‘Really?’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘And why’s that?’
He smiled. ‘Because if you present a man with a woman who is disobedient, then he is conditioned to want to tame her. To sublimate her unruly temperament. And that is something which fills me with anticipation and excitement.’
His words washed over her—edged with an eroticism she couldn’t ignore. And suddenly Jessica felt out of her depth. As if she’d underestimated him. As if she’d unwittingly signed up for something more than a change of image and a brand-new advertising campaign. He looked so powerful as he sat there. As if he was playing a game, only she didn’t know what that game was. Because although this man looked like Loukas—a very polished Loukas—she realised that he was a stranger to her.
He had always been a stranger to her, she realised with a sinking heart. Hadn’t he always kept a side of himself locked away?
But her face betrayed nothing, her smile as polite as if they were discussing nothing more controversial than the January weather. ‘Do you really think it’s acceptable to invite a woman for dinner and then to talk about taming her?’
This time his smile was edged with definite danger. ‘Doesn’t that turn you on—a masterful man taking control of a stubborn woman? I must say, it has always been one of my enduring fantasies, my little Ice Queen.’
Ice Queen. Jessica didn’t react to that either. It was a long time since she’d heard the term which had dogged her junior years as a player and followed her onto the senior circuit. She had hated it, although her father had approved. He’d said it meant she’d achieved what she’d set out to achieve—a cold unflappability. Or rather, what he had set out to achieve. All Jessica knew was that being cold didn’t make you popular with the other players, even if the ability to keep your feelings hidden made you a formidable opponent. Not showing when you were angry, or sad, or rattled had distinct advantages when you were playing tennis—just not in real life. It made people think you had no real feelings. It made them call you Ice Queen. And it made men like Loukas Sarantos interested in you because they thought you presented the ultimate challenge.
‘I’m not interested in your sexual fantasies,’ she said quietly.
‘Honestly?’
‘No. What I’m interested in,’ she said, dragging her thoughts away with an effort, ‘is how you’ve become so incredibly rich.’
‘Not right now,’ he said, with silky resignation—as if he’d been expecting the question a whole lot sooner. ‘Here comes the waiter. Let’s deal with him first. Do you know what you want to eat? Perhaps you would like me to order for you?’
Jessica bristled. He was doing it again, just as he’d tried to do with the dress. That whole command thing which was teetering on the brink of domination. She was perfectly capable of ordering her own food and she ought to tell him that, but, faced with the prospect of deciphering a long menu beneath a gaze which was making her feel so conflicted, Jessica shrugged her acceptance.
She listened while he quizzed the sommelier and the waiter with a knowledge he clearly hadn’t acquired overnight. It was strange seeing him like this in public—giving orders where in the past he had taken them. As strange as seeing him in his expensive suit. She was left feeling dazed when they were alone once more and two glasses of white wine had been poured for them. All she knew was that she mustn’t let him dominate her. That she needed to start asserting herself, just as she had done so often on the tennis court.
‘So are you going to tell me?’ she persisted, with a determination which seemed to well up from somewhere deep inside her. From the far end of the room a jazz pianist began playing something haunting and sultry and the music seemed to invade her senses as Jessica stared at him. ‘What has happened to you to make you the man you are today, Loukas?’
LOUKAS STARED INTO Jessica’s aquamarine eyes—as cool as any swimming pool he’d ever dived into—and wondered how to answer her question. His instinct was to tell her that his past and his career trajectory were none of her business. Was her sudden interest sparked because she was turned on by his obvious wealth like most of her sex?
Yet in a way she had been partly responsible for the dramatic turnaround in his fortunes, though not in a way which either of them could have predicted. Her rejection of him had cut deep. Deeper than he could ever have anticipated. Her cool dismissal of his proposal had kicked like a horse at his pride and his heart, leaving him angry and empty. And bewildered. Because hadn’t he once vowed to himself that never again would he give a woman the opportunity to hurt him?
‘I stopped working for Dimitri Makarov,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘You mean, you got tired of being a bodyguard?’
Loukas gave a hard smile in response to her question. Yes, he had grown tired of living life through someone else. Of standing on the sidelines. Of always having to abide by someone else’s rules and someone else’s timetable. And waiting—always waiting.
‘It was time for a change,’ he said, watching the way her hair gleamed in the candlelight. ‘I didn’t want to carry on indefinitely and at that stage Dimitri’s personal life was so out of control that the two of us were living like vampires. He never went to bed before dawn and, as a consequence, neither did I. We spent our life in casinos and then we’d take a plane to another country and another casino, grabbing sleep where we could.’
His Russian boss had been out of control—and so had he. Each of them running from their particular demons and seeking refuge in the bottom of a whisky glass. On the rebound from Jessica, Loukas had gone from woman to woman, despising them all no matter how much they professed to love him, because hadn’t he proved once and for all that you could never believe a woman when she said she loved you?
And then one morning he had woken up and looked in the mirror, barely able to recognise the ravaged face staring back, and had known that something needed to change. Or rather, that he needed to change. ‘It was time for something new,’ he finished flatly. ‘A new direction.’
He watched while she took a sip of her wine—a wine as cool and as pale as she was.
‘So what did you do?’ she questioned. ‘Go to college?’
Loukas couldn’t hold back the bitterness of his answering laugh, but he waited while their food was placed before them—fish and vegetables stacked into intricate towers standing in puddles of shiny orange sauce. Why the hell could you never get simple food these days? he wondered fleetingly. ‘No, Jess—I didn’t go to college,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Those kinds of opportunities aren’t really a good fit with someone like me. I started working as a bouncer at a big nightclub in New York.’
She narrowed her eyes. He thought she looked disappointed. Was that still too thuggish an occupation for someone of her delicate sensibilities to accept?
‘And what was that like?’ she asked politely, like someone making small talk at a cocktail party.
‘It was like every man’s fantasy,’ he said softly and now he could see the surprise in her eyes, and yes, the hurt—and suddenly he found that he was enjoying himself and that he wanted to hurt her some more. To hurt her as she had hurt him. ‘It’s a power trip to be in a position like that,’ he drawled softly. ‘It gives you a kick to turn away people with overstuffed wallets who ask if you know who they are. Not a particularly admirable admission—but true. And women love bouncers. Really love them,’ he finished deliberately. ‘It’s one of the perks of the job.’
She had been sawing at a piece of pumpkin on her plate, but suddenly she put her fork down and he noticed that her hand was trembling. And that was unusual, he thought with satisfaction, because Jess had always had the