From Dirt to Diamonds

b she wanted so much. It was because of the man she was standing beside. Something about him was setting her nerves jangling.

It’s because he’s an arrogant s.o.b—that’s why! Mr High-and-Mighty, Filthy-Rich-Big! Looking at me like I’m nothing more than meat.

And it was in his power to give her a job she really, really wanted.

No other reason. Absolutely no other reason.

As she walked after him into the suite she stopped dead, gazing round, mouth dropping open. So this was how the rich lived! The place was like some kind of apartment, with rooms opening off a lounge that had a balcony on one side and a dining table in a huge alcove. Two huge sofas faced each other across an acre of coffee table.

‘Sit down and wait.’

The voice was indifferent, assuming obedience. She did as she was told, still looking around her, and then her eyes went to him without her volition, watching as he extracted some papers from a briefcase, setting them down upon the dining table and standing to look through them. He started to make phone calls in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before, so maybe it was Greek—the guy was Greek, the model who’d told her about him downstairs had said. Greek—and loaded.

And not just with money.

Kat found herself looking at him. Staring at him.

He might be an arrogant s.o.b, but she knew exactly how he was getting away with it. With looks like his—all that height and toughness and hard, planed features and dark, measuring eyes, plus that magnetic Mediterranean appeal with his olive skin tone and sable hair and that indefinable aura of being ‘foreign’—he must have women slavering for him!

Oh, not her. No chance. Because she didn’t slaver over any man, and never would. But she could still feel her nerves jangling, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Every impulse told her to jump to her feet and run, but she had to sit there, like a good little girl, because this man—however much her made her hackles rise—could give her the job she craved.

Her eyes flashed momentarily. But I’m still not kow-towing to him! He can take the job and stuff it before I do that!

She set her jaw, forcing her eyes away from where he stood, looking as if he owned the place. Which he might very well do, she realized. He was stuck giving orders in Greek, or whatever it was, down the phone. Her eyes went back to looking over this room where the rich folk hung out, taking it all in—the décor, the furniture, the deep carpets, the vast bouquet of flowers on the sideboard. All the trappings of luxury that a man as rich as Mr Big took for granted every moment of his gilded life.

A world away from her own life.

Well, she would never get to this level—she knew that—but then she didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. All she needed was something a lot better than she had—a clean, nicely furnished flat, not the squalid, mouldering bedsit she was holed up in now, and enough money coming in for her not to be cold in winter and watching every penny every minute of the day. Something that was hers and hers alone—a decent life.

And one day she’d have it. One day—

Her focus snapped back to the present. The phone calls had stopped, and he slid the phone away in his inside jacket pocket, coming across to sit down opposite her in an armchair. He’d helped himself to a drink from somewhere, but wasn’t offering her one, she noticed. Just as well. She wouldn’t have touched it.

He hooked one leg over his knee and relaxed back into his seat, holding his glass in his hand. His eyes rested on her.

Kat made her face expressionless. She was learning how to do that.

‘So …’ said Angelos Petrakos. His voice was deep, but with hardly a trace of accent, she realised, only the clipped, curt tones of a posh Englishman—a million miles away from the London voice she spoke with. ‘Shall I hire you, or not?’

Kat’s expression didn’t change. Was she supposed to answer, or just sit there like a dummy? She chose to answer. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but sitting voiceless was more than she could make herself do.

‘No point asking me,’ said Kat. ‘I’m just the meat.’ Her voice was deadpan.

‘Meat?’ The word fell into the space, ready frozen.

She tightened her mouth. ‘Clothes horse. Dress rack. Dummy. AKA body. AKA meat.’

His eyes seemed to narrow minutely. ‘You have a problem with that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s what modelling’s all about,’ she answered.

‘But you object?’ The voice was sardonic.

‘Not if I get paid. And if I don’t get any hassle,’ she added pointedly.

For a moment he did not answer. Then the dark eyes narrowed again. For a moment Kat felt she was skating on thin ice—very thin ice—that might suddenly crack, disastrously, and send her plunging down into dark, drowning water …

Then it was gone.