The Ultimate Revenge

Even Pia—who’d been vaccinated against the Nicandros of the world—had sensed him drizzling charm all over her as if she were a hot waffle. Clarissa wouldn’t have stood a chance. Had he slept with her? Devoured her over and over again? And why that imagery made her feel queasy was anyone’s guess.

‘You are going soft in your old age, Pia,’ Jovan said.

The only thing going soft was her breasts.

‘I’m not so vain that I can’t admit to fault. The girl is far too sheltered to be surrounded by Q Virtus players, some of who are no better than vultures preying on female flesh, but she needed the extra money to send home and I caved.’

While those were the facts it wasn’t the entire truth, and she knew it. The truth was Nicandro had used the girl, and it left a bitterly sour taste in Pia’s mouth. She was utterly disappointed in him—and that was highly idiotic, because it meant she’d placed him on a pedestal just from what she’d read of him, meant her emotions had been engaged. Fool.

‘Of course you caved. The girl genuinely needed you. I know you hate to admit it, but you like being needed.’

‘No, I don’t.’ Did she?

‘Okay, you don’t. So, do I have the pleasure of escorting him to the airport?’ Jovan asked, with no small amount of enthusiastic glee, as he walked towards her desk, where she was standing shuffling papers from one towering pile to another.

The fact she was making a mess to avoid this subject didn’t go unnoticed.

Oh, hell, this was not going to go down well.

‘No.’ And since she didn’t have the energy to tell Jovan he’d be escorting them both—together—and then deal with the inevitable fall-out—which was so unlike her it was frightening—she said, ‘I’ll explain later. Get going or you’ll miss Laurent.’

Jovan did a quick U-turn and headed towards the door—and the action popped a memory like some maniacal jack-in-the-box. Nicandro’s swift volte-face. One minute the consummate charmer, the next a predator. The lobisomem she’d seen from the start.

Strange, that all it had taken was one scan of his membership request, one perlustration of his past, one glance at the nebulous depths of his eyes and his moniker had bitten into her brain. Lobisomem: werewolf. A survivor despite or perhaps in spite of his origins. A lord of the night. His darkness a phantom entreaty to her soul.

But for several heartbeats in that room there’d been such violent anger in his eyes. A change so swift, so absolute, she’d felt the sharp edges of panic for the first time in years.

Where had it come from, that vitriol mutating his gorgeous whisky-coloured eyes to black pools of hate? Indifference she might have understood—but hate? Such a strong emotion. Made him appear dangerous. Deadly.

At first she’d thought his abrupt one-eighty had something to do with her diamonds—the only gift her father had ever given her, the only time he’d ever shown her he cared. It was the only possession she’d ever truly adored. Yet Nicandro had stared at them with a look of abject horror. It was the why that was bugging her. Yes, large black diamonds were extraordinarily rare—hers was one of a kind—but the way he’d gone on you would think it was an evil eye, some kind of black art mumbo-jumbo.

Rubbing at the aching spot between her eyes, she decided it was nigh on impossible to figure him out.

‘Jovan, before you go, what’s the name of that private investigator we occasionally use?’

He stilled beneath the archway leading back to the main suite and looked over his shoulder at her keenly. ‘We have several. Though it’s usually Mason, who tows the legal line—or McKay, who has no compulsion about being morally corrupt if given the right incentive.’

Another crook. Wonderful. Bad enough she was hearing rumours of Q Virtus being associated with the Greek mafia. Did she have Mr Carvalho to thank for that one too? She’d thank him, all right. With a swift knee-jerk in his crown jewels.

When she had the proof. If it was him.

So foolish, Pia. You’re still hoping there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this—an explanation that has nothing to do with Nicandro Carvalho, aren’t you? She couldn’t answer that question and not hate herself.

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