From Dirt to Diamonds

She was being truculent, she knew, but couldn’t stop herself. The place was getting to her. He was getting to her.

‘You’ll find,’ replied Angelos Petrakos, his sarcasm silky, ‘that French is the de rigueur language in Monte Carlo.’

Kat gave a shrug, doggedly resistant to his putdown. ‘Well, I’ll be stuffed then, won’t I?’ She shut the menu. ‘I’ll have a green salad, no dressing. That OK in a place like this?’

She was sounding belligerent, and she really, really didn’t mean to. It was stupid to be like this—just stupid! But she couldn’t help herself. She felt wired all along her nerve endings, a tightness in her chest.

He was frowning. ‘That’s all?’

‘Yeah. Model—diet—you know.’

She was being daft, not just flippant. This was free food. She should eat a week’s worth and starve till the weekend! But right now she didn’t think she was going to be able to swallow easily she was so strung out.

A second later her nerves twanged like a bass guitar. His eyes were resting on her. Just—resting.

But it was all they had to do. Suddenly her dress seemed skimpy, her breasts too noticeable beneath the slinky fabric, her shoulders and arms far too exposed. She felt—naked.

Not in the way that photographers and stylists made her feel—although she hated that, no mistake—but what was happening now was … different.

Worse. Much, much worse.

Because when photographers and stylists made her feel like meat it didn’t make her feel like this.

As if she was suddenly burning hot and freezing cold at the same time. As if she wanted to jump to her feet and bolt, and yet was glued immobile. As if her breathing had stopped completely, and yet her heart-rate was racing as if she’d just injected adrenaline straight into it …

And then suddenly the gaze was gone, and there was, instead, a faint frown line between his brows, as though yet again something had annoyed him.

Then the waiter was hovering, ready to take orders. She repeated her request for salad, her voice sounding tight and breathless. When he’d gone, Angelos Petrakos turned his attention back to her.

‘You’d look better with more flesh on you,’ he said. He sounded critical, and it galled her. But then, everything about him galled her. Or did something like that to her …

‘Tell that to the camera,’ she riposted. ‘It puts weight on if you just breathe.’

‘So you live on air?’

‘Just about. You get used to it.’

The frown between his eyes snapped deeper. ‘With the aid of drugs?’ he shot at her.

‘No,’ she retorted instantly. She said nothing else. It was a subject she never discussed. Never.

‘Good,’ he said brusquely. ‘I don’t tolerate drug-users, for any reason.’

She didn’t answer. There wasn’t anything to say. She knew drugs were prevalent in the modelling business, both for recreation and weight control, but since she didn’t socialise she saw very little of it.

Then a guy with a little metal cup beetled up, with a minion in tow bearing a bottle as if it was some kind of baby. Kat stared, nonplussed, at the ritual that then proceeded.

‘What was that all about?’ she heard herself asking, as the flunkey and his minion beetled off again, having eventually filled two glasses.

Angelos found himself explaining the role of the sommelier. While he did so he wondered, for the dozenth time, what the hell he was doing right now. Bringing this ill-mannered, back-talking, street-sharp girl here to dinner. Oh, he knew what he’d told her—but that wasn’t the reason and he knew it. He couldn’t care less if she was gauche and unsophisticated on the shoot, provided she took instructions and shot well. No, he had different reasons for extending his time with her—reasons he didn’t want to focus on right now, simply continue with.

She was totally not the type of female he was ever interested in—too thin and too raw, with an unlovely London accent exacerbating her sharp tongue. A universe away from the sophisticated and soignée women he chose for company.

So why was he wasting his valuable time on this mouthy, angular, bony female who’d brought her back-street behaviour with her from whatever sink estate she’d been dragged up on?

The question probed at him, finding no answer. None but whatever it had been about her that had made him subject her to his scrutiny from the moment she’d pushed past him in the hotel doorway to now, having her sit here opposite him, clearly completely out of her social depth and radiating resentment, hostility and, most obvious of all, having to force herself not to jump to her feet and march out of the restaurant and hightail it back to wherever she hailed from.

Was that it? he found himself wondering. Was that why he was wasting his time on her? Because she didn’t want him to? Because she so obviously didn’t want his attention?

Something he’d never known in any female. Oh, the women he associated with were sufficiently sophisticated not to let their assiduous desire to please him be conspicuous, but it was there all the same—all the time. He took it for granted that it would be, even if it was just his wealth alone that drew them. And if the kind of women he selected for his relaxation were of that mind, how much more so all the other females who crossed his path in more workaday, humbler roles? A girl in this model’s circumstances should be desperate to court his approval, impress him with her suitability for the assignment.

For a fleeting moment he examined the possibility that the girl was deliberately trying to make herself noticeable by being as belligerent and hostile as she was. Then he dismissed it. No, her body language—bristling and protective—was genuine. So was her resistance and suspicion. His eyes darkened momentarily. She’d repulsed very clearly, very crudely, his deliberately voiced and entirely theoretical proposition. Had she meant it? It had seemed entirely spontaneous, entirely genuine. But … He found his thoughts turning over. Would that resistance last if he let her think that his selection of her as an extra model for the yacht shoot was contingent on her supplying sexual favours?

Was she really, despite her sharp tongue and bristling body language, that virtuous?

His thoughts idled. Perhaps he should put it to the test …

Out of nowhere, like an image illuminated by dark light, he saw her in his mind’s eye, her elongated, coltish body lying on a bed, her small breasts bared, her head tilted back, pale hair jagged on the pillow, eyes blinded by a moment of sexual whiteout—

He thrust the mental vision aside forcefully. The last thing he was interested in was taking her to bed! Forcibly, he focussed his mind on the present circumstances—wondering what on earth had possessed him to waste dinner in her company. She was as far from his type as it was possible to be, and with every minute that passed she confirmed it. Her ignorance was total. She had clearly never dined in a restaurant like this before, and clearly never made conversation over a dinner table before. Her brusqueness was comprehensive, at every question or comment he made, whether from nerves or belligerence.

On top of the ludicrous green salad she’d insisted on, she was ignoring the wine poured for her. Instead, she reached for her water glass and drank it down. Angelos watched her.

‘You won’t try the wine?’

She set down her empty glass and shook her head. ‘I don’t drink,’ she said. ‘Empty calories.’

It was all the reason she would give. Besides, she found talking hard. Her jitters were getting worse. She didn’t like the way she was getting more aware of the man opposite her. He seemed to be crowding her consciousness, making her look at him, and she didn’t want to. For a searing second she could feel an urgent impulse to grab the glass of wine and knock it back. A second later she crushed the impulse. No. No alcohol. Ever. End of story. Instead she took a steadying breath, swallowing air to calm her.

He made no reply to her terse rebuff, only lifting his own wineglass, taking a slow mouthful of wine, swirling the ruby liquid in the large glass, his eyes still resting on her. She shifted position, wishing she could just get up and go. It was like being under a microscope. She hated it. Then, like a release, he set down his glass and turned his attention to his food. Kat felt her stomach cramp with hunger as he forked the rich, fragrant dish of seafood.

He started a new topic. ‘Tell me—have you been to Monaco before?’

‘No. I’ve never been anywhere.’ Why had she said that? He didn’t need to know she’d never been anywhere.

His fork stilled. ‘You’ve never been abroad?’

‘No.’ She collected herself, clamming up.

The dark eyes rested on her. She hadn’t a clue what was going on in them. Didn’t care, anyway. Why should she? If he wanted to make stupid conversation with her, she didn’t have to make it back. Couldn’t anyway. She knew that. Knew she knew nothing. And didn’t care either.

I just care about getting this job.

He was speaking again, taking another considered mouthful of wine. ‘That’s rare, these days, even for the British,’ he observed.

Kat shrugged.

‘You never went abroad on holiday as a child, with your parents?’