Penniless and Purchased. Julia James

down the road. It drew her eye immediately. Low and lean and jet-black, with a world-famous logo on the elongated bonnet. But it wasn’t just the opentopped car that made her pause. It was the driver.

      She felt her lips part. Wow! If you wanted an image of Mr Cool, that was it! Hair as jet-black as his motor, one besuited arm crooked casually over the lowered driver’s window, hands curving around the steering wheel, white cuffs, a glimpse of a dark red silk tie, and a face—oh, gulp—a face that had a chiselled profile and—double gulp—dark glasses to die for…

      She just stared as he went by. Transfixed.

      Too transfixed to see his head shift, very slightly, to bring her into his line of sight in his rearview mirror, which caught her perfectly, standing, poised, long pale hair streaming, blue gypsy skirt wound about her long legs, her hand cupping almond blossoms, petals drifting down over her, caught in a pool of sunlight.

      The car seemed to slow a moment, then picked up speed again, turning the corner. With a little sigh, Sophie set off in the same direction. Five minutes later, she was outside their house, her eyes going to the gleaming back monster parked a couple of bays along. There was no sign of the driver.

      A new neighbour?

      She felt her insides give a little skip.

      But more likely he was just visiting someone.

      A woman, probably. Sophie’s imagination fired. She’d be dark and svelte, with figure-hugging clothes and a sultry voice. Instinctively she felt her hackles rise. She hated the entirely fictitious female instantly. Then, with a shake of her head at her own daft imagination, she set her bags down and set to find her keys.

      Letting herself in, she dumped her bags on the chest in the hallway and glanced at her reflection in the mirror above. Long hair, somewhat wispy from the breeze and walking, an oval face, grey-blue eyes, wide set, not much make-up, just a touch of mascara and lip gloss, and little gypsy earrings, which she’d chosen to go with her skirt.

      Feeling her hands sticky from London buses, she nipped into the downstairs loo to freshen up. Then she went upstairs. She had the attic floor all to herself. Her father had had it converted to a teenager’s dream pad for her thirteenth birthday, and, although it had been redecorated several times since then, she still loved it. Sophie had been going to head straight up to her own rooms, as she knew her father wouldn’t be home yet, but as she passed along the first-floor landing she heard her father’s voice from the drawing room.

      Smilingly, she changed tack, opened the double doors, and sailed in.

      ‘Daddy! How lovely! I didn’t know you were home—’ she began.

      Then she stopped dead. Her father wasn’t alone. There was someone else in the large room with him. Sophie heard her breath catch in her throat as her eyes went to the other occupant.

      It was the driver of the car that had passed her.

      Standing here, he looked even more fantastic than he had in the brief glimpse she’d got of him. He was tall—taller than her and her father. And slim, like a blade, wearing a suit so fantastically cut she knew it screamed Italian designer, just like the pristine white shirt and the dark slash of a tie did, too. But it wasn’t his clothes that made the breath catch in her throat, her pulse quicken suddenly. It was the body inside the suit, and the face—oh, the face—that was every bit as chiselled as it had been in profile, with jawline and cheekbones and nose and above all eyes that were dark and long-lashed, and which were looking at her and making her feel…feel…

      ‘Sophie, pet, let me introduce you to our guest.’

      Her father’s voice made her blink, but her gaze was still on the man standing in the middle of the drawing room. Looking—

      Drop-dead gorgeous. That was the phrase, and it suited him totally, utterly. Just—drop-dead gorgeous. She wanted to go on staring—couldn’t do anything but go on staring!

      He took her breath away. Literally.

      ‘This is Nikos Kazandros. This is my daughter, Sophie.’

      Nikos Kazandros. She echoed the name in her head, and it seemed to resonate like a fine vibration. So he was Greek, she registered. Nikos Kazandros. Dreamily, she rolled the name around her head as, dimly, she heard her father perform the introductions. Even more dimly she heard herself murmuring something polite. But then Nikos Kazandros was holding out his hand, saying something to her in a low voice which did not register, only the deep timbre and the slight drawl over the words, the foreign accent hardly there beneath the impeccable English. Numbly, she slipped her hand into his.

      His palm and fingers were cool and strong, and as she made contact, she felt another of those strange vibrations go through her. Then she was slipping her hand from his, but continuing to stand there, still gazing at him. Eyes locked to his face.

      Long lashes swept down suddenly over his dark eyes, and she felt her breath catch again. Then her father was talking once more.

      ‘My daughter is a student, Mr Kazandros, but I’m fortunate enough that she chooses to live here, not in some student dive.’ He gave a brief social laugh.

      The dark eyes were on her once more, and she felt their impact with another whoosh in her lungs.

      ‘What do you study?’ he asked, addressing her direct.

      Again, the deep, slightly accented voice did things to her.

      And the eyes, those eyes resting on her, so dark, so very dark…

      ‘Music,’ she answered, her voice slightly breathless.

      ‘Indeed? Which instrument do you specialise in?’ It was a polite query, nothing more than the circumstances warranted, mere small talk between a guest and the daughter of his host. But there seemed to her to be something deeply profound about the question. Something that made her pulse flutter.

      ‘Piano,’ she answered. One-word answers seemed all that she was capable of.

      ‘I’m sure Sophie will play for us after dinner,’ said Edward Granton. His daughter’s eyes flew to his.

      ‘Is Mr Kazandros staying for dinner?’

      ‘Your father has been so kind as to invite me,’ murmured their guest. There was smoothness in his voice now, and the dark lashes were veiling his eyes. ‘I hope that does not inconvenience you?’

      ‘Oh, no! No—not at all,’ she said, her voice still breathy. Then a smile broke across her face. ‘It would be lovely!’

      His eyes stilled, rested on her. She saw, deep in those dark, long-lashed orbs, something that once more seemed to hit that strange, evocative frequency that she’d felt when she’d heard his voice. For one long, incredible moment she could not tear her eyes away. She seemed to be falling into their depths, and she could feel her eyes widening, widening…

      Her father’s voice brought her back. ‘Sophie, I’ve let Mrs T know, but it would be good if you popped in to ask if she needs a hand. Now, very tediously for you, I must speak business to Mr Kazandros, so—’

      She took her cue. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll…um…I’ll see you later.’ She nodded briefly, courteously, at the man who was taking her breath away, then turned to go to the door, knowing that what she really wanted to do was go on standing there, gazing at him, drinking him in…

      He was before her at the door, opening it for her. Then, as she paused, he smiled down at her suddenly.

      ‘Almond blossom,’ he murmured, and his fingers brushed with absolute lightness at a couple of stray petals still caught in her hair. Her eyes flared again, and she felt quivery. Breathless.

      ‘Thank you,’ she husked, and suddenly she was too shy to look at him any more.

      She all but scurried out of the room. As she gained the landing, she realised her heart was thudding. Forgetting her father’s suggestion to go and see the housekeeper, instead Sophie ran upstairs,