘Not wrong. It’s obvious that you went to the ball with the intention of targeting me.’
Astonished by his interpretation of the facts, Chantal shook her head. ‘I didn’t even know who you were until I picked up a newspaper the next day.’
‘Do you think I’m stupid?’
‘Not stupid. Arrogant.’
‘Realistic,’ he shot back. ‘And justifiably cautious. Clearly you have no idea how many women have trodden that same path before you. So I’ll tell you once again that I could never be attracted to anyone as manipulative as you. Dishonesty is not a trait I’ve ever admired in a woman.’
Chantal froze, doubly relieved that she hadn’t told him the truth.
He wouldn’t understand, would he?
She cringed at the thought of the reaction that such a confession would invoke. This was a man with the world at his fingertips. What would someone like him know about her life? How could he even begin to understand what had driven her to do something like that?
A dark memory of the last time someone had discovered the truth about her rose, and she felt a flicker of the old panic. And then she reminded herself that her past was all safely hidden. It was buried so deep that no one would ever discover the truth about her. That part of her was gone for ever, and she was perfectly safe.
She was whoever she wanted to be.
And at the moment that might as well be Isabelle.
Trapped by a situation entirely of her own making, Chantal wiped her damp palms over the limited fabric of her skirt, wishing there was more of it. She felt horribly exposed—even more so as his gaze travelled slowly down the length of her legs.
She felt the same tingling feeling she’d felt the night of the ball and she lifted her chin, reminding herself that so far every second she’d spent with this man had been a disaster. ‘Stop looking at me.’
‘If you don’t want a man to look at you,’ he bit out, ‘try wearing a skirt that covers your bottom. If outfits could talk, then yours is saying “take me”. You’re a walking advert for sex. I’m surprised you haven’t been arrested, walking the streets dressed in that. Or perhaps undressed would be a better description.’
This was the point where she should tell him that she had until a few hours ago been working as a waitress. But she had no intention of doing that. And anyway, when had she ever allowed herself to be defined by her job? ‘How I dress is my choice.’
‘I agree absolutely,’ he drawled, a cynical gleam in his dark eyes. ‘But, having made that choice, you cannot then object when a man responds in a predictable way. We’re not very advanced when it comes to matters as basic as sex. You chose to dress like that, and therefore it follows that you wanted to invoke a certain reaction in the male sex. And that is entirely in keeping with your reputation.’
Chantal felt a flicker of unease. What exactly had Isabelle been up to?
It would have been helpful to know.
Apart from the obvious deduction that she was the sort of woman willing to carelessly drop a coveted ticket in a hotel dustbin, Chantal knew nothing about her. But her curious, inventive mind had already started filling in the gaps. What had made a woman discard a ticket to an event to which only a select few were allowed access?
Who was she?
Judging from the derisive curl of Angelos’s mouth, no one she ever wanted to meet.
Chantal chewed her lip, trying not to reflect on the irony of the fact that she’d obviously borrowed the identity of a woman whose life was every bit as complex as her own.
Now what?
What should she do? Her whole life had been a web of lies since childhood, but her lies were only self-protection, and they’d never actually harmed anyone, had they? This was the first time that any of her stories had caught up with her and she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach.
After their one explosive encounter she’d been left with the impression that he wouldn’t ever want to cross her path again. Even now she didn’t understand why he’d brought her here. At first she’d assumed it was for sex, but there was nothing lover like about the way he was glaring at her.
‘So what do you want from me?’ He came from a different world, and that world still had the ability to shrink her back to a terrified schoolgirl.
Victim.
The word flew into her head and she pushed it away immediately, straightening her shoulders.
She wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim. Never again.
Visibly tense, he tugged impatiently at the knot of his tie and undid the top button of his shirt, clearly finding it constricting. ‘You are going to continue the charade that you began the night of the ball.’
‘Sorry?’
Anger flashed in his dark eyes and his hand sliced through the air in a furious gesture. ‘Do not pretend that you don’t know what I’m talking about,’ he breathed, ‘when we both know that you used the ball as a means to meet me.’
‘I’ve already told you that I didn’t. I—’
‘You virtually threw yourself across my path. And from the moment we met you couldn’t stop looking at me.’
‘Well, in order to have noticed you must have been looking at me too,’ Chantal offered logically, and he inhaled sharply.
‘You danced as though we were already horizontal in the bedroom.’
‘You danced too.’
Her comment did nothing to alleviate his temper. He muttered something in Greek that she just knew would be better off not translated.
‘I ought to congratulate you.’ He switched back to English, his derisive tone suggesting that congratulations were the last thing on his mind. ‘I thought I’d been on the receiving end of every possible trick, but you took the whole thing to an entirely new level.’
‘You’re obviously very angry, but—’
‘You’re right, I’m angry. Over the years various women have gone to enormous lengths to attract my attention. They pose as businesswomen, they apply for a job with me, they book tables in restaurants where I am dining, they hover outside my house in the hope of bumping into me. Sometimes