Читать книгу From Dirt to Diamonds - Julia James - Страница 6

KAT raced up the escalator at the underground station, not caring if she was hustling the people standing. She had to race. She was already twenty minutes late. Half of her told her it was a waste of her time, racing or not. The booker had said as much—the snooty one Kat disliked, who looked at her as if she hadn’t washed that morning.

Well, you try keeping lily-white and fragrant in a dump of a bedsit with only a cracked sink in the corner!

Strip washes were all she could manage—mostly in cold water, to avoid the rip-off meter—apart from when she went to the public swimming baths and used the showers there.

One day I’ll have a bathroom with a walk-in shower and a bath the size of a hot tub …

There was a long list of things she was going to have ‘one day’. And to get even a fraction of the way to getting them she needed this job. If she could get there in time, before they’d seen all the girls. If they picked her out from the crowd of other hopefuls. If that then led to other castings, other jobs, other shoots.

If if, if …

She took a sharp intake of steadying breath as she thrust through the exit barrier. Yeah, there were a lot of ifs—but so what? She’d got this far, hadn’t she? And even this far had been way, way beyond her once.

Everything had been beyond her. She’d had nothing except what the taxpayer had handed out to her at the care home. Who had been responsible for her existence she had hardly any idea. Certainly not who’d fathered her—he probably didn’t even know himself. Certainly didn’t care. Not enough to check whether the women he slept with ever found themselves pregnant. As for who that lucky woman had been—well, all Kat knew from her records was that she’d been deemed unfit to raise her own child. The social workers had descended when she was five, finding her hungry, crying and with bruises on her thin arms. Her last memory of her home was her mother screaming slurred obscenities at the policewoman and the social worker as they carted her away. Anything else was just a blur.

Just as well, probably.

She’d never settled well, though, in the care home, and had left school the moment she could, resisting attempts to educate her, drifting in and out of casual work, sometimes being sacked for tardiness, sometimes walking out herself because she didn’t like to take instructions from people.

But at eighteen Kat had found out something that had changed her life. Changed it completely—for ever. She’d got access to the records of her birth and family. She could still remember the moment when it had happened. She’d been staring down at the paperwork, reading the brief, unexpansive notes written in official language about herself.

Father—unknown. Mother—known to the police as a prostitute, drug addict—no attempt at rehabilitation. Died of drug overdose at twenty-three.

Hatred had seared through her—hatred of the woman whom she could remember only dimly as someone who’d shouted a lot and slapped her, and very often hadn’t been there at all, leaving her to pick food out of the fridge, or even the rubbish, and feel sick afterwards. A mother who’d loved her drugs more than she’d loved her daughter.

Yes, hatred was a good emotion to feel about a mother like that.

Then Kat had read the next entry—this time about her mother’s parents.

Father—unknown. Mother—a street prostitute, alcoholic. Knocked down by car and killed at twenty. Daughter taken into care.

The chill that had gone through her had iced her bones. For a long time she’d just stared down at the document. Seeing the damnation in it. Each mother damning her daughter. Generation to generation. Then, slowly, very slowly, she’d raised her head. Her eyes had been like burning brands. Her expression fierce, almost savage.

Well, not me! I’m not going that way! I’m getting out—out!

Her resolution was absolute, fusing into every cell in her body. Fuelling, from then on, every moment of her life. She was getting out and heading up. Making something of herself. Getting off the bleak, relentless conveyor belt that was trying to take her down into the pit that had swallowed her mother—her mother’s mother.

And two things, it was obvious, could push her down there. Drink and drugs. That was why her mother, and her mother’s mother, had become prostitutes, she knew—to fund their addiction. And sex, too, had to be out. Sex got you a fatherless baby, raised on benefits, got you trapped into single motherhood. The way her mother had been, and her mother before her …

Sex, drink and drugs—all toxic.

All totally out of her life.

Out too, all the drifting and aimlessness of her existence. From now on, everything had a focus, an end point, a reason. Everything was a step on her journey out of the life she had into the life she wanted. The life she was going to get for herself.

But how was she going to get that life? She was going to work—work her backside off—but doing what? She’d left school with the minimum qualifications, had hated school-work anyway, so what could she do?

It was Katya who showed her. Katya, whom she’d met at the hostel for the homeless she’d got a room in, who was Polish, blonde and busty. She palled up with Kat, claiming they had the same name, the same hair colour, the same age—and the same determination to make good. Katya’s father was a miner, crippled in an explosion. Her mother had TB. She had eight younger brothers and sisters.

‘I look after them,’ said Katya simply. She knew exactly how she was going to do so. ‘Glamour modelling,’ she told Kat openly. ‘It makes good money, and at home no one will see those magazines, so I don’t care.’

Kat tried to talk her out of it. Her every instinct revolted against going anywhere along that path.

‘No. I do it,’ said Katya resolutely. She eyed Kat. ‘You, with your looks, can model without the glamour,’ she said. ‘Real modelling.’

Kat had laughed dismissively. ‘Thousands of girls want to become models.’

Katya only shrugged. ‘So? Some of them make it. Why not you?

Her words echoed in Kat’s mind. Resonating like wind chimes, playing seductively in her consciousness.

Why not her?

She took to staring at herself in the mirror. She was thin, like a model was. Especially since she didn’t spend much on food—not having much to spend. And she was tall. Long bones. She studied her face. Her eyes were wide. Greyish. Oval face. Cheekbones high. Straight nose. Bare mouth. Teeth OK. No lipstick, no eyeshadow. She never wore make-up. What for, when she avoided sex—and therefore men—like the plague?

She gave a shrug. Either her face would suit, or it wouldn’t. But she might as well try.

‘You need a portfolio,’ Katya told her. ‘You know—photos to show how good you can look. But they cost a lot.’

Kat took a job—two jobs. In the day, six days a week, she worked in a shoe shop, and in the evening, seven days a week, she worked as a waitress. She was on time every day. She took all the instructions she was given without argument, resistance or attitude. She was polite to customers, even when they were rude to her. She gritted her teeth, steeled her spine, and did the work—earned the wages. Saved every penny she could.

It was slow, and it was hard, and it took her six months to put aside enough. But pound by pound, doggedly hoarded, she put the money together to pay for a professional portfolio.

Then she just had to find a photographer. Katya recommended one. Kat was sceptical, given the Polish girl’s line of work, but Katya went on at her, and eventually Kat said OK. She didn’t like Mike, straight off, but Katya was with her, so she didn’t walk out. She liked him even less when he wanted her to strip off—just to see her underlying figure, he claimed—nor did she like the fact he didn’t like it when she said no. The session took for ever, with Katya redoing her hair and make-up, changing her clothes all the time. She didn’t like Mike physically changing her pose, moving her around like a doll. But she knew that was all a model was—a clothes horse. Not a person. She had better get used to it. Train herself to be docile. Even though it went against the grain.

Finally he finished, and when the photos were ready Kat was so stunned she could only stare. The face which all her life hadn’t seemed to be anything much, was suddenly, out of nowhere, amazing! Her eyes were huge, her cheekbones like knives, and her mouth—

‘I look fantastic,’ she said faintly. It was like looking at a stranger—a face that wasn’t hers, but was. She gave Katya a hug. ‘Thanks!’ she choked.

She didn’t see the strange expression fleetingly in the other girl’s eyes.

She took the next morning off work and, nerves shredded like paper, heart thumping, headed for the modelling agency she’d selected as her first try with her new portfolio.

They had, to her exultation, taken her on.

But even after being signed it was a long, slow haul. Assignments were thin on the ground, and competition for them fierce.

Especially the best ones.

Like the one she was racing for now. For a start, the casting was at a seriously flash Park Lane hotel, and the shoot itself was going to be in Monte Carlo—posing on yachts in a marina. She felt a thrill of excitement as she raced out of the tube station. She’d never been abroad in her life, let alone anywhere that fantastically swanky.

As she dashed up to the hotel, heart-rate zapping in her chest, she was intent only on getting to the entrance as fast as possible. She completely ignored the sleek limo pulled up at the kerb, and the frock-coated doorman stepping back from opening the rear door. Nor did she pay the slightest attention to whoever it was getting out. Except that as she raced up to the hotel’s revolving door he was in her way.

“Scuse me!’ she exclaimed, and made to push past him, to get into the revolving door first.

But the man simply turned his head sharply and stopped, blocking her. Kat glared at him. She took in height, a dark suit, a tanned complexion, strong features which made her pulse give a strange kick, and dark, forbidding eyes clashing with hers.

Her pulse gave that strange kick again. But it was because she was running late, was in a hurry, didn’t have time to waste—and this block of a man was in her way. That was why. No other reason.

‘Look, are you going to shift or not?’ she bit out impatiently, glaring at him belligerently.

Something flashed in the dark eyes. Something that made that kick come again. But it was just because he was still in her way—and because he was looking at her as if she was some inferior being. Her back went up as automatically as the kick that came in her pulse.

‘Would you be so very kind,’ she gritted, in mock-ingratiating accents, ‘as to allow me to get into the damn hotel?’

The dark eyes flashed again. But this time it was different. She didn’t know how different, or why. But it was. This time it didn’t make her pulse kick. It made something arrow in her stomach instead.

Then he stepped back. He said nothing, just indicated with his hand for her to go into the revolving door. It was an offhand gesture—dismissive. She didn’t like it. It made her back go up even more. She stepped into the open angle of the doorway, then turned her head.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, in sweetly acid, exaggerated tones. ‘How terribly kind of you!’

Something glinted in his eye, which she didn’t like either, and she turned her head sharply and swept inside, pushing the door round, to gain the marbled entrance lobby.

‘Posh idiot!’ she muttered. Then she pulled her mind away from the incident. She had to find where the casting was.

Fifteen minutes later she was sitting on a spindly gilt chair in a huge hotel function room, looking depressed at the usual horde of fantastic-looking hopefuls. There seemed to be a bit of a lull in the proceedings. The suits at the far end, bunched around a table, must be making their minds up. Kat stared round, feeling strangely edgy—more so than she usually felt at a casting. Maybe it was because she didn’t like this room—it made her feel out of place. This was the poshest place she’d ever been in, and all the people who came here were posh. Like the bloke who’d looked down on her for daring to push past him.

Kat’s eyebrows drew together. She felt antagonism flick inside her, then pushed the memory out of her mind. No point thinking about it—it had been brief, annoying, and now it was over. Just one of those things. She wondered how long it would take for the suits to decide whether she was one of the lucky chosen.

She wasn’t a strong candidate, she knew. Not for a swanky shoot like this. Her looks and style were fine for streetwise stuff, smart and sassy or aggro-cool, but if this was all about yachts then they’d want models that looked the part. Those sleek, classy girls who spoke with plums in their mouths, who were called Christabel and Octavia and knew each other from boarding school. Who were only modelling for a hobby or a lark until they married, or got bored with the hard work it really was.

She went on staring, keeping herself to herself, the way she always did at castings, not caring if other girls thought her standoffish. Then, abruptly, the huddle at the table straightened and a chicly dressed middle-aged woman started reading names out.

Kat’s wasn’t one of them.

She gave a mental shrug. What had she expected? Disappointment and frustration went with the territory, and you rolled with the punches because there was no alternative. She, like the rest of the girls in the room apart from the chosen nine, who’d hurried forward to the table, started to pick up their stuff and prepared to leave.

Except that, abruptly, another door at the far end of the room opened, close to the table with the suits, and someone walked in.

Kat recognised him instantly, and it set the seal on the casting. It was the man she’d hustled at the entrance to the hotel. By the way the suits had jumped to their feet—even the two women—the guy was clearly a head honcho type. Kat wasn’t surprised—it was obvious from the handmade suit to the way he’d looked at her with coldly arrogant eyes, as if she was an inferior being.

Well, if he was the head honcho, then it was just as well she hadn’t been picked. She hadn’t exactly impressed the guy, had she, back-talking him like that? She hefted her bag, and stood up.

As she did so, she felt something on her. It was the man—he was sweeping a rapid glance over the girls in the room. Maybe he was just checking that the models on the short list, clustered eagerly by the table, were the best there. Well, it wouldn’t be her, anyway, not once he’d recognised her. She turned away, moving towards the door.

The voice of the middle-aged woman rang out.

‘You—short blonde hair, green shift. Wait.’

Slowly, Kat paused and turned. The woman beckoned to her impatiently.

‘Kat Jones, is it?’

Kat nodded, but her eyes went past the woman to the tall figure at her side. The man she’d hustled. Mr Big. His eyes were resting on her. She couldn’t read them, not from this distance, but there was something in them that made her feel suddenly very, very weird.

She started to walk towards him.

Angelos Petrakos watched her approach. She appeared wary. He was unsurprised. She’d be ruing her rudeness to him at the hotel entrance. His gaze rested on her critically as she came forward. Too thin for his personal taste, and although her features were stunning, her short, jagged hairstyle was not what he liked in a woman. He liked women chic, elegant, soignée. Not raw off the street like this. With a lip to her that would get her nowhere fast in life.

And yet his eyes narrowed speculatively. There was something about her …

His eyes flicked over her one more time, assessing her. He saw something flash in hers, surprising him. She hadn’t liked the way he’d looked her over.

Curious. She was a model—it was her livelihood to be looked over. But she hadn’t liked him doing it. And that was an anomaly in itself. Women liked him to look them over. They queued up for the privilege. But this fauve girl just about had her hackles raised, claws out. Kat was clearly a good name for her …

But her name was irrelevant. So was anything else. The only thing on the agenda was whether she would suit the campaign he wanted—lend an edge to it that more conventional models wouldn’t. Well, he’d think about it. He snapped off his surveillance and nodded at the creative director of the advertising agency that had been selected for the campaign.

‘Put her on the list,’ he instructed. He didn’t expand on his choice—that was not the concern of those he paid. He turned to go. ‘Have the short-listed girls back here for seven o’clock this evening.’

Then he walked out of the function room.

* * *

At five to seven precisely, Kat walked out of the hotel’s powder room, where she’d changed into her evening gown, having done her face and hair at home earlier. She was looking good, she knew, and she hung on to the knowledge, knowing her nerves were stretched and she needed all that her reflection could offer her. The thin-strapped eau de nil silk gown bought in a sale fell sheer down her slender body, its pale colouring suiting her own paleness. Strappy, high-heeled sandals lifted her hips and gave an assertive boost to her stride.

But beneath the surface her emotions were conflicted. Predominant was nervousness—but running alongside that was another emotion. One that she didn’t want to feel.

She knew who he was now—she’d had it spelt out to her by the suits after he’d walked out of the room that afternoon. Angelos Petrakos. He wasn’t the guy who owned the yacht company—he was the guy who owned the company that owned the yacht company.

Yeah, well, she thought bitingly to herself as she strode into the hotel lobby, she wasn’t going to tiptoe around him, however much she wanted the job. If he wanted to hire her—fine. But no way was she kow-towing to him! No way!

She still didn’t know why he’d put her on the short list. She was a completely different type from the sleek, posh others. Well, she didn’t care about that, either. Either she’d be picked or she wouldn’t. That was it, really. Nothing to do with her—just what Mr Big wanted.

She felt an odd sensation jitter through her. It was different from the impulse she’d had to slug the guy for looking at her like meat. Yet it still had something to do with him looking at her. She frowned as she walked along. It wasn’t a feeling she’d had before. It felt alien. Unnerving. She found, too, that she was replaying the encounter at the hotel door in her head—and then the bit where she’d been summoned to the table. The odd jittery sensation went through her again.

She didn’t like it. It made her feel—vulnerable.

And vulnerable was something she never, never wanted to feel.

Quickening her pace, she headed up the broad sweep of stairs up to the function suite. Inside, she saw that the other nine girls were already there—and so was Mr Big, talking to the most important suit. Deliberately not looking at him, Kat took her place beside the group, standing quietly to one side.

Angelos looked up. Immediately his eyes went to girl he’d added to the short list. His gaze stilled.

She was looking stunning. With part of his mind he tried to analyse why—and failed. Every girl here looked outstandingly beautiful, yet there was something about the edgy blonde that made her stand out even from them—that made him want to look at her …

Was that quality, whatever it was, enough to make him break the brief he’d given his creative team? That the models for this campaign should have the glossy, upmarket look that went with the new line of luxury yachts Petrakos Marine was launching? He turned to his creative director, taking a seat at the table and tilting his chair back slightly.

‘Have the girls walk,’ he instructed.

Deliberately he studied the other girls as they paraded up and down as if they were on a runway. Then, equally deliberately, he let his eyes go to the edgy blonde.

She doesn’t like it, surmised Angelos. She doesn’t like parading up and down on command. Doesn’t like taking orders. Showing herself off. He could see her resentment in every stiffened line of her body as she stalked up and down.

‘That’s enough.’

The girls stopped, came back to the table. The creative director leant forward to say something to Angelos, but he held out a hand to silence him. His gaze remained on the girls clustering around. He worked his gaze along them, his face expressionless.

Then he simply said, ‘You, you, you,’ nodding at each he’d chosen in turn.

One was blonde, with long hair down to her waist—clearly her particular asset—the second was an aristocratic brunette, and the third was Eurasian and any man’s private fantasy. They would all be ideal for the campaign.

Having made the required decision, he left everything else to his staff. But as he got to his feet his eyes went to the girl at the end of the row. She looked even more apart than before. The other rejected girls were peeling off into a group, some shrugging, some looking unconcerned, while the favoured three were taken off by two of his staff to get more details of the forthcoming shoot.

For a long moment the girl in the eau de nil silk just stood there, very still. Her face was quite expressionless. Then she turned away, walking back to the door.

There wasn’t any sign of resentment now. Only deliberate indifference.

Except that it wasn’t indifference. He could see exactly what it was—defiance. Not by the slightest slump of her shoulders letting any trace of having been rejected show. He watched her a moment, ignoring whatever it was his creative director was saying to him.

Then he went after her.

He caught her up just in the upper foyer, as she was heading for the stairs down and out of the hotel. He took her arm.

She stopped dead and jerked around. Her eyes flashed.

‘Don’t handle the merchandise, sunshine!’ she said, and made to tug away. It had no effect on his grip.

Angelos looked down at her upturned face. There was antagonism bristling in her eyes, but more than that. Something behind the antagonism.

‘There may be room for one more model. I’m prepared to consider it,’ he said.

Something flashed in her eyes, then disappeared.

He let go of her arm. ‘I’ll discuss it with you in my suite.’

Her eyes flashed again, but not with the emotion that had just been in them.

‘Get stuffed,’ she said, and wheeled round. He caught her again.

‘You mistake me,’ he said, and his voice was icy. ‘This concerns merely whether you are, or are not, suitable for this campaign. Nothing else.’ He walked towards the bank of lifts, not bothering to see if she was following. She would be, he knew.

She stepped into the lift beside him, standing as far away from him as possible, staring straight ahead, her shoulders rigid. Wary as a cat, but with a hunger, he knew perfectly well, for what he had in his power to offer her. As the elevator lifted away he caught the faintest tang of perfume—something citrusy. Sharp. It suited her, he realised.

Beside him, Kat stood, every nerve end bristling. It had been a rollercoaster all afternoon—from realising she wasn’t going to be short-listed to the exultation that she had been, and then, just now, the bitter knowledge that she still hadn’t made it, despite her best shot and her evening gown.

Only to have hope flare all over again—

She felt pincers snip away inside her stomach. And now it was not just because of the job she wanted so much. It was because of the man she was standing beside. Something about him was setting her nerves jangling.

It’s because he’s an arrogant s.o.b—that’s why! Mr High-and-Mighty, Filthy-Rich-Big! Looking at me like I’m nothing more than meat.

And it was in his power to give her a job she really, really wanted.

No other reason. Absolutely no other reason.

As she walked after him into the suite she stopped dead, gazing round, mouth dropping open. So this was how the rich lived! The place was like some kind of apartment, with rooms opening off a lounge that had a balcony on one side and a dining table in a huge alcove. Two huge sofas faced each other across an acre of coffee table.

‘Sit down and wait.’

The voice was indifferent, assuming obedience. She did as she was told, still looking around her, and then her eyes went to him without her volition, watching as he extracted some papers from a briefcase, setting them down upon the dining table and standing to look through them. He started to make phone calls in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before, so maybe it was Greek—the guy was Greek, the model who’d told her about him downstairs had said. Greek—and loaded.

And not just with money.

Kat found herself looking at him. Staring at him.

He might be an arrogant s.o.b, but she knew exactly how he was getting away with it. With looks like his—all that height and toughness and hard, planed features and dark, measuring eyes, plus that magnetic Mediterranean appeal with his olive skin tone and sable hair and that indefinable aura of being ‘foreign’—he must have women slavering for him!

Oh, not her. No chance. Because she didn’t slaver over any man, and never would. But she could still feel her nerves jangling, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Every impulse told her to jump to her feet and run, but she had to sit there, like a good little girl, because this man—however much her made her hackles rise—could give her the job she craved.

Her eyes flashed momentarily. But I’m still not kow-towing to him! He can take the job and stuff it before I do that!

She set her jaw, forcing her eyes away from where he stood, looking as if he owned the place. Which he might very well do, she realized. He was stuck giving orders in Greek, or whatever it was, down the phone. Her eyes went back to looking over this room where the rich folk hung out, taking it all in—the décor, the furniture, the deep carpets, the vast bouquet of flowers on the sideboard. All the trappings of luxury that a man as rich as Mr Big took for granted every moment of his gilded life.

A world away from her own life.

Well, she would never get to this level—she knew that—but then she didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. All she needed was something a lot better than she had—a clean, nicely furnished flat, not the squalid, mouldering bedsit she was holed up in now, and enough money coming in for her not to be cold in winter and watching every penny every minute of the day. Something that was hers and hers alone—a decent life.

And one day she’d have it. One day—

Her focus snapped back to the present. The phone calls had stopped, and he slid the phone away in his inside jacket pocket, coming across to sit down opposite her in an armchair. He’d helped himself to a drink from somewhere, but wasn’t offering her one, she noticed. Just as well. She wouldn’t have touched it.

He hooked one leg over his knee and relaxed back into his seat, holding his glass in his hand. His eyes rested on her.

Kat made her face expressionless. She was learning how to do that.

‘So …’ said Angelos Petrakos. His voice was deep, but with hardly a trace of accent, she realised, only the clipped, curt tones of a posh Englishman—a million miles away from the London voice she spoke with. ‘Shall I hire you, or not?’

Kat’s expression didn’t change. Was she supposed to answer, or just sit there like a dummy? She chose to answer. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but sitting voiceless was more than she could make herself do.

‘No point asking me,’ said Kat. ‘I’m just the meat.’ Her voice was deadpan.

‘Meat?’ The word fell into the space, ready frozen.

She tightened her mouth. ‘Clothes horse. Dress rack. Dummy. AKA body. AKA meat.’

His eyes seemed to narrow minutely. ‘You have a problem with that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s what modelling’s all about,’ she answered.

‘But you object?’ The voice was sardonic.

‘Not if I get paid. And if I don’t get any hassle,’ she added pointedly.

For a moment he did not answer. Then the dark eyes narrowed again. For a moment Kat felt she was skating on thin ice—very thin ice—that might suddenly crack, disastrously, and send her plunging down into dark, drowning water …

Then it was gone.

‘And if … hassle… were part of the deal?’

For answer, Kat held up a single finger, her face expressionless.

Angelos’s eyes flickered to it, then back to the girl’s face. Why was he doing this? He had no intention of sleeping with her. His assessment was purely professional. But something made him say, his tone suddenly dulcet, ‘You might find it enjoyable—’

‘And you,’ Kat retorted sweetly, ‘might find the attempt painful.’

For a second, the barest portion of one, she felt the ice give an ominous crack. As if he might actually find her answer amusing. Then the hard features hardened even more, and he simply levelled upon her a glance that crushed her like an insect.

Oh, God, thought Kat. My big mouth.

But Angelos Petrakos was reaching for his mobile phone. It was answered instantly. He didn’t look at her. ‘Add Kat Jones to the shoot,’ he said.

She stared, eyes widening. Then elation soared through her.

A moment later it dissipated. Those sharp dark eyes were back on her again.

‘Provisionally,’ said Angelos Petrakos.

She looked at him warily. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked. She sounded blunter than she’d meant to, but her nerves were jangling for a hundred reasons which had a lot more to do with the hard-featured face of the man with the power to hire her than the job he was dangling in front of her.

‘It means,’ he answered, ‘that I want to check whether you can behave appropriately. Fit in. I don’t tolerate,’ he said cuttingly, ‘attitude.’

Kat bit her lip. She could feel herself doing it. Forcing herself to do it.

‘Exactly,’ said Angelos Petrakos, a mordant expression in his night-dark eyes. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet. ‘If you have any engagements for this evening, cancel them.’

She stared. Wariness radiated instantly from her again, like a beacon switch thrown to high. He saw it—just as he’d seen her forcing herself to bite her lip.

‘I’m taking you to dinner,’ he enunciated. ‘There will be a considerable amount of socialising in Monte Carlo. The other girls will find it easy. You need practice,’ he told her coolly. ‘If, that is, you are to go at all.’