She bit her lip, eyes dropping away from his face, and thus not seeing the way something flared in the dark grey depths of his eyes. When her gaze went back to him his expression was bland once more.
He was a businessman, she realised. He was wearing a business suit, very smart, very formal. And very respectable.
He’s just offered to go round the cathedral with you, that’s all. He’s not asking for a night of torrid sex, for heaven’s sake! And he’s proved he can keep all those pests away from you…
She took a breath, and lifted her chin.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘That would be very kind.’
Markos glanced down at the glorious red-gold head averted from him, focused on whatever the audio guide was describing to her. It was a novelty to have something compete with him for a woman’s attention, especially a medieval cathedral. But then, the girl’s concentration on the glories of the interior of Nôtre Dame was allowing him to concentrate on her own glories.
And they were remarkable.
She really was, he mused as they made their slow way around the cathedral, quite exquisite. Everything—from the fantastic sunburst of her hair, the tender line of her throat, the delicate curve of her cheek, the silken translucence of her skin, to the unconscious grace of her slender, yet shapely body—was exquisite. And that she seemed unconscious of it was enticing all on its own. She seemed to have no idea just how beautiful she was. A wry smile quirked at Markos’s lips. Was the girl mad to walk out in Paris, of all cities, with her breathtaking looks, and then be surprised that she was a honeypot to every male around? Including, he thought cynically, himself.
A self-mocking expression fleeted in his face. Picking up females on the street was not something he made a habit of, not even to stave off boredom. But… His eyes wandered over her again as she stared, face lifted, at the radiance of the rose window. For a beauty so exquisite, so unselfconscious, he was definitely prepared to make an exception.
His gaze moved on downwards, taking in her tall, slender figure, the beautiful swell of her breasts, her narrow waist and hips and her long legs. Even in the chainstore clothes she was wearing she was exceptional. As to what she would look like properly gowned—Markos let his imagination play pleasurably over how much her beauty would be enhanced by couture clothes.
And jewellery, of course. Paris boasted some of the best jewellers in the world, but if he wanted something special for the girl he knew just where to turn. His cousin, Leo Makarios, had just informed him—as smug as you like, thought Markos—that he had become the owner of a fabulous cache of Tsarist jewels, come to light in the former Soviet Union. Surely something amongst the treasure trove of the Levantsky collection would be suitable to adorn the rare beauty of the woman at his side.
Sapphires or emeralds? Markos gave his imagination free rein, visualising her freely bedecked in jewellery of each stone. Or both.
He would enjoy, very much, discovering which suited her best.
As he would enjoy, very much, discovering all her beauty in his bed.
Satisfaction and a pleasurable anticipation eased through him. Suddenly, thanks to this extraordinarily beautiful girl, life had become a lot more interesting. His ennui had vanished entirely.
Vanessa craned her neck upwards at the glorious fractured rainbow pouring through the interstices of the fretworked rose window. The narrative in her ears was telling her dates and monarchs, and the technicalities of producing medieval stained glass, but though she was listening as attentively as she could, the guide had a formidable distraction.
A distraction who kept making her want to swivel her eyes to him and check whether he really was as breathtaking as she thought he was. But, although the temptation was very great, she forced herself to resist. She had to. She was here to see Paris, nothing more.
She had promised herself this trip after her grandfather had died in the spring, finally succumbing to the long decline in health that had started when her grandmother had died so unexpectedly three years ago, knowing she would need to have something to focus on during her bereavement.
Familiar grief pierced through her. Her grandparents had brought her up since the tragic death of her parents in a car crash when she had been too young to remember them. But though her grandparents had been caring and loving, they had also been over-protective. For their sakes she had repressed her adolescent yearnings and restlessness. When she was a child, her grandparents had been her life, her safety—as a young adult, she had become theirs. She could not abandon them.
So she had forgone much of what girls of her age seized with eagerness. She had contented herself with studying librarianship at her local college, instead of art or languages at a distant university, so she could continue to live with her grandparents in their comfortable Victorian house in the pleasant town in the south of England where she’d always lived. Instead of travelling the world in the vacations she had worked in the local library as an assistant, reading books about faraway places rather than visiting them with backpack and boots. And instead of parties and clubbing and boyfriends she had taken her grandparents to the local theatre, to see classical plays and nostalgia concerts.
It had been a life frozen in time, sedate and confined, but she had not begrudged it. She had known, after all, with a dull pain in her heart, that it would not last for ever. Her grandmother’s death had been sudden, her grandfather’s protracted, his decline such that she had given up her work at the library to nurse him, restricting her life even further. But she had known she must make the very most of loving them, and being loved, while she still had them.
And now they were both gone, and she had all the time in the world for herself. It was freedom, but tinged with sadness, knowing she was alone in the world, with no one at home for her any longer.
Yet, for all her haunting sadness, she could not help the fizz of excitement that had bubbled perpetually through her veins since she had arrived at the airport to take her budget airline flight to Paris. Everything had seemed wonderful, enchanting, exciting—taking the Metro, trying out her French on real Parisians, walking, open-mouthed, through the streets with her hand luggage to the old-fashioned little pension tucked away in a small side street on the Right Bank. She was determined to see everything she could fit in.
Starting with Nôtre Dame. She had seen the great cathedral like a ship in sail in the River Seine and made a beeline for it.
Just as every male in Paris had seemed instantly to make a beeline for her.
Frustration nipped through her again. Why couldn’t they leave her alone? She wasn’t the slightest bit interested, but she just couldn’t shake them off! It was exasperating, threatening to spoil her visit.
Her eyes flickered sideways from the carvings above the arches that the audio guide was drawing her attention to.
She wasn’t being pestered now, though. The man at her side was seeing to that. And he, thank heavens, was not trying to pester her either!
If he did, would it be pestering?
The rogue thought wandered into her mind. She crushed it at once, but it had done its damage. Something she had read somewhere came to her. It’s only harassment if you don’t fancy them…