Читать книгу Bought By The Greek Tycoon - JACQUELINE BAIRD, Jacqueline Baird - Страница 6

JEMMA BARNES, pencil in hand, doodled in the notebook in front of her on the table, paying little attention to the conversation going on around her. Her father, MD of the company Vanity Flair, had insisted that she attend this board meeting now that she was heir to her late Aunt Mary’s estate, and therefore now one of the principal shareholders in the company. She had no idea why he wanted her there—stock flotations and the like were a foreign language to her. In fact, she had enough trouble coping with the monetary side of her own business—as Liz, her best friend and partner in the florist shop they jointly owned in Chelsea, would readily confirm!

‘Jemma?’ The strident tones of her father’s voice cut through her reverie. ‘Do you agree?’

Lifting her head, she realised the dozen or so people around the table were all staring at her. Her amber eyes clashed with the twinkling brown ones of the man opposite—a Mr Devetzi from Greece. Her father had introduced Jemma to him earlier and she rather liked the old man. Apparently he had once met her aunt Mary at her holiday home on the island of Zante—the same place that Jemma had spent her last holiday with her aunt. It wasn’t a holiday she liked to recall for a variety of reasons—one being that her aunt had died a few months later.

Now a hint of a smile played around the old man’s mouth, and she knew he’d realised from her panicked expression that she had no idea of the question. His smile broadened reassuringly, and with a wink and a nod of his white head he gave her the answer.

‘Yes, of course, Father,’ Jemma agreed, and the meeting ended.

‘Why on earth didn’t you get in touch with me?’ Luke Devetzi demanded forcibly in Greek, and stared down at his grandfather, lounging back on the sofa with one heavily bandaged ankle propped up on a footstool. ‘You know I would have come the minute you called.’ He raked frustrated fingers through his dark hair. ‘And what are you doing in London anyway? After your last heart scare I seem to recall your doctor forbidding you to travel.’

‘Business,’ Theo Devetzi declared bluntly.

‘But you retired from the fish business years ago,’ Luke reminded him.

‘Not that business. As a matter of fact I did call you six days ago, but I was informed by some woman in your New York office that you had already left for a long weekend in the Hamptons and were not to be disturbed unless it was a dire emergency.’ The old man arched one sardonic eyebrow. ‘As it was only a courtesy call, to tell you I was going to use your London apartment for a few days, I saw no reason to bother you.’

Luke stifled a grimace, but he had no defence; he had left just such instructions, and he felt guilty as hell. His grandparents had turned their lives upside down thirty-eight years ago when Anna, their only daughter, had got pregnant by a yachtsman visiting the Greek island where they lived. Unwilling to subject Anna and her unborn child to the censure of the small community, they had relocated to Athens, where no one knew them. Then, when Anna had died in childbirth, they had been left to bring Luke up on their own.

Luke had never known who his biological father was until after he’d graduated from university at the age of twenty-one, with a degree in Business Studies. He had refused to follow his grandfather into the wholesale fish business, instead signing up as assistant purser on a luxury cruise liner. In a fit of temper Theo had declared he was just like his feckless French father—a so-called aristocrat who spent his life sailing around in his yacht seducing young girls. In the ensuing argument Luke had discovered his grandfather had known his father’s name all along.

Luke had stormed out and gone to find his father. He had discovered the man living on a large estate in France—with his wife and two sons both older than Luke. When Luke had confronted him he had sneered and disowned him with the words, ‘I have had dozens of women in my life, and even if I had been single at the time I would never have married your Greek peasant of a mother.’ Then, with the help of his two equally obnoxious sons, he’d had Luke thrown off his land.

Luke had gone ahead and joined the cruise liner. There he had struck up a friendship with an elderly New York banker, who had enlisted Luke’s aid in reading the stock market. When the ship had docked in New York, impressed by Luke’s natural ability to spot a winner, the same man had offered Luke a job with his firm. Luke had become the proverbial whiz kid, and four years later had started his own investment banking company—Devetzi International.

The circumstances of his birth no longer bothered Luke, and hadn’t done for years. He viewed his grandfather’s set features now with a mixture of frustration and love. ‘Nothing you do or want can ever be too much trouble for me, Theo. You only have to ask and it will be given. You must know that.’

Theo was getting old. His heavily lined face showed the signs of his seventy-seven years, and yet his deep brown eyes still held the determination that had seen him build up a business with his best friend Milo. Luke owed his life to this man.. as far as he was concerned Theo was the only family he had.

‘Humph. Fine words, Lycurgus, but they cut no ice with me.’

Luke stiffened. He knew the old man was always either angry or after something when he used Luke’s full name—chosen for him by his grandmother because it meant wolf-hunter, and his silver-grey eyes had reminded her of a wolf.

‘What I wanted was to see you married with children, to see the continuation of our bloodline. But given your apparent aversion to marriage and your choice in women I have almost given up hope.’ Lifting a magazine from the coffee table, he waved it at Luke. ‘Just look at your latest woman—probably the one you have spent the last few days with.’ He flicked to the centre page. ‘Davina Lovejoy is about as likely to make a good wife and mother as fly,’ he snorted.

Theo was right—Luke had been dating Davina for the last few weeks and had spent a long weekend with the lady in question. He could tell his grandfather that he had no intention of marrying the lady anyway.. but, dammit, why should he? He didn’t exactly appreciate Theo interfering in his sex life. And, as for marriage, Luke had little trust in women for the long term. In his experience he had found the married ones just as eager to get into his bed as the single women he met, if not more so—not that he was at all interested in getting involved with married women. The only exception to that particular rule still nagged his conscience to this day…

Belatedly he tuned back in to Theo’s rapid-fire Greek.

‘…and I thought you had more taste, but obviously I was wrong. Have you read this?’ Theo waved the magazine again. ‘She had a nose job at nineteen! That I can understand, and even the breast enhancement I could tolerate, but this last thing… Well, I have never heard of anything like it in my life! A false bottom! You might as well take a plastic doll to your bed,’ he exclaimed.

‘What? Let me see that,’ Luke snapped, and took the magazine from Theo’s hand. A quick glance told him his grandfather was right. A photograph of Davina and himself leaving a restaurant—a month earlier, if he wasn’t mistaken—followed by an article all about Davina, her physical enhancements, and the new man in her life.

A vitriolic Greek curse escaped him, and he flung the magazine back on the table in disgust.

‘My sentiments exactly,’ Theo agreed, with the slightest of smiles lightening his leathered face.

Luke ran his hand through his dark hair again. ‘I never even realised,’ he muttered. And, as he considered himself something of a connoisseur of women, that was some admission!

Sinking down onto the sofa beside Theo, he gave the old man a wry smile. ‘I met Davina because she’s an interior designer, and my PA in New York hired her to redecorate my apartment in the city. Propinquity did the rest.’ He didn’t add that it had only been when showing the woman around his apartment it had suddenly struck him he had not bedded a woman in over a year and it was time he did something about it. ‘But if it gives you any satisfaction, Theo, I have no intention of marrying her.’

When the apartment was finished, in a couple of weeks, so would be his involvement with Davina. Beautiful and intelligent though she was, this last weekend had not been the roaring success he had hoped for. Davina was a very experienced lover, and the sex had been good, but for some reason it had left him feeling oddly unsatisfied.

‘Good! In that case you can do me a favour,’ Theo stated. ‘Since your grandmother’s death I’ve been making a few discreet enquiries about buying back my family home on Zante. I sold it to the local butcher when we moved from the island to Athens, but the house and the cove had been in my family for generations. I want it back,’ he declared emphatically. ‘I was conceived on that beach, I courted your grandmother there, and your mother was conceived on the same beach. It has a thousand happy memories for me, and when you get to my age that is about all you have left.’

Theo sighed deeply, then went on, ‘I did some digging and discovered the butcher died eight years later, and his family sold it for cash to a nameless businessman from Athens. According to gossip, he then gifted it to his mistress—an Englishwoman called Mary James; a botanist from London. I caught up with her on the island one time. She was a lovely lady, and she told me about her work and the company she had founded with her sister called Vanity Flair, producing a line of homeopathic, antiallergenic make-up. Later, her sister married the company accountant, one David Sutherland, and he was instrumental in expanding the business into retail outlets all over Europe.

‘But when I asked her if she would sell me the house on Zante she flatly refused, and closed up like a clam. So when I heard the company was to be floated on AIM—the alternative investment market in London—with the intention of raising money to fund expansion into America, I bought a block of shares on the off-chance that at some point they might give me some leverage in trying to persuade Miss James into selling my family home back to me.’

Luke frowned. Most of the companies floated on AIM were high-risk businesses. ‘Take my advice—sell up and get out now. As for your old home—forget it. Anyway, I thought you liked living in the house I had built for us all? You have never complained.’

‘No, but, beautiful as it is, since your grandmother died I find it a bit lonely—you’re rarely there.’

‘A good point,’ Luke conceded. The fact that he’d had no idea Theo was interested in buying back the property on Zante shamed him, and revealed just how little real attention he had given his grandfather in the past few years, how much he had taken him for granted. ‘I promise I will try to get home more often, Theo. But it doesn’t alter the fact that Zante is a very popular tourist destination now. It’s nothing like when you lived there—you’d hate it.’ Luke knew because he had berthed his yacht for one night on the island last summer, and, beautiful though the scenery still was, he had departed quickly the next morning.

‘No, you’re wrong. At last I can see a way to recover what was once mine.’ Theo’s eyes sparkled with more excitement than Luke had seen in a long time. ‘I discovered that Mary James died some months ago, and I immediately started to buy up more stock.’ Theo held up a veined hand. ‘And before you say it, I know the stock has been falling recently—but that was to my advantage because I got it cheap.’

If the company went down the tubes it wouldn’t be cheap, but Luke shook his head and kept his mouth shut, not wanting to argue further with Theo.

‘I received a call last week to attend a special board meeting of Vanity Flair, as one of the larger stockholders. I went to the meeting on Friday, and I had a drink with Sutherland afterwards. The only reason I’ve stayed on here the last few days was because he’s invited me to dinner at his house this evening, and also to his daughter’s birthday party this coming weekend.’

‘That’s very interesting, but it doesn’t explain how you sprained your ankle, nor that if Milo hadn’t contacted me in New York last night I would have known nothing about it.’

‘Yes, you would. Because I was going to call you myself as soon as I got back from the hospital but Milo preempted me. Incidentally, I sprained my ankle yesterday, tripping down the steps of this damn fool sunken living room of yours.’ He looked disdainfully around the plush curving black hide seating arrangement in the obviously bachelor penthouse.

‘Well, at least you had the sense to bring Milo with you,’ Luke murmured. ‘This is a service apartment, and I hate to think what might have happened if you’d been on your own.’

‘Naturally he came with me,’ Theo said. ‘Milo is just as keen as I am to see me get my family home back. Zante is where he and I first met and became friends. He used to stay with your grandmother and I whenever his fishing boat came into the harbour. I always thought he had a soft spot for your mother, but it wasn’t to be…’

Luke almost groaned, wishing Theo would get to the point, but he knew from experience that there was no way to hurry him. ‘So, how are you going to get it back, then?’ he enquired.

‘I’m not. You are,’ Theo declared with a broad grin. ‘I met Sutherland’s daughter at the board meeting. She’s a delightful woman who knows nothing at all about the family business—though she does run her own. We had an interesting conversation, and I discovered she was attending the meeting only because her father had told her to. She inherited everything from her aunt—shares in the company and, more importantly, the property on Zante.’

‘Thank heaven for that.’ Luke rose and crossed to the drinks trolley, poured a slug of whisky into a glass and added a generous splash of iced water. ‘So the daughter is selling it and you want me to pay for it, right? No problem…’ Lifting the glass to his mouth, he took a refreshing drink, watching the old man with tender eyes.

‘No, I’d just got around to asking her if she would sell the villa, and she’d just told me she didn’t think she could, when the meeting was called to order. I don’t need your money, but I do need you to go to the dinner party tonight in my place. Use some of that skill you have at charming the ladies on the daughter. Show her a good time—wine and dine her for the rest of the week and soften her up a bit. Then, when I attend her birthday party on Saturday night, I can appeal to her finer feelings and explain to her that it is an old man’s wish to own the home of his ancestors and pass it on to his grandson. When I ask her again to sell me the property, she will be ready to say yes to anything she thinks you want.’

‘You want me to seduce her, you mean?’ Luke met Theo’s intent gaze and lifted one eyebrow in mocking cynicism. ‘You do surprise me, considering you have spent years complaining about my womanising ways. Shame on you, Theo!’

‘You don’t need go that far—not that it would be any hardship, I’m sure, for she is a very lovely lady.’ Theo grinned. ‘If I was forty years younger, I’d be there myself.’

Luke laughed. ‘You’re incorrigible, old man, but okay. You arrange with Sutherland for me to dine in your place tonight, and I will do my level best to charm the woman. In the meantime, I need to shower and dress.’ Draining his drink, he added, ‘What is the woman’s name?’

Theo was already reaching for the telephone to call Sutherland. ‘J something…Jem…or Jan, I think,’ his grandfather said, dialling a number.

Rolling his shoulders to relieve the ache in his back from long hours of travel and tension, Luke headed for his bedroom wondering just what he had let himself in for, hoping this Jan woman would turn out to be halfway presentable.

It was after midnight when Luke finally returned to his apartment.. tired, but with a self-satisfied smile on his darkly handsome face.

‘So what happened? Did you meet her? Did you like her? And, more importantly, did she like you?’ Theo demanded as soon as he walked in the door.

‘Yes to all three.’ Luke grinned. ‘But you shouldn’t have waited up.’

‘Never mind that…just tell me what happened.’

Luke collapsed on the sofa and loosened his tie and shirt collar. ‘I met Sutherland and he introduced me to his daughter Jan, and by an amazing coincidence I knew her.’

‘You knew her? Are you sure?’

‘Believe me, old man, I know her. I met her in New York years ago. She was working as a model then, and I dated her a few times. So you have absolutely nothing to worry about; the deal is virtually in the bag, I promise you. Jan was delighted to see me, and was all over me like a rash. I’m taking her out to dinner tomorrow night, and by the party on Saturday she will be desperate to gobble me whole.’ Rising to his feet, Luke added, ‘Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed—and I suggest you do the same.’

‘Phone, Jemma—it’s your stepmother,’ Liz yelled.

Busy in the workshop, planting a hanging basket with summer annuals, Jemma didn’t appreciate the interruption. Sighing, she put down her tools, pulled off her protective gloves and picked up the extension on the workbench.

‘Yes, Leanne?’ Jemma only half listened to her stepmother for the next few minutes. Her own mother had died when she was twelve, after a long illness, and her father had married his secretary six months later—a single mother with a sixteen-year-old daughter, Janine, who had already left school and started a career as a model.

At the time Jemma had been attending boarding school, so the two girls had not been very close—more friends than family—but her father had officially adopted Janine, so they all shared the same surname.

‘You do understand, Jemma?’

‘Yes, perfectly.’ Jemma finally got a chance to speak. ‘I’ve ordered all the flowers you requested, and I’ll be there early on Saturday to decorate the house for Jan’s birthday party.’ Jemma put the phone down and glanced at Liz. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind managing with just young Patty on Saturday afternoon? We could close the shop and you could come with me?’

‘No, thanks,’ Liz replied. ‘You know I can only take the beautiful Janine in very small doses. What birthday is it this time—her twenty-eighth for the fourth year running?’

‘Don’t be catty! But you’re right—although I’ve been sworn to secrecy. Hey, apparently Jan met an old boyfriend at the dinner party last night.’

‘The same dinner party you ducked out of, pleading a headache yet again?’ Liz mocked.

‘Yes—well, apparently he is still a bachelor and incredibly wealthy. Jan wants to hook him, so there’s to be absolutely no mention of her real age.’

‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ Liz chuckled, a wicked glint in her dark eyes.

‘Naughty!’ Jemma smiled.

‘I only wish you would be naughty once in a while.’ Liz sighed. ‘It’s time you got out and enjoyed yourself again.’

‘Well, I am going to the party on Saturday,’ Jemma said, walking across to the centre counter and taking the order book from Liz’s hand. ‘And it’s time you went for lunch. Patty’s due back any minute, and Ray won’t be long.’ Patty was a trainee and Ray was a qualified florist, but he spent most of his time as their delivery driver.

‘Okay, I’m going. But I mean it, Jemma. Alan has been dead two years now, and, much as you loved him, it is time you started dating again—or at least considered the possibility, instead of freezing out every handsome man who so much as smiles at you. Haven’t you heard? Apart from being no fun, total celibacy is bad for one’s health.’

To Jemma’s undying shame, she had not been totally celibate in the last two years—she had made one enormous mistake, which she had vowed never to repeat, but she didn’t have the nerve to tell her best friend the truth. Instead Jemma threw a damp florist’s sponge at her. ‘Go to lunch!’

She watched a laughing Liz duck out of the door and sighed, flicking through the order book without actually reading it. She had already met and married her soul mate, and then she had lost him.

It had all started when Jemma had begun to spend most of her free time with Aunt Mary, after the death of her mother. Her father had sold the family home with its large garden and bought an impressive townhouse for his new wife. But Jemma loved gardening, and her aunt had allowed her a free hand in her garden. As a lecturer at Imperial College London, her Aunt Mary and her work as a botanist had fascinated Jemma, but her aunt’s young research assistant, Alan Barnes, had fascinated her more. She’d developed an enormous crush on him, and he had become her best friend and confidante.

Later, when she’d left school at eighteen, she’d known she didn’t have the academic brain to follow in her aunt’s footsteps. But what she did have was an artistic flair with plants, and she had enrolled on a two-year course in floristry at a local college—which was where she’d met Liz. Jemma’s relationship with Alan had grown into a deep, abiding love, and it had been with his encouragement that Jemma and Liz had opened their shop together. Life had been great, and it had only got better when, at the age of twenty-two, Jemma had married Alan Barnes in a fairytale wedding.

Tragically, they had only been married for a brief four years when Alan had been killed in a gliding accident—a sport both he and Jemma had enjoyed. She still felt guilty that she had not been with him on the fatal day; instead she had stayed in London to complete a large order to decorate the old Assembly Rooms for a charity gala that evening.

Thinking about Alan now still squeezed her heart with sadness, but, thanks to Liz’s unfailing support over the past two years, she had at least got over crying at the thought of him and could now face the world, as content as she would ever be.

The wind chimes over the door rang, and Jemma glanced up as a customer walked in. She banished her memories to the back of her mind and smiled. ‘Can I help you?’

Luke glanced down at the elegant blonde who had attached herself to his arm the moment the maid had shown him and Theo into the drawing room of the large Georgian mansion in Connaught Square that was the Sutherland home. ‘Happy birthday, Jan.’ He had given her a present last night: nothing too personal—a Prada handbag. ‘And my grandfather I think you know—’

She didn’t let him finish. ‘Oh, yes, I know. How terrible…’ She flashed a smile in Theo’s direction. ‘I was so sorry to hear you’d hurt your ankle. But I can’t deny I was delighted Luke came to dinner in your place.’ Then, turning her eyes up to Luke, she gushed, ‘It was fate we met again. Isn’t that right, darling?’ And she tilted her head back for his kiss.

‘Probably,’ Luke murmured, smiling down at his companion. Jan was a sophisticated lady who knew the score; he had met her type a thousand times and it was no hardship to dip his head and brush his lips briefly against her scarlet mouth. Though it did surprise him that Theo found her attractive; he wouldn’t have thought a six-foot-tall, rake-thin model would be his grandfather’s type at all.

The noise hit Jemma first as she descended the staircase. She cast a professional eye over the flower display on the hall table and, satisfied, reluctantly turned towards the source of the noise. She had very rarely attended large parties since Alan’s death, but this was one she could not avoid.

Straightening her shoulders, she walked into the crowded drawing room and glanced around, her gaze alighting on the birthday girl. Jan was gazing up at a man who had his back to Jemma. Her perfectly made-up face was lifted to his, anticipating a kiss, and he duly obliged. Well over six foot tall, with broad shoulders and black hair, he looked impressive even from the back—and he was a perfect foil for Jan’s model height and sleek blonde hair.

They made a striking couple, Jemma thought idly, and let her gaze drift away—only to suddenly focus on an old man standing on his own and watching the embracing couple. He was leaning heavily on a silver-topped cane and had an expression of total bewilderment on his weathered face—a face she instantly recognised. He looked as out of place as Jemma felt, and swiftly she moved towards him.

‘Mr Devetzi.’ She smiled at her saviour from the board meeting. ‘It’s lovely to see you again.’ She offered her hand and he gratefully grasped it.

‘It is my privilege,’ he replied, and with old-world courtesy raised her hand and kissed it. ‘Please call me Theo.’

‘Theo it is, you old charmer.’ Jemma laughed.

Luke felt Theo tug frantically on the sleeve of his jacket at exactly the same moment as he recognised the soft feminine voice. He turned slowly and saw the woman holding his grandfather’s hand and smiling into his eyes, flirting with him… He tensed, every muscle in his body locking in shock and outrage. He knew her in the most intimate way possible; she had haunted his dreams for the past year, and he despised her for her lack of morals even as his body still ached for her. But, before he could formulate a suitably cutting greeting, Jan’s grip on his other arm tightened and she spoke to the woman.

‘Jemma, darling, meet Luke—the wonderful man I was telling you about.’

Luke heard Jan’s voice, but only registered the name. Jemma. So what had happened to Mimie? he thought cynically. Obviously it was a pseudonym she used when cheating on her husband! But, however unfaithful she was, it didn’t alter the fact that she looked even more incredible than he remembered.

The first and only time he had seen her until this party had been a year ago, when he and a group of his friends had taken a cruise around the Greek islands in his yacht for a couple of weeks—something he did every summer. It had been the birthday of one of the female guests, and they had partied on board and then gone ashore to the island of Zante to eat.

It had been when he’d slipped out of the restaurant full of tourists to stroll along the harbour and clear his head a little from the smoke and noise that he had noticed her. She had been sitting at a table outside a local harbour bar, sipping a glass of red wine, and she’d looked as if she had just stepped out of a Rossetti painting. She’d worn no make-up, yet she’d been stunningly beautiful. Her face was fine-boned, with high cheekbones and a short, straight nose over a perfectly formed mouth; her lips were full and a natural pink. Her hair was tucked behind her delicate ears to fall long and straight down her back, and was a rich chestnut gilded with reds and golds that reminded him of the changing leaves in autumn.

As he had watched a couple of locals had walked from the bar and bumped into her table, sending her glass and a half-empty carafe of red wine all over her. She had leapt to her feet, and Luke had leapt to her rescue.

She had willingly accepted his offer to accompany him to his yacht to clean the stains from the brief white top and shorts she’d worn. The sex that had followed was the best he had ever had, and a certain part of his anatomy rose instantly along with his anger as he recalled what had happened afterwards. Avoiding his gaze, she had jumped off the bed and said she needed the bathroom. Picking up her clothes and purse, she had dashed into the shower room.

When she had returned from the bathroom, fully dressed, she’d been pushing a ring onto her wedding finger. Luke had rolled off the bed, reluctant to accept the evidence of his own eyes. ‘You’re engaged,’ he’d said.

And had been met with, ‘No.. married. And this was a huge mistake.’

Luke had dated dozens of women, and slept with quite a few, but he never, ever got involved with married women. Furious with himself as much as her, he had said scathingly, ‘Not on my part, honey. You were hot, but you’d better trot along now. My guests will be back any minute, and I’d rather they didn’t see you—especially one woman in particular.’

She had looked at him, her eyes widening in horror as she’d realised what he had implied. Then she’d spun on her heel and left without a word, leaving him standing there naked, furious and disgusted with them both. He hadn’t had a one-night stand since he was a teenager, and had made it a rule to date a woman at least three times before going any further. But that night he had broken his own rule—and with a married woman too…

Looking at her now, she appeared so composed, so elegant, it was hard to believe she was the passionate woman who had shared his bed. Her long hair was swept up in an intricate twist on top of her head, revealing the perfection of her features and the swan-like curve of her neck. It was enhanced by the platinum chain she wore, from which a finely tooled locket with a diamond set in the centre was suspended.

She was wearing a simple but superbly designed black dress, with minimal sleeves and a low square neckline that revealed the creamy curve of her high, firm breasts. The fabric was fine and faithfully followed the line of her shapely body and the gentle swell of her hips to end an inch or so above her knees. As for her legs, they were fabulous—their length accentuated by the high-heeled sandals that revealed pink toenails. She was utter perfection from head to toe, and a vivid mental image of her naked body beneath him, her long legs locked around his waist, made Luke catch his breath. For the first time in his life he was jealous of his grandfather. He wanted to be the focus of her laughs, her gorgeous smile…

No, he didn’t—she was married! Luke reminded himself forcibly.

Jemma had heard the name Luke but thought nothing of it. She smiled at Jan and glanced politely at the man at her side. Then her eyes widened in horror, the blood drained from her face, and swiftly she lowered her gaze, her heart pounding in her breast. Jan’s Luke stood head and shoulders above the crowd, immaculately dressed in a black dinner suit, and with his dark good looks he exuded an aura of arrogant assurance coupled with virile masculinity that was almost impossible to ignore. But ignore him she did.

Jemma couldn’t believe it—the one mistake in her whole life was standing a foot away from her! She hadn’t even known his full name, and yet she had slept with him. No.. there had been no sleep involved at all. They’d had sex, illicit sex, nothing more. She’d hated herself and despised him even more, as he’d obviously been unfaithful to the girlfriend staying with him on his yacht at the time.

Her stomach churning, and with a terrific effort of will, Jemma murmured, ‘How nice to meet you.’ With barely a glance at Luke, she turned back to concentrate her attention on Theo.