LITMIR.BIZ

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it. He’d have done it automatically, he knew. Any man would. This close, she was even more stunning. Her wide-set eyes were gazing at him, and her lips were parted as though she were slightly breathless. A light, heady scent of perfume wafted from her, just as enticing as she was …

      He stepped through into the lift, pressing the ground floor button. A moment later the doors had closed, shutting her from his field of vision. He felt the lift descend, and just for an instant he experienced a sense of regret.

      Regret that he was heading in the opposite direction from her.

      Or was it regret for something quite different? The thought flickered through his mind, as he stepped out of the lift and strode across the lobby to his car waiting at the kerb.

       Why does she have to be mixed up with Ian Randall …?

      The question, just like the image of her standing there so tantalisingly lovely, hovered like an unwelcome intruder. Ruthlessly he banished it, bestowing on his driver, holding open the passenger door of the sleek black saloon car, a brief nod and sliding himself into the leather seat, setting his laptop case down beside him. Such thoughts were pointless and irrelevant. The girl had to be removed from Ian’s orbit, and the threat she presented to his sister liquidated. As swiftly as possible. That was all.

      His mouth tightening, he extracted his laptop and resumed his work. He was a busy man—a very busy man. The multinational company he’d inherited from his father, which was one of the major plutocratic mercantile dynasties in Greece, allowed precious little time for R&R. Especially in the current economic climate.

      But for all that, he knew he would have to make adequate time to accomplish his mission to save his sister’s marriage—at least for the moment.

      For just a moment, no more, he felt that repeated flicker of doubt skitter across his mind. It was one thing to plan such a cold-blooded strategy when gazing at a photograph. Another to execute it.

      Impatiently, he banished his doubts. It had to be done, and that was that. Marisa Milburne would come to no harm by his seduction of her. She would have an enjoyable interlude in her life, as luxurious as the one Ian Randall was offering her, and she would be none the worse at the end of it. He had nothing at all to reproach himself with.

      Besides, playing around with men who were married was always a dangerous business. If she learnt nothing else from the experience she was about to have, that would be enough. She should never have let herself get as deep as she had with Ian—even if nothing had happened between them yet.

       I’ll be doing her a favour, getting her away from Ian—and in a way she can enjoy …

      And now that he had seen her in the flesh, knew that she was as lovely as her photo had told him, he knew he would too …

      Again burning onto his retinas came the image of the way she’d stood there by the elevator doors, a vision of fair-haired, feature-perfect beauty. For a moment longer he held the image in his mind’s eye, savouring it. Then, as the words of the document he’d loaded came up on the screen, he sliced it from his mind and got to work again.

      Marisa let herself into her flat, her mind a daze. It had taken only moments—sliding open the lift doors, stepping out—and there he’d been, instantly in her vision. Walking towards her.

      Or rather towards the lift. A swift, purposeful stride that went totally with the image forming itself in her consciousness. Making its impact felt instantly.

      Tall, dark and just jaw-droppingly handsome …

      But not in the way that Ian was handsome. Ian was fair-haired, like her, with light blue eyes, like her, and his features were boyish, with a smiling, inviting charm to them that had drawn her in immediately.

      This man striding towards her had been completely different. A head taller than Ian easily, and far more powerfully built. But lean, not broad, with long legs. And much darker skin. European, yes, but with a clear Mediterranean stamp that went with the sable hair.

      And the eyes.

      Oh, yes, the eyes …

      Dark as obsidian—not brilliant blue like Ian’s—and dark-browed. They had seemed, just for a moment, to be spearing her.

      Then he had spoken—only a few words—she’d felt the timbre resonate through her. Accented—she hadn’t been able to tell what accent—yet obviously fluent in English. Asking her to hold the lift for him. Nodding and saying a brief thanks to her as he passed by and stepped into the lift, the closing doors shutting him from her sight.

      It had taken moments—only moments—for the whole incident to play out, but now, standing inside her flat, she felt it replay in slow motion inside her head.

      She made her way into her bedroom, dropping her bag down on the bed, taking off her jacket and mechanically shaking it out and hanging it in the capacious closet. She still seemed to be in a daze.

       Who is he?

      The question formed in her head, wanting to be answered. There were only three apartments on her floor, and one was occupied by a sprightly elderly couple who seemed to use it only as a London pied-à-terre. She’d talked briefly to them once as they’d come in from a night out, nothing more than mild social chit-chat, and they’d given her, she’d been slightly amused to note, a swift once-over in assessment.

      They’d seemed reassured by her, when she’d made polite noises and said something about having come back from the theatre. The woman had disclosed that they had as well, which had led to a brief exchange over what each had seen and some anodyne views thereon. They’d seemed obviously well-heeled, and had spoken in the kind of accent that people of their background did, mentioning that they were mostly based in Hampshire, but came up to London regularly for theatre visits.

      The other flat on her floor was occupied by a Far Eastern gentleman whom she’d seen only once, and that had been over a fortnight ago. He’d bowed politely to her, she’d nodded her head in return, and that had been that. Since then she’d heard and seen nothing of him or anyone else.

      But the man she’d just seen now had clearly emerged from that flat.

      Visitor? Guest? New tenant? She had no idea.

      And it doesn’t matter anyway! she reprimanded herself, shaking out of her daze. People around here aren’t exactly gossiping over the fences. Everyone keeps themselves to themselves, and even if he is a new tenant that’s probably the only time you’re going to see him.

      Into her head, hard on the heels of the reprimand, came a lingering response.

       What a pity.

      Impatiently she sat down on the bed and tugged off her boots, exchanging them for a pair of pumps more suited to being indoors. Time to stop mooning over a tall, dark stranger she’d seen for all of ninety seconds—if that—and remind herself that she was here for Ian’s sake, not anything else. Ian was the sole focus of her life and she had better remember that. She had so little time with him as it was, and every stolen moment together was precious. Speaking of which …

      She checked the voicemail on the landline phone beside her bed. To her pleasure it was indicating a new message. She pressed ‘play’ eagerly, but as she listened to the message her face fell.

      ‘Marisa, I’m so, so sorry! I can’t make tonight. I’m really gutted. But a pile of work’s come my way—some deal that has to be signed off by ten tomorrow morning—and that means I’m going to have to burn the midnight oil, checking through everything. If all goes smoothly maybe—maybe—I can make lunch. I’ll text you late morning—’

      Ian’s voice cut out, and she stared disconsolately at the handset. She hadn’t seen Ian for three days, and she’d been so hoping that tonight would be on. She’d filled the three days as she filled all her days now—’doing’ London. But what had seemed an exciting prospect when she’d first moved into this fabulous apartment a month ago was, she

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