Читать книгу Keeping Her Close: In Christofides' Keeping / The Call of the Desert / The Legend of de Marco - Эбби Грин, ABBY GREEN - Страница 8

RICO CHRISTOFIDES stifled his irritation and tried to rein in his wandering attention. What was wrong with him? He was in one of the most exclusive restaurants in London, dining with one of the most beautiful women in the world. But it was as if someone had turned the sound down and all he could hear was the steady thump-thump of his heart.

He saw Elena gesticulating and speaking with a little too much animation, her eyes glittering a little too brightly as she tossed her luxurious mane of red hair over one shoulder, leaving the other one bare. It was meant to entice but it didn’t.

He knew all the moves. He’d seen countless women perform them for years, and he’d enjoyed them. But right now he felt no more desire for this woman than he would for an inanimate wooden object. He regretted the impulse he’d acted on to call her up once he’d known he’d be in London for a few days.

Curiously, he was being enticed by a tantalising memory. He’d glanced fleetingly at one of the waitresses as they’d walked in and in an instant something about the way she moved had registered on his brain, throwing him back in time—two years back in time, to be precise. He’d found himself thinking of the one woman who hadn’t been like all the others. The one woman who had managed to smash through the high wall of defences he kept rigid around himself and his emotions.

For just one night.

His fist clenched on his thigh under the table. It had to be just because he was back in London for the first time since that night. He forced himself to smile tightly in answer to something Elena had said, which seemed to require that response, and to his relief he could see that she was off again, clearly loving the sound of her voice more than she cared if he was listening or not.

The night he’d met her—Gypsy…if that even was her name—they’d just come out of the club and he’d been about to tell her his name. She’d put a hand over his mouth, saying fervently, ‘I don’t want to know who you are…tonight isn’t about that.’

Scepticism hadn’t been far away. Either she knew damn well who he was, as he’d been splashed all over the tabloids for days before that night, or else…But Rico had found himself pausing as he’d looked down at her. She’d looked so lovely and young and fresh…and untainted. And for that moment, for the first time in his life, he’d pushed aside cynicism and suspicion—his constant companions—and said, ‘OK, then, temptress…what about just first names?’

Before she could say anything and still believing deep down and with not a little arrogance that she had to know who he was, he’d held out his hand and said with a flourish, ‘Rico…at your service.’

She’d placed her small soft hand in his and hesitated for a long moment before saying huskily, ‘I’m Gypsy.’

A made-up name. It had to be. He’d chuckled, and he could remember even now how alien it had felt to allow that emotion to rise up. ‘Fair enough. Play your silly game if you want…Right now I’m interested in a lot more than your name…’

Someone laughed raucously at a nearby table, jerking Rico out of the memory, but even so a hot spiral of desire ran through him and he had a sudden memory flash of hearts beating in unison, sweat-slicked skin, her sleek body around his in an embrace so velvet hot and tight that he’d fought just to keep control. And then her muscles had started to spasm around him, she’d given a fractured breathy moan, and he’d lost it in a way that he’d never lost it before or since.

‘Rico, darling…’ Elena was pouting at him, lips too blood-red. ‘You’re miles away. Please tell me you’re not thinking of boring work.’

Rico stifled a cynical grimace. It was that very boring work, and all the many millions he’d made in the process, that had women like Elena hovering around him in droves, waiting for little more than a crooked finger to signal his interest. Even so, the acknowledgement couldn’t stop him from shifting uncomfortably in his seat, very disturbed by the fact that he was being turned on not by the woman opposite him, but by a ghost from the past. Because that ghost was the one woman who hadn’t fallen at his feet in sycophantic ecstasy when he’d singled her out.

On the contrary: she’d tried to walk away from him. And then the following morning she had walked away from him. But not before he’d left her on the bed, like a callow, unsophisticated youth. Regret burned him, and Rico didn’t do regret.

He forced another tight smile and reached across for Elena’s far too available hand. She practically purred when he took it. He opened his mouth to offer some platitude as a waitress walked past their table, and he frowned when his body inexplicably reacted—tightening almost as if it sensed something his brain hadn’t yet registered. He looked up; it was the waitress he’d noticed on the way in. The waitress who had sparked a veritable torrent of memories.

Was he going completely insane? An evocative scent lingered on the air in her wake. He tried to sound casual, and not as if he was afraid he was going crazy. He looked back to his date. ‘What scent are you wearing?’

Elena’s lips curled seductively as she offered Rico her wrist to smell. ‘Poison…do you like?’

He bent his head, but even before he smelt the distinctive perfume he knew it was all wrong. Nausea clenched his belly. He looked up again, as if drawn helplessly, to see the back of the waitress. She was taking an order at a nearby table. That evocative scent reminded him of—Abruptly Elena pulled her hand from his with a barely disguised huffy sigh and stood from the table, smoothing a hand over one artfully cocked hip sheathed in silk.

‘I’m going to go and powder my nose. Hopefully by the time I get back you won’t be so distracted.’

Rico disregarded the reproach in her voice and didn’t watch her walk away. He was transfixed now by the slim back of the petite waitress just a few feet away. She had a neatly shaped figure—firm buttocks, defined by the close-fitting black skirt which hid her legs to the knee, and slender but shapely calves and tiny ankles. Feet in low-heeled black shoes. So far so unremarkable.

His gaze travelled back up, past the plain white shirt, with just a hint of the bra underneath, taking in her hair, which looked a dark honey-brown but which he guessed might be lighter in daylight. It was densely curled, tied back into a tight bun, but he could already imagine the wild corkscrew curls that would burst free. Almost exactly like—He shook his head again, cursing softly. Why was that memory so hauntingly vivid tonight?

The woman turned slightly then, before stopping to respond to something the man at the table was saying, and it was enough to give Rico a proper glimpse of her profile. A small straight nose, determined chin, and a lush mouth with the slightest hint of an overbite—which he remembered thinking an adorable imperfection in a world obsessed with perfection. Certainty slammed into him on the heels of that thought—it had to be her. He wasn’t going crazy.

His breath stopped. Everything went into slow motion as she finally turned and faced him directly. She was looking down at her notepad, scribbling something, juggling the big menus under her arm as she walked closer, and before he knew what he was doing, with something that felt horrifyingly exultant rushing through him, Rico stood and grasped the woman’s arm, stopping her in her tracks.

Gypsy didn’t know what was happening at first. All she knew was that someone had a tight grip on her arm. She looked up with a retort on her lips—and fell into steely grey eyes.

And stopped breathing, stopped functioning.

She blinked. Words died in her mouth. It couldn’t be him. She was dreaming—or it was a nightmare. She was certainly tired enough to be sleep-walking. But she could feel the colour draining from her face, the peripheral noise fading into the background.

She was looking into exactly the same colour eyes as—There her mind shut down. It was him. The man who had haunted her dreams for nearly two years. Rico Christofides. Half-Greek, half-Argentinian, billionaire entrepreneur, a legend of his own making.

‘It is you.’ He spoke her thoughts out loud in his deep voice, and sent Gypsy’s brain into a tailspin. Very distantly she was aware of a voice screaming at her to run, get away. Escape.

She shook her head, but it felt as if she was under water. Was she still standing? All she was aware of was the dark depths of those deep-set stormy grey eyes, boring into her all the way to her soul, his hand tight on her arm. Midnight-black hair, slightly crooked nose, dark brows, defined jaw…It was all so familiar to her—except her dreams hadn’t done him justice. He was so tall, towering over her, his shoulders so broad that she couldn’t see anything but him.

Absurdly through the shock came the hurt—again—that he’d wasted little time in walking away from her the next morning. Leaving just an abrupt note which had read: The room is paid for. R.

A pointed cough sounded nearby. He didn’t move, and Gypsy couldn’t look away. Her carefully constructed world was crumbling into pieces around her.

‘Rico? Is something wrong with our order?’

A voice. A female voice. Confirming what Gypsy didn’t want to know by saying his name out loud. She registered dimly that it must be the stunning red-haired woman she’d walked past and noticed just minutes before. She couldn’t believe now that she’d passed him so blithely, with no hint of warning.

But he ignored the woman and said again faintly, ‘It’s you.’

Gypsy managed to shake her head and at the same time somehow miraculously extricate her arm from his long-fingered grasp. She prayed that she could speak and say something that made sense. Something that would get her out of this situation and away from him. After all, it had been one night—mere hours—how could someone like him possibly remember her? After the way he’d left, why would he want to remember her? How could this awful fiery awareness be snaking through her veins?

‘I’m sorry. You must be confusing me with someone else.’

Gypsy left him standing there and went straight to the staff bathroom, seriously afraid that she might be sick. Taking deep breaths over the sink, she felt clammy and sweaty. And all that was going through her mind was the imperative need to run, get away.

Ever since she’d found out that she was pregnant after their cataclysmic night together she’d known that some day she would have to tell Rico Christofides that he had a daughter. A fifteen-month-old daughter, with exactly the same colour eyes as her father. Gypsy felt nauseous again, but willed it down.

She could remember her terror at the prospect of becoming a mother, along with her instantly deep and abiding connection with the tiny baby growing within her. And with that had come the intense desire to protect her child. She’d seen how Rico Christofides dealt with women who dared to name him as the father of their child, and had had no desire to expose herself to that public humiliation. Even if she’d been certain that she could prove paternity.

Pregnant, and feeling extremely nervous and vulnerable at the daunting prospect of how Rico Christofides might react to the news, Gypsy had taken the difficult decision to have Lola on her own. She’d wanted to be in a strong and solvent position when she contacted him. Working as a waitress, albeit in an upmarket restaurant, was not the ideal situation for her to be in when dealing with someone as powerful as him.

Panic surged again. Gypsy didn’t even see her own white face in the mirror. If she didn’t get out of there now, Rico Christofides couldn’t fail to recall the woman who had acted completely out of character and who, on a tide of desire so intense that she still woke sometimes at night aching, had succumbed to his masterful seduction and indulged in a one-night stand.

Making a fateful decision, uncomfortably aware that she was acting on blind instinct and panic but seeing no other solution, she splashed some water on her face and went to find her boss.

‘Tom, please,’ Gypsy begged, and mentally crossed everything. She hated lying, and especially using her daughter to do it. But she had no choice. Not with the father of her child just through the kitchen doors.

‘I have to get home to Lola. Something has…come up.’

Her boss raked his hand through his short sandy hair. ‘Jeez, Gypsy you really pick your moments—you know we’re short staffed as it is. Can’t it wait for another hour, until we have the main rush over with?’

Gypsy hated herself for this. She shook her head, already taking off her apron as she did so. ‘I’m sorry, Tom. Really sorry—believe me.’

His face tightened and he crossed his arms. Gypsy felt the slither of fear trickle down her spine. ‘So am I, Gypsy. I don’t want to do this to you, but it’s come to this: you’ve been late nearly every day for the past two weeks.’

Gypsy started to protest, saying something about the inflexible hours of her daughter’s minder conflicting with her shift hours, but her boss cut her off.

‘You’re a good worker, but there’s a line of people behind you waiting to get a job here who won’t let me down like this.’

He took a breath, and Gypsy’s foreboding increased. ‘If you leave like this now then I’m afraid you won’t have a job to come back to. It’s that simple.’

A vivid memory surged back of the moment she’d found out that the man who had turned her world upside down was none other than one of the world’s most powerful men, and nausea returned.

The thought of going back out to the dining room and trying to function normally was inconceivable. She’d end up getting fired anyway for spilling someone’s dinner into their lap, she was shaking so much. She looked at Tom and shook her head again sadly, already anticipating the drudge of having to look for another job, silently giving thanks that she had some savings to tide them over for a couple of weeks. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, I have no choice.’

Her boss stood back after a long moment and gestured with his arm. ‘Then I’m sorry too, Gypsy, because you’re leaving me no choice.’

She couldn’t say anything. Her throat was too tight. She gathered up her things and left through the back kitchen door, stepping out into the dark and dank alleyway behind the exclusive restaurant.

Later that night Rico stood at the floor-to-ceiling window of his central London penthouse apartment, hands dug deep into his pockets. His pulse was still racing, and it had nothing to do with the beautiful woman he’d said a curt and sterile goodnight to—much to her obvious disgust—and everything to do with a pretty waitress who had confounded him by doing a disappearing act.

She’d done a disappearing act the first time round, but he only had himself to blame for that. He grimaced; if he hadn’t panicked…It still rankled with him that he’d let her get under his guard so easily. He could remember watching her sleeping, sprawled across the bed, feeling seriously stunned at the depth of his desire, still, and the depth of his response to her.

It was that and the overwhelming feeling of possessiveness which had driven him from the room as if hounds were snapping at this heels. He never felt possessive of women. But this evening, the minute he’d recognised her, it had surged upwards again, as fresh as if no time had passed. And she’d run. And he had no idea why.

He pulled out a small piece of paper from his pocket. He’d got her name from the manager of the restaurant, and his men had made short work of tracking her down. He now had Gypsy Butler’s address—for apparently that was her name. He smiled grimly. He would soon find out what exactly he found so compelling about a woman he’d slept with for just one night, and why on earth she’d felt the need to run from him.

The following morning, as Gypsy walked home in drizzly rain from the local budget supermarket, pushing a sleeping Lola in her battered buggy, she was still reeling at what had happened the previous evening.

She’d seen Rico Christofides and she’d lost her job.

The two things she’d been most terrified of happening had happened in quick succession. She defended herself again: she’d had no choice but to leave last night—she’d have been in no fit state to work or deal with Rico Christofides. Her legs felt momentarily weak when she recalled how he’d looked, and how instantaneous his effect on her had been.

He’d been tall and strong and devastatingly powerful. And still as bone-meltingly gorgeous as the first time she’d seen him across that crowded nightclub two years ago.

The night she’d met Rico had been a moment out of time—and most definitely a moment out of character. He’d caught her on the cusp of her new life, when she’d been letting go of a lot of pain. She’d been vulnerable and easy prey to the practised charm of someone like Rico Christofides. But she’d had no clue then just exactly who he was. A world-renowned tycoon and playboy.

Seeing him had made everything she’d ever known pale into insignificance. She knew if he’d been dressed like the other men in the club—in a natty shirt and blazer, pressed chinos—it would have been easy to dismiss him as being like all the rest. But he hadn’t been dressed like that. He’d been dressed in a T-shirt and faded denims which had fit lean hips and powerful legs so lovingly that it had been almost indecent. An air of dangerous sexuality had clung to his devastatingly dark good-looks in a way that had left everyone around him looking anaemic—and awestruck.

But that in itself would have just made him a spectacularly handsome guy; it had been more than that. It had been in the intensity of his gaze across that heaving chaotic club—on her. Dark and mesmerising, stopping Gypsy right where she’d been dancing alone on the dance floor.

The impulse to get out of her tangled head and engage in something physical had called to her as she’d passed the club doors and heard the heavy bass beat just a short while before. It was a primal celebration of the fact that she was finally free of her late father and his corrupt and controlling legacy. When he’d died six months previously she’d felt more emptiness than grief for the man who had never shown her an ounce of genuine affection.

But when the gorgeous stranger had started to come towards her in the club, with singular intent, all tangled thoughts and memories had fled. He’d cleared an effortless path through the thronged crowd—and sanity had returned to Gypsy in a rush of panic. He was too handsome, too dark, too sexy…too much for someone like her. And the way he’d looked at her as he grew ever closer had scared the life out of her.

But, as if rooted to the spot by a magic spell, she hadn’t been able to move, and had just watched, dry-mouthed, as he came to stop right in front of her. Tall and forbidding. No easy sexy smile to make it easier. It was almost as if something elemental had passed between them and this man was claiming her as his. Which had been a ridiculous thing to feel on a banal Friday night in a club in central London.

‘Why have you stopped dancing?’ he’d asked innocuously, his deep voice pitched to carry across the deafening beat, but even so she’d heard the unmistakably subtle accent.

He was foreign. As if his dark looks wouldn’t have told her that anyway. A frisson of awareness had made her tremble all over when she’d noted his steely grey eyes, their colour stark against his olive skin. She’d shaken her head, as if to clear it of this madness, but just then someone had jostled her, heaving her forward and straight into the man’s arms, into hands which held her protectively against his hard body.

Instantaneous heat had exploded throughout Gypsy’s body at the sheer physicality of him. She’d looked up, utterly perplexed, and had sensed real fear…Not fear for her safety, but an irrational fear for her sanity. On a rising wave of panic she’d used her hands to push against his chest and stepped back, answering tightly, ‘I was just leaving, actually…’

His big hands had tightened on her arms—bare because she was wearing a sleeveless vest. Her light jacket was tied about her waist, her bag slung across her chest. ‘You just got here.’

He’d been watching her from the moment she’d arrived. Gypsy had felt weakness pervade her limbs to think of how she’d been dancing: as if no one was watching.

And then he’d said, ‘If you insist on leaving, then I’m coming with you.’

Gypsy had gasped at his cool and arrogant nerve. ‘But you can’t—you don’t even know me.’

His jaw had been hard and implacable. Stern. ‘Then dance with me and I’ll let you go…’ The fact that he hadn’t been cajoling, hadn’t been drunkenly flirting, had imbued his words with something too compelling to resist.

Gypsy’s focus came back to grim and grey reality as she was forced to stop by the traffic lights. She didn’t need to recall the pitifully pathetic attempt she’d put up to resist before agreeing—ostensibly to make him let her go.

But it had had completely the opposite effect. After dancing with her so closely that her body had been dewed with sweat and heat and lust, he’d bent low to whisper against her ear. ‘Do you still want to leave alone?’ To her ongoing shame and mortification, she’d shaken her head, slowly and fatefully, her eyes glued to his in some kind of sick fascination. She’d wanted him with a hunger the like of which she’d never experienced in her life.

She’d let him take her by the hand and lead her out of the club, seeing him as somehow symbolic of the cataclysmic events of the day that had just passed, during which she’d finally let go of everything that had bound her to her father.

She’d allowed herself to be seduced…and then summarily dumped like a piece of trash the following morning. She remembered seeing the curt note he’d left, and how cheap she’d felt—as if all that was missing was a bundle of cash on the dresser.

With an inarticulate sound of disgust at herself to be thinking of this now, the fact that she’d let a man like him—a powerful man just like her father—seduce her, Gypsy strode on across the road once the traffic had stopped. With any luck Rico Christofides would have become distracted by the vision of perfection he’d been dining with last night and forgotten all about her. But he remembered you… She realised that any other woman would be feeling an intensely feminine satisfaction that a man like him hadn’t forgotten her, but she just felt panicky. Why on earth did a man like him remember someone like her?

A familiar sense of despair gripped Gypsy as she turned into her road, full of boarded-up houses and disaffected-looking youths loitering on steps. As much as she’d relished her freedom after her father’s death, and as much as she wouldn’t have minded living somewhere like this if she’d only had herself to worry about, it did bother her that her daughter’s first home was in such a decrepit part of London. Even the nearby children’s playground was vandalised beyond use, with just one pathetic swing left.

She sighed heavily, very aware of the irony that, but for her hot-headedness and determination to dissociate herself from her father, she might have been living in much more upmarket surroundings. But then she knew she could never have lived off her father’s money—and she’d never have dreamed that she’d become pregnant after a one-night stand with a ruthlessly seductive—

Gypsy’s heart stopped stone-cold dead in her chest—and it had nothing to do with the faintly menacing-looking youths crowded around the steps of a nearby house and everything to do with the stunning car they were eyeing up.

The gleaming black luxury vehicle with tinted windows should have belonged to one of the gangsters that had a stranglehold on the area, but Gypsy knew immediately it was a world apart from their cars. The gangsters around here could only wish to own a car like this.

And as she drew closer, and saw the back door swing open, her heart picked up speed, so that it was nearly leaping from her chest as she watched a tall, dark and powerfully built figure uncoil like a panther stretching lazily in the sun.

As if she didn’t already know who it was, he turned to face her. Just feet away, and right outside her front door. No escape.

Rico Christofides.