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'No, please... Leo must stay. I'll be OK.'
Ten minutes later, sitting in the passenger seat of a sleek black Jaguar car with Leo Kozakis at the driving-wheel, she heard herself giving him her address in Pimlico.
'Why do I get the feeling you were somewhat reluctant to let me drive you home?' Leo cast her a sidelong glance before returning his attention to the road. 'Odd, when you've agreed to dine with me.'
Jacy frowned, her golden eyes flicking to his dark profile and away again. Did he suspect that she'd been less than genuine in accepting his invitation? Did it matter? she thought drily. She no longer had any intention of going out with him; it had been a foolish plan, formed in the heat of the moment. No—she would wait until she reached home and then tell him a firm goodbye...
She wasn't a complete fool. Leo was a devastatingly attractive male, wealthy and powerful, but she knew from experience how ruthless he could be.
'No response, Jacy? But then you always were a quiet girl, as I recall. It was one of the things I liked about you—that and your luscious body...' he drawled huskily.
Liar—he had never liked her at all. He'd made that abundantly clear when they'd parted, she thought, the old bitterness rising like gall in her throat. He had used her luscious body and he actually imagined that he was going to do the same again. As quickly as she'd dismissed the notion of revenge, angry pride had her reversing her decision. She would show him that the mature, adult Jacy Carter was more than a match for a lecherous snake like Leo Kozakis!
She recalled Liz's admonishment as she'd followed Jacy into the bedroom while she collected her coat to leave. 'Now don't blow it, Jacy. You only have to date him, not go to bed with him, and the Buddha is yours. But personally if I didn't have Tom I'd rather have Kozakis in my bed than a netsuke any day; the man positively smoulders.'
Jacy's lips twisted in a mockery of a smile. Liz was right about one thing: if she, Jacy, had her way, she would make damn sure that the man got burned. But how she was going to do it, she wasn't sure. She glanced out of the window, hoping for inspiration. They were driving along her street and in seconds she would be home. Gathering all her courage, she said, 'Stop here.'
The car slowed to a halt and she deliberately reached across the central console and laid a slender hand on Leo's thigh as he made to get out of the car. Jacy could feel the muscle tense beneath the fine fabric of his trousers, and she glanced up into his dark face to catch a flickering puzzlement in his brown eyes. 'You were mistaken, Leo. I had no objection to your driving me home, but I didn't want to drag you away from the party,' she explained throatily, amazed at her own acting ability. 'Promise me you will go back straight away, and I'll see you on Saturday at seven-thirty.' She had no intention of inviting him in for coffee, she wasn't yet confident enough; and, slowly gliding her hand from his thigh, she found the door-handle with her other hand. 'I live here—number twenty-seven—there's no need ...'
'I'll see you to the door,' Leo cut in. 'And I am going back to Tom's. We still have business to discuss,' he offered with a quick smile.
Before she could get out, Leo, with a speed she wouldn't have thought him capable of, was around the front of the car and holding the passenger-door open for her.
He walked by her side up the stone steps that led to the entrance door of the small mews house that Jacy was lucky enough to own, thanks to an inheritance from her late father. She quickly delved into her handbag and found the door-key before raising her head and facing Leo. 'Thank you.'
'Till Saturday, Jacy.' His brown eyes, gleaming with satisfaction, captured hers. 'I'll be counting the hours.'
Before Jacy knew what was happening, his dark head bent and his lips brushed hers in the softest of kisses. Too surprised to resist, she made no comment as he deftly took the key from her hand, opened the door, and with one large hand in the middle of her back urged her inside. She turned and Leo pressed the key back into her hand.
'I won't come in now, but be ready, wanting and waiting for me on Saturday, sweetheart.'
Jacy shut the door with unnecessary force, the sound of his masculine laughter ringing in her ears and the image in her brain of his handsome, almost boyish, grin as he had turned to wave before leaping into his car. For a moment the years had rolled back and Leo had looked like the laughing, carefree fisherman she had first met in Corfu, and her heart had leapt in the same way as it had then. Angry with herself and furious with Leo Kozakis, Jacy strode across the hall and opened the door leading to her small living-room.
In the safety of her own private sanctum, she kicked off her shoes and shrugged out of her jacket, dropping it on to the arm of the large, soft-cushioned sofa before walking into her cosy kitchen. The familiar golden pine units, the bright blue gingham curtains at the small bay-window, and the row of flowering plants that she tended so carefully, all gave her a brief glow of satisfaction before she turned to the prettily tiled worktop and switched on the kettle. She needed a coffee, and to think... She rubbed her hands up over her eyes and into her hair, sighing as she did so. What had she let herself in for?
Five minutes later, with the coffee-cup in her hand, she returned to the living-room and sank into the comfortable sofa, curling her feet up beneath her. She slowly sipped the reviving brew then placed the empty cup on
the low occasional-table in front of her. Her head dropped back against the large cushion and she closed her eyes.
Leo Kozakis, back in her life! Never in her worst nightmares had she expected to see the man again, and the adrenalin that had kept her reasonably in control for the past few hours suddenly deserted her.
Her golden eyes roamed around the room, her private haven. The muted green and rose of the Laura Ashley drapes at the window was continued in the loose covers of the sofa and two comfortable armchairs. The table between them, a lovingly polished mahogany, gleamed with a soft cinnamon hue that only years of loving care could develop. It had been in her mother's family for generations. She thought of her mother, killed in a car accident not long after the divorce, and for the first time in a decade wished she had a mother beside her to confide in.
A wry smile twisted Jacy's full lips; she had never confided in her mother at eighteen, and it was a bit late to regret it now. God, but it hurt! Seeing Leo tonight had brought it all back—the traumatic events of her nineteenth year. The pain, the disillusion, and the loneliness...
As a teenager Jacy had considered that she led a pretty normal, happy life. Her parents adored her and she lived in a nice house in Kent, not far from London. Her mother wrote children's books and her father was a journalist who, when she was thirteen, had taken an editor's job with a large American newspaper. Jacy had seen nothing unusual in her father's working in America and returning home several times a year: lots of her friends had fathers who worked abroad in the Middle East or in the Forces.
She and her mother had spent a couple of holidays in California, at the apartment that her father rented in Los Angeles; but the year Jacy completed her A levels it was decided she should have a year out before taking up her place at university where she intended reading politics, economics and philosophy. With two other girls she had travelled across Europe to Greece, and in the July they'd rented an apartment on the island of Corfu for a month. In that one month Jacy's life had changed completely; she had grown up with a vengeance ...
A deep sigh tore from the depths of her heart. Jacy lifted her hand to her cheek and felt the dampness of cold tears. Jumping to her feet, she quickly walked out of the room and up the stairs to the bathroom. She hadn't cried in years and she wasn't about to start now, she told herself firmly. Stripping off her clothes, she turned on the shower and stepped beneath the warming spray.
But it was no good. Dried and dressed in pale blue silk pyjamas, she walked across the hall to her bedroom and crawled into bed, crushed by the weight of memories she had thought long forgotten. She tossed and turned for almost an hour, doing complicated maths in her head, deliberately recalling all the more difficult cases she had solved in her job, anything to try and block out the knowledge that Leo Kozakis had reappeared in her life.
Finally, as she listened to the clock on a nearby church peal out the stroke of two, she gave up and let her mind go back to the island of Corfu and her first meeting with Leo. Perhaps after so many years it would be a cleansing experience, she consoled herself. She could lay the unpleasant memories to rest once and for all, and go forward into the future with no baggage from the past to affect her life. For the first time, Jacy consciously admitted to herself that the affair with Leo Kozakis had coloured the way she saw all men.
Jacy sat on a smooth stone at the edge of the pebble beach, her golden eyes glued to the strange contraption fixed only about four feet from the water line. A large cage was resting in the shallow water; made of wire mesh but with a wood plank top, it was attached to the shore by a few strong ropes. But it was the contents that held her attention—struggling around inside the cage were about a dozen huge lobsters. Some fisherman's catch for the day, she knew, and she was torn between her undeniable liking for eating lobster and the idealism of a teenager that told her all living things should be free. A small chuckle escaped her; she could just imagine what would happen if she did free the poor lobsters! She would probably end up in a Greek jail...
A frown marred her smooth, lightly tanned brow. Would anyone care if she did? She was feeling rather sorry for herself and had been for the past two days. She had arrived at the apartment set on the hill above Paleokastritsa with her friends Joan and Anne a week ago, determined to have a month of rest and relaxation. Only it hadn't quite worked out like that.
