The Virgin's Secret

To her intense relief, after the unsmiling guard had consulted with someone, she’d been let in. To her further relief, when she’d reached the kitchens, she’d found no one and had crept up through the silent house, praying that she’d find the study. She’d leave the papers in a drawer and slip away again.

She was not going to let her father create more bad feeling between the families. That was the last thing they needed, the last thing Delphi needed. Every day now Stavros was begging Delphi to elope, but she was standing strong and refusing, determined not to ruin Stavros’ prospects and be responsible for tearing his family apart.

The flaring up of their old feud with the most powerful family in Athens would make any prospect of marriage between them even more impossible. Angel heard her sister sobbing herself to sleep every night, and knew that a very real rift could break the young lovers apart for ever if something didn’t happen soon. On top of everything else, Delphi had important law exams to think about.

The enormity of it all threatened to swamp Angel for a moment.

She emerged into the huge reception hall and stood for a moment, trying to calm her nerves, to stop her mind from spiralling into despair. Her breath was coming fast and shallow. She felt a prickling across the back of her neck and chastised herself. There was no one there. Just get on with it!

Seeing a half-open door across the expanse of marbled floor, she held her breath and tiptoed across. Gingerly pushing the door open a little more fully, she breathed a sigh of relief once more when she saw that it was the study. Moonlight was the only illumination, and it cast the room in dark shadows.

Angel could make out a desk and went over, feeling for a drawer. Her fingers snagged a catch and she pulled it out, while reaching her hand into her pocket for the will at the same time. She’d just pulled it free and was about to place it into the drawer when the lights blazed on, with such suddenness and ferocity that Angel jumped back in fright.

Leonidas Parnassus stood in the doorway, arms folded, eyes so dark and forbidding that they effectively froze Angel from feeling anything but numb. And then he said quietly, but with ice dripping from his tone, ‘Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Angel blinked in the intense light. She heard a roaring in her ears and had to fight against the very real need to faint. She couldn’t faint. But she couldn’t speak. Her brain and body were going into meltdown at being confronted with Leo Parnassus, standing just a few feet away, dressed in dark trousers and a plain light blue shirt, looking dark and intimidatingly gorgeous. Looking like the man who had invaded her dreams for the past seven weeks.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

With a few quick strides Leo had crossed the room, moving so fast and with such lethal grace that Angel just watched in disbelief when he effortlessly whipped the will out of her white-knuckle grip.

‘Well, Kassianides, let’s see what you came for.’

Angel watched dumbly as he unfolded the document. She heard his indrawn breath when he registered what it was.

He looked at her, his dark gaze like black ice. ‘My father’s will? You came here to steal my father’s will? Or just whatever you could get your dirty little hands on?’

Angel shook her head, registering that he’d called her Kassianides. It distracted her. ‘You…you know who I am?’

His jaw tightened. Angel saw the movement and felt a flutter in her belly. He threw the will down on the table and reached out, taking her arm in a punishing grip. Angel bit back a cry at his touch, more of shock than pain.

He unceremoniously hauled her from behind the desk and led her over to a chair in the corner. He all but thrust her into it.

‘I should have guessed after your last stunt that you obviously don’t have any qualms about trespassing where you’re not welcome.’

He didn’t answer her redundant question. Patently he now knew exactly who she was, and she realised that someone at the party must have told him after they’d seen him take her outside.

She knew it was probably futile, but she said it anyway. ‘If I’d known for a second where I would be working that night I wouldn’t have been here, I found out when it was too late.’

He all but sneered, towering over her now, arms crossed again over his broad chest. ‘Please, give me some credit. You might be able to distract other people with that seductively innocent face, but after what I’ve just seen I know that you’re rotten to your core. Your whole family are.’

Angel went to stand up on a fierce wave of anger. It was not fair to assume that she was like her ancestors, or her father, but before she could get a word out Leo had easily pushed her back down, not even using much force. Angel felt as weak as a rag doll, shaky all over. Once again the reality of his touch was more shocking than his action.

She clenched her fists and welcomed the rush of energy that anger brought. ‘You have it all wrong. I’m not here to steal anything. If you must know—’

Leo slashed a hand through the air, silencing her. Angel stopped abruptly. As much as she held no love for her father, she realised in that moment the futility of landing the blame at his door. Leo Parnassus would just laugh in her face. She’d quite literally been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, and could blame no one but herself.

She watched as he paced back and forth, his hands on his hips. The fingers were long and lean, and a sprinkling of dark hair dusted the backs of his hands. Suddenly an image of him hauling himself out of the pool that evening in one sleek movement caused heat to explode low in her pelvis.

In a moment of blind panic, feeling intensely vulnerable, Angel sprang up again and stood behind the high-backed chair. As if that could offer protection! Leo stopped and turned around to face her, surveying her coolly.

Angel asked huskily, ‘What…what are you going to do? Are you going to call the police?’

He ignored her question and walked over to a sideboard, where he poured himself a measure of whisky. He downed the drink in one swallow, the strong bronzed column of his throat working, making Angel feel even more weak and trembly.

Leo’s eyes snared hers again, and she saw something flame in the dark depths, revealing golden lights.

‘Did your father send you here that night? Was it a recce for tonight? Or is this your own ingenuity?’