Purchased for Passion: Shackled by Diamonds / A Mistress for the Taking / His Bought Mistress

No, please—please. She mustn’t want Leo Makarios.

Not a man like that, a man who’s just proved himself to be everything you knew he was. Everything! The kind of man who wants instant cheap gratification and thinks you’re going to roll over and let him get it from you!

Revulsion shuddered through her.

Then slowly, agonisingly slowly, piece by piece, she started to pull herself together.

Yes, she had been a fool, an idiot, but the worst had not happened—that was what she must hang on to. It might have been so close to the edge of the precipice that she must never, ever think of it again, but at least she had summoned the last of her sanity and sent him packing.

She opened her eyes again, staring into the dark.

Imagine if it were now after you’d given yourself totally to him. If you were lying here now and he’d gone back to his gilded state apartment, sleek and sated, leaving you here with nothing left but the bones…

Cold iced through her again.

She had had such a narrow escape…

But she had escaped—that was what she must remember. She had clawed back to sanity just in time.

And she was safe now. Safe.

Slowly, very slowly, she felt her heart-rate come down.

Never, ever again would Leo Makarios push her that close to the precipice.

Never.

Her mouth thinned.

Never.

’Plunge your hands in. Now lift them out—lift, lift, lift! Yes. Hold them up! Up!’

Anna held her hands the way she was being told to. So did the other three models. They were standing around the vast oak table in the castle’s echoing hall again, but this time none of them was wearing any of the Levantsky jewels.

Their hands were all in a huge golden bowl into which had been poured rivers of diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires. And now the four models were plunging into this golden cornucopia and lifting them out, their fingers dripping necklaces and earrings and bracelets.

‘Basta!’ Tonio Embrutti called, simultaneously summoning the stylist and her assistants. ‘Now I want the jewels just draped over their shoulders, in their hair, over their arms, their breasts. Not fastened, just draped.’

His pudgy face took on a sulky look. ‘Of course, their bodies should be naked, but—’

He contented himself with merely making an Italian gesture of exasperation with his hands, waving his camera around as he did so.

Anna stood patiently as the stylist’s assistants got to work.

Her mind was strangely numb. She’d got hardly any sleep last night, and the disapproving make-up artist had commented adversely on the effect thereof on her eyes and complexion. Anna didn’t care. She was, she knew, beyond caring. She had only one overriding impulse.

To get out of here. Out and home.

But she still had today and tonight to get through before she could run. At least today there was no sign of Leo Makarios. He’d gone off with his guests—some whisked off to ski slopes, some on horse-drawn sleigh rides, some on helicopter tours of the Austrian Alps, or back to Vienna and Munich for shopping trips.

Even so, today’s shoot seemed longer than yesterday’s, but finally it was done. Released at last, changed back into her normal clothes, Anna headed back up to her room. Vanessa had disappeared instantly—presumably Markos was in the wings somewhere—and Kate almost as quickly.

‘There’s an early concert in the town’s Musikverein,’ Kate had explained to the others eagerly. ‘Maestro Lukacs has given me a ticket!’ She’d said it as though he’d given her the keys to the kingdom, her eyes shining.

‘Have fun,’ Anna had said dryly. Preferably, she added silently, not in Antal Lukacs’s bed. Kate was far too impressionable.

She headed off after Jenny, also making for her room. The other model had a head start on her up the vast stairs. Anna sprinted after her.

‘Wait for me!’ she called. But Jenny was ploughing on, reaching the set of stairs that led to the upper floors. She seemed to be walking faster and faster, as if the devil was driving her.

But then it was, Anna knew. Her face shadowed. God, she might have been an idiot the night before, letting Leo Makarios get to within a hair’s breadth of tumbling her down into bed, but at least she’d found her sanity in time! Jenny had never found hers with the man who had got her into this mess. And now she was facing the complete disintegration of her life. Forced to cash in everything she had and flee.

Flee to keep her baby safe from the man who would take it from her.

Anna’s eyes darkened. Well, whatever it took she would make sure she stood by Jenny! Money, support—someone there at the birth of her child—whatever Jenny needed, she’d stick by her.

But right now Jenny just needed reassurance. Someone to keep her spirits up, take away the edge of fear that was eating into her day by day at the thought of her pregnancy being discovered.

Anna hurried on, up the second flight of stairs and along the corridor to her bedroom. Jenny had rushed ahead and was out of sight. Anna paused outside her friend’s door, wondering whether Jenny would like a cup of tea with her.

‘Jen, do you want a cuppa? Rosehip or chamomile?’

There was no answer.

Anna opened the door and poked her head round. Maybe Jenny was in the bathroom.

She wasn’t.

She was sitting on her bed. Like Anna, she was wearing trousers, but unlike Anna she had a large, fleecy long-sleeved pullover on.

And out of the sleeve she was sliding a long ruby bracelet.

For one long, timeless moment Anna did not believe what she was seeing. And then, with a rush of icy water in her stomach, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.

Jenny was staring at her. Staring at her with shock and fear naked on her face. She was as white as a sheet, every bone in her face starkly outlined.

Slowly, Anna came forward.

‘Oh, my God, Jen, what have you done?’

Her voice was hollow.

Jenny just stared; she was beyond speech, Anna could see—wound up so tight she would break if stressed any further.

Carefully, Anna went and sat down beside her.

Jenny turned huge distended eyes on her.