His Reputation Precedes Him

And Eva defied any woman to remain unaffected by that heady combination of charming self-assurance and devastating good-looks.

That brief and thankfully interrupted kiss they had shared had certainly proved to Eva that she wasn’t immune to anything about Markos Lyonedes.

A man whose wealth and charm was everything and more than Jack, her ex-husband, had been…

Which was more than enough reason for Eva to take herself out of Markos’s insidiously seductive company. Right now!

‘Then I hope you enjoy the city,’ she told him lightly. ‘Now, if you will excuse me…’

‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

Eva paused before turning back reluctantly to answer that softly spoken query. ‘Have I?’

He gave a mocking inclination of his head. ‘You haven’t been up to look at my apartment yet.’

She tensed warily. ‘Up…?’

Markos gave a husky chuckle even as he glanced pointedly towards the ceiling above them. ‘Up.’

Markos’s apartment was on the floor above this one? All this time there had been a bedroom—probably several—right above them? Oh, good Lord…!

Eva drew in a deep breath before speaking. ‘I think you’re right. It really wouldn’t be a good idea for me to work for you—’

‘Coward.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ she gasped softly.

Once again he shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘I called you a coward.’

‘Because I don’t want to work for you?’ She eyed him incredulously.

Markos shook his head slowly. ‘Because we both know the reason you don’t want to work for me.’

Her jaw tightened. ‘Which is?’

‘You’re afraid.’

‘You think I’m afraid of you?’ she said disbelievingly.

‘I think that you’re afraid of how you feel when you’re with me,’ Markos corrected softly. ‘You’re more comfortable in the company of a man like Glen Asher because you know you can manipulate and control him in a way you would never be able to do with me.’

All the colour drained from Eva’s cheeks. She knew that every word Markos spoke was the truth. Oh, not about Glen. But she was frightened—of Markos, and of what he made her feel when she was with him.

She didn’t want to feel that way about any man. After her divorce she had been relieved to feel so numb, to know that she would never again have to go through the pain of a broken relationship.

To now realise that Markos Lyonedes had penetrated her emotions, if only on a physical level, was not a welcome revelation.

‘Has anyone ever told you that you have an ego the size of Manhattan?’ She snorted disgustedly.

‘Not that I recall, no.’ He gave a slow and confident smile. ‘Was anything I said to you just now untrue?’

Her mouth thinned. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’

‘Then why not prove it by agreeing to redesign the interior of my apartment?’

Eva gave a disbelieving shake of her head. ‘I’m twenty-nine, Markos, not nine, and as such I’m not about to be goaded into a juvenile game of dare with you. Especially when I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to accept a commission from you.’

‘Kirsty is going to be so disappointed about that,’ he murmured regretfully.