His Reputation Precedes Him. Carole Mortimer

it’s time we were leaving, Glen.’

      He looked crestfallen. ‘But we only just got here…’

      Markos’s previous annoyance at Eva’s scathing comments about his reputation had dissipated totally in the face of her increasing irritation with the man who had accompanied her here this evening. If she was in a serious relationship, it wasn’t with Glen Asher, and Markos couldn’t see how a man Eva was involved with would be happy about her attending a party with another man—particularly one as handsome and obviously successful as Glen.

      So, no serious relationship.

      But what did it matter? The woman he knew only as ‘Just Eva’ couldn’t have made her complete lack of interest in him any more obvious. Contrarily, it just made her all the more intriguing to Markos.

      He had never thought of himself as being a masochist before, but maybe this move to New York, and the over-abundance of beautiful women vying for his attention this past week, was turning him into one—because if anything his attraction to Eva had only deepened in the last few minutes.

      He looked down at her from between hooded lids. ‘I would be more than happy to escort Eva to her home if you would like to remain at the party a while longer, Glen.’

      Amber-gold eyes widened in what looked like horror at the suggestion, even as bright spots of colour brightened those pale alabaster cheeks. ‘If Glen wishes to stay, I’m perfectly capable of ordering a cab and taking myself home, thank you,’ she replied tightly.

      He continued to look down at her. ‘There’s no need when my car is parked downstairs.’

      Eva wanted to tell Markos Lyonedes what he could do with his car!

      But, even more important than that, she now deeply regretted having invited Glen to accompany her here this evening in the first place.

      They had met the previous week, at a party similar to this one. Eva had studied him dispassionately, finding that she approved of his blond hair and blue eyes, and the fact that he was tall and appeared healthy.

      On the basis that she couldn’t just march up to a complete stranger and ask him to be the donor for her IVF baby—once tests had proved he was fertile, of course—Eva had decided it might be better if the two of them got to know each other a little better before she dropped the bombshell on Glen. That was the only reason she had gone to his office early yesterday evening and asked him to be her escort to Senator Ashcroft’s cocktail party tonight.

      Although Glen seemed to have a very different idea of where their relationship was going…

      She gave Markos Lyonedes a brightly insincere smile. ‘It’s very kind of you to offer, Markos, but—’

      ‘But there’s absolutely no need when I’m happy to leave with Eva,’ Glen cut in with smooth confidence, his arm once again moving about Eva’s waist. ‘I booked dinner for the two of us at nine-thirty,’ he added temptingly.

      A dinner that he was no doubt hoping would result in the two of them sharing the bed in his apartment later on this evening, or possibly in Eva’s. But Eva knew that sharing Glen’s bed—or any other man’s, come to that—simply wasn’t going to happen.

      Nor, in this day and age, was it necessary. It had all seemed perfectly logical when Eva had made her decision several months ago. She was desperate to have a child of her own, but not another marriage or relationship with a man who would ultimately let her down. One failed marriage was surely enough for any woman.

      She had it all planned out. She would become pregnant before her thirtieth birthday in six months’ time, move her offices to her apartment and continue working from there until her eighth month, have the baby, and then resume working once the baby was three months old or so, hiring a nanny who could take over on the occasions Eva had to go out and visit with her clients.

      Logic. Not emotion.

      Except it wasn’t logic which drove Eva but an aching, driving need. Jack had wanted to try for a baby as soon as they were married, and as a family of her own was what Eva wanted too she had been only too happy to agree to the suggestion. Month after month she had waited to see if this was going to be the month when she could excitedly tell Jack she was pregnant. Except it hadn’t happened. Not the first year. Nor the second. Until in the end they had decided to see a specialist and find out if either of them had a problem—and, if they did, what to do about it.

      The results of those tests had been devastating and, although Eva hadn’t realised it at the time, they had also sounded the death knell to her marriage.

      Jack was sterile. One hundred per cent, no room for error, sterile.

      Oh, they had told each other that it didn’t matter, that they had each other. It had only been when Eva suggested that maybe they could adopt that the chasm had widened even further between them. Jack had adamantly refused to consider adoption, stating that his blue-blood New York family would never accept as heir a child who wasn’t biologically Jack’s.

      Eva had tried to believe that having each other really was enough. While each day she had died a little inside at the knowledge that there would never be any children in her marriage. No babies to love and nurture, her own or adopted. No happy house full of the children, she had longed for all her life after growing up an only child in the war zone that had been her parents’ marriage.

      She and Jack had stayed together for another two years after the specialist had delivered his devastating news. Years during which they had drifted apart as they both buried themselves in their individual careers rather than face the ever-widening rift in their marriage. Years when Jack became involved in affair after affair—possibly as a sop to his dented virility?—only to break them off each time Eva found out about them, with tears and declarations of love on his part, and promises of future fidelity. Until the next time. And the next.

      Eva’s love for Jack had died a little more with each of those affairs. Until there had been nothing left but the shell of their marriage. A marriage Eva wouldn’t have wanted to bring a child into even if it had been possible.

      Another three years of being on her own after the divorce, of building her interior design business into one of the most successful in New York, and Eva had realised there was still something missing from her life. The same something that had always been missing from her life.

      A baby of her own.

      Lots of professional women had babies on their own nowadays—so why not Eva? She certainly had enough money to be able to provide for them both comfortably, and her career was of a kind that could be worked around a baby’s needs.

      So the plan was to find herself a man who was healthy, explain to him what it meant to be an IVF donor, and present him with the legal contract she would expect him to sign. Both of them would be protected from any financial demands being made on the other after the baby was born.

      Putting that idea into practice had proved much harder than Eva had imagined. Broaching the subject, asking any man to coldly, clinically donate his sperm for IVF, had proved difficult.

      ‘That’s very thoughtful of you, Glen.’ She smiled warmly, more for Markos Lyonedes’s benefit than Glen’s. Her smile faded as she turned to look at the Greek businessman. ‘If you will excuse us?’

      ‘Of course.’ Markos gave a slight inclination of his head, wondering what thoughts had been going through Eva’s head these past few minutes to form that frown between those golden eyes. Whatever they had been, he certainly didn’t hold out a lot of hope for Glen Asher’s chances of sharing her bed tonight. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you both.’

      ‘And you,’ Glen assured him warmly.

      It was a warmth that was in no way reflected in Eva’s incredible gold eyes, and she made no effort to echo her escort’s enthusiasm. ‘We’ll wish you a good evening, then, Mr Lyonedes.’

      His eyes laughed down into hers. ‘I believe you called me Markos earlier.’

      ‘Did