For a moment Cassie heard nothing but a dull roaring sound, and then she was suddenly light-headed. She was going to faint.No.He moved towards her as if sensing her shock. She put up a hand between them, as the full enormity of what this meant rushed through her brain and body with a million and one ramifications hitting her all at once.
He said, ‘I’m not from the press or anything like that. I’m a friend of your brother’s. He sent me to track you down because he was worried about you.’
Cassie felt a flash of anger at her brother for interfering when she didn’t need him and for not being around when she did need him. She knew there was no point denying who she was. ‘I’ve taken some time off. He doesn’t need to be worried. I told him I was OK.’
‘But not where you were. If he’d seen what I saw earlier he would have had reason to be worried.’ Admonishing her when a moment ago she’d been all but climbing him like a tree and orgasming into his cupped hand.
Cassie felt her blood start to boil, eclipsing the shock. This man had known who she was and hadn’t been fully honest with her.
‘For your information, Mr Ares Whatever Your Second Name Is, I’m skilled in self-defence, I’ve been taking classes since I was small so I would have been absolutelyfine.’
‘Not if you’d been unconscious due to a drug in the drink. And my second name is Drakos, Ares Drakos.’
It suited him, she thought a little churlishly, curt and abrupt like him. ‘I wasn’t going to take the drink. I didn’t trust them.’
‘You trusted me.’
Cassie folded her arms at the humiliating reminder and it struck her then that perhaps, somewhere deep down, she’d suspected that he wasn’t just some gorgeous man who’d appeared as her guardian angel. Ha! Guardian devil.
The sense of exposure was compounded now by feeling acutely self-conscious. She’d allowed herself to believe him to be a total stranger who had been overcome with lust for her. She’d revealed herself to him in ways she’d never done with anyone else. He’d brought her to orgasm. In public.
Mortification and the heat of shame crawled upwards through her body. ‘You should have told me you knew who I was.’
‘Yes,’ he said immediately, ‘I should have. It was a lapse of judgement.’
Cassie was a little taken aback by his straightforward admission of guilt. She frowned, thinking of something belatedly. ‘Why did my brother call you?’
‘I own a private security company. I will stay with you until your bodyguards have you under their protection again.’
Cassie shook her head and started to back away. ‘No, you won’t. We’re done here, Mr Drakos. You found me and you had your fun at my expense.’
She looked around, feeling panicky. She needed to get away from this man and those dark eyes and that unsmiling face. And that mouth and those hands that had played her like an instrument for his amusement.
She saw a line of taxis about a hundred feet away and she walked quickly towards them. From behind her she heard, ‘Princess Cassandra, wait.’
But she didn’t turn around, she jumped into the back of the first taxi and, with her heart hammering and her insides tight with humiliation and embarrassment, she gave the address of her hotel.
She looked out of the window as the taxi turned to go in the right direction. He was standing there, a tall, powerful figure. And everything they’d just shared was tainted. He knew who and where she was now, her peace was shattered. In more ways than one.
She never wanted to see that man again.
Chapter Four
CASSIE HAD SENTher brother a text when she’d returned to her hotel last night.
Caius, I’m fine, please let me have this time to myself. You had your years of freedom. In a matter of weeks, I’ll no longer have this luxury. I love you. x Cass.
Cassie hadn’t received a response from Caius. But she knew that didn’t mean much. He knew where she was now. He’d sent hisfriendafter her. His friend, who when she’d looked him up online last night had suddenly appeared in numerous photos with her brother, coming out of various bars and clubs going back a few years.
It didn’t look as if he’d been any happier in those moments, a stern, or even scowling, counterpoint to Caius’s playboy-prince mischievous grin. Cassie had generally avoided looking at her brother’s exploits online, naturally enough.
But if she had, then Ares Drakos might have been familiar to her last night. Because clearly he’d enjoyed playing the playboy along with her brother and apart from pictures of him with Caius there had been plenty of him at glittering functions with a stunning woman on his arm. A different one every time. Blonde, brunette, redhead. He didn’t seem to have a type. Maybe he was just the kind of guy who would hook up at any opportunity. With any willing woman.
Like last night. Cassie had to push down the resurgence of humiliation that had kept her awake with heartburn all night.
Ares Drakos was from one of Greece’s biggest shipping dynasties and yet he’d broken relations with his family when he’d graduated high school, at the age of seventeen. He’d turned his back on his inheritance and the family business to go his own way.
He’d served with the Greek army before going into the special forces for a few years, but those details were hazy. There were several online rumours that he’d been involved in some of the most high-profile security engagements in the world, including several political prisoner swaps.
