CHAPTER TWO
A month later
ANGEL’S heart hammered painfully. She felt a cold sweat break out all over her body. For the second time in just weeks she was in the worst place in the world: the Parnassus villa. She felt sick when she remembered what had happened out on the terrace. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. She could not be thinking of that now. Of Leo Parnassus. Of how he’d made her feel just before she’d found out exactly who he was. Of how it had been so hard to forget him.
She opened her eyes again and tried to make out the rooms in the dim light. To her intense relief the place appeared to be empty, and she sent up silent thanks that for once the newspaper reports had been right. She’d read about Georgios Parnassus’ ailing health, and how he was taking a rest on a recently acquired Greek island. She felt the reassuring bulk of the document in the inside pocket of her jacket. This was why she was here. She was doing the right thing.
Ever since it had been announced in the press just a few days ago that Leo Parnassus was taking over the reins of the Parnassus shipping fleet, and leaving New York to come back to Athens permanently, Angel had grown more skittish and her father more and more bitter and vitriolic, seeing any chance of redeeming himself diminish. A young, vibrant head of the Parnassus Corporation was a much bigger threat than the ailing father had been, despite their success.
Angel had returned home from her new job yesterday to find her father cackling drunkenly over a thick document. He’d spotted her creeping through the hall and called her into the drawing room. Reluctantly she’d obeyed, knowing better than to annoy him.
He’d gestured to the document. ‘D’you know what this is?’
Angel had shaken her head. Of course she didn’t know.
‘This, dear daughter, is my ticket out of bankruptcy.’ He’d waved the sheaf of pages. ‘Do you realise what I’m holding here?’
Angel had shaken her head again, an awful sick feeling creeping up her spine.
Her father had slurred, ‘What I’m holding is the deepest, darkest secrets of the Parnassus family and their fate. Georgios Parnassus’ final will and testament. I now know everything. About all their assets, exactly how much they’re worth, and how he plans on distributing it all. I also know that his first wife killed herself. They must have hushed that up. Can you imagine what would happen if this was leaked to the right people? I can take them down with this.’
I can take them down with this. Nausea had risen from Angel’s gut to think that after all these years, and after what the Parnassus family had been through, her father still wanted to fuel the feud. He was so blinded by bitterness that he couldn’t see that doing something like this would make him and his family look even worse. Not to mention cause untold pain to the Parnassus family in revealing family secrets, if what he said about the suicide was true.
‘How did you get it?’
Her father had waved a dismissive hand. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
Familiar cold disgust had made Angel bite out, ‘You sent one of your goons to the villa to steal it.’
Her father’s face had grown mottled, confirming what she’d said, or at least the fact that he had stolen it. She’d no idea how he had actually done it, but some slavishly loyal men still surrounded her father.
Her father had become belligerent, clearly done with her. ‘What if I did? Now, get out of here. You make me sick every time I look at you and am reminded of your whore of a mother.’
Angel was so used to her father speaking to her like that she hadn’t even flinched. He’d always blamed her for the fact that her glamorous Irish mother had walked out on them when Angel had been just two years old. She’d left the room, then waited for a while and gone back. Sure enough her father had passed out in his chair, one hand clutching the thick document, the other clutching an empty bottle of whisky to his chest. He’d been snoring loudly. It had been easy to slide the sheaf of pages out from his loosened fingers and creep back out.
Early that morning she’d gone straight to work, taking the will with her, knowing that her father would still be passed out cold. And then, late that evening, she’d taken the journey up to the Parnassus villa, but had panicked momentarily when faced with a security guard and the enormity of what she had to do. She’d blurted out something about being at the function some weeks before and leaving something valuable behind.
To her intense relief, after the unsmiling guard had consulted with someone, she’d been let in. To her further relief, when she’d reached the kitchens, she’d found no one and had crept up through the silent house, praying that she’d find the study. She’d leave the papers in a drawer and slip away again.
She was not going to let her father create more bad feeling between the families. That was the last thing they needed, the last thing Delphi needed. Every day now Stavros was begging Delphi to elope, but she was standing strong and refusing, determined not to ruin Stavros’ prospects and be responsible for tearing his family apart.
The flaring up of their old feud with the most powerful family in Athens would make any prospect of marriage between them even more impossible. Angel heard her sister sobbing herself to sleep every night, and knew that a very real rift could break the young lovers apart for ever if something didn’t happen soon. On top of everything else, Delphi had important law exams to think about.
The enormity of it all threatened to swamp Angel for a moment.
She emerged into the huge reception hall and stood for a moment, trying to calm her nerves, to stop her mind from spiralling into despair. Her breath was coming fast and shallow. She felt a prickling across the back of her neck and chastised herself. There was no one there. Just get on with it!
Seeing a half-open door across the expanse of marbled floor, she held her breath and tiptoed across. Gingerly pushing the door open a little more fully, she breathed a sigh of relief once more when she saw that it was the study. Moonlight was the only illumination, and it cast the room in dark shadows.
Angel could make out a desk and went over, feeling for a drawer. Her fingers snagged a catch and she pulled it out, while reaching her hand into her pocket for the will at the same time. She’d just pulled it free and was about to place it into the drawer when the lights blazed on, with such suddenness and ferocity that Angel jumped back in fright.
Leonidas Parnassus stood in the doorway, arms folded, eyes so dark and forbidding that they effectively froze Angel from feeling anything but numb. And then he said quietly, but with ice dripping from his tone, ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Angel blinked in the intense light. She heard a roaring in her ears and had to fight against the very real need to faint. She couldn’t faint. But she couldn’t speak. Her brain and body were going into meltdown at being confronted with Leo Parnassus, standing just a few feet away, dressed in dark trousers and a plain light blue shirt, looking dark and intimidatingly gorgeous. Looking like the man who had invaded her dreams for the past seven weeks.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
With a few quick strides Leo had crossed the room, moving so fast and with such lethal grace that Angel just watched in disbelief when he effortlessly whipped the will out of her white-knuckle grip.
‘Well, Kassianides, let’s see what you came for.’
Angel watched dumbly as he unfolded the document. She heard his indrawn breath when he registered what it was.
He looked at her, his dark gaze like black ice. ‘My father’s will? You came here to steal my father’s will? Or just whatever you could get your dirty little hands on?’
Angel shook her head, registering that he’d called her Kassianides. It distracted her. ‘You … you know who I am?’
His jaw tightened. Angel saw the movement and felt a flutter in her belly. He threw the will down on the table and reached out, taking her arm in a punishing grip. Angel bit back a cry at his touch, more of shock than pain.
He unceremoniously hauled her from behind the desk and led her over to a chair in the corner. He all but thrust her into it.
‘I should have guessed after your last stunt that you obviously don’t have any qualms about trespassing where you’re not welcome.’
He didn’t answer her redundant question. Patently he now knew exactly who she was, and she realised that someone at the party must have told him after they’d seen him take her outside.
She knew it was probably futile, but she said it anyway. ‘If I’d known for a second where I would be working that night I wouldn’t have been here, I found out when it was too late.’
He all but sneered, towering over her now, arms crossed again over his broad chest. ‘Please, give me some credit. You might be able to distract other people with that seductively innocent face, but after what I’ve just seen I know that you’re rotten to your core. Your whole family are.’
Angel went to stand up on a fierce wave of anger. It was not fair to assume that she was like her ancestors, or her father, but before she could get a word out Leo had easily pushed her back down, not even using much force. Angel felt as weak as a rag doll, shaky all over. Once again the reality of his touch was more shocking than his action.
She clenched her fists and welcomed the rush of energy that anger brought. ‘You have it all wrong. I’m not here to steal anything. If you must know—’
Leo slashed a hand through the air, silencing her. Angel stopped abruptly. As much as she held no love for her father, she realised in that moment the futility of landing the blame at his door. Leo Parnassus would just laugh in her face. She’d quite literally been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and could blame no one but herself.
She watched as he paced back and forth, his hands on his hips. The fingers were long and lean, and a sprinkling of dark hair dusted the backs of his hands. Suddenly an image of him hauling himself out of the pool that evening in one sleek movement caused heat to explode low in her pelvis.
In a moment of blind panic, feeling intensely vulnerable, Angel sprang up again and stood behind the high-backed chair. As if that could offer protection! Leo stopped and turned around to face her, surveying her coolly.
Angel asked huskily, ‘What … what are you going to do? Are you going to call the police?’
He ignored her question and walked over to a sideboard, where he poured himself a measure of whisky. He downed the drink in one swallow, the strong bronzed column of his throat working, making Angel feel even more weak and trembly.
Leo’s eyes snared hers again, and she saw something flame in the dark depths, revealing golden lights.
‘Did your father send you here that night? Was it a recce for tonight? Or is this your own ingenuity?’
Angel’s hands clenched on the back of the chair; she could feel her ponytail coming loose. ‘I told you. The night of the party I had no idea where we were going. I worked for that catering company, they didn’t tell us until we were on the way for security reasons.’
He all but laughed out loud. ‘And once you and your father knew that Georgios was away, you took advantage of the opportunity. The only thing you didn’t factor in was my return.’
‘Th … there was nothing in the press.’
Leo glowered, and Angel quailed even more. Now she’d made it sound even worse. No way could she reveal that she’d been helplessly drawn to scanning the papers every day to read about his movements.
‘I came a week early, hoping to surprise a few people. We’re very aware—’ his mouth tightened ‘—more so now we’re in transition of power, that people will believe we’re an easy target to take over.’
Angel had a nauseating realisation. ‘You saw me arrive. The security guard checked with you …’
Leo indicated to Angel’s right-hand side, and she looked over to see an ante-room off the study, the door through which he had appeared. In it, she could clearly make out a glowing wall of cameras, showing flickering black and white images. CCTV cameras. One of which looked directly over the main gate. He’d watched nearly every step of her progress. She felt sick when she thought of how she’d crept through the house. Her naivety mocked her. Of course she’d never have got near this place if he hadn’t been here. She looked back.
Leo’s face was so harsh that Angel felt a jolt of pure fear go through her. This man was a million miles from the seductive stranger she’d met that night.
‘Your audacity is truly astonishing. Clearly you have the confidence born of your position in society, even if you don’t hold that position any longer.’
Angel could have laughed if she’d had the wherewithal. Tito might have been wealthy once, but he was a despot and had controlled all their lives with a tight fist. It hadn’t been audacity that had led her to that gate; it had been sheer fear and a desire to right a wrong.
‘I wasn’t coming to steal anything, I swear.’
Leo gestured back to the will sitting on the table and completely ignored her statement. ‘What were you hoping to glean from it?’ He laughed harshly. ‘That’s a stupid question. No doubt your father was hoping to use inside information on my father’s estate to undermine him in some way. Or were you going to use the information to do a bit of honey-trapping, maybe? You’d have enough information to try and winkle out some more? Take advantage of the kiss we shared that night?’
Angel flushed hotly when she thought of that kiss, and then remembered her father’s gloating talk last night. That was exactly how her father would think. Too late, she saw the hard, unforgiving look come into Leo’s eyes, his jaw tense. Clearly he was misinterpreting her misplaced guilt.
Once again she knew that it would be futile to tell the truth. Leo Parnassus would be more likely to believe in Santa Claus than in her innocence, especially when the circumstantial evidence was so damning. All she knew was that she needed to get out of there. She was feeling increasingly hot and bothered under his intense and concentrated regard.
Tentatively she came from around the chair. She reassured herself that he was an urbane man of the world. An American. She had to be able to appeal to some rational part of him.
‘Look. You have the will. I’m sorry for trespassing where I’m not welcome. I promise if you let me go that you’ll never see or hear from me again.’ Angel ignored the way her heart gave a funny little clench when she said that. She couldn’t even begin to contemplate her father’s reaction to what she’d done, and of course she couldn’t promise that he wouldn’t do something stupid again, but she kept her mouth shut.
Leo put down the glass silently on the table. Angel followed the movement warily. A strange charge came into the air between them and she found her eyes being helplessly drawn back to his. They were glowing with gold in their depths again, reminding her of how he’d looked at her just before he’d kissed her that night on the terrace. His eyes dropped then, insolently sweeping down her body, taking in her worn jeans, black top and jacket. Sneakers. And suddenly it was as if she was breaking out into little fires all over her skin.
Her heart started thumping. In a blind panic, to negate her reaction, she moved again, telling herself that he wouldn’t stop her if she just walked out. After all, it wasn’t as if she’d actually broken into the villa.
But just as she was about to pass him she felt her arm being gripped, and she was swung around so fast that she lost her balance and fell against him. All the breath seemed to leave her body.
In an instant he’d loosened her already unravelling hair, and it fell around her shoulders. His hand held her head, tilting her face up to him. His other arm was like a steel band around her back. Angel was afraid to move or breathe, because that would invite a contact that would scatter what remained of any coherent thought. As it was, she was barely clinging onto a shred of sanity.
‘Do you know that you’ve actually done me a favour, Kassianides?’
Angel winced inwardly at his use of her surname, hating the fact that it bothered her.
‘You’ve saved me a trip. Because I was going to confront you about why you’d come here that night. You couldn’t possibly have believed you’d get away with it, could you?’
It was a rhetorical question. Angel said nothing, too scared of the burgeoning feelings and sensations running through her body. When Leo spoke again his chest rumbled against hers.
‘I was also curious to know if perhaps I’d been too harsh in my first assessment as to why you’d been waitressing at our party. After all, just because you’re Tito’s daughter, perhaps it wasn’t entirely fair to assume the worst.’
Angel couldn’t believe it. She saw a glimmer of hope and started to nod her head. She opened her mouth, but he wasn’t giving her an opportunity to speak. His voice became harder and harsher.
‘But your actions here tonight have damned you completely. The minute you saw the opportunity you were back, and this time to steal something of real value that could be used in an effort to harm our family. That will has information about my own estate, so it’s not just my father you’ve committed a crime against, it’s me.’
Cold horror trickled through Angel. This was so much worse than she’d thought.
Leo continued, ‘It’s almost cute, how naive you were to think you could be so blatant. Do you really think if I hadn’t been here that it would have been so easy to get access to this villa?’
Angel’s fragile hopes died there and then. She tried to summon her strength and pull free, and regretted it immediately when it merely gave Leo more room to hold her even tighter against him. Her breasts were crushed against his chest. They were pressed together, torso to torso, hip to hip. His breath feathered near her mouth—when had his head moved so close?
She tried to pull back and his fingers tightened in her hair. She winced, even though he wasn’t really hurting her. His mocking smile sliced through her defences.
‘You can’t be so naive as to believe you’re getting away that easily, Kassianides, can you?’
Cold fear trickled through Angel. For a second she was distracted enough to ask, ‘What do you mean?’
‘There was another reason I was going to come for you.’
Angel shivered inwardly, he sounded so implacable. ‘There was?’
He nodded, his face so close now that she felt as if she was drowning in the dark golden depths of his eyes. Her hands were between them, resting on his chest, where they’d gone in an instinctive move to steady herself. She could feel his heart beating steadily underneath them and it made her want to move her hips. She stayed rigid.
‘You’ve kept me awake for weeks.’ He grimaced. ‘I tried to deny it, ignore it. But this desire wouldn’t abate. I’m not in the habit of denying myself anything, or anyone I want. As much as I despise myself for feeling this … I want you, Angel.’
Angel’s brain couldn’t compute the significance of what he was saying, and certainly couldn’t compute the tumult of emotions that had threatened to swamp her when he’d called her Angel. All those nights she’d woken sweating from torrid dreams … he’d been thinking of her too?
She tried to push back again, but Leo held her effortlessly. His head bent closer and Angel twisted hers away in desperation. He whispered near her ear with deadly silkiness, ‘You came here that night to humiliate my family, and you tried to humiliate me. And you came here tonight to steal from us. You won’t get away with it, Angel. You can’t expect to keep playing with fire and not get burnt.’
Angel turned her head back, seriously panicked now. She’d never stolen anything in her life! ‘But I wasn’t. I—’
But the rest of her words were silenced under the devastating crush of Leo’s mouth to hers. He was ruthless, he was angry, and he plundered and took until Angel felt weak tears smart at the back of her eyes and her hands were fists trying to beat ineffectually against his rock-hard chest.
A weak moan of pleading came from deep in her throat. Finally Leo pulled away, and she felt his chest moving against hers with his harsh breaths. It should have disgusted her, scared her, made her recoil when she saw the heated look in his eyes, but it didn’t.
It made her quiver deep down inside, somewhere very vulnerable. As if she’d been waiting for this. As if, despite everything, this somehow felt right. In that moment Leo’s hand gentled on her head, his fingers massaged her skull, and the movement weakened her further. She couldn’t cope with tenderness, gentleness. She felt a thumb move across her cheek, and only realised then that a tear must have crept out.
Leo smiled, but it was tight. ‘The tears are a nice touch, Angel, but unnecessary—along with trying to pretend that you don’t want me.’
He shifted slightly, so that Angel fell more into the cradle of his lap, and she gasped when she felt the hard evidence of his arousal against her belly. The shocking reality of it made moisture gather between her legs in a very earthy recognition of a mate. She couldn’t believe she was having this reaction, and yet from the moment she’d seen him emerge from the pool …
She was caught by his eyes as if hypnotised. Everything melted away: who she was and why she was there.
When Leo bent his head again, this time he wasn’t cruel and harsh. His touch was firm and seductive. His mouth settled over hers and caused a deep sigh to move through her.
With an expertise she dimly acknowledged Leo forced her mouth to open to him, touching his tongue to hers and causing a flash flood of liquid heat to her groin. Angel moved instinctively, barely aware of what she was doing, just sensing that she wanted … more.
Leo hauled her even closer, growling something in his throat as his mouth continued its dark magic on hers. Angel was vaguely aware that her hands had unfurled and had climbed up over those impossibly broad shoulders. She was now clinging to his neck, arching her body into his, fingers tangling in the surprisingly silky strands of his hair.
When Leo took his mouth from hers she gave a little mewl of despair. She opened heavy eyes to see him smile with sinful sexiness and her heart turned over. A lock of glossy black hair had fallen forward onto his forehead and Angel pushed it back with a trembling hand, barely aware of what she was doing, just following some deeply felt instinct.
Leo’s hand settled at the waist of her jeans, and after a heart-stopping moment snaked under her top. The feel of him touching her bare skin made her pulse rocket skywards. His hand crept higher and higher, to where she could feel her breast grow tight and heavy, until after an excruciatingly slow moment he cupped the soft mound and pulled the cup of her bra down.
Angel bit her lip. She was seriously out of her depth, and she felt as if a part of her was standing apart and watching with mounting horror as she let him touch her so freely. But she was caught in the grip of something so powerful she couldn’t move.
Leo moved his thumb back and forth over the tight puckered tip, and then with a brusque movement he thrust up her top to bare her breast to his gaze. To see him looking down at her breast made Angel feel faint with a rush of desire. And then, when he bent his head … Her mind was screaming at her to pull away … but she couldn’t. When he flicked out a tongue and then sucked that peak into the hot, swirling cavern of his mouth Angel’s head fell back. Her hands gripped his shoulders tightly.
She was fast being transported to a place of no return. The pleasure was so intense that she was afraid she’d burst. Leo brought a hand between her legs, forcing them apart to cup between her thighs, and she was lost completely. She’d never felt this out of control of her own body before.
He caressed her through her jeans, the material acting as a paltry barrier to his expert touch. He knew exactly where she ached, and all the while he suckled mercilessly on her breast. Angel cried out in desperation: for him to stop and for him never to stop. The sensation of her jeans and his hand moving remorselessly against her was excruciatingly exquisite.
Angel felt her body tensing. She’d lost any hope of regaining control by now. The world had ceased to exist. This was her reality.
With a husky whisper she entreated him, hardly knowing what she was looking for. ‘Leo …’
Everything went very still. But Angel hardly even noticed until, with sudden ruthlessness that almost bordered on cruelty, Leo stopped what he was doing and thrust her back from him with two hands on her shoulders.
For a long moment Angel stood in shock, breathing swiftly as the earth righted itself again. Her heart thumped painfully and a light sweat had broken out all over her body. He rearranged her top and bra so she was covered again, with an abruptness that made Angel wince. The material chafed against her still sensitive nipple.
She just couldn’t believe— Her thoughts ground to a halt when she realised her hands were glued to his chest, fingers curled and clinging to the material of his shirt. Hurriedly she dropped them as though burnt. Angel also realised then that her legs were incapable of holding her up, and she nearly collapsed in a humiliating heap at Leo’s feet before he cursed and picked her up, bringing her back over to the chair and sitting her down.
Angel let her hair fall around her face. She couldn’t find a word to articulate how awfully raw and exposed she felt. Leo had set out to humiliate her and it had taken a nanosecond before she’d turned into a groaning wanton in his arms. How he must be laughing at her. He’d accused her of stealing just seconds before he’d kissed her, and she’d all but lain down and given herself to him.
Her cheeks burned so hot they felt on fire. She could remember the way she’d said Leo, breathlessly, huskily, just as her whole body had been about to tip over the edge into an experience she’d never had, an experience that her jangling nerves craved to know even now. She’d thought she’d been in love with her boyfriend at college, and he hadn’t even managed— She gulped. Yet here, with someone who clearly despised her … Mortification twisted her insides into hard knots.
‘Angel—’
His voice was suddenly too close, and Angel jumped up in a reflexive surge of horrified anger at how she’d reacted. Too late she saw that Leo had been holding out a glass of what looked like brandy, and she could only watch dumbly as it was knocked out of his hand with the force of her jerky movement, spinning away to crash into the corner of the room, glass shattering, alcohol staining the parquet floor.
She looked at Leo in shock. ‘I’m so—’
He cut her off, his face all sharp angles and forbidding lines. Jaw tense. ‘You could have just refused, Angel. There was two of us involved in what happened just now, so don’t try the outraged virgin act.’
If only he knew! His words fell like tiny cuts all over her skin. Angel quivered with a rush of contradicting and mixed emotions. Right then she was glad the glass had smashed, and yet she also wanted to rush to clean it up. She wanted to smack Leo across the face, when she’d never hit a soul in her life, but she also wanted to throw herself into his arms and beg him to kiss her again. Her body still tingled and burned.
She made a monumental struggle and tipped up her chin. ‘I didn’t see the glass. I’m sorry.’
His eyes flashed in response. In a bid to put space between them Angel went on jelly legs to where the glass had smashed and started to pick up the bigger pieces. She heard something inarticulate behind her, and gasped as she was pulled up, a hand under her arm.
‘Leave it. I’ll get someone to look after it.’
They were very close again, and all of Angel’s recent humiliation rushed back. Something caught Leo’s eye and he looked down at her hands, saying harshly, ‘You’re bleeding.’
Angel looked down stupidly. She hadn’t felt a thing, but saw that her finger was bleeding from a nasty-looking gash. Leo expertly took the glass out of her hands and put it on the table behind them. Then, holding that hand carefully in his, he picked up the phone, dialled a number and bit out terse instructions in accentless Greek.
Angel would have been impressed if she’d been able to think clearly. All she could do was follow Leo when he led her from the room and up the main staircase, her hand held in front of him so she had to hurry to keep up with his much longer strides.
He brought her into a huge bathroom, switched on the light, and rummaged around for something in a cupboard. Angel could see that it was a first aid kit, and blustered, ‘Oh, no, don’t. Let me—’
‘Sit down and be quiet.’
Angel was forced to sit down on the closed toilet seat, and she watched incredulously as Leo knelt before her and inspected the cut. And then he brought her finger to his mouth and sucked it deeply.
Angel’s breath stopped. She tried to pull back, but he was too strong. Finally he let her finger go and said tersely, while inspecting it again, ‘I want to make sure there’s no glass in it. It’s a deep cut, but I don’t think you need stitches.’
Thoroughly bemused, and feeling as if reality as she knew it had morphed out of all existence, Angel watched as Leo expertly and gently cleaned the cut and placed a tight plaster around the top of her finger.
Then, just as perfunctorily, he led the way back downstairs, this time into a drawing room adjacent to the other side of the hall. She saw someone scurrying out of the study with a dustpan and brush. Leo let go of her hand and Angel scooted over beside a couch, sitting gingerly on the edge because she didn’t think she could stand.
Leo poured a measure of something dark and golden—like his eyes—into a glass and brought it over. His mouth was set in a grim line. Angel accepted it with both hands, while avoiding his eyes. She didn’t drink much alcohol at all, but right now she welcomed the prospect of its numbing quality.