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Struggling to suppress his unusually troubled and uneasy thoughts, Leo focused on the redhead’s glorious shape. Hunger filled the hollow inside him and it was the sort of hunger he hadn’t felt in years, gnawing powerfully at him with painful persistence, ignoring his rigorous efforts to pursue a functional conversation with Rahim. In an abrupt movement of rejection, he looked away from the redhead, but every muscle in his big well-built body snapped taut. Nerves he hadn’t known he had jangled like alarm bells until Leo was forced to glance back to the corner of the bar lest he lose sight of the woman. What was it about her? Perhaps he should find out.
* * *
In receipt of a chilling glance from Jenna, who was standing at the bar with Stuart, Grace hurriedly turned her head away, colour sparking high over her cheekbones. Stuart had gatecrashed their night out. Jenna had been overjoyed and within minutes of Stuart’s appearance had made it clear that Grace was a gooseberry. Clutching the drink that Stuart had insisted on buying her, Grace sipped the sickly sweet concoction and wondered what she was going to do with the rest of her evening. Where was she to go? At least in a crowd she was virtually invisible and attracting no particular attention.
Jenna pushed her way through the crush and settled impatient blue eyes on Grace. ‘Why are you still here? I assumed you’d have left by now.’
Grace straightened. ‘I’m coming back to the apartment tonight,’ she warned her cousin. ‘I’ve spent two nights sitting up in Reception and I’m not doing it again.’
‘I can’t believe how selfish you’re being!’ Jenna complained. ‘You wouldn’t even be having a holiday if it wasn’t for me!’
‘Change the tune,’ Grace advised ruefully, weary of the constant battle to restrain her own nature and simply wanting to be herself. ‘The “be grateful, Grace” one is getting old. You asked me on this holiday and I’m afraid you’re stuck with me until we go home.’
As Grace averted her attention from her cousin’s furious face she noticed a man standing on the stairs watching her. He was drop-dead beautiful, Mr Fantasy in the flesh with black hair, gypsy-gold skin and stunning symmetrical features. He was also tall, broad-shouldered and surprisingly formally clad in a business suit, as were his companions. Somehow, though, she couldn’t drag her eyes from him for long enough to scrutinise the other men. His brows were dark and straight, his eyes deep set, glittering in the flickering lights, his nose a classic arch, his mouth a sensual masterpiece.
‘Please don’t come back to the apartment tonight,’ Jenna pleaded. ‘I haven’t got much time left to be with Stuart...’
Stuart lived in London too and Grace marvelled at her cousin’s lack of pride. He’d already spelled out the message that he wanted nothing more than a fling. Jenna flung her a last look of angry appeal before turning on her heel to return to Stuart. As Grace turned away, intending to leave the club and find a quiet café where she could read the book in her bag, she almost tripped over the large man in her path.
‘Mr Zikos would like you to join him in the VIP section for a drink.’
Involuntarily, Grace raised a brow as she glanced back at the stairs. Mr Zikos? He nodded acknowledgement and suddenly he smiled at her and in the space of a second he went from stunning to downright breathtaking, the clear-cut austere lines of his darkly handsome face slashed by an almost boyish grin that was utterly and incredibly appealing. Later, Grace swore her heart, always the most reliable of organs around men, leapt in her chest and bounced with enthusiasm, leaving her feeling seriously short of breath and oddly dizzy.
A drink? The VIP section? What did she have to lose? A bouncer undid the ceremonial velvet rope cutting off the stairs and Grace unfroze, moving forward with the strangest sense of anticipation.
CHAPTER TWO
LEO EXTENDED A lean tanned hand with unexpected formality. ‘Leos Zikos. My friends call me Leo.’
Grace touched his fingers in a glancing collision that made her teeth grit at her own ineptitude. But up close, he was so tall, so dark, so strikingly handsome that he unnerved her and given the smallest chance to scamper back down the short flight of stairs without making a fool of herself she would have fled. ‘Grace Donovan,’ she supplied a little gruffly, her heart beating very fast in what felt like her throat as she hurriedly sat down on the seat he indicated and nodding belated recognition of the presence of a second, smaller man.
