Читать книгу The Millionaire's Daughter - Sophie Weston - Страница 6

ANNIS CAREW walked into her father’s house and stopped dead. This was not the small, family supper she had been expecting. This was a full scale dinner party with women in jewels, waiters in black tie and, inevitably, tonight’s candidate to help the millionaire’s plain daughter off the shelf.

And what a candidate! Annis picked him out the moment the door closed behind her. He was talking to her father on the other side of the drawing room but they both glanced up to see who had arrived. At once, Annis forgot her father, her kind matchmaking stepmother Lynda, and everyone else in the room.

The candidate was tall and good looking in a sardonic, hard edged sort of way. But it wasn’t his height or his Byronic profile that stopped her breath in her throat. It was what she privately called The Look—the look of a man who did not have to try.

Annis knew The Look from grim experience. She had been meeting—and failing to make any impression on—men with The Look ever since the first smart cocktail party at which Lynda had tried to introduce her to what she called Nice People.

Oh, no, not that one, thought Annis. Lynda, what are you trying to do to me?

Her father had obviously been waiting for her. Lynda’s instructions, no doubt. Now, as he said something to the tall dark man, he looked relieved.

Probably thought I’d realise what was going on and cut loose, thought Annis. As I should have done. How could I be so stupid?

On the telephone this afternoon Lynda had been casual. Too casual, Annis now realised. ‘Come over for supper, darling. It’s so long since we’ve seen you,’ Lynda had said.

And Annis, speeding through her flat on the way to her next meeting, had flung, ‘OK. What time?’ at the telephone speaker without pausing to think.

So now here she was, high and dry, an ugly duckling in her sober business suit among the swans of London’s elite. Rain-draggled hair dripped down her back. Meanwhile The Look shouldered his way purposefully through the crowd to the rescue of the millionaire’s plain daughter who didn’t want rescuing.

Say a big hello to the perfect Friday night, thought Annis. She felt a strong urge to scream. She repressed it. Just.

Annis watched the tall figure bearing down on her. Like most of the men here this evening he was formally dressed. Unlike most of them he was wearing a high collared Nehru jacket in a muted brocade that glimmered richly in the candlelight. It skimmed his slim hips in a fashion that was as flattering as it was startling. Together with his strange, slanted eyes, it gave him an air of slightly exotic danger.

No doubt at all, thought Annis, that the effect was deliberate—and carefully calculated. A peacock, she thought, among all these high priced swans. Who on earth was he?

He reached her and took her hand.

‘Across a crowded room—I knew it would happen one day.’ He had a voice like black treacle, warm and deep and horribly sensuous. You could, thought Annis indignantly, probably drown in that voice. Slowly and pleasurably.

She gave him a wintry smile and removed her hand.

‘Hi, doll,’ said her father, arriving.

Since Annis had become a businesswoman in her own right her father treated her with a breezy camaraderie that imperfectly disguised his gratitude that she no longer admitted to emotions.

‘Hi, Dad,’ she said, cool as the glass of champagne a waiter was pressing into her hand.

‘This is Konstantin Vitale. He specially wants to meet you.’

I’ll just bet he does, thought Annis dourly. She wondered briefly whether it was the opportunity for business offered by her father’s company or her own status as an heiress that had drawn Konstantin Vitale across the room to her side.

Tony Carew answered the question for her. ‘He’s working on the headquarters project.’

‘Ah. Palazzo Carew,’ said Annis, understanding.

Her father’s plans for the new centre he was going to build for his company were enthusiastically extravagant. They had impressed the media and had stunned his rivals. His family had been teasing him about them for months.

‘So, here’s your mystery woman, Vitale.’ He sounded pleased with himself ‘My daughter, Annis.’

‘Mystery woman?’ echoed Annis. She was growing warier by the minute.

The Byronic hero answered before her father had the chance. ‘So late. So damp. So preoccupied.’

To her annoyance, an instinctive hand flew to the soaked strands at the base of her neck. His eyes followed the gesture. She felt embarrassment heat her skin.

She said more sharply than she intended, ‘Nothing mysterious about being late. I let time get away from me, that’s all.’

‘You two should have a lot in common,’ Tony announced.

He gave Annis a conspiratorial grin before he pushed off. She knew that grin. It meant things were going to plan. In this case, she was almost certain the plan in question had been laid down in advance of the party by his wife. She ground her teeth silently.

‘You don’t look as if you agree with him,’ said the black treacle voice, amused. But not only amused. The damned man sounded as if he was caressing her.

Annis felt her spine arch like an angry cat’s. Over his shoulder she could see her reflection in the oval Venetian mirror. It was eighteenth century, one of Lynda’s finds. Curlicued and garlanded, gleaming with gold, it might have been made for Konstantin Vitale, with his brocade coat and dramatic profile.

It had certainly never been intended to reflect someone like Annis. Her short dark hair had been turned black by the rain and was now plastered to her head like a skullcap. The only good thing about it was that the wet hair was also plastered over the ugly scar that ran from her eyebrow to her hairline. Realising it, she scowled horribly, then saw that he was laughing at her again.

Hurriedly Annis readjusted her expression.

‘I always try to keep an open mind,’ she said lightly.

He hardly pretended to believe her.

‘Sure you do.’

Her reflected brows snapped together in a frown of irritation. Annis saw it in despair. Her frowns were notorious. There never seemed to be anything that she could do about them, either.

She struggled to forget that she was over-tired, underdressed and that her minimal make-up had run in the rain. And that the Lord Byron look-alike in front of her had noticed every detail. She even tried to hide how thoroughly jangled she was to find the promised family supper transformed into one of Lynda’s find-Annis-a-man fests. After all, none of that was Konstantin Vitale’s fault, she reminded herself.

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Put it down to end-of-the-week neurosis.’ She squared her shoulders, pinned on a polite smile, and tried to retune her mind to social conversation. ‘So what does my father think we have in common?’

The sardonic expression was very evident. ‘To be honest it was Mrs Carew who said you and I ought to get together.’

‘Surprise me,’ muttered Annis.

‘Excuse me?’

She shook her head, annoyed with herself. ‘Nothing.’

His eyes were speculative. ‘She respects you a lot.’

But not enough to accept that I can live without a man. There was a pregnant pause while Annis closed her lips over that one.

‘No, really. She’s a real fan. She was telling me how smart you are. What a great stepdaughter.’ It was almost a question.

Annis knew she was not reacting like a great stepdaughter. ‘That was kind of her,’ she managed in a stifled voice.

‘And unusual.’

Quite suddenly Annis realised she had run out of the ability to pretend. It was something to do with Friday-night tiredness. But more, much more, to do with that seductive voice and the horrible feeling that she was being sucked into something she could not control.

‘No,’ she said on an explosive little sigh. ‘No, it’s not unusual. Lynda does a terrific marketing campaign.’

‘What?’

She fixed the tall dark stranger with a baleful eye. She had been in this situation before. Experience told her there was only one thing she had never tried. Take a firm line straight from the start and hang on to it.

She took a deep breath and did just that. ‘Look, I don’t know what Lynda has told you. But let me set the record straight.’

He looked politely intrigued.

Annis drew a deep breath. ‘I’m twenty-nine years old, I live for my work and I don’t date.’

The man had high cheekbones and strange, slanting green eyes. They did not blink. Not blinking, he said a lot.

Ouch, Annis thought. I don’t think I meant it to sound like that.

She added hastily, ‘Nothing personal.’

It was not, perhaps, brilliantly tactful. The green eyes narrowed almost to slits.

‘That’s a relief,’ he said with a dryness that made her wince.

The deep voice had just a hint of a foreign accent. A very sexy accent. And he was taller than she was. Annis did not usually have to look up to people. It threw her off balance in every way.

‘I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I mean I just like to make things clear. In general.’ She was floundering. Come on, Annis, you can do better than this. ‘Sometimes Lynda can be a bit misleading…’

He did not say anything, maintaining his air of gentle interest. Annis ran out of excusing generalities.

She tried the truth. ‘I—er—I mean I’m a bit of a workaholic.’

She made a despairing gesture. Too big a gesture, as always in this room of objets d’art. Champagne fountained from the glass she’d forgotten she was holding. At the same time a gold-painted plinth swayed at the impact. Konstantin Vitale steadied it. She saw he was looking deeply amused.

Amused! Great!

Of course, she could have said, My stepmother has set me up once too often. She thinks it would be nice for me to meet you. And when she says meet, she means dine with, dance with, holiday with, sleep with and, in the fullness of time, marry. Because my stepmother cannot get her head round the idea that any woman of my age might have other priorities. She thinks I’m scarred and difficult and on the shelf. She wants to help. You’re just the latest in a long, long line of unattached men she thinks might be good for me.

Oh, yes, she could have said that. It was there, every furious word, seething on the tip of her tongue.

Except, Annis was realising uneasily, he did not look like the latest in a long line of anyone. Nor, on consideration, like the sort of man who was likely to be good for the woman of the moment. Challenging, exciting and unpredictable, yes; cynical, certainly. Not, good.

Annis looked into the handsome, world-weary face and was assailed by doubt. Surely even Lynda, who thought she had a moral obligation to throw unmarried people together, wouldn’t imagine she could matchmake for a sophisticate like this?

She said gropingly, ‘Lynda did say she wanted us to meet?’

He was straightening the abstract sculpture on the plinth she had nearly sent flying. He glanced down at her, green eyes glinting.

‘Those common interests of ours, I guess.’

He looked perfectly solemn but Annis knew he was laughing.

Annis’s doubts disappeared. So her first suspicions had been right after all. She was oddly disappointed. She did not want him to be the sort of man to date a millionaire’s daughter, sight unseen.

‘Oh, yes?’ she said freezingly.

He was bland. ‘Meet another workaholic.’

And he held out his hand again.

To her own annoyance, Annis found herself taking it as if he had mesmerised her. It was not the light, social brush of the fingers of that first handshake either. It was a purposeful grasp, as if he were giving her a message.

Startled, she looked down. His hand was tanned and strong. It looked as if he had been working outdoors somewhere in the sun. Her ringless fingers were as pale as water engulfed in his clasp, and looked about as weak, Annis thought in disgust. Was that his message? Indignant she lifted her head and glared right into those strange eyes.

There was a moment’s silence.

Then, ‘Yeah,’ he drawled. As if she had asked him a question. Or as if she were a strange girl he was sizing up across a fairground or the floor of a nightclub. Sizing her up, what was more, with lazy appreciation.

Appreciation? Ridiculous. He had to be mocking her.

Annis tugged her hand away in pure reflex.

She half turned away and spoke at random. ‘If you’re a genuine workaholic, what are you doing at a party? There’s at least another four hours’ working time left tonight.’

It wasn’t a very good joke and Konstantin Vitale didn’t laugh.

‘I could ask you the same thing,’ he said slowly.

Annis was curt. ‘Family.’ She was not going to admit that her stepmother had got her here under false pretences, though. It made her look a fool. So she added lightly, ‘Lynda’s dinner parties are a three-line whip. Besides, I haven’t seen my father since Carew’s half-year results.’

Konstantin Vitale glanced across at his host, currently holding forth by the fireplace. His mouth curled.

‘You work for Carew’s? I thought your stepmother said you were independent.’

Annis bristled. ‘I am. I still take an interest in the family firm.’

The sardonic look deepened. ‘Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?’

He doesn’t like me, she thought. Well, that was mutual.

‘Families do usually take an interest in each other’s affairs.’

‘I’ll take your word for it,’ he said dryly.

Annis narrowed her eyes at him challengingly. ‘No family, Mr Vitale?’

‘None that I’d discuss my financial results with.’

Annis saw the chance for revenge.

‘Could this be why you’re a workaholic?’ she asked sweetly.

He appeared to consider the question. ‘Nothing better to do with my time?’ he interpreted. He shook his head decisively. ‘No, it’s not that. You see, unlike you, I do date.’

The riposte was so unexpected that for a moment Annis could not think of a thing to say. Then she saw the devilish glint of laughter in the green eyes. And was swamped by a blush.

Oh, boy, what a restful Friday evening this was turning out to be!

Annis tried to ignore the heat in her face and the nasty sensation that a master had beaten her at her own game.

‘Each to his own,’ she said crisply, preparing to turn away.

He stopped her by propping himself against the wall and barring her escape route.

‘I so agree. And what is your own, Annis Carew? Are you just playing at business, propped up by family money? Is that what you’re doing here? Checking that the subsidy will keep coming?’

Annis was so indignant she forgot the dying blush.

‘I’m here to network,’ she said furiously and quite untruthfully. ‘In my line of work you seize every opportunity.’

She comforted herself that lots of management consultants did network a great deal. Just because she and her business partner Roy did not choose to, that didn’t undermine the general principle.

‘Plenty of people worth networking with,’ agreed Konstantin Vitale.

How did he manage to sound as if he had found a slug in his salad?

Annis conveniently ignored the fact that when she’d arrived this evening her heart had sunk at the sight of all these dauntingly impressive people. ‘Lucky me,’ she said brightly.

Konstantin Vitale looked bored. ‘And what is this work that you live for?’

‘I’m a management consultant.’

‘Impressive.’ His voice was grave and his face did not change by a muscle.

So why did she think he was mocking her?

Annis set her teeth and decided to fight fire with fire. ‘And what to you do when you’re working on my father’s new building?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘I keep Carew in line.’

Annis was genuinely startled. ‘What?’

He repeated it obligingly.

Clever, she thought. Her father’s friends called him Tony; his subordinates called him Mr Carew. Konstantin Vitale was making a point. Not an employee, then. And if he was a professional adviser, he was not a very respectful one.

Annis bristled. ‘Forgive me if I say that I find it difficult to imagine.’

‘Too right,’ said Konstantin Vitale blandly. ‘He’s stubborn as hell.’

Most people who worked with Tony Carew were impressed by him. If they weren’t impressed they did not last very long.

‘I take it that your professional relationship with my father is on its last legs?’ said Annis

He was surprised. ‘No. Why? He wants the best. I am the best. He just needs a bit of education to appreciate it, that’s all.’

Annis blinked. She found she had nothing to say in the face of such superb assurance. Out of my depth again.

‘Could be it runs in the family,’ he murmured provocatively.

Annis was instantly suspicious. ‘What does?’

‘A need to be challenged.’

She met his eyes in fulminating silence. He raised one eyebrow. He was amused, confident and—quite temporarily—ready to duel with her. Oh, that Look! Annis could have stamped her foot with frustration.

She stopped pretending that she did not know he was trying to wind her up.

‘No chance,’ she said curtly. ‘Forget it, Mr Vitale. I not only don’t date, I don’t play any other silly games either. Now, I must find my stepmother. Excuse me.’

Annis was still seething when she tracked Lynda down. Her stepmother kissed her on both cheeks, all wide-eyed innocence.

‘So lovely to see you, darling. I saw your father was looking after you. How did you get on with lovely Kosta?’

Annis did not answer that directly. ‘He’s tonight’s people’s choice, is he?’ she said grimly.

Lynda fingered her fabulously simple, fabulously expensive gold collar nervously. She avoided Annis’s eyes.

‘Your father asked him. They’re doing business together, I think.’

‘And no doubt I’m sitting next to him at dinner.’

Her stepmother did not deny it. Another unwelcome thought occurred to Annis, based on previous experience.

‘And my flat just happens to be on his way home, I suppose?’

Lynda did not deny that either. She scanned Annis’s face, clearly concerned.

‘Darling—’

Annis was surprised at the gust of fury that whipped through her. Konstantin Vitale had disturbed her more than any other of Lynda’s offerings, though she could not have said why. She just knew that she hated it.

‘So he offers to drive me home and I’m supposed to say thank you kindly. And go out with him when he calls next week.’ She was shaking with anger. ‘Tell me, Lynda, have you given him my number already?’

In spite of a designer cocktail suit and several thousand pounds’ worth of discreet jewellery, Lynda Carew looked like a guilty four year old caught out in the playground.

‘Not to Kosta. But darling—’

‘Lynda, I love you very much. But will you just stop interfering in my life?’

Lynda looked shaken. Annis had never reacted like this before. All right, she did not usually go out with the men Lynda introduced to her more than once. But at least she greeted them with amused resignation. Lynda had never seen such passion in her level-headed stepdaughter. Or not about men.

She tried to sound airy. ‘But your father had these business types he really wanted to invite. So I thought, Why not?’ Her eyes were huge, blue and limpid. ‘Starting out on her own like that, Annis will probably be glad of a chance to meet some people who could put work her way.’

Annis stared. It was so close to what she had already claimed herself that Lynda might have been eavesdropping. Hoist with my own petard, she thought. In spite of herself, her lips twitched. She flung up her hands in surrender.

‘OK. I’m here to network. Let’s leave it at that.’ But she still looked at Lynda severely. ‘And I get to go home alone, right?’

‘Right,’ said Lynda relieved. She patted Annis’s sober blue shoulder. ‘I suppose you’ve come straight from work?’

Annis sipped the champagne. ‘How did you guess?’

‘You’re always scratchy when you’re tired,’ Lynda said frankly.

That was undoubtedly true. Annis, always fair minded, had to admit it.

Lynda sensed a softening. ‘I wish you wouldn’t make things so difficult for yourself, darling. Why don’t you just try to enjoy yourself for once?’

Annis closed her eyes briefly. ‘You’ve been saying that since I was fourteen.’

‘Then, it’s about time you gave it a try.’

Annis opened her mouth to retort.

‘What you ought to do is go upstairs to my room and freshen up,’ Lynda said coaxingly. ‘That will make you feel better. Borrow an earring or something. And then come downstairs and be nice to people.’

There was a shout of loud laughter from her father’s group at the fireplace. Lynda put a hand on her Annis’s arm. Her expression was suddenly serious.

‘Don’t spoil it, Annis,’ she said in a low voice. ‘It’s so long since he relaxed properly.’

Annis looked down from her five feet eleven into her diminutive stepmother’s exquisite face. Annis had given thanks for Lynda every day since she’d married Tony Carew and had taken his daughter under her wing. They were as different as two women could be but Lynda had given her unstinting affection, making no distinction between Annis and her own daughter Isabella.

What was more, she made Tony Carew laugh again. Under Lynda’s influence he came home from the office at night. He even took some notice of his neglected ugly duckling daughter and found, to his astonishment, that she was interesting. Found that she was not a sullen adolescent, just painfully shy. Found that he liked her.

So now Annis looked at Lynda, who would not remind her that it was she who had given Annis back her father. Annis knew herself beaten. Again.

‘Yes,’ she said capitulating entirely. ‘Yes, all right. I’ll paint my face and sing for my supper. Just no more throwing me together with your spare men.’

Lynda laughed and let go of her arm. ‘Take your drink with you.’

It was only when Annis was sitting in front of her stepmother’s enormous dressing table that she realised that Lynda had made no promises.

‘Outsmarted again,’ she told her reflection with irony, and, as she so often ended up saying after a tussle of wills with her sweetly accommodating stepmother, ‘When will you learn? You’ll walk straight back into the arms of tonight’s Mr Available.’

Only, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, Konstantin Vitale did not feel like Mr Available. Reflecting on that exchange downstairs, her eyebrows knit in puzzlement.

Of course, it was probably not his fault. It was even possible that he did not know that Lynda was matchmaking. Annis knew her stepmother very well. The most Lynda would have told him was that she needed a spare man to make up numbers and sit next to her clever stepdaughter. That’s what she had told the sculptor, the writer and the aspiring politician.

Lynda’s candidates were normally men with promising futures and a shortage of current cash. That was what made the idea of dating millionaire Tony Carew’s daughter rather attractive, no matter how scarred and difficult she might turn out to be. Annis wondered exactly what Konstantin Vitale did for a living. And if she had done enough to make him think better of the dating-the-unattractive-heiress scenario.

Annis found her reflection was frowning horribly. She leaned forward and smoothed her heavy eyebrows apart. ‘Borrow an earring,’ Lynda had said. Well, she could do better than that with the run of her stepmother’s resources. With the efficiency of long, long practice, Annis set about livening up her neat navy business suit.

She borrowed a silk scarf so fine that it was transparent, with the evening colours of an impressionist painting shimmering as she moved, and some long turquoise earrings that Lynda had brought back from Morocco. No time for elaborate make-up, thought Annis, who was no good at it, even at the best of times. So she just combed her hair forward to hide the scar, flicked damp fronds into place against her long neck and dusted a touch of rose to her full-lipped mouth.

Then she squared her shoulders and went back to face the battle.

Fortunately the first person she saw was not Konstantin Vitale. Not even another glamorous spare man. It was Lynda’s own daughter, Bella.

Isabella, at twenty-three as golden and charming as her mother, regarded Annis as one of her very best friends.

It was Bella who saved her now.

‘Annie,’ she screamed, rushing over.

A number of people looked up and smiled. Across the room, Annis saw, even Konstantin Vitale of The Look glanced up. For a moment the bored shell cracked. He looked almost intrigued. But then, thought Annis wryly, men usually did look intrigued when they first caught sight of Isabella Carew.

Tonight she was on top form, in a slip of a dress that was all shimmery curves and slipping straps, showing yards of perfect leg. She enveloped Annis in a bear hug.

‘Hi, Brain Box.’

Annis kissed her sister more sedately. ‘Hi yourself, Bella Bug. How’s life?’

‘Great. What—’

Lynda frowned her daughter down. ‘We can have a family chat later. There’s someone I want Annis to meet.’

‘Another one?’ said Annis incredulously.

Bella grinned. She was not hampered by any chivalrous feelings of obligation and she knew as well as Annis did what Lynda was up to. Only Bella was a lot better at heading off her mother’s matchmaking tactics.

‘Leave it out, Mother. The girl works. She’s had a hard day. Let her get her breath before Prince Charming parachutes in.’

Annoyance tightened Lynda’s pretty mouth for a moment.

‘I thought you were going to have a word with the cook.’

Bella was impervious. ‘I did. The guys will tell you when she’s ready to serve dinner.’

Lynda gave up. There were more guests arriving and she knew she would not part the girls until they had caught up on each other’s news. ‘We’ll have a good talk later,’ she told Annis. Leaving, she added, belatedly conscientious, ‘You’re looking wonderful, darling.’

Both Isabella and Annis stared after her, speechless.

‘Why does she always sound surprised when she says that?’ said Annis eventually.

Bella giggled. ‘Because she didn’t stand over you and choose every single thing you’ve got on,’ she said. ‘She does it to me too.’

Annis’s eyebrows flew up. She had her father’s eyebrows, heavy and expressive. Like her height and her aquiline nose they were less than feminine, but Annis had learned to use them to good advantage to make her point. As she did now.

Bella snorted with laughter. ‘When Mother saw me tonight, she said didn’t I think I would get cold in this?’

And she gave an illustrative twirl. Across the room Konstantin was arrested. Not, thought Annis, by a tall brunette still wearing her business suit, no matter how much Alessandra van Herzberg silk scarf she had draped across it. It did not augur well for Lynda’s cosy schemes. Good.

‘And will you?’

‘In here? Darling.’ Bella rolled her eyes naughtily. ‘Quite apart from the central heating and the fire, can’t you feel all that hot breath in the air?’

Konstantin had stopped even pretending to listen to the florid man.

‘Oh I can,’ Annis agreed dryly.

‘Anyway, I’m not sure but I think I may—I just may—be getting my love to keep me warm.’

He was measuring the distance between them. He was, Annis thought, going to come over. She was aware of a little flutter under the breastbone. She knew exactly what it was: the plain girl bracing herself for yet another encounter with a man who was going to look straight through her.

Well, that was all right, wasn’t it? She hadn’t liked it when he did not look straight through her, propping himself against the wall and laughing at her. No, of course she hadn’t liked it, Annis answered herself. That didn’t mean that she wanted to be reminded that no man would see her beside beautiful Bella.

With an effort she brought her attention back to her stepsister.

‘Lucky you,’ she said sincerely.

‘Well, it’s early days, but—’ And Bella crossed her fingers for luck.

‘You’ll be fine.’

And she would. Bella skipped from love affair to love affair, delightful, delighted and ultimately uninvolved. Annis, who took a long time to get into a love affair and even longer to get out, could only admire her. Bella launched into each one with total passion. Then, when the passion ran out, she detached herself with skill and kindness and, as far as Annis could see, no injuries at all, not even to the male ego.

But for once Bella was less than confident. ‘I hope so.’ She sucked her teeth, unusually grave. ‘This one makes me jumpy.’

Annis stared. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’

‘I know. Oh, well, life is full of new experiences.’ Bella dismissed her uneasiness with a shrug. ‘Tell about you. Who is the man of the moment?’

‘Would I be here without protection if there was a man of the moment?’ Annis said dryly.

Against her will her eyes drifted towards Konstantin Vitale. The Look very much in evidence, he was assessing Bella with appreciation, as if she were a new car or some other toy for boys. It made Annis want to hit him.

Unaware, Bella said, ‘You know if you got a feller for yourself Mother would lay off.’

Annis flung up a hand.

‘OK. OK. You haven’t got time for anything but the business. I believe you even if Mother doesn’t.’ Bella looked round. ‘Who is her candidate for tonight, anyway?’

‘I’m not certain,’ said Annis evasively. She had no idea why she did not tell Bella the truth. Except that Konstantin Vitale was now staring unashamedly and Annis somehow did not want Bella to notice. ‘Whoever I’m sitting next to at dinner, I suppose.’

Suddenly very like her mother, Bella looked naughty. ‘Do you want me to distract him?’

Not the way he is looking at you now.

‘I think I can handle it, thanks.’

‘Well, you’ve had plenty of practice.’

Annis managed not to wince. Bella would not have understood. She knew that her mother’s matchmaking annoyed Annis. She had no idea that it was really hurtful.

Annis was saved from her unhappy reflections by the announcement that dinner was served.

‘Here we go,’ said Bella under her breath. ‘Don’t bite his head off, whoever he is.’

The dining room was a picture. The table had been extended to its entire length and covered with a starched and snowy cloth. Around the walls Lynda had filled every alcove and corner table with golden autumn flowers. Polished wood, crystal goblets, gold leaf and silver gleamed in the candlelight.

There were place cards but Lynda stood at the head of the table, skillfully breaking up conversations and directing people to their seats anyway. She waved Bella down the table to sit between two grey-haired men currently deep in debate. It underlined the point that Lynda did not need to do any matchmaking for Bella.

Annis looked down the table. Her heart sank. Yes, there he was. One or two of the men at this evening’s party were positively devastating but there was only one lion in the jungle tonight and she had already met him.

He was standing behind a chair next to an empty place. The confidence blazed out of him. Oh, yes, he was much more than a peacock. The sheer physical vitality of the man was almost shocking. Annis felt her mouth dry, unexpectedly.

As if he felt her looking at him, he glanced up. Their eyes met. His were coldly amused. While she—

Annis drew a sharp breath.

From a distance he looked even tougher than he had close up. Tough and sexy by anyone’s standards, let alone those of a quiet twenty-nine-year-old with more expertise in business than men. And, of course, that was the place that Lynda waved her into.

‘We meet again.’

‘Yes,’ said Annis gloomily. Her heart was pattering irregularly and she had the unpleasant feeling that her head was about to detach from her body.

She turned to look at her other neighbour. He was a tall blond hunk she had seen holding three wide-eyed women enthralled by his conversation before dinner. His hair gleamed as gold as the border on Lynda’s best porcelain.

‘Hello,’ he said, smiling broadly as if she should know him already.

‘I’m Annis—’

‘Hi, Annis, great to meet you,’ he said before his attention was claimed jealously by one of the admiring ladies who still gathered about him. In fact they stubbornly resisted Lynda’s increasingly imperious hand signals to take their own seats.

‘Great,’ muttered Annis.

She squinted at his name card but it was turned at just the wrong angle. Had she met him before? He did seem faintly familiar, now she came to think about it.

Her mind scampered. Son of one of her father’s friends? Employee of Carew’s? Former acquaintance from children’s parties? Sailing club?

In her ear, a dry voice said, ‘Alexander de Witt. He was on the radio on Wednesday, television yesterday and will be all over the Sunday newspapers this weekend. You must be the only person in the room who doesn’t recognise him.’

Annis jumped and turned. She met The Look full on. It had an intensity that made her blink. For a moment, everything went out of her head except how extraordinarily close the man was. How easy it would be to touch his face…to lean forward and bury her face in that brocade jacket…even kiss. Or be kissed.

That shook her. She said, more sharply than she intended, ‘I haven’t got time to listen to chat programmes.’

Konstantin Vitale surveyed her. For a moment Annis had a horrible feeling that he could read her mind. She set her teeth and tried to wipe out all treacherous thoughts of warm bodies and mouths too close. She braced herself.

But then he nodded, as if she had said exactly what he had expected her to say. Not a mind reader, then. Well, not this time. Her breath came out in a whoosh of relief.

‘How long have you been a workaholic, Annis Carew?’

She glanced briefly at her father, at the head of the table. He was looking restless. Wives sitting next to him, rather than businesswomen, deduced Annis fondly.

‘It’s in the genes,’ she said.

Konstantin Vitale followed her eyes.

‘Ah, yes, of course. The phenomenal Tony Carew.’

There was something in his voice that made Annis uneasy. According to Lynda, it was her father who had insisted on inviting him, after all.

‘Don’t you like him?’ she demanded.

‘We have our disagreements.’

Not many people disagreed with her father and stayed on his payroll.

‘What about?’ asked Annis, intrigued enough to forget her uneasiness.

‘Lots of things. Buildings. My timekeeping. Rights and obligations of ownership.’

‘Good grief.’ She looked at him with genuine respect. ‘You’ve been lecturing my father on his obligations?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t believe in ownership.’

‘Don’t believe—’ Annis choked. Tony Carew was a master capitalist with very pronounced views on what was his.

‘The moment you own something you want to put it in a box and stop anyone else enjoying it. That’s a miserable way of living.’

Annis swallowed. ‘And you’ve told my father as much?’

He laughed suddenly. ‘Sure. He wasn’t very receptive. But I said to him, “Look, there are some things you may be able to lock up and keep for yourself but major buildings aren’t among them. Too many people use them. Too many people see them, for God’s sake.’”

Annis gave a choke of startled amusement. ‘He must have had apoplexy.’

That gave him pause. ‘You are very—frank,’ he said slowly.

‘I’m my father’s daughter.’

Their eyes met. For a moment his were not unreadable. She had disconcerted him, thought Annis. And he did not like it.

Yes, she thought exultantly.

And then the mask was in place again and he was laughing gently.

‘You are indeed. Well, you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t have the Carew—er—frankness.’

‘You mean rudeness,’ said Annis, interpreting without difficulty.

‘You both certainly make yourselves understood.’

‘Do we?’

‘Clear as crystal,’ he said dryly, as if he could read her like a book.

It was an unsettling thought. And she was even more unsettled when he said in quite a different voice, ‘Though you’re more of chameleon than your dad.’

‘What?’

‘I like the transformation. Turquoise suits you.’

He did not actually touch her breast where the evening-sky silk was draped. But Annis recoiled as if he had put his hands on her. The green eyes lifted, intrigued. She saw the sudden speculation there and could have kicked herself.

To hide it, she said, ‘Don’t be deceived. The plumes are borrowed.’

‘I wasn’t deceived,’ he said softly.

Damn!

She said hastily, ‘What exactly do you do for my father? I know you work for him but are you on the payroll of Carew Electronics?’

‘In a way.’

‘That means you don’t want to tell me,’ Annis said wisely. ‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘Business confidentiality,’ he said vaguely.

Annis smiled. ‘My father is in the process of poaching you,’ she deduced.

‘No. I’m my own boss. And going to stay that way. Though I guess Carew does a lot of poaching where he can.’

‘Doesn’t every businessman?’

He looked at her curiously. ‘You tell me. Isn’t that the sort of thing you advise on? Where to poach key staff?’

Annis laughed. ‘If you don’t already know that, then your business is way beyond the help of a management consultant.’

She thought he would laugh. But he did not. Instead there was an unnerving silence while he watched her.

At last he said slowly, ‘You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’

Annis tensed. She could feel the frown coming and fought it. ‘Am I supposed to apologise for that?’

‘No. No of course not. It’s just—’

But Lynda had got everyone seated at last and the waiter was beginning to take the first course round the table. Annis helped herself to cheese soufflé and Konstantin Vitale’s attention was claimed by the woman on his other side. Annis felt reprieved. By contrast, the massive but uncomplicated ego of Alex de Witt was a piece of cake.

‘So who’s here, then?’ he said, smiling across the table at one of his admirers.

Annis hid her amusement. ‘The usual mix. Carew Electronics. My stepmother’s charity committees. A couple of neighbours.’

Alex de Witt was not very interested in neighbours.

‘Have you seen Totality yet?’

And then she slotted him into place. He was starring in a new play which had hit the headlines. She almost snapped her fingers as she realised.

‘No, I haven’t managed to get there yet but it’s on my list.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Come to think of it, why aren’t you on stage tonight?’

He beamed. ‘We’re transferring to the West End. Opening next Thursday. Provided the director can get his act together, of course.’

Annis recognised a cue when she heard it. She took it effortlessly.

‘Do you have to rehearse all over again when you transfer from one theatre to another?’

The actor’s monologue carried them through the first course, second helpings, the removal of plates, a change of wine and the appearance of new china for the second course. Waiters arrived with large serving dishes of boeuf en croûte and Annis sighed. She had been well brought up. She knew you talked to the neighbour on your right for the first course, left for the second. Her respite was over.

Mentally girding herself, she turned back to Konstantin Vitale and pinned on a social smile.

‘Have you been in London long?’

He did not answer that directly. ‘Very smooth.’

Annis could feel her social smile stiffening. ‘What?’

‘Only it won’t work, you know.’

Annis’s smile felt like a rictus on her stiff mouth. ‘What do you mean?’ she said in a voice that was not social at all.

‘If we’re going to talk at all, tell me something I don’t know. Like what your sort of management consultant does. And what turned you into a workaholic. Don’t bother asking me pretty questions about myself because I don’t play that game. It bores me.’

Her skeleton smile disintegrated abruptly.

‘Well, we mustn’t have that, must we?’ said Annis furiously.

‘I’ll trade. One secret—that’s all, just one—for everything you want to know about me.’

‘I don’t want to know a thing—’ Annis began with heat, until she saw the mocking glint in his eyes. Oh, how quickly she had risen to his baiting! She drew a long, careful breath and said, ‘Anyway, I don’t have secrets.’

She did not sound encouraging. She did not mean to. Konstantin Vitale’s eyes narrowed appreciatively.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘What?’

‘Mystery lady,’ he said, so softly that only she could hear.

‘I am not a mystery,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And if you are trying to flirt with me, you can just stop right now.’

He did not say anything, waiting.

‘I don’t play that game,’ she quoted back at him, goaded.

He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging a hit. Annis nodded coolly, half in triumph, half in simple relief.

Kosta Vitale looked at his companion thoughtfully. He really had been drawn to her the moment he saw her across the room. More than that, he had felt a shock. It was as if he had been waiting for her, or as if she was someone he’d recognised from a long distant, idyllic past. In fact, he had looked twice to make sure that he did not know her. But he knew he had never met Tony Carew’s daughter.

And then, as soon as Tony had introduced them, Kosta had known this was going to be a whole new experience.

Annis Carew was not the sort of woman who usually attracted him. For one thing, from that first handshake, she had turned him into an opponent. For another, though she duelled well, she seemed to wince away from ripostes that she had asked for. He did not like women like that. They handed it out, but any man they went to war with was expected to pull his punches. Maybe it came from being a millionaire’s daughter.

And yet…And yet…Her eyes were full of mysteries. Kosta was shocked to find how much he wanted to explore those mysteries. But he did. Through and through. From the height to their depths.

I’ll have to be careful with this, thought Kosta, shaken.

‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘No secrets,’ adding silently, Yet. ‘Tell me about your career. Unless that’s on the classified list too.’

She bit back a nasty remark and said with icy civility, ‘I trained as a management consultant with Baker Consulting. I set up a partnership with a colleague six months ago.’

‘That’s why you’re a workaholic?’

Suddenly she smiled with real amusement. It turned her eyes gold, like the lamplight. Kosta watched, fascinated.

‘No, I’ve always been a workaholic.’ She drew a deep breath and the gold died out of her eyes. ‘Now can we talk about something that interests me?’

Raise your foil, Kosta, off we go in the next bout, he thought dryly.

But there was something he wanted to know first. No, not wanted. Needed to know.

‘So who is this partner? The reason you don’t date?’

Annis put a lid on her annoyance and registered a private resolution to rock the damned man off his complacent axis if it was the last thing she did.

In pursuit of this end, she sat back in her chair and sighed elaborately.

‘I don’t date because I don’t want to,’ she drawled. ‘To use your own words, it bores me.’

It was not true. But Annis was in too much of a temper to remember that. Especially as she seemed to score a hit. Not the bull’s-eye maybe. But a definite hit. The steady green eyes even blinked for a second.

‘Dating bores you?’

He sounded outraged, thought Annis, pleased.

‘I’m not keen on competitive games,’ she explained sweetly.

‘Competitive?’ He sounded disbelieving. ‘You must have dated some real oddballs.’

She flinched. He’s telling me I’m so weird no normal man would take me out. It hurt. Of course, she knew it wouldn’t have hurt if it had not been exactly what she was already afraid of. Annis felt her temper fly straight through the top of her head.

But she was too used to controlling her feelings to allow it to show. ‘No, no. Standard issue,’ she assured him affably.

His eyes flickered. ‘They have my sympathy.’

Annis flinched inwardly. That’s what comes of mixing it with the sexiest man in the room, she told herself, rejecting the hurt. You started it. So have your fun. Just expect to pay for it.

The woman on his other side said something. He inclined his head courteously for a moment, not taking his eyes off Annis. A smile began to lift one corner of his mouth. Not a nice smile.

‘I don’t think Ms Carew would agree with you. She’s just told me she doesn’t date. I don’t imagine she flirts, either.’ He leaned back so the two women could talk to each other.

That, thought Annis, was not playing fair. Theirs was supposed to be a private battle. He knew it as well as she did. But she set her teeth and prepared to meet him on this new ground. ‘Flirt?’ she echoed, smiling. ‘Me? Why not?’

‘You were the one who just told me to stop,’ he reminded her, enjoying himself.

Her eyes glittered.

Before she could retaliate, however, Kosta was addressing the subject to the table at large. ‘And I’m sure you’re right. Flirting,’ he announced ‘takes Mediterranean flair. The English don’t trust flirting any more than they trust garlic. Quite apart from the individual temperament.’

He glanced down at Annis quizzically.

He’s mocking me. He wants everyone else to join in, she thought. Her heart twisted. She concentrated on her anger.

The other woman frowned him down. Annis had met her before. She was on one of Lynda’s charity committees, a media personality. Now she was looking apologetic.

‘I was just saying to Kosta that flirting is one of the great lost skills.’

Konstantin Vitale smiled straight into Annis’s indignant eyes. ‘And I told Sally that you wouldn’t agree.’

Annis widened her eyes at him. ‘Oh? Why? It seems pretty lost to me. No sign this evening that either you or I know how to flirt, is there?’

Sally drew in a startled breath. Konstantin Vitale ignored her. He sat bolt upright and stopped smiling.

‘And no sign that you regret it for a moment,’ he told Annis crisply. ‘Like I said, no temperament for it.’

Sally murmured. ‘Fifteen-all.’

Annis was hotly indignant. It felt great. ‘You can’t expect someone to flirt with you if you make her account for herself as if you’re interviewing her for a job.’

Sally gave a soft laugh. ‘Ta-da. She’s got you there, Kosta.’

‘What else is a man to ask her about when the first thing she tells him is that she lives for her work?’

‘Thirty-all.’ Sally was enjoying herself hugely.

‘And when she tells him she’s at the party to network.’

‘Thirty-forty.’

Annis stared up at him. His eyes were curiously intent. She found she could not think of one thing to say.

‘And that dating bores her.’

‘Game, set and match,’ crowed Sally.

He did not take his eyes off Annis. ‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Not yet.’

And smiled.

Annis felt as if all her clothes had fallen off.

She did something she had not done since she was a child. She pushed her chair back with a harsh scraping noise and scrambled to her feet. ‘Excuse me.’

She fled.