His Reputation Precedes Him. Carole Mortimer

wives, daughters or girlfriends were making no secret of the fact that they found his dark and brooding looks attractive.

      Not that Markos had any complaints about that last part. He had enjoyed a healthy sex life during his years of living and working in London, and he sincerely hoped to continue doing so now that he had moved to New York.

      Nevertheless, even surrounded by beautiful women as he was, all seemingly vying for his attention, Markos still noticed the woman in the figure-hugging red gown, standing across the room…

      Probably because she stood out from the rest of the ‘beautiful people’ present in as much as she was making no effort to respond to the flattering conversation of the half a dozen men currently surrounding her, but instead seemed totally bored—both by them and by her surroundings.

      But it wasn’t just that air of uninterest which had captured Markos’s attention. Nor was it the fact that she was young—probably in her late twenties—and extremely beautiful. Ebony hair cascaded lushly over her shoulders and halfway down her spine, and her eyes were light in colour—possibly grey or blue?—and surrounded by thick dark lashes. Her skin was the colour of pale alabaster, her features delicately lovely, and the fullness of her lips was glossed the same tempting red as that utterly decadent gown. Her only jewellery was a pair of delicate gold filigree earrings which dangled almost to the bareness of her shoulders.

      All of that would certainly be enough reason for any man to give her a second glance, but still it wasn’t what had caught and held Markos’s attention, what had caused his body to harden in instant arousal the moment he looked at her.

      Every other woman in the room wore masses of expensive jewels at their ears throat, wrists and fingers and, whether tall or short, they were all fashionably slender—a look that wasn’t flattering to some of the younger women, and even less so to most of the older ones. The woman in the fitted red strapless gown wore only those earrings, and her figure was…

      There was a word for her type of figure. An old-fashioned word that described her exactly—one that had often been used to describe movie stars of the golden age… Voluptuous! That was it! The tall woman in the red fitted gown was voluptuous. Not fat—her body was too obviously toned for that. She simply had an hourglass figure: curvily, lushly, sexily voluptuous. The sort of body, in fact, that most men preferred but so rarely found in this fashionable age of slender and willowy.

      Her shoulders were bare, that expanse of skin the same smooth alabaster as her face, and that wickedly enticing gown enhanced the fullness of breasts that were obviously bare beneath the silky material that swept over her narrow waist before clinging lovingly to the sweet curve of her hips. The material finished a couple of inches above her knees to reveal long and shapely legs, with three-inch heeled red strappy sandals on her elegantly slender feet.

      Markos’s breath now caught in his throat as she looked over the top of the heads of the men surrounding her, glancing around the room in obvious uninterest—almost as if she was aware of someone watching her, but had no idea who or why. His earlier impression of her complete boredom with her admirers and her surroundings was confirmed as she repressed a yawn. At the same time as their glances met.

      Met and then, as the woman’s gaze shifted slowly back to his, held.

      Markos quirked a questioning brow—only to receive a blank stare and then a uninterested shrug in reply, before the woman in the red gown, as Markos was already calling her in his mind, turned away to accept a fresh glass of champagne from one of the men surrounding her, to all intents and purposes as if she had already forgotten Markos’s existence.

      While it might be a refreshing change after the past week and this last couple of hours of having women throw themselves before him like sacrificial offerings, this certainly wasn’t the reaction Markos was used to receiving when he showed an interest in a beautiful woman.

      As one of the two Greek-born Lyonedes cousins, with business interests worldwide, and wealthy beyond imagining, Markos had never been naïve enough to believe it was his looks alone which attracted women to him. Nor did he believe that every woman he met had to find his height and dark looks attractive.

      But still, it irked him that the woman in the figure-hugging red gown—a woman who made him hard just from looking at her!—had dismissed him so easily and completely.

      Maybe she was married?

      Or engaged?

      Or perhaps in a serious relationship?

      No, it certainly wasn’t either of the first two; the hand holding the glass of champagne she had just raised to those lush red lips—her left hand—a long and slender hand Markos could all too easily imagine moving caressingly over his much darker skin in a pastime his arousal also approved of as he felt his shaft throb in anticipation!—was as naked of jewellery as her throat and wrists. And if it was the latter then where was the man she was involved with?

      If a woman as beautiful as that had belonged to Markos then he certainly wouldn’t have left her alone for a minute, at the mercy of the pack of hyenas currently in for the kill.

      If a woman like that belonged to him…?

      What the hell?

      Markos didn’t do belonging. Or even long-term. And definitely not permanent.

      A few days, in some cases a few weeks, of enjoying each other’s company—and bodies—was the limit of any interest he had shown in the women he had been involved with over the past eighteen years.

      Liking—yes.

      Sex—definitely yes.

      Love or belonging—definitely no.

      His cousin Drakon—a man who had been even more averse to permanent relationships than Markos until he’d met Gemini a month ago, and fallen so quickly in love with her—might have succumbed to commitment to one woman, but Markos certainly wasn’t interested in doing the same.

      He desired the woman in the red gown. He was more than a little annoyed at the ease with which she had dismissed him just now. At the same time as he was aroused and hard just from looking at the way that fitted red gown clung so lovingly to all those voluptuous and below the gown naked curves. It was an arousal Markos knew he would prefer her to satisfy, rather than another woman’s willing body.

      It was with that thought in mind that Markos distractedly made his excuses to the women crowded about him before crossing the room towards the woman in the red gown.

      CHAPTER TWO

      GOLD.

      Markos had been wrong about the eyes of the woman in the red gown; they were neither blue nor green, but so light a brown they appeared a deep shade of amber gold.

      A deep, glowing and unfathomable amber that swept over Markos in cool uninterest even as the men gathered about her took one glance in his direction before parting to allow him to reach the woman’s side.

      Like Moses parting the Red Sea, Eva noted ruefully as the men around her instinctively stood aside for the tall, dark and arrogantly handsome man who had deliberately caught her gaze a few minutes ago before making his way so determinedly across the room towards her.

      She had noticed him before, of course. And recognised him. What woman wouldn’t notice this dark and broodingly handsome man? Or not recognise him as being one of the wealthy and powerful Greek Lyonedes cousins? Certainly Markos Lyonedes’s photograph had been all over the New York newspapers this past week as he attended one social function or another.

      His looks didn’t hurt, of course. Eva stood five eleven in her three-inch-heeled red sandals, but Markos Lyonedes was still several inches taller. Tall enough that he could look down at her with warm and broodingly sensual green eyes.

      His dark hair was inclined to curl over his ears and nape, and his emerald-coloured gaze was now narrowed and assessing, set in an arrestingly handsome face that looked as if it might have been carved from mellow gold stone: high and hard cheekbones, a long blade of a nose, chiselled