The Balfour Legacy. Кэрол Мортимер

you to be ready to leave. You will need a dress—something formal.’

      ‘Formal,’ Mia repeated, stunned by the way he had just discarded her plans. ‘H-how formal?’

      ‘Bella-at-her-red-carpet-best formal,’ he delivered dryly, referring to her wildly beautiful and glamorous supermodel half-sister. ‘Do you have something like that to wear?’ he then thought to ask.

      Dragging herself to the edge of the bed and standing, Mia sent her mind’s eye sweeping down the packed dress rail in the other bedroom. ‘Sí, I think so,’ she mumbled. ‘But—Nikos, I am not very good at these formal occasions,’ she threw in anxiously. ‘I don’t think—’

      ‘This is at Oscar’s command, not mine,’ he informed her with the cool thrust of a murderer plunging a knife into her chest. ‘He wants you there to represent the family because no one else is available to attend. Do you want to call and tell him you’re not up to taking on the responsibility—?’

      Dio. ‘No,’ Mia surrendered heavily. ‘I will come.’

      ‘Good,’ he approved. ‘Pack an overnight bag because we will be staying. See you at one o’clock.’

      He cut the connection before she could find the necessary brain cells to ask any questions. Sinking heavily back onto the bed, her fuzzy brain listed: Hampshire, a formal evening dress, an overnight bag. Be ready to go by one o’clock…

      Then she was suddenly lurching into panic mode and using her mobile phone to ring her half-sister Sophie.

      ‘What is happening this evening in Hampshire?’ she wrung out urgently.

      ‘Hampshire?’ Sophie Balfour repeated. ‘Oh, my…’

      ‘What does this oh my mean?’ Mia demanded, already feeling the chill of alarm skate down her spine.

      ‘Is Nikos taking you there?’

       ‘Sí.’

      ‘Then take a brave pill before you go, sweetie,’ her half-sister advised her. ‘If you thought attending the Balfour Charity Ball was major-nervous-breakdown stuff, then you’re in for a shock because Hampshire is huge.’

      ‘Huge…’ Mia whispered, grappling with the complicated idiosyncrasies of the English language when spoken with sarcasm like this. ‘You will have to explain this huge to me too,’ she begged.

      ‘Ever heard of the D’Lassio brothers?’

      ‘No.’ Mia frowned. ‘Should I have heard of them?’

      ‘What kind of Italian are you that you’ve never heard of the two sexiest Italian tycoons out there?’ Sophie sounded shocked. ‘Santino D’Lassio is married to the absolutely gorgeous Nina Francis and works out of London. Alessandro D’Lassio is so single it’s mind-boggling and works out of Milan. Each year they stage a cross-continent charity event to top all charity events. One takes place on their fabulous country estate in Hampshire, the other at their magnificent ancestry pile situated on the banks of Lake Como. The two events will be linked by satellite. Television stations and the paparazzi will be out in force. Pop stars, royalty, the megarich and the superfamous will be attending—you’re going to love it like a bullet in the head,’ Sophie predicted. ‘And I bet Lois Mansell is pretty miffed that Nikos is taking you instead of her,’ Sophie said.

      As if someone had thrust an icy rod down her backbone, Mia tensed up. ‘Who—who is Lois Mansell?’

      ‘Check out this morning’s paper,’ her half-sister advised. ‘She’s the fabulous blonde captured wrapped around Nikos as they left a nightclub together last night.’

      At one o’clock to the absolute second, Mia presented herself in the top-floor oval lobby with her weekend bag as per instructions, and the dress she had decided to wear this evening draped over her arm in a cream silk dress bag. She was wearing faded designer denims, a thigh-hugging black Vive La Rock T-shirt and fiercely high black designer shoes. She’d confined her hair loosely to her nape with a big shiny black clip and her make-up was light.

      For casual, cool and in strict control of her emotions were the absolute keys to her standing here at all. Indeed she’d been a breath away from using the flu bug excuse right up until the moment she’d stepped out of her apartment door.

      His apartment door opened and her heart gave a single heavy little thump as Nikos stepped out. He was dressed more casually than she’d ever seen him, in pale chinos and a dove-grey V-neck sweater worn over a pale blue-and-grey-checked shirt. Big, lean, dark and classy, Mia listed, and had to bite back a bitter grimace when her head gave her another image of him, dressed in a black dinner suit leaving a famous nightclub with a leggy blonde clinging like a blood-sucking limpet to his side.

      Their eyes met for a second. Her throat felt so thick Mia found she needed to swallow but wouldn’t allow herself the relief. Their murmured greetings crossed over each other. She was the one to break the eye contact, lowering her eyelashes and feeling like the ice woman inside.

      ‘Here, let me take your bag…’

      As he stooped to lift her canvas holdall from where it sat at her feet, Mia found herself staring at the top of his head where the black silky thickness of his hair was glossed by the hint of curls.

      Curls Lois Mansell had no doubt enjoyed running her long limpet fingers through last night, Mia tormented herself with the image she’d evoked.

      ‘Do you want me to take your dress bag…?’

      ‘No—thank you,’ she managed politely.

      The lift arrived and, determined to maintain a professional detachment if it killed her to do it, Mia walked into it, then stood with her chin tilted down so she did not have to look at him as they travelled to the ground floor.

      The tabloid newspaper which printed the photograph had headlined it with:

      Is this the new blonde Greek billionaire Nikos Theakis has chosen to replace Lucy Clayton?

      As for the rest of the article, which highlighted his penchant for leggy blondes and his low attention threshold, it had said it all as far as Mia was concerned. She’d finally acknowledged that it was time for her to learn to get over him, and if that meant not looking at him, then she was not going to look at him.

      ‘Something wrong?’ his deep voice drawled.

      ‘Nothing,’ she responded.

      ‘If you’re worrying about tonight, then—’

      ‘I am not worrying about anything.’ She walked out of the lift before he could say anything else.

      It was only as he forged ahead of her to open the door that she noticed he carried no weekend bag for himself. Presuming he must have already put it in his car, Mia walked past him and out into the bright sunlight…only to go still when she saw a brand-new shiny red sports car—that only a total hermit would not recognise for what it was—waiting in the place of his silver Mattea.

      Her icy cool started to falter. ‘Y-you’ve changed your car.’

      ‘I prefer not to put my passengers through mental torture,’ he relayed drily.

      As Mia walked up to the door he was holding open for her she caught a gleam in his eyes which told her he was waiting for her to make some kind of positive response because he had gone to this much trouble exclusively for her.

      When she said nothing, he grimaced. ‘You can thank me later,’ he murmured, ‘once you’ve recovered from your sulk because I spoiled your plans for today.’

      It took Mia a minute to grasp that he was referring to her plans to meet with Sophie. They’d planned to go shopping and take in a movie but Nikos had not given her a chance to tell him that during his phone call this morning. Opening her mouth to tell him, she snapped it shut again. Let him think what the heck he liked. What she did with her free time was none of his business—as