From Dirt to Diamonds

She felt an odd sensation jitter through her. It was different from the impulse she’d had to slug the guy for looking at her like meat. Yet it still had something to do with him looking at her. She frowned as she walked along. It wasn’t a feeling she’d had before. It felt alien. Unnerving. She found, too, that she was replaying the encounter at the hotel door in her head—and then the bit where she’d been summoned to the table. The odd jittery sensation went through her again.

She didn’t like it. It made her feel—vulnerable.

And vulnerable was something she never, never wanted to feel.

Quickening her pace, she headed up the broad sweep of stairs up to the function suite. Inside, she saw that the other nine girls were already there—and so was Mr Big, talking to the most important suit. Deliberately not looking at him, Kat took her place beside the group, standing quietly to one side.

Angelos looked up. Immediately his eyes went to girl he’d added to the short list. His gaze stilled.

She was looking stunning. With part of his mind he tried to analyse why—and failed. Every girl here looked outstandingly beautiful, yet there was something about the edgy blonde that made her stand out even from them—that made him want to look at her …

Was that quality, whatever it was, enough to make him break the brief he’d given his creative team? That the models for this campaign should have the glossy, upmarket look that went with the new line of luxury yachts Petrakos Marine was launching? He turned to his creative director, taking a seat at the table and tilting his chair back slightly.

‘Have the girls walk,’ he instructed.

Deliberately he studied the other girls as they paraded up and down as if they were on a runway. Then, equally deliberately, he let his eyes go to the edgy blonde.

She doesn’t like it, surmised Angelos. She doesn’t like parading up and down on command. Doesn’t like taking orders. Showing herself off. He could see her resentment in every stiffened line of her body as she stalked up and down.

‘That’s enough.’

The girls stopped, came back to the table. The creative director leant forward to say something to Angelos, but he held out a hand to silence him. His gaze remained on the girls clustering around. He worked his gaze along them, his face expressionless.

Then he simply said, ‘You, you, you,’ nodding at each he’d chosen in turn.

One was blonde, with long hair down to her waist—clearly her particular asset—the second was an aristocratic brunette, and the third was Eurasian and any man’s private fantasy. They would all be ideal for the campaign.

Having made the required decision, he left everything else to his staff. But as he got to his feet his eyes went to the girl at the end of the row. She looked even more apart than before. The other rejected girls were peeling off into a group, some shrugging, some looking unconcerned, while the favoured three were taken off by two of his staff to get more details of the forthcoming shoot.

For a long moment the girl in the eau de nil silk just stood there, very still. Her face was quite expressionless. Then she turned away, walking back to the door.

There wasn’t any sign of resentment now. Only deliberate indifference.

Except that it wasn’t indifference. He could see exactly what it was—defiance. Not by the slightest slump of her shoulders letting any trace of having been rejected show. He watched her a moment, ignoring whatever it was his creative director was saying to him.

Then he went after her.

He caught her up just in the upper foyer, as she was heading for the stairs down and out of the hotel. He took her arm.

She stopped dead and jerked around. Her eyes flashed.

‘Don’t handle the merchandise, sunshine!’ she said, and made to tug away. It had no effect on his grip.

Angelos looked down at her upturned face. There was antagonism bristling in her eyes, but more than that. Something behind the antagonism.

‘There may be room for one more model. I’m prepared to consider it,’ he said.

Something flashed in her eyes, then disappeared.

He let go of her arm. ‘I’ll discuss it with you in my suite.’

Her eyes flashed again, but not with the emotion that had just been in them.

‘Get stuffed,’ she said, and wheeled round. He caught her again.

‘You mistake me,’ he said, and his voice was icy. ‘This concerns merely whether you are, or are not, suitable for this campaign. Nothing else.’ He walked towards the bank of lifts, not bothering to see if she was following. She would be, he knew.

She stepped into the lift beside him, standing as far away from him as possible, staring straight ahead, her shoulders rigid. Wary as a cat, but with a hunger, he knew perfectly well, for what he had in his power to offer her. As the elevator lifted away he caught the faintest tang of perfume—something citrusy. Sharp. It suited her, he realised.

Beside him, Kat stood, every nerve end bristling. It had been a rollercoaster all afternoon—from realising she wasn’t going to be short-listed to the exultation that she had been, and then, just now, the bitter knowledge that she still hadn’t made it, despite her best shot and her evening gown.

Only to have hope flare all over again—

She felt pincers snip away inside her stomach. And now it was not just because of the job she wanted so much. It was because of the man she was standing beside. Something about him was setting her nerves jangling.

It’s because he’s an arrogant s.o.b—that’s why! Mr High-and-Mighty, Filthy-Rich-Big! Looking at me like I’m nothing more than meat.

And it was in his power to give her a job she really, really wanted.

No other reason. Absolutely no other reason.

As she walked after him into the suite she stopped dead, gazing round, mouth dropping open. So this was how the rich lived! The place was like some kind of apartment, with rooms opening off a lounge that had a balcony on one side and a dining table in a huge alcove. Two huge sofas faced each other across an acre of coffee table.

‘Sit down and wait.’

The voice was indifferent, assuming obedience. She did as she was told, still looking around her, and then her eyes went to him without her volition, watching as he extracted some papers from a briefcase, setting them down upon the dining table and standing to look through them. He started to make phone calls in a foreign language. It didn’t sound like anything she’d heard before, so maybe it was Greek—the guy was Greek, the model who’d told her about him downstairs had said. Greek—and loaded.

And not just with money.

Kat found herself looking at him. Staring at him.

He might be an arrogant s.o.b, but she knew exactly how he was getting away with it. With looks like his—all that height and toughness and hard, planed features and dark, measuring eyes, plus that magnetic Mediterranean appeal with his olive skin tone and sable hair and that indefinable aura of being ‘foreign’—he must have women slavering for him!

Oh, not her. No chance. Because she didn’t slaver over any man, and never would. But she could still feel her nerves jangling, and she didn’t like it. Didn’t like it one bit. Every impulse told her to jump to her feet and run, but she had to sit there, like a good little girl, because this man—however much her made her hackles rise—could give her the job she craved.

Her eyes flashed momentarily. But I’m still not kow-towing to him! He can take the job and stuff it before I do that!

She set her jaw, forcing her eyes away from where he stood, looking as if he owned the place. Which he might very well do, she realized. He was stuck giving orders in Greek, or whatever it was, down the phone. Her eyes went back to looking over this room where the rich folk hung out, taking it all in—the décor, the furniture, the deep carpets, the vast bouquet of flowers on the sideboard. All the trappings of luxury that a man as rich as Mr Big took for granted every moment of his gilded life.

A world away from her own life.

Well, she would never get to this level—she knew that—but then she didn’t want to. Didn’t need to. All she needed was something a lot better than she had—a clean, nicely furnished flat, not the squalid, mouldering bedsit she was holed up in now, and enough money coming in for her not to be cold in winter and watching every penny every minute of the day. Something that was hers and hers alone—a decent life.

And one day she’d have it. One day—

Her focus snapped back to the present. The phone calls had stopped, and he slid the phone away in his inside jacket pocket, coming across to sit down opposite her in an armchair. He’d helped himself to a drink from somewhere, but wasn’t offering her one, she noticed. Just as well. She wouldn’t have touched it.

He hooked one leg over his knee and relaxed back into his seat, holding his glass in his hand. His eyes rested on her.

Kat made her face expressionless. She was learning how to do that.

‘So …’ said Angelos Petrakos. His voice was deep, but with hardly a trace of accent, she realised, only the clipped, curt tones of a posh Englishman—a million miles away from the London voice she spoke with. ‘Shall I hire you, or not?’

Kat’s expression didn’t change. Was she supposed to answer, or just sit there like a dummy? She chose to answer. It was probably the wrong thing to do, but sitting voiceless was more than she could make herself do.

‘No point asking me,’ said Kat. ‘I’m just the meat.’ Her voice was deadpan.

‘Meat?’ The word fell into the space, ready frozen.

She tightened her mouth. ‘Clothes horse. Dress rack. Dummy. AKA body. AKA meat.’

His eyes seemed to narrow minutely. ‘You have a problem with that?’

She shrugged. ‘It’s what modelling’s all about,’ she answered.

‘But you object?’ The voice was sardonic.

‘Not if I get paid. And if I don’t get any hassle,’ she added pointedly.

For a moment he did not answer. Then the dark eyes narrowed again. For a moment Kat felt she was skating on thin ice—very thin ice—that might suddenly crack, disastrously, and send her plunging down into dark, drowning water …

Then it was gone.

‘And if … hassle… were part of the deal?’

For answer, Kat held up a single finger, her face expressionless.

Angelos’s eyes flickered to it, then back to the girl’s face. Why was he doing this? He had no intention of sleeping with her. His assessment was purely professional. But something made him say, his tone suddenly dulcet, ‘You might find it enjoyable—’

‘And you,’ Kat retorted sweetly, ‘might find the attempt painful.’

For a second, the barest portion of one, she felt the ice give an ominous crack. As if he might actually find her answer amusing. Then the hard features hardened even more, and he simply levelled upon her a glance that crushed her like an insect.

Oh, God, thought Kat. My big mouth.

But Angelos Petrakos was reaching for his mobile phone. It was answered instantly. He didn’t look at her. ‘Add Kat Jones to the shoot,’ he said.

She stared, eyes widening. Then elation soared through her.

A moment later it dissipated. Those sharp dark eyes were back on her again.

‘Provisionally,’ said Angelos Petrakos.

She looked at him warily. ‘What’s that mean?’ she asked. She sounded blunter than she’d meant to, but her nerves were jangling for a hundred reasons which had a lot more to do with the hard-featured face of the man with the power to hire her than the job he was dangling in front of her.

‘It means,’ he answered, ‘that I want to check whether you can behave appropriately. Fit in. I don’t tolerate,’ he said cuttingly, ‘attitude.’

Kat bit her lip. She could feel herself doing it. Forcing herself to do it.

‘Exactly,’ said Angelos Petrakos, a mordant expression in his night-dark eyes. Then, abruptly, he got to his feet. ‘If you have any engagements for this evening, cancel them.’

She stared. Wariness radiated instantly from her again, like a beacon switch thrown to high. He saw it—just as he’d seen her forcing herself to bite her lip.

‘I’m taking you to dinner,’ he enunciated. ‘There will be a considerable amount of socialising in Monte Carlo. The other girls will find it easy. You need practice,’ he told her coolly. ‘If, that is, you are to go at all.’

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