And each of those minutes seemed like an hour as the second hand on Eva’s watch crawled round more slowly with every second, increasing her tension. Those minutes had been crawling round all night as Eva had felt too restless even to go to bed, let alone try to sleep.
Eight a.m.
Eight fifteen.
Eight-thirty.
Was eight thirty still too early to telephone Markos? Would he still be in—?
Eva’s nerves were strung out so tightly that she jumped about two feet in the air as the tune of her mobile ringing broke shrilly into the silence. She took several seconds to settle her jitteriness before picking up the phone, distractedly noting that the caller ID was ‘unknown’ and hoping whoever it was would get off the line quickly, so that she could put her own call through to Markos. Before she lost her nerve.
‘Evangeline Grey,’ she answered briskly.
‘Eva.’
Just her name. Just that one word. And yet Eva knew without a shadow of a doubt that the person on the other end of the line was Markos.
‘How strange, Markos, I was just about to call you…’ she told him huskily.
‘You were?’
She could hear the surprise in his tone. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘You do?’
Eva gave a slightly breathless laugh as Markos also continued to sound less than his usually arrogantly confident self. ‘Yes, I do. Is it convenient for me to come over now?’
‘Not necessary. I’m already in the car on my way over to see you,’ he came back dryly.
Now it was Eva’s turn to feel surprised, and her fingers tightened about the mobile, the inside of her mouth having gone suddenly dry.
‘You are?’
‘I am,’ he assured her firmly—grimly? ‘I should reach your apartment in fifteen minutes or so, traffic allowing.’
She heaved a shakily relieved sigh, longing to see him again, to speak with him. ‘Markos—’
‘I would rather we talked face to face, Eva,’ he cut in determinedly.
‘Okay.’ It was what she wanted too. ‘I’ll tell Security to expect you.’ She moistened her lips. ‘Drive carefully,’ she added huskily.
‘Depend on it.’ Markos abruptly ended the call.
Eva switched off her mobile before replacing it carefully back on the coffee table, hardly daring to believe that Markos wanted to speak to her—that he was actually on his way to her apartment right now.
She had spent hours the previous night, pacing from room to room in her apartment as she tried to decide what to do for the best. Talk to Markos. Don’t talk to him. And in the end it had all come back to the realisation that she had to talk to him.
Did the fact that Markos seemed to have decided the same thing, in regard to her, make what she had to say to him easier or harder?
No doubt in fifteen minutes or so Eva would have the answer to that question. And several more.
* * *
‘I brought coffee…’ Markos held up a cardboard tray holding two take-away coffees when Eva opened her apartment door to him fifteen minutes later. ‘The “hot” young man who works in the coffee shop across the road on weekends assured me this is how you take your coffee,’ he added dryly.
Eva felt warmth in her cheeks as she remembered that deliberately provocative conversation. On her part at least.
‘You told him it was for me…?’