His Reputation Precedes Him. Carole Mortimer

      ‘Markos.’

      ‘Markos.’ She gave a brief, meaningless smile of acknowledgement. ‘I really didn’t come here to discuss my personal life—so if we could we just get down to business?’

      Markos settled more comfortably against the front of the desk and folded his arms across his chest. He considered Eva with narrowed but appreciative eyes. Her features really were extremely delicate: those gold-coloured eyes, high cheekbones, slender jaw, those full and sensuous lips glossed a deep peach today. With her hair secured at her crown it was now possible to see the slender arch of Eva’s delicious throat, with skin as delicate as pale china.

      It was a delectable delicacy that Markos found himself aching to taste. Presumably that wasn’t completely out of the question, if Eva and Glen really weren’t together.

      He straightened slowly. ‘That’s a pity, because the only thing that I’m in the least interested in talking about this evening is your personal life.’

      Those gold eyes widened warily. ‘I don’t understand.’

      ‘No?’

      Markos found himself watching intently as she moistened those peach-glossed lips before speaking again.

      ‘I understood from our telephone conversation earlier today that you wanted me here at five o’clock so that we could discuss possible new designs for the décor in your apartment.’

      Markos smiled slightly. ‘I don’t remember so much as mentioning any designs for my apartment during our brief conversation this morning.’

      ‘Well…no,’ she conceded slowly, after a few seconds’ thought. ‘But that was the reason for our two earlier appointments.’

      ‘Two appointments which you didn’t ever have any intention of keeping.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Why not?’

      Eva felt about two inches tall as she realised she had behaved like an idiot. But it had just been so tempting, when she had received the call the previous week from Markos Lyonedes’s secretary, asking if she would come to his office to discuss the possibility of redesigning the interior of his apartment. Tempting to accept and then cancel as a small way of showing him that not every woman jumped at the click of his fingers.

      She should have realised—given more consideration to the repercussions of her behaviour if the powerful Markos Lyonedes decided to make an issue of it.

      Her gaze didn’t quite meet his now. ‘I really did have to be somewhere else on Monday evening.’

      ‘And Friday?’ He quirked dark brows. ‘Did you really have an emergency appointment with your dentist?’

      ‘Er—yes.’

      Markos eyed her warily. ‘Would you care to explain?’

      She grimaced. ‘Perhaps when I introduced the two of you on Saturday evening I should have mentioned that Glen is a dentist.’

      His mouth thinned. ‘I see.’

      She winced. ‘Do you…?’

      ‘Oh, I think so.’ Markos nodded slowly, his interest well and truly piqued by the woman now standing in front of him. More than piqued, if he were honest. Markos had no idea why it should be, but he found everything about Eva Grey intriguing. From her lippy conversation to her desirable hourglass figure. ‘You obviously felt an urgent need to have a cavity filled.’

      Those golden eyes widened in blank shock, her cheeks filling with colour as she gasped her indignation.

      Now it was Markos’s turn to chuckle at Eva’s expense. And for that chuckle to develop into full-throated laughter as he saw that he really had succeeded in rendering this complicated woman speechless. ‘My God, Eva, you should see your face!’ he finally managed through his laughter. ‘Or maybe not; you look a little like a fish out of water at the moment.’

      Probably because Eva felt like a fish out of water at that moment. Mouth opening and shutting, her chest rapidly rising and falling as she gasped for breath, her eyes wide and staring. ‘I can’t believe you just said that!’

      ‘Actually, neither can I.’ He sobered. ‘My Aunt Karelia would consider my conversation most ungentlemanly. Unfortunately for you, I’m more than happy to risk her disapproval if I’ve succeeded in rendering you speechless for once!’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘Really,’ Markos confirmed teasingly, aware that Eva was still having trouble regaining her usual spiky confidence.

      She gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘Your Aunt Karelia would be perfectly correct in her assessment of your behaviour just now.’

      ‘She usually is,’ he acknowledged ruefully.

      A frown appeared between those golden eyes. ‘Who is your Aunt Karelia, exactly? And why does her opinion matter to you?’

      Markos gave an affectionate smile. ‘My cousin Drakon’s mother. She’s also been a mother to me since I was eight years old—after I went to live with her and my Uncle Theo when my parents were killed in a plane crash.’

      Eva drew her breath in sharply as she heard the pain underlying the practicality of Markos’s tone. She hadn’t known that about him—hadn’t cared to know that about him—and she frowned slightly as she acknowledged that his confiding that information to her had introduced a different sort of intimacy between the two of them from their previous physical awareness, which had seemed to sizzle and crackle in the air only minutes ago. An intimacy that was emotional rather than physical.

      ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ she murmured finally.

      ‘Thank you,’ he accepted gruffly.

      Eva shifted uncomfortably. ‘Did you like living with your cousin and his parents?’

      His grin warmed his eyes to the colour of emeralds. ‘Eventually. I was pretty traumatised the first year or so, and probably gave my Aunt Karelia a few grey hairs. But eventually I settled down, and I really couldn’t have asked for a better surrogate family.’

      ‘You and Drakon are close?’

      ‘As brothers,’ he confirmed without hesitation.

      Eva raised dark brows. ‘I met him a couple of times when he was in New York. I didn’t find him a particularly warm man.’ Tall, dark and gorgeous, yes—just like his cousin Markos—but there was a single-minded ruthlessness to Drakon Lyonedes that he made no effort to hide.

      Was it a trait his cousin also possessed…?

      Probably, Eva concluded, remembering how Markos had changed on Saturday evening, his manner going from lazily charming to coolly precise, after she had made the comment concerning how he ended his relationships. In fact, apart from the heat of desire that glinted in Markos’s eyes when he looked at her—something that had certainly never been present on the two occasions when Eva had met the coldly remote Drakon Lyonedes—the cousins were very much alike: heart-stoppingly gorgeous and lethally powerful.

      Markos’s grin widened. ‘That’s probably because you aren’t a blonde with sea-blue eyes named Gemini!’

      ‘Gemini is your cousin’s new wife?’

      ‘It’s been very much a case of “how the mighty are fallen”!’ Markos nodded. ‘One look at Gemini and Drakon was knocked off his feet.’