A frown appeared on that smooth alabaster brow. ‘That’s hardly a fair comparison, Mr Lyonedes, when the threats you made to me this morning were in regard to my professional reputation, not my personal one.’
‘I believe the saying is “payback can be a bitch”?’ He gave an unrepentant shrug. This woman had wilfully—deliberately!—played with him on Saturday evening by not revealing her true identity, and no doubt been highly amused at Markos’s expense because of it.
Markos had thought about it long and hard over the weekend, finally deciding that if Evangeline Grey wanted to play games then he was happy to oblige her. With that in mind he had telephoned her office himself that morning and demanded to speak to her personally. After a short delay there had been a more or less one-sided conversation during which Markos had informed her that there would be no more cancelled appointments. If she didn’t want him to tell anyone and everyone who cared to listen just how unreliable he had found her professional services she would come at five.
Her only answer had been to end the call abruptly, causing Markos to chuckle wryly as he slowly placed his mobile down on his desktop.
Nevertheless, he had been sure that Eva would be here at five o’clock. He knew that she was now aware that it was well within his power to seriously damage her professional reputation if he chose to do so.
‘You’re unusually quiet today,’ he remarked, lifting his dark brows mockingly.
Oh, Eva had plenty she wanted to say to this man. She was just erring on the side of caution—for the moment.
She had realised after leaving Senator Ashcroft’s cocktail party on Saturday—her feelings of anger on behalf of her cousin aside—that it probably hadn’t been a wise move on her part to antagonise a man as powerful as Markos Lyonedes by making appointments with him which she’d never had any intention of keeping. Unwise and not a little childish, she now accepted reproachfully. As if it would really matter to a man as powerful as Markos Lyonedes if some little interior designer chose to snub him by not keeping her appointments!
Except, having met her on Saturday evening, it obviously did matter to him. It didn’t help, having duly arrived at Lyonedes Tower at five o’clock, that Eva was now totally aware of the way in which Markos Lyonedes managed to exude a predatory air—despite the expensive elegance of his tailored dark grey suit and paler grey silk shirt, with matching tie knotted meticulously at his throat.
‘Did you and Glen enjoy your late dinner on Saturday evening?’ he prompted softly.
Eva’s mouth tightened at this reminder of the time she and Glen had spent together at an Italian restaurant after leaving the Senator’s party. Several hours during which she had desperately tried to dredge up some of her former approval of Glen as an IVF donor, only to find that, rather than appreciating Glen’s healthy good looks, she was comparing them to the hard and chiselled features of the man now standing in front of her.
A man she wouldn’t even consider putting on a shortlist of potential donors for her baby.
Oh, Markos Lyonedes was definitely handsome, and obviously he was healthy and intelligent, but there all suitability as the possible father of her child ended. Markos might have more than earned his reputation for avoiding serious relationships, but Eva knew there was no way that a man as powerful as one of the Greek Lyonedes cousins would ever agree to clinically, calculatedly father a child by donating his sperm for IVF.
In fact her experience with Glen now made her wonder if it might not be better to opt for an anonymous donor after all. In the meantime, she had to cope with knowing she was physically responsive to Markos in a way she hadn’t experienced in the three years since her divorce—if ever!
Jack had been several years older than her when they’d married, and more experienced. Their lovemaking had been fun to explore at the start of their marriage. That interest, for obvious reasons, had eventually faded. To the point that by the end of their marriage, they hadn’t made love in months.
Eva’s self-esteem had been at a very low ebb after the divorce, her confidence in her desirability even lower, and it had taken months for her even to go out on a date with another man—only to discover that her emotions were completely numb, and the most she could feel for any of those men was a distant liking.
But it wasn’t anything as lukewarm as liking—distant or otherwise!—she felt in regard to Markos Lyonedes.
Eva had been convinced—with the experience of her disastrous marriage behind her, and after listening for hours to Donna’s broken-hearted meanderings down the telephone as her cousin mourned her lost love—that she was destined to be the one woman who wouldn’t ever be stupid enough to fall under the sensual spell of all that lethal Lyonedes charm and charismatic good-looks.
Which only went to prove what an arrogant fool she had been.
Because Eva now knew she only had to be in the same room as Markos Lyonedes to be aware of every single thing about him. She could feel the tug of that desire even now, causing her hands to tremble slightly, her breasts to feel hot and swollen, and a dampness between her thighs.
She could see the same desire reflected towards her in the warmth of those dark green eyes. It was a physical attunement that seemed to make the very air between them crackle and dance.
‘It was fine,’ Eva dismissed abruptly. ‘Now, if we could—’
‘Have you and Glen been together long?’
Eva frowned slightly. ‘I’m not sure that it’s any of your business, but we haven’t “been together” at all.’
Eva had gently but firmly refused Glen’s suggestion, before they parted on Saturday evening, that the two of them might go out together again this week, having lost all interest in him with regard to approaching him about IVF.
Markos raised questioning brows. ‘Yet…?’
‘Really, Mr Lyonedes—’
‘Markos.’
‘Markos.’ She gave a brief, meaningless smile of acknowledgement. ‘I really didn’t come here to discuss my personal life—so if we could we just get down to business?’
Markos settled more comfortably against the front of the desk and folded his arms across his chest. He considered Eva with narrowed but appreciative eyes. Her features really were extremely delicate: those gold-coloured eyes, high cheekbones, slender jaw, those full and sensuous lips glossed a deep peach today. With her hair secured at her crown it was now possible to see the slender arch of Eva’s delicious throat, with skin as delicate as pale china.
It was a delectable delicacy that Markos found himself aching to taste. Presumably that wasn’t completely out of the question, if Eva and Glen really weren’t together.
He straightened slowly. ‘That’s a pity, because the only thing that I’m in the least interested in talking about this evening is your personal life.’
Those gold eyes widened warily. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘No?’
Markos found himself watching intently as she moistened those peach-glossed lips before speaking again.
‘I understood from our telephone conversation earlier today that you wanted me here at five o’clock so that we could discuss possible new designs for the décor in your apartment.’
Markos smiled slightly. ‘I don’t remember so much as mentioning any designs for my apartment during our brief conversation this morning.’
‘Well…no,’ she conceded slowly, after a few seconds’ thought. ‘But that was the reason for our two earlier appointments.’
‘Two appointments which you didn’t ever have any intention of keeping.’
‘No.’