For Pleasure...Or Marriage?

‘Who is this?’ she asked, more sharply than she usually spoke.

A laugh came down the line.

‘Forgotten me so soon? I’ll have to remind you, won’t I? We met the other evening, when Markos was so foolish as to abandon you.’

Vanessa stiffened. It was that creepy friend of Markos’s. Cosmo Dimistris. Well, whatever he wanted, she didn’t want to speak to him.

‘Markos isn’t here at the moment,’ she answered, making her voice impersonal and formal. ‘I’ll tell him you called. Do you want to leave a message?’

Damn, she was sounding like a secretary. But she just wanted Cosmo Dimistris off the line.

The laugh came again. It sounded distinctly sleazy.

‘The only message I’d like to leave Markos is that you’ve told me I’m better in bed than he is—but it’s a little soon for that. Not too soon, I hope. Tell me, have you thought any more about moving on yet? I’m flying to Mexico next week. Come with me—I’ll be throwing some wild parties. You’d be really hot—’

Vanessa dropped the phone as if it were suddenly burning. As if she had just been touched by something slimy and disgusting.

Oh, God, that horrible, horrible man! How could he say such creep

y stuff to her? She hoped he wouldn’t turn into a pest. Surely he had got the message now?

But the following afternoon she discovered that Cosmo Dimistris was about as thin-skinned as a rhinoceros. She was walking back into the lobby after having had her regular beauty treatments in Sloane Street when the concierge came round from the desk.

‘Special delivery,’ he said.

She took the package, wondering what it was. Up in the apartment she had her answer. It was a slim jewel case, gift-wrapped inside the courier packaging. A card was tucked into the ribbons. Staring, she read it.

The necklace that goes with this is in Mexico. Phone me and it’s yours.

A telephone number was scrawled underneath. There was no name, and she didn’t need one. She knew exactly the creep who’d sent this insulting and objectionable ‘present’.

Tight-lipped, she opened the case, revealing a bracelet set with emeralds. Her fingers clenched. For a moment she just stared at the bracelet, wondering how on earth she was going to get rid of it. She had no idea where that odious man lived, and didn’t want to. She clicked the lid shut and turned the box over. To her relief the jeweller’s name was on the base. She could just have it returned to them. They would know who had bought it and get it back to him.

A footfall behind her made her jerk her head back.

Markos was walking out of his study.

Instinctively, breath catching, she whipped the case and its wrapping behind her back, a horrified expression on her face. She’d had no idea Markos was home.

‘What have you got there?’ He sauntered towards her.

‘Nothing,’ she said automatically.

He gave a slanting smile. ‘You’re looking very guilty over nothing.’

‘It’s just junk mail,’ Vanessa replied quickly.

Markos’s eyebrows rose.

‘That gets stopped in the postroom.’ A gleam entered his eye. ‘Don’t tell me. It’s something secret. A pregnancy testing kit, perhaps, hmm?’

The gleam had become a glint, and there was something in it that disturbed Vanessa, but she was too shocked by what he’d just said to do anything other than stare open-mouthed.

‘A what?’ she echoed weakly.

Something shifted in Markos’s expression at her response.

‘So not the worst, then?’ he responded smoothly. ‘What about the next worst? Something from a secret admirer, perhaps?’