‘No! I don’t know the man, and I don’t want to.’
The fingers she’d dug into the upholstered arms of the chair eased a little, yet she couldn’t relax. ‘If you’re not a friend of his, then what’s your problem?’
‘The way you treated Dimi.’
‘Dimi?’ The man spoke in riddles.
If she thought him Lucifer-like earlier, the curling snarl of his lips made him positively demonic. ‘Dimitria Politis. Or wasn’t she important enough for you to remember her name?’
Understanding began to dawn. Rosamund sank back. ‘You know her?’
‘Yes, and I care when someone hurts her.’
For a split-second Rosamund felt envy for the young woman she’d met so briefly. She pushed it aside.
‘So youdoremember her,’ he said softly. ‘You just didn’t care that you hurt her to get what you wanted.’
‘You’ve got it wrong. Isavedher.’
Now his knotted brow showed confusion rather than anger. ‘That doesn’t make sense. You’d never met before that night. She told me.’
Rosamund remembered the young Greek woman, gentle and a little timid but excited to be at the glamorous party. She’d liked her. And seen something in the twenty-one-year-old that reminded her of herself, long ago.
‘No, I’d never seen her before, never heard of her. But…’ How did she explain her sudden, emotional reaction to what she’d discovered that night? Her visceral response and her impulsive decision to deal with it. ‘She was vulnerable. I wanted to protect her.’
Fotis regarded her with a stiletto-sharp scrutiny and definite disbelief. Rosamund held his stare.
Finally he said, ‘You’re implying you created a scandal to protect her? Why?’ He leaned forward and she felt the air thicken. ‘Why harm your reputation for a stranger?’
Rosamund reached for her glass and took a fortifying sip. It was tempting to explain. Shewantedto clear the air. Wanted him to think well of her. Wasn’tthatworrying?
But in revealing her reasons, she’d have to skirt hurts and mistakes she’d put behind her years before.
‘It’s personal.’ She paused, resisting the impulse to lick her suddenly dry lips. ‘I’d need to know you wouldn’t share what I have to say.’
‘I don’t betray confidences.’
If only it were that easy. ‘I’d feel more inclined to trust you if I knew something about you.’
‘What are you after?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Commercial secrets?’
Despite the thrumming tension, Rosamund couldn’t stifle her huff of laughter. ‘Hardly. But you’re an enigma. I don’t know anything about you. Just that Leon believes you can protect me. And that you’re judgemental, grumpy and rude.’ And powerfully, shockingly male. ‘I’m offering a quid pro quo. I’ll tell you if you satisfy my curiosity.’
His expression was unreadable. ‘What do you want to know?’
Even now he couldn’t just agree. He had to probe and assess before committing himself. She recognised the tactic. She did it too.
In her case it was a self-protective habit she learned over time. Was he the same?
Fotis watched her eyes turn bleak. Was anything about this woman simple? He’d thought he had her measure when they met, but with every hour he had more questions and less certainty.
Maybe there was a scintilla of truth in her story. Maybe the photos in New York that caused a sensation meant nothing to a woman with her reputation. From her teens she’d been a wild child, teetering just on the right side of respectability but ever ready to party to excess. She lived off the royal purse yet her only repayment was attending a few official functions when she occasionally deigned to live in Cardona.
‘How do you speak English so well? You sound like a native speaker, yet you’re Greek. You live in Greece, don’t you?’
Of all the things he’d imagined her asking, this wasn’t one. ‘I do. But I went to boarding school early. Most of my schooling was outside Greece.’
He waited, wondering what came next.
