Shackled by Diamonds

Heavily, she picked up the menu lying in front of her.

‘Anna—’ Leo’s voice was a warning. She flicked her eyes to him questioningly.

‘Yes?’ she responded brusquely.

There was a frown in his eyes.

‘We have a deal, remember?’

For a moment his eyes held hers, and for a moment she looked back at him with her usual baleful expression.

‘Give it a rest, Anna,’ he said wearily.

She slapped her menu down. ‘How can I?’ she breathed vehemently. ‘You want me to suck up to you, don’t you? Like the rest of your women! Fawn all over you and pander to you and—’

‘No.’ The negation snapped from him.

Anna’s eyes flashed.

‘Yes, you do. That’s your idea of normality from a woman. You can’t cope with a woman treating you without kid gloves.’

A look of annoyance darkened his face.

‘You are being ridiculous,’ he replied brusquely. ‘I require only that my partner is…’ he shrugged, clearly searching for a word, then found it ‘…gracious,’ he concluded. ‘And why,’ he went on swiftly, ‘would she wish to be otherwise?’

There was an arrogant question in his expression that exasperated Anna even more, because it showed her exactly what his problem was. Then, with a silent sigh, she subsided. Leo Makarios was rich and gorgeous—no wonder he was spoilt by women. No wonder they sucked up to him, fawning over him, craving him…

Her mind snapped shut. No. She must not think about craving Leo Makarios…desiring him…wanting him so much that night after night she melted her body against his, putting aside, forgetting deliberately, in that burning inferno that consumed her, that the only reason she was in his bed was because the grim alternative was prison…

But I’m in prison anyway—a prison I can never escape from…a prison of passion, of desire, that cages me in night after night…

Except that tonight, if she accepted Leo’s temporary bargain, she would have parole from that prison.

If she could bring herself to be ‘civil’ to the man who was reducing her to such abjectness.

Her chin lifted. She could—she must. For one night at least she might have a reprieve from the prison she went to so helplessly, night after night.

Her eyes went back to the menu, leaving unanswered Leo’s arrogant challenge. For a moment longer she felt his gaze resting on her, as if waiting for her to throw yet another pointless dart at his colossal ego, then she felt him relax. So, minutely, did she, and fell to perusing the range of delicious options—none of which, as ever, she had any intention of choosing.

Yet even as she was mentally closing the menu, prepared to content herself with grilled fish and undressed salad, so, out of nowhere, a spark of rebellion ignited. If she was to get through the day being ‘civil’ to Leo Makarios, then at least she could have some compensation for her ordeal.

When the waiter came to enquire if they were ready to order, on impulse she lifted her head, closed the menu, and announced that she would have prawns fried in coconut milk, served with rice. And she would drink wine as well.

And calories be hanged! After all, she had something to celebrate—a night off from Leo Makarios.

Without volition, her eyes strayed to him as he finished giving the waiter his own order, and then accepted the wine menu from the hovering sommelier. He was studying the list, brows drawn in faint concentration. She felt emotion pour through her. She waited for it to be anger. That was the safe emotion to feel about Leo Makarios.

The only safe one.

But it wasn’t anger. Instead, a different emotion seemed to be taking her over. One she had no business feeling—none at all. None. But she felt it all the same.

She went on gazing at him, drinking him in.

I could look at him all day…

All night….

For ever.

Cold chilled through her as the words formed unbidden in her head. She tried to push them away, undo them, unthink them. She must not let them be said, thought.

Deliberately, she forced herself to keep staring at him.

The dark hair, the planes of his face, those potent heavy-lidded eyes, the wide, sensual mouth, the hard line of his jaw—all were achingly familiar. There wasn’t an inch of his face, his body, that she had not kissed, caressed, touched.

But it’s the face of a stranger. A complete stranger.

A stranger who can never, never be anything else.

For a moment so brief, and yet so agonising, she sat there, surrounded by other couples, other families, chatting away, eating and drinking in this beautiful place, shaded from the hot sun, yet basking in its balmy warmth, with the deep blue bay and emerald green coastline sweeping before them, and wished, suddenly, deeply, out of nowhere, that she and Leo Makarios were just one of those couples.