It wasn’t Gerard.
Not even close. Gerard was smooth, refined and cosmopolitan, the personfication of continental charm, a blend of 21st century sophistication and nearly as many centuries of royal breeding.
This man was anything but. He was hard-edged, shaggy-haired, and unshaven, wearing a pair of faded jeans and a nondescript open-necked shirt. He might have been nobody. A beach bum, a carpenter, a sailor in from the sea. He seemed to be cultivating the look.
But he was Somebody—with a capital S.
His name was Demetrios Savas. Anny knew it. So did everyone else in the room.
For ten years he’d been the golden boy of Hollywood. A man descended from Greek immigrants to America, Demetrios had started his brilliant career as nothing more than a handsome face. And stunning body.
In his early twenties, he’d modeled underwear, for goodness’ sake!
But from those inauspicious beginnings, he’d worked hard to parlay not only his looks, but also his talent into a notable acting career, a successful television series, half a dozen feature films, and a fledgling but well-respected directing career. Not to mention his brief tragic fairy-tale marriage to the beautiful talented actress Lissa Conroy.
Demetrios and Lissa had been Hollywood’s—and the world’s—sweethearts. One of the film industry’s golden couples—extraordinarily beautiful, talented people who lived charmed lives.
Charmed at least until two years ago when Lissa had contracted some sort of infection while filming overseas and had died scant days thereafter. Demetrios, working on the other side of the globe, had barely reached her side before she was gone.
Anny remembered the news photos that had chronicled his lonely journey home with her body and the shots of the treeless windswept North Dakota cemetery where he’d taken her to be buried. She still recalled how the starkness of it shocked her.
And yet it had made sense when she’d heard his explanation. “This is where she came from. It’s what she’d want. I’m just bringing her home.”
In her mind’s eye she could still see the pain that had etched the features of his beautiful face that day.
She hadn’t seen that face since. In the two years since Lissa Conroy’s death and burial, Demetrios Savas had not made a public appearance.
He’d gone to ground—somewhere. And while the tabloids had reprinted pictures of a hollow-faced grieving Demetrios at first, when he didn’t return to the limelight, when there were no more sightings and no more news, eventually they’d looked elsewhere for stories.
They’d been caught off guard, then, to learn last summer that he had written a screenplay, had found backing to shoot it, had cast it and, taking cast and crew to Brazil, had directed a small independent film—a film that was getting considerable interest and possible Oscar buzz, a film he was bringing to Cannes.
And now here he was.
Anny had never seen him before in person though she had certainly seen plenty of photos—had even, heaven help her, had a very memorable poster of him on the wall of her dorm room at university.
It didn’t hold a candle to the man in the flesh. The stark pain from those post-funeral photos was gone from his face now. He wasn’t smiling. He didn’t have to. He exuded a charisma that simply captured everyone’s gaze.
He had a strength and power she recognized immediately. It wasn’t the smooth, controlled power like Gerard’s and her father’s. It was raw and elemental. She could sense it like a force field surrounding him as he moved.
And he was moving again now, though he’d stopped for just a moment to glance back over his shoulder before he continued into the room. He had an easy commanding stride, and though princesses didn’t stare, according to her father, Anny couldn’t look away.
A few people had picked up their conversations again. But most were still watching him. Talking about him, too, no doubt. Some nodded to him, spoke to him, and he spared them a faint smile, a quick nod. But he didn’t stop, and as he moved he scanned the room as if he were looking for someone.
And then his gaze lit on her.
Their eyes locked, and Anny was trapped in the green magic of his eyes.
It seemed to take a lifetime before she could muster her good sense and years of regal breeding and drag her gaze away. Deliberately she consulted her watch, made a point of studying it intently, allowed her impatience full rein. It was better than looking at him—staring like a besotted teenager at his craggy hard compelling face.
Where in heaven’s name was Gerard, anyway?
She looked up desperately—and found herself staring straight into Demetrios Savas’s face.
He was close enough to touch. Close enough that she could see tiny gold flecks in those impossibly green eyes, and pick out a few individual grey whiskers in rough dark stubble on his cheeks and jaw.
She opened her mouth. No sound came out.
“Sorry,” he said to her, a rueful smile touching his lips. “Didn’t mean to keep you waiting.”
Me? she wanted to say, swallowing her serene princess smile. Surely not.
But before she could say a thing, he wrapped an arm around her and drew her into his, then pressed hard warm lips to hers.
Anny’s ears buzzed. Her knees wobbled. Her lips parted. For an instant she thought his tongue touched hers!
Her eyes snapped open to stare, astonished, into his.
“Thanks for waiting.” His voice was the warm rough baritone she’d heard in movies and on television. As she stared in silent amazement, he kept an arm around her waist, tucked her firmly against him and walked her briskly with him toward the shops at the far end of the lobby. “Let’s get out of here.”
Demetrios didn’t know who she was.
He didn’t care. She was obviously waiting for someone—he’d seen her scanning the room almost the moment he’d walked in—and she looked like the sort of woman who wouldn’t make a fuss.
Not fussing was at the top of his list of desirable female attributes at the moment. And amid all the preening peacocks she stood out like a beacon.
Her understated appearance and neat dark upswept hair would have screamed practical, sensible, unflappable, and calm if they had been capable of screaming anything.
As it was, they spoke calmly of a woman of quiet composed sanity. One of the hotel concierge staff, probably. Or a tour guide waiting for her group. Or, hell, for all he knew, a Cub Scout den mother. In other words, she was all the things that people in the movie industry generally were not.
And she was, whether she knew it or not, going to be his salvation. She was going to get him out of the Ritz before he lost his temper or his sanity or did something he would no doubt seriously regret. In her proper dark blue skirt and casual but tailored cream-colored jacket, she looked like exactly the sort of steady unflappable professional woman he needed to pull this off.
He had his arm around her as he walked her straight down the center of the room. It was as if they were parting the seas as they went. Eyes widened. Murmurs began. He ignored them.
In her ear he said, “Do you know how to get out of here?” Even as he spoke, he realized she might not even speak English. This was France, after all.
But she didn’t disappoint him. She didn’t stumble as he steered her along, but kept pace with him easily, turning her head toward him just enough so that he could see a smile on her face. She had just the barest hint of an accent when she said, “Of course.”
He smiled, then, too. It was probably the first real smile he’d managed all day.
“Lead