As he propelled her into the passenger seat, a woman watching gave an envious sigh and turned to her friend.
‘L’amour,’ she said, and Angelos gave a grim smile as he slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
Not l’amour, he thought viciously as he trod hard on the accelerator and made for the hotel.
Not l’amour at all.
What he had in mind had a much less romantic description attached to it.
WHAT did he want with her?
The living room of his penthouse suite was bigger than her entire flat, and looked out over the whole of Paris. It was a view that only the privileged few ever enjoyed, and at any other time Chantal would have been enchanted. But not now.
Her body was still in a state of helpless excitement following that one devastating kiss.
If dancing with him had been erotic, then kissing him had been—
She couldn’t find a word for it.
Her legs still trembling, she looked around for somewhere solid to prop herself. She needed the support just in case he kissed her again.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?
He wasn’t even looking at her. Instead he was staring in brooding silence down into the streets below.
Her tongue sneaked out and touched her lower lip, still slightly swollen from the bruising force of his kiss. She was well aware that he’d used the kiss as a means of distracting their audience, but that knowledge in no way diminished the chemistry that had exploded between them.
Was the chemistry responsible for the anger she sensed in him?
The truth was, she no longer understood what was going on.
She’d attributed his anger on the night of the ball to the fact that he’d somehow discovered that she was an uninvited guest. When he’d first waved the crumpled ticket at her, she’d assumed that he was displaying the evidence.
And then he’d called her ‘Isabelle’, and she’d realised that he believed her to be the owner of the ticket. And the crazy thing was she didn’t even know ‘Isabelle’.
Obviously he didn’t yet know that she’d gatecrashed the party.
Deeply regretting the impulse that had made her use a ticket that wasn’t hers, Chantal glanced around furtively, half expecting someone in uniform to put a hand on her shoulder and arrest her.
Could you be arrested for something like that?
Did it count as identity theft if the transgression had only been for one short evening? Did it count as identity theft if the victim was none the wiser and the thief almost immediately gave the identity back? It wasn’t really theft, was it? More a case of—borrowing. She’d borrowed someone else’s name for a short time, just to see whether time and maturity had given her the confidence to mingle with people who’d used to make her feel insignificant.
Trying to ignore the shimmer of insecurity that had started to take hold, Chantal stood there awkwardly.
Now what?
Since he’d picked up her from the street, Angelos hadn’t spoken a word. He’d strapped her with restrained violence into the passenger seat and proceeded to drive skilfully through the fast Paris traffic before finally pulling up outside the most expensive hotel in the city.
Only then had he finally glanced in her direction. His tone icy cold, he’d uttered just one word. ‘Out.’
The simmer of anger in his dark eyes had made her insides quake, but remembering the few weeks she’d spent working in the hotel when she’d first arrived in Paris, she hadn’t wanted to draw attention to herself by arguing with him on the pavement. So Chantal had simply lowered her head and followed him meekly into the lift that led directly to the penthouse suite, hoping that none of the staff would recognise her.
As soon as the door had closed behind them, she’d regretted following him and now she was finally alone with him she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach.
She tried to look relaxed. As if his kiss hadn’t turned her insides into a mass of squirming, helpless longing. ‘All right. I’m here. What did you want to say to me?’ Why didn’t he speak? She just wished he’d say something. Anything—instead of just standing there with his back to her, his broad shoulders stiff with tension. ‘Perhaps I should just leave—’
He turned, the angular lines of his handsome face set and hard. ‘If you leave, I’ll just bring you back.’ He was autocratic and intimidating and she stood frozen to the spot, confused by the conflict she sensed in him.
He’d kissed her, but it was obvious that he wasn’t happy about it.
‘Let’s just get one thing straight from the outset,’ she muttered, deciding that she might as well make her position clear. ‘I won’t have sex with you, so if that’s what this is all about, you might as well just let me go now.’
A protracted silence followed her impulsive declaration. The only indication that he’d even heard her was a slight narrowing of his dark eyes.
The silence unnerved her and she tried again. ‘I’m just saying that although I’m sure every other woman you meet is desperate to—I mean, you’re a good-looking guy, but…’ Her voice trailed off, her chattiness extinguished by his total lack of response.
Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, he spoke.
‘Do I look like the sort of man who picks up a woman from the street when he wants sex?’
Chantal could have told him that those men came in all shapes and sizes, but she chose to keep her thoughts to herself. ‘I have no idea what sort of man you are. And I don’t want to find out.’
‘Really?’ One dark eyebrow lifted in mockery. ‘You expect me to believe that after the virtuoso performance you gave on the night of the ball?’
Remembering the erotic dance they’d shared, Chantal felt her heart-rate double. ‘It was just a dance…’ her voice trailed off again as his eyes locked on hers.
And suddenly there it was again.
The same silent connection that had drawn them together the night of the ball.
Something flickered in the depths of his eyes, something dark and dangerous, and she knew that his mind was in the same place as hers: the exquisite agony of anticipation as their bodies had moved and slid together, the heat, the restrained passion, the delicious intimacy—
They stared at each other until the tension in the room was wound so tightly that it came close to snapping.
This time he was the one to break the silence. ‘Tell me something—’ his voice was lethally soft ‘—is that how you trap all your men? You dance with them first? Is it your idea of a free trial? Try before you buy?’
His cynicism clashed with the image of him that her mind had greedily stored away. She’d remembered a gentleness, but there was nothing gentle about his man. He was all hard angles and sharp anger. ‘I’m not for sale, Mr Zouvelekis.’
‘I think the people who watched you dance might have trouble believing that.’
And the amazing thing was she hadn’t been aware of anything or anyone but him. She’d been so absorbed by the rhythm of the music and the movement of his body that she’d been lost in her own world. The dance had been special. Something astonishing that they’d created together.
But that was ridiculous, of course. A prime example of her imagination running away yet again. For him,