LITMIR.BIZ

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the hardest man she knew by some margin. For all his outward charm, which he could turn on when it suited him, Damon Gavros was rock through and through.

      He drew to a halt outside the restaurant. ‘Drink?’ he suggested as she removed her helmet.

      ‘I don’t think so, but thank you—it’s been an interesting evening.’

      ‘One drink,’ he insisted, getting off the bike.

      In spite of her reservations, she had to admit that it was a pleasant change to be this side of the tastefully lit bar. Stavros had peeped around the kitchen door and had then retired with a broad smile on his face. That in itself was worth the sacrifice of sitting with Damon. All the drinks were on the house, the barman insisted, but Damon still paid.

      ‘So,’ he said, glancing at her over his bottle of beer. ‘Tell me more about your stepmother, Cinderella.’

      ‘Less of that,’ she warned. ‘There’s nothing needy about me.’

      Damon’s lips pressed down, almost as if he agreed. ‘So…she sounds like a fascinating character?’ he pressed.

      ‘Luminous,’ Lizzie said dryly.

      She would credit her stepmother with one thing: she’d helped Lizzie to face reality fast. Before her stepmother had arrived on the scene Lizzie would have been the first to admit she’d been spoiled. She might have reached adulthood with no concept of responsibility if she hadn’t been thrown out of the house, had her faith in her father destroyed, her dreams crushed, and discovered she was pregnant—all in one and the same month. That would have been enough to wake the dead. And she certainly wasn’t spoiled now. Her life was devoted to Thea.

      ‘I don’t want to talk about me. It’s your turn,’ she said.

      ‘Maybe it’s time for me to go,’ Damon countered.

      ‘Please yourself.’ Burying her face in her glass of water, she sucked on the straw, refusing to say any more about a time when life had seemed to stretch ahead of her in an endless stream of promise—promise that had turned out to be fantasy.

      Her father had appeared to have money to burn when she was young. Now she knew it had been other people’s money he was burning—Gavros money, mostly. Nothing made him happier than lavishing money on his darling daughter, her father had told her as they’d planned one treat after another.

      He’d been showing off to her stepmother, she realised now; hoping to catch another big fish like Lizzie’s mother, the heiress. The joke of it was, the woman he’d chosen to bring home as his second wife had been a chancer like him, captivated by his apparent wealth.

      Thinking her father was lonely, Lizzie had welcomed her stepmother to begin with. She had wanted nothing more than to see her father happy again. It hadn’t taken long to find out how wrong she could be.

      ‘You told me that night that you loved to paint,’ Damon reminded her. ‘Another dream down?’ he suggested.

      ‘I don’t have time to dream now.’

      ‘That sounds dull.’

      So dull he stood up to go.

      ‘I’ll take you home,’ he offered.

      ‘No need,’ Lizzie insisted quickly. ‘Stavros arranges a cab for staff when we stay late.’

      Damon nodded his head. ‘Okay. Another time.’

      Or maybe not. She wasn’t sure she could live through this tension again. Wanting someone and knowing they were out of reach for ever was a torture she could well do without.

      ‘You must enjoy heading up the family business,’ she observed, for the sake of maintaining polite chit-chat as she walked him to the door. ‘The press refers to you as a billionaire—’

      ‘I hope I’m more than that.’

      She could have cut off her tongue. The way Damon was staring at her made her wonder if he thought she was a mercenary chip off her father’s swindling old block. There was a lot more to him than money and sexual charisma—she knew that—but everything was in such a muddle in her head she couldn’t get the words out straight.

      The newspapers often referred to Damon Gavros as ‘educated muscle’, with the recommendation that no one should even dream of crossing him—which was a great thought to say goodnight on.

      His phone rang and he turned away to answer, putting a hand up, indicating two minutes as they stood outside the door.

      ‘Business call,’ he explained succinctly when he cut the line. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you again sometime…’

      After all her prevaricating about seeing him at all, she now felt rocked to her foundations as Damon mounted the Harley and roared away. She had to see him again. She must. She stared after him as he disappeared into the night. That was Damon. A massive presence when he was around, and then gone so quickly it was as if he had never been there at all.

      She did well to rely on no one but herself, Lizzie thought as she turned back to the restaurant.

      But could there be a more mesmeric sight than Damon Gavros astride a Harley?

      Damon Gavros naked…?

       CHAPTER FOUR

      LIZZIE, LIZZIE, LIZZIE… What are you hiding?

      As he opened the door to his Thames-side penthouse flat Damon was still brooding. It had been shock enough to see Lizzie Montgomery again. To discover he could still read her as he had eleven years ago was even more unsettling—because he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him.

      He’d called in at the apartment to pick up his overnight bag. It was his father’s seventieth birthday in a couple of weeks and his PA had called to remind him that Damon’s go-ahead was still required for number of arrangements. They included a rather special youth orchestra from London that had been booked to play at his father’s birthday party.

      Too many loose ends had been generated by his absence abroad, Damon reflected as the driver took his bag. Lizzie had briefly derailed his plans, but they were back on track now. He’d like to see her again, but she’d have to fly out to the island. He’d fix it with Stavros, and his PA would make the arrangements.

      That was how simple things were for him. He saw no reason for them to change.

      As usual, Lizzie could hardly get a word in. She was meeting Thea for their daily snatched chat over brunch in a café just across the road from the music college, and today Thea was particularly excited.

      ‘The new Gavros building is right next door to the music conservatoire,’ Thea was enthusing. ‘You should see it. Everything’s been changed around and made super deluxe since that boring insurance company owned it.’

      And the Gavros building was as dangerously close to the music conservatoire as it could possibly be Lizzie realised as she called for the bill. She hated it that the tension generated by the Gavros name was threatening to distract her from this precious time with Thea, but she had to find out more.

      ‘You’ve been inside the Gavros building?’ Her heart hammered nineteen to the dozen as she waited for Thea’s answer.

      ‘Of course!’ Thea enthused, sucking gloopy milk from her fingers. ‘We had to audition for the man—’

      Lizzie’s heart dived into her throat. ‘What man? Was he tall and dark?’

      ‘No. Short, fat and bald,’ Thea said—to Lizzie’s relief. ‘He said he worked for the Gavros family. We’re playing at a birthday party in Greece, on an island owned by the Gavros family.’

      The

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