Tycoon's Ring Of Convenience

Expectantly he glanced at Toby Masterson, who dutifully performed the required introduction.

‘Diana,’ he said genially, ‘this is Nikos Tramontes.’

She was forced to look at him, though her grey eyes were expressionless. Carefully expressionless.

‘How do you do, Mr Tramontes?’ she intoned in a cool voice. She spoke with the familiar tones of the English upper class, and only the briefest smile of courtesy indented her mouth.

Nikos gave her an equally brief courtesy smile. ‘How do you do, Ms...?’ He glanced at Masterson for her surname.

‘St Clair,’ Masterson supplied.

‘Ms St Clair,’ he said, his glance going back to the ice maiden.

Her face was still expressionless, but in the depths of her clear grey eyes he was sure he saw a sudden veiling, as if she were guarding herself from his perusal of her. That was good—it showed him that despite her glacial expression she was responsive to him.

Satisfied, he turned his attention back to Toby Masterson, moving their conversation on to the EU, the latest manoeuvres from Brussels, and thence on to the current state of the Greek economy.

‘Does it impact you?’ Toby Masterson was asking.

Nikos shook his head. ‘Despite my name, I’m based in Monaco. I’ve a villa on Cap Pierre.’ He glanced at Diana St Clair. ‘What of you, Ms St Clair? Do you care for the South of France?’

It was a direct question, and she had to answer it. Had to look at him, engage eye contact.

‘I seldom go abroad,’ she replied.

Her tone still held that persistent note of not wanting to converse, and he watched her reach for her liqueur glass, raise it to her lips as if to give her something to do—something to enable her not to answer more fully. Yet her hand trembled very, very slightly as she replaced her glass, and satisfaction again bit in Nikos. The permafrost was not as deep as she wanted to convey.

‘That’s not surprising,’ Masterson supplied jovially. ‘The St Clairs have a spectacular place in the country to enjoy—Hampshire, isn’t it? Greymont?’ he checked. ‘Eighteenth-century stately pile,’ he elaborated.

Do they, indeed? thought Nikos. He looked at her with sudden deeper interest.

‘Do you know Hampshire?’ Toby Masterson was asking now.

‘Not at all,’ said Nikos, keeping his eyes on Diana St Clair. ‘Greymont? Is that right?’

For the first time he saw an expression in her eyes. A flash that seemed to spear him with the intensity of the emotion behind it. It made him certain that behind the ice was a very, very different woman. A woman capable of passion.

Then it was gone, and the frost was back in her eyes. But it had left a residue. A residue that just for a moment he thought was bleakness.

‘Yes,’ she murmured.

He made a mental note. He would have a full dossier on her by tomorrow—Ms Diana St Clair of Greymont, Hampshire. What kind of place was it? What kind of family were the St Clairs? And just what further interest might Ms Diana St Clair have for him other than presenting him with so delectable a challenge to his seductive powers to melt an ice maiden?

His eyes flickered over her consideringly. Exquisitely beautiful and waiting to be melted into his arms, his bed... But could there be yet more to his interest in her? Could she be a candidate for something more than a fleeting affair?

Well, his investigations would reveal that.

For now, however, he had whetted his appetite—and he knew with absolute certainty that he had made the impact on her that he had intended, though she was striving not to let it show.

He turned his attention back to Masterson, taking his leave with a casual suggestion of some potential mutual business interest at an indeterminate future date.

As he strolled away his mood was good—very good indeed. With or without any deeper interest in her, the ice maiden was on the way to becoming his. But on what terms he had yet to decide.

He let his thoughts turn to how he might make his next move on her...

CHAPTER TWO (#ue5223050-7f38-5c92-a2b2-65eee9465b62)

DIANA THREW HERSELF back in the taxi and heaved a sigh of pent-up relief. Safe at last.

Safe from Nikos Tramontes. From his powerfully unsettling impact on her. An impact she was not used to experiencing.

It had disturbed her profoundly. She had done her best to freeze him out, but a man that good-looking would not be accustomed to rebuff—would be used to getting his own way with women.

Well, not with me! Because I have no intention of having anything to do with him.

She shook her head, as if to clear his so disturbing image from her mind’s eye. She had far more to worry about. She knew now, resignedly, that she could not face marrying Toby—but what other solution could save her beloved home?

Anxiety pressed at her—and over the next two days in London it worsened. Her bank declined to advance the level of loan required, the auction houses confirmed there was nothing left to sell to raise such a sum. So it was with little enthusiasm that she took a call from Toby.

‘But it’s Covent Garden. And I know you love opera.’

The plaintive note in Toby’s voice made Diana feel bad. She owed him a gentle let-down. Reluctantly she acquiesced to his invitation—a corporate jolly for a performance of Verdi’s Don Carlo.

But when she arrived at the Opera House she wished she had refused.

‘You remember Nikos Tramontes, don’t you?’ Toby greeted her. ‘He’s our host tonight.’

Diana forced a mechanical smile to her face, concealing her dismay. With her own problems uppermost in her mind, she’d managed to start forgetting him, and the discomforting impact he’d had on her, but now suddenly he was here, as powerfully, disturbingly attractive as before.

Then she was being introduced to the other couple present. Diana recognised the man who had brought Nikos Tramontes over to their table. With him was his wife, who promptly took advantage of the three men starting to talk business to draw Diana aside.

‘My, my,’ she said conspiratorially, throwing an openly appraising look back at Nikos Tramontes, ‘he is most definitely a handsome brute. No wonder he’s been able to hold on to Nadya Serensky for so long. That and all his money, of course.’

Diana looked blank, and Louise Melmott promptly enlightened her.

‘Nadya Serensky. You know—that stunning redheaded supermodel. They’re quite an item.’

It was welcome news to Diana. Perhaps she’d only been imagining that Nikos Tramontes had eyed her up at the livery dinner.

Maybe it’s just me, overreacting.

Overreacting because it was so strange to encounter a man who could have such a powerfully disturbing physical impact on her. Yes, that must be it. She tried to think, as she sipped her champagne in the Crush Room, if she had ever reacted so strongly as that to any other man, and came up blank. But then, of course, she didn’t react to men. Had schooled herself all her life not to.

The men she’d dated over the years had been good-looking, but they had always left her cold. A tepid goodnight kiss had been the most any of them had ever received. Only with one, while at university, had she resolved to see if it were possible to have a full relationship without excessive passion of any kind.

She had found that it was—for herself. But eventually not for her boyfriend. He’d found her lack of enthusiasm off-putting and had left her for another woman. It hadn’t bothered her—had only confirmed how right she was to guard her heart. Losing it was so dangerous. A policy of celibacy was much wiser, much safer.

Anxiety bit at her. Except such a policy would hardly find her a husband rich enough to save Greymont. If she was truly still contemplating so drastic a solution.