Shackled by Diamonds

Any of them—young or old, good-looking or plain—it didn’t matter. But to be here like them, on holiday, together…a real couple…

Not his blackmailed bed partner, not his pampered mistress—but something far, far more to him…

Angrily, she smashed the image to pieces in her mind. She was insane even to think such a thing about Leo Makarios. Her expression tightened and she picked up her glass, sipping sparkling mineral water, making herself look back over the vista beyond. She saw from the corner of her eye Leo give his choice to the sommelier, who then glided away.

She felt a hand tug at her skirt and looked round—then down.

A small moppet of a child was standing beside her, holding up her wrist.

‘I’ve got a new bracelet,’ she informed Anna.

Her eyes were blue, her hair curly, her sundress pink. So was the bracelet, of pink polished coral.

‘So you have,’ agreed Anna with a smile. ‘It’s very pretty.’

‘My mummy bought it for me from a lady on the beach,’ the moppet said.

‘Lucy!’ A woman’s voice called from a nearby table. ‘Don’t bother the lady, darling.’

Anna looked across to where an Englishwoman in her thirties was lunching with her husband and a little boy.

‘She’s not bothering me at all,’ she reassured the woman. ‘I’m admiring her beautiful bracelet.’

The woman laughed. ‘She’s showing it off to everyone she can.’

Anna smiled. ‘Why not? It’s lovely.’ She looked down at the little girl again. Her smile deepened. ‘It’s a very pretty bracelet,’ she told the child again.

The little girl nodded, satisfied with this response, and moved off to the next table to repeat the exercise with the woman there. Her mother got up and gently guided her back to their own table.

‘Your ice-cream will be here any moment, Lucy—come along.’

She cast a conspiratorial smile at Anna as her daughter, duly diverted, scurried back to her place.

Anna smiled back, but noticed how the woman’s eyes had automatically strayed towards Leo. She was not surprised. Most of the women in the place had cast looks across at him, whatever their age or marital status.

No wonder he’s so full of himself, she thought mordantly. She wondered whether they’d still be lusting after him if they knew he’d threatened her with jail to get her into his bed.

Her face shuttered again. She reached for her water glass.

As she did, she saw that Leo was looking at her. He was frowning slightly, as if he’d been confronted with something unexpected.

Leo went on looking at her. That tiny incident just then, with the child, had taken him aback. Anna had smiled—a warm, kindly smile—clearly charmed by the little girl.

He’d never seen her look like that before. It was—out of character. A side of Anna Delane he hadn’t seen—that shouldn’t be there. Not in a woman like her.

The waiter arrived with their wine and placed the glasses carefully at their places. Anna, he noticed, took a mouthful immediately.

He took a sip from his and leant back, surveying her.

It was strange to see her away from the villa—with other people. Male eyes were drifting across to her repeatedly, but she wasn’t taking any notice. Doubtless for a woman as beautiful as her it was a daily occurrence. Yet, unlike all the other beautiful women he knew, she seemed to radiate absolutely no awareness of male observation. Other women showed they could see it coming their way, and sat there almost preening. Anna simply got on with having lunch.

Was that part of her challenge—that she ignored men who looked at her? Did she do it deliberately? Surely she must. He remembered what had struck him most at the gala launch at the Schloss—that she was completely indifferent to her own beauty.

As he watched her, so extraordinarily beautiful, the object of covert and not so covert male looks, he wondered caustically what they would say if they knew she was a criminal who’d help herself to their belongings without the blink of an eye.

His jaw set. She looked so serenely indifferent, sitting there, ignoring him. As if butter wouldn’t melt…

It made him feel like needling her, forgetting his deal to have a civil day together.

‘So, not tempted by the coral bracelet, then? Tell me, would you steal from a child if it had something you wanted?’

Anna looked at him. ‘That’s a stupid and offensive question,’ she replied coldly.

‘Why? I want to know if there are limits to your venality, that is all. You stole from me, why not from a child?’ Leo jibed.

She eyed him stonily.

‘A crime is not a crime, per se,’ she said. ‘A crime depends upon motive, and on effect on the victim. Is a starving man entitled to steal food from one who has ten times more than he needs? Supposing he stole it for his starving child, to save its life?’