Nor were there any signs of it doing so.
He walked towards the waiting Jeep, his arm still around her shoulder. Both of them were padded with ski-jackets, and her body seemed frustratingly buried. The hard, demanding run had been exhilarating, storming him with the adrenaline needed to handle it, and he knew exactly what he wanted next. The twenty-minute drive down to the schloss would be punishingly long.
Once there, though, he would whisk Vanessa up to their suite, the damn ski jackets would hit the floor and that vast monstrosity of a four-poster bed could justify its existence.
He shook his head as he climbed into the Jeep after Vanessa. His cousin Leo must have been nuts to buy that place! He’d spent a fortune doing it up, but the best plan would have been to turn it into a hotel, not a private residence. Still, he mused, that was his cousin all over—making grand gestures, just like he was doing now, inviting the world and his wife to this razzmatazz launch of the Levantsky collection of Tsarist jewels.
Markos’s eyes wandered to Vanessa. She’d thrown back the hood of her ski-jacket, unzipping it in the warmth of the Jeep, an
d yet again Markos was struck by her beauty.
How the hell had he been the first to possess her? It still astounded him to think about it. Most English girls lost their virginity early, yet Vanessa had been untouched at twenty-four. But, as he’d found out about her hitherto restricted life, he’d realised that she had simply never had the opportunity.
But with him—oh, she had opportunity all right. Opportunity, and the total inability to resist him! She had gone to his bed without the slightest demur, the slightest hesitation, had gone with ardour, melting into his embrace, accepting his caresses, breathless beneath his kisses, yielding to him absolutely, completely, consumingly.
Perfect, he had called her—and she was. Completely perfect for him.
Possessiveness flared through him, powerful and potent. He had set his seal on her and she was his.
And she basked in it, he could tell. Even now, after five months together, her face still lit when he came up to her. Every time. Oh, his cousin Leo could be as cynical as he liked, but what did that signify? A mocking smile came to his mouth as he compared Vanessa to the sable-haired beauty whom Leo had his eye on, and who was giving him such a hard time. That was Leo’s problem. As for himself, right now life was just fine. And having Vanessa gazing up at him with that bemused, adoring expression on her face was a good, good feeling.
He waited impatiently as Taki finished loading the ski-gear onto the roof of the Jeep and climbed in beside Stelios in the driver’s seat. The engine revved and they moved off slowly over the snowy trackway.
He turned to Vanessa.
‘Is all the photography finally over now?’
She nodded. ‘Yes, thank goodness.’
A frown drew his eyebrows together. ‘You did not enjoy it?’
There was a guarded note in his voice, and Vanessa bit her lip. It had been entirely Markos’s idea that she should be the fourth model for his cousin Leo to use to publicise the Levantsky jewellery collection. Her objections that she had never modelled in her life had been swept aside. So had her observation that the photographer might prefer to work with a professional model, not some amateur.
Both cousins had looked at her, blank expression on their faces. They were so similar, clearly related to each other, and yet Leo Makarios, for all his broad shoulders and heavily sensual looks, could have been a block of stone so far as she was concerned. It was Markos, with his powerful build, his fine-cut features, the humour lurking at his mouth and the way his grey eyes could suddenly flare with naked desire, who held her in thrall. Who twisted her heart until it was a knot inside her breast. Who sent her heart-rate soaring, her breathing haywire, her body trembling and weak.
She knew now what that shared blank look had meant. It had meant that the very idea that the preferences of someone paid to work for Leo Makarios should be taken into account simply did not exist for either of the cousins. It was an attitude that had, at first, astonished her.
But then, the realisation of just who she had fallen in love with still seemed quite unbelievable. She could remember the moment when it had dawned. It had been the afternoon of their first time together. They had arisen, finally, after spending most of the day still in bed, and Markos had smiled down at her, and told her they should start getting ready to go to the opera.
‘Is it Wagner?’ she had asked tentatively, because his were the only operas she knew that were so long they started in the afternoon.
He’d only shaken his head and laughed.
‘Far more romantic,’ he’d assured her.
It had been. And more than just romantic.
Utterly, devastatingly eye-opening.
She had emerged from the bathroom to find the bedroom swarming with people, all chattering away in French. For the next hour she had been at their mercy—having her hair cut and styled, her nails manicured, her body measurements taken, her face made up and one incredible gown after another draped over her. And then, finally, when she had stood, bemused and more beautiful than she had ever looked in her life, wearing a gold tissue gown and a golden torque around her throat, Markos had walked in, taking her breath away as she gazed at him in his tuxedo, and smiled at her.
‘Come,’ he had said to her. ‘Your chariot awaits, Cinderella.’
But it hadn’t been a chariot, nor even a limo.
It had been a private jet, and they had flown to Milan, to take in La Bohème at La Scala, and for the first time Vanessa had realised that the man she had fallen in love with was no ordinary businessman.
He was one of the richest men in Europe.