‘If we’re going to talk at all, tell me something I don’t know. Like what your sort of management consultant does. And what turned you into a workaholic. Don’t bother asking me pretty questions about myself because I don’t play that game. It bores me.’
Her skeleton smile disintegrated abruptly.
‘Well, we mustn’t have that, must we?’ said Annis furiously.
‘I’ll trade. One secret—that’s all, just one—for everything you want to know about me.’
‘I don’t want to know a thing—’ Annis began with heat, until she saw the mocking glint in his eyes. Oh, how quickly she had risen to his baiting! She drew a long, careful breath and said, ‘Anyway, I don’t have secrets.’
She did not sound encouraging. She did not mean to. Konstantin Vitale’s eyes narrowed appreciatively.
‘Yes, you do.’
‘What?’
‘Mystery lady,’ he said, so softly that only she could hear.
‘I am not a mystery,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And if you are trying to flirt with me, you can just stop right now.’
He did not say anything, waiting.
‘I don’t play that game,’ she quoted back at him, goaded.
He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging a hit. Annis nodded coolly, half in triumph, half in simple relief.
Kosta Vitale looked at his companion thoughtfully. He really had been drawn to her the moment he saw her across the room. More than that, he had felt a shock. It was as if he had been waiting for her, or as if she was someone he’d recognised from a long distant, idyllic past. In fact, he had looked twice to make sure that he did not know her. But he knew he had never met Tony Carew’s daughter.
And then, as soon as Tony had introduced them, Kosta had known this was going to be a whole new experience.
Annis Carew was not the sort of woman who usually attracted him. For one thing, from that first handshake, she had turned him into an opponent. For another, though she duelled well, she seemed to wince away from ripostes that she had asked for. He did not like women like that. They handed it out, but any man they went to war with was expected to pull his punches. Maybe it came from being a millionaire’s daughter.
And yet…And yet…Her eyes were full of mysteries. Kosta was shocked to find how much he wanted to explore those mysteries. But he did. Through and through. From the height to their depths.
I’ll have to be careful with this, thought Kosta, shaken.
‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘No secrets,’ adding silently, Yet. ‘Tell me about your career. Unless that’s on the classified list too.’
She bit back a nasty remark and said with icy civility, ‘I trained as a management consultant with Baker Consulting. I set up a partnership with a colleague six months ago.’
‘That’s why you’re a workaholic?’
Suddenly she smiled with real amusement. It turned her eyes gold, like the lamplight. Kosta watched, fascinated.
‘No, I’ve always been a workaholic.’ She drew a deep breath and the gold died out of her eyes. ‘Now can we talk about something that interests me?’
Raise your foil, Kosta, off we go in the next bout, he thought dryly.
But there was something he wanted to know first. No, not wanted. Needed to know.
‘So who is this partner? The reason you don’t date?’
Annis put a lid on her annoyance and registered a private resolution to rock the damned man off his complacent axis if it was the last thing she did.
In pursuit of this end, she sat back in her chair and sighed elaborately.
‘I don’t date because I don’t want to,’ she drawled. ‘To use your own words, it bores me.’
It was not true. But Annis was in too much of a temper to remember that. Especially as she seemed to score a hit. Not the bull’s-eye maybe. But a definite hit. The steady green eyes even blinked for a second.
‘Dating bores you?’
He sounded outraged, thought Annis, pleased.
‘I’m not keen on competitive games,’ she explained sweetly.
‘Competitive?’ He sounded disbelieving. ‘You must have dated some real oddballs.’
She flinched. He’s telling me I’m so weird no normal man would take me out. It hurt. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t have hurt if it had not been exactly what she was already afraid of. Annis felt her temper fly straight through the top of her head.
But she was too used to controlling her feelings to allow it to show. ‘No, no. Standard issue,’ she assured him affably.
His eyes flickered. ‘They have my sympathy.’
Annis flinched inwardly. That’s what comes of mixing it with the sexiest man in the room, she told herself, rejecting the hurt. You started it. So have your fun. Just expect to pay for it.
The woman on his other side said something. He inclined his head courteously for a moment, not taking his eyes off Annis. A smile began to lift one corner of his mouth. Not a nice smile.
‘I don’t think Ms Carew would agree with you. She’s just told me she doesn’t date. I don’t imagine she flirts, either.’ He leaned back so the two women could talk to each other.
That, thought Annis, was not playing fair. Theirs was supposed to be a private battle. He knew it as well as she did. But she set her teeth and prepared to meet him on this new ground. ‘Flirt?’ she echoed, smiling. ‘Me? Why not?’
‘You were the one who just told me to stop,’ he reminded her, enjoying himself.
Her eyes glittered.
Before she could retaliate, however, Kosta was addressing the subject to the table at large. ‘And I’m sure you’re right. Flirting,’ he announced ‘takes Mediterranean flair. The English don’t trust flirting any more than they trust garlic. Quite apart from the individual temperament.’
He glanced down at Annis quizzically.
He’s mocking me. He wants everyone else to join in, she thought. Her heart twisted. She concentrated on her anger.
The other woman frowned him down. Annis had met her before. She was on one of Lynda’s charity committees, a media personality. Now she was looking apologetic.
‘I was just saying to Kosta that flirting is one of the great lost skills.’
Konstantin Vitale smiled straight into Annis’s indignant eyes. ‘And I told Sally that you wouldn’t agree.’
Annis widened her eyes at him. ‘Oh? Why? It seems pretty lost to me. No sign this evening that either you or I know how to flirt, is there?’
Sally drew in a startled breath. Konstantin Vitale ignored her. He sat bolt upright and stopped smiling.
‘And no sign that you regret it for a moment,’ he told Annis crisply. ‘Like I said, no temperament for it.’
Sally murmured. ‘Fifteen-all.’
Annis was hotly indignant. It felt great. ‘You can’t expect someone to flirt with you if you make her account for herself as if you’re interviewing her for a job.’
Sally gave a soft laugh. ‘Ta-da. She’s got you there, Kosta.’
‘What else is a man to ask her about when the first thing she tells him is that she lives for her work?’
‘Thirty-all.’ Sally was enjoying herself hugely.
‘And