The Virgin's Proposition

“Lead the way,” he murmured and, while to casual observers it would appear that he was directing their movements, he was in fact following her. The murmurs in the room seemed to grow in volume and intensity as they passed.

“Ignore them,” he said.

She did, still smiling as they walked. His savior seemed to know exactly where she was going. Either that or she was used to being picked up by strange men in hotel lobbies and had a designated spot for doing away with them. She led him through a set of doors and down another long corridor. Then they passed some offices, went through a storeroom and a delivery reception area and at last, when she pushed open one more door, came to stand on the pavement outside the back of the hotel.

Demetrios took a deep breath—and heard the door lock with a decisive click behind them.

He grimaced. “And now you can’t get back in. Sorry. Really. But thank you. You saved my life.”

“I doubt that.” But she was smiling as she said it.

“My professional life,” he qualified, giving her a weary smile in return. He raked fingers through his hair. “It’s been a hellish day. And it was just about to get a whole lot worse.”

She gave him a speculatively raised brow, but made no comment other than to say, “Well, then I’m glad to have been of service.”

“Are you?” That surprised him because she actually sounded glad and not annoyed, which she had every right to be. “You were waiting for someone.”

“That’s why you picked me.” She said it matter-of-factly and that surprised him, too.

But he grinned at her astute evaluation of the situation. “It’s called improvisation. I’m Demetrios, by the way.”

“I know.”

Yes, he supposed she did.

If there was one thing he’d figured out in the past forty-eight hours it was that he might have fallen off the face of the earth for the past two years, but no one seemed to have forgotten who he was.

In the industry, that was good. Distributors he wanted to talk to didn’t close their doors to him. But the paparazzi’s long memory he could have done without. They’d swarmed over him the moment they’d seen his face. The groupies had, too.

“What’d you expect?” his brother Theo had said sardonically. He’d dropped by Demetrios’s hotel room unannounced this morning en route sailing from Spain to Santorini. He’d grinned unsympathetically. “They all want to be the one to assuage your sorrow.”

Demetrios had known that coming to Cannes would be a madhouse, but he’d told himself he could manage. And he would be able to if all the women he met were like this one.

“Demetrios Savas in person,” she mused now, a smile touching her lips as she studied him with deep blue eyes. She looked friendly and mildly curious, but nothing more, thank God.

“At least you’re not giddy with excitement about it,” he said drily with a self-deprecating grin.

“I might be.” A dimple appeared in her left cheek when her smile widened. “Maybe I’m just hiding it well.”

“Keep right on hiding it. Please.”

She laughed at that, and he liked her laugh, too. It was warm and friendly and somehow it made her seem even prettier. She was a pretty girl. A wholesome sort of girl. Nothing theatrical or glitzy about her. Fresh and friendly with the sort of flawless complexion that cosmetic companies would kill for.

“Are you a model?” he asked, suddenly realizing she could be. And why not? She could have been waiting for an agent. A rep. It made sense. And some of them could contrive to look fresh and wholesome.

God knew Lissa had.

But this woman actually looked surprised at his question. “A model? No. Not at all. Do I look like one?” She laughed then, as if it were the least likely thing she could think of.

“You could be,” he told her.

“Really?” She looked sceptical, then shrugged “Well, thank you. I think.” She dimpled again as she smiled at him.

“I just meant you’re beautiful. It was a compliment. Do you work for the hotel then?”

“Beautiful?” That seemed to surprise her, too. But she didn’t dwell on it. “No, I don’t work there. Do I look like I could do that, too?” The smile that played at the corners of her mouth made him grin.

“You look…hospitable. Casually professional.” His gaze slid over her more slowly this time, taking in the neat upswept dark brown hair and the creamy complexion with its less-is-more makeup before moving on to the curves beneath the tastefully tailored jacket and skirt, the smooth, slender tanned legs, the toes peeking out from her sandals. “Attractive,” he said. “Approachable.”

“Approachable?”

“I approached,” he pointed out.

“You make me sound like a streetwalker.” But she didn’t sound offended, just amused.

But Demetrios shook his head. “Never. You’re not wearing enough makeup. And the clothes are all wrong.”

“Well, that’s a relief.”

They smiled at each other again, and quite suddenly Demetrios felt as if he were waking up from a bad dream.

He’d been in it so long—dragged down and fighting his way back—that it seemed as if it would be all he’d ever know for the rest of his life.

But right now, just this instant, he felt alive. And he realized that he had smiled more—really honestly smiled—in the past five minutes than he had in the past three years.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Anny.”

Anny. A plain name. A first name. No last name. Usually women were falling all over themselves to give him their full names, the story of their lives, and, most importantly, their phone numbers.

“Just Anny?” he queried lightly.

“Chamion.” She seemed almost reluctant to tell him. That was refreshing.

“Anny Chamion.” He liked the sound of it. Simple. But a little exotic. “You’re French?”

“My mother was French.”

“And you speak English perfectly.”

“I went to university in the States. Well, I went to Oxford first. But I went to graduate school in California. At Berkeley. I still am, really. I’m working on my dissertation.”

“So, you’re a…scholar?”

She didn’t look like any scholar he’d ever met. No pencils in her hair. There was nothing distracted or ivory towerish about her. He knew all about scholarly single-mindedness. His brother George was a scholar—a physicist.

“You’re not a physicist?” he said accusingly.