Тесса Рэдли – The Apollonides Mistress Scandal / Rich Man's Vengeful Seduction: The Apollonides Mistress Scandal / Rich Man's Vengeful Seduction (страница 4)

Two

Gemma had stood him up!

And she hadn’t even bothered to tell him herself, she’d sent a messenger to deliver the unwelcome news. The anger that had simmered within Angelo since he’d that discovered Gemma was on Strathmos, living and working in his resort, took on a new edge.

Gemma claimed that she’d lost her memory. How had that happened and what did it have to do with him? And why had she returned to Strathmos?

Angelo found himself glaring in the direction where the maddeningly capricious Gemma had vanished from the stage, while the bare skin of her back and that provocative red dress remained imprinted on his vision. He hated the sneaky realisation that he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since he’d arrived back on Strathmos. And now she’d deliberately left him cooling his heels.

Angelo rose to his feet, abandoning the bottle of Bollinger he’d ordered—Gemma had always had a taste for champagne—and, jaw set, stalked out to find her.

She was not in the dressing room. But a comprehensive scan took in the red dress hanging in the closet. Clearly, she’d already been and gone. Nor was she to be found in the row of bars and coffee shops that flanked the theatre. Angelo barely slowed his long strides as Mark Lyme hurried over. Two minutes later, with the next potential crisis averted, he exited the entertainment complex, searching for Gemma’s distinctive dark flame hair under the lamps in the wide paved piazza.

About to veer off to where the staff units were located, he spotted a lone figure walking towards the deserted beach. Hunching his shoulders against the rising wind, Angelo quickened his pace. With her give-away hair, not even the fact that she wore jeans and a bulky sweater could hide that it was Gemma.

He came up behind her. “If I give an employee an order I expect it to be obeyed.” The deceptive softness of his tone didn’t hide his anger—or his frustration.

Gemma’s shoulders tensed and she came to a halt. Then she turned. In the dim light of the lanterns that lined the promenade, he saw her eyebrow arch. “I thought it was an invitation,” she said with soft irony. “One that I never accepted.”

“Or refused.”

She considered him, her head on one side. “Give me one good reason why I should have joined you.”

He blinked. Women usually thronged to his side. Hell, he didn’t need to issue invitations. Women gate-crashed celebrity functions to meet him. “Because I wanted to speak to you.”

“What about?” Her tension was tangible.

“Your memory loss.”

“Not true. You invited me for a drink before you knew about that.”

She had him there. What he really wanted to know was why she had come back to Strathmos. It had to be about more than money. His gut told him it had something to do with her amnesia. He wasn’t about to admit that what pricked his ego was the fact that she didn’t remember him. Or was it a ploy? Was her amnesia nothing more than a sham designed to avoid facing up to her treachery three years ago? Or a last-ditch effort to recapture his interest? At last he said, “You’ve forgotten carrying on with every male under the age of eighty at the Rose Ball? You don’t remember about me…us?”

She closed her eyes at the sheer incredulity in his voice. “Is that so hard to accept?” she asked warily. “I have amnesia.”

“How convenient.”

Gemma opened her eyes and met his narrowed gaze. She tried to speak but her voice wouldn’t work. So she simply shrugged and let her arms fall uselessly by her side.

“What kind of amnesia?”

“Does it matter?” The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach tightened. Couldn’t he see how much she hated this? “Fact is, I can’t remember anything about what happened here three years ago. It’s just…one vast blank.”

“It certainly explains how you have the gall to come back.”

She let that barb go. “It’s not easy being here. But I need to find out about my life. What it was like… well…before.” She slid him a sideways look. The anger had faded, but his eyes still glittered with suspicion. “It’s really strange, because I remember lots of stuff before I met you. Most of it, I think. And I know what happened…afterwards. It’s the time in the middle that’s gone.”

He loomed over her. “How did it happen? Did you fall? Did you hit your head? What do the doctors say about the prognosis? Will you ever get that part of your memory back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.” Gemma’s voice sounded thin and thready even to her own ears. “It upsets me.”

Angelo gave a harsh sigh. “I suppose I can understand that. It must be scary.”

Not as scary as Angelo. Even when he was being nice—like now, when his eyes were full of sympathy—there was a taut purpose to his body, an air of danger and tension. Gemma shuddered. Nice wouldn’t last. Not with Angelo Apollonides. He hadn’t transformed a string of family resorts into modern extravaganzas built for year-round entertainment by being a nice, sympathetic kind of guy. He was tough, decisive and ruthless. A man who worked hard—and played harder. A Greek success legend.

His gaze was direct. “Have dinner with me.”

The unexpected request startled her. She chewed her lip. It was what she ought to do.

“Is it such a difficult decision? Do I scare you so much?” His hands came down on her shoulders and the touch scorched straight through her lamb’s-wool sweater.

She went very still. “You don’t scare me at all,” Gemma said with false bravado.

His hands tightened. “Prove it by having dinner with me.”

A dare. How infantile. She froze under his touch. A hint of stubble darkened his jaw and the hard line of his mouth had relaxed into a sensual curve. The dark intensity of his gaze and the way her flesh reacted to his touch told her that he was way out of her league. She wasn’t ready to have dinner with him, to be the sole focus of his attention. He was so much more than she’d expected. But she had no choice. Not if she wanted to learn what she needed. “Not tonight. It’s been a long day. And it’s late.”

He was about to say something, to argue, when his cell phone trilled. He mouthed an apology and turned away, talking rapidly in Greek, and Gemma realised she’d lost his attention.

Gemma wanted to kick something—preferably herself—and she wished desperately she’d accepted his invitation. Even though the prickles of excitement his touch had generated terrified her.

He hit a button and slid the phone into his pants pocket. “Tomorrow night?”

Relief overwhelmed her. She hadn’t blown it. She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay, I’ll have dinner with you.”

“So how did we meet?” The following evening Gemma sat across from Angelo in a secluded corner of the Golden Fleece restaurant, her half-eaten meal of grilled calamari garnished with sliced lemon in front of her.

“At the film festival in Cannes.” Angelo set down his knife. His plate was empty. “I thought you were an actress.”

That would explain some of it. Angelo had never been linked with a dancer previously.

“Oh? What happened next?” She speared another tube of calamari and popped it into her mouth.

“You were beautiful—and funny. I enjoyed your company so I invited you to spend a weekend at Poseidon’s Cavern.” He named one of the famous resorts that he owned. “You accepted. And, when business called, you came back to Strathmos with me—it’s where I live, after all.” He gave her a grin that transformed his face, the harsh line of his mouth softening into a passionate curve.

Gemma set her knife and fork together and shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with the notion that it had been so easy for him. “And then I got a job in the resort? Right?”

“Do you want desert?”

“No, thanks.”

“Coffee?”

She shook her head, impatient for his answer to her questions.

He came around and pulled out her chair. Close to her ear he murmured, “There was so much more glamour in being the boss’s girlfriend than working.” His voice was loaded with cynicism. “And you’d led me to believe you were taking a break from stage work. I had no idea you were an exotic dancer until about a month later.”

“Oh.” Gemma rose and shot him a wary glance. “I never wanted to…leave?”

He gave a hard-edged grin. “Why should you have? You had it all. Great resorts to live in, an unending credit line and good sex.”

That was supposed to be funny? Gemma had never felt less like laughing in her life. She walked quickly ahead, not noticing the attractive man with long dark hair who waved to her. She smouldered silently until they exited the restaurant.

“So I no longer had a career—” She squawked in shock as Angelo pulled her into an alcove behind an immense bronze statue of Hephaestus. The sconce of fire that burned in the statue’s raised hand cast leaping shadows against the walls. Gemma opened her mouth to protest.

“If you mean, you no longer danced half naked in an upmarket bar, then no, you no longer had a career. Instead you had me.” In the close confines of the alcove his face had changed, toughened. He looked hard and ruthless and suddenly Gemma could see exactly why he was such a successful businessman and commanded so much respect. She had to take care not to provoke him.