Purchased for Passion: Shackled by Diamonds / A Mistress for the Taking / His Bought Mistress

She slipped the ruby bracelet inside her shoe while she was getting to her feet…

That was how she’d done it. Kept it hidden inside her shoe for the rest of the shoot, and then somehow, in the crush of the changing room, she must have transferred it into her sleeve.

Dismay hollowed out again in her. How could Jenny have been so insane?

No—no time to think about what had driven her friend to such folly. All that was important now was getting rid of the bracelet in such a way that its temporary disappearance could not be linked to Jenny.

She gained the head of the staircase leading down to the guest level upper floor. From there, the huge main staircase flowed down to the hall. At the top, she paused a moment. Instinctively, she realised, she’d been heading back to the scene of the crime—the main hall, where the huge oaken table sat solidly in its splendour.

Her eyes blinked, even as her stomach flushed with icy water again.

Two of the security guards were systematically working their way along the length of the table on either side, feeling underneath the surface.

Anna watched, frozen with horror. Even as she stood there, unable to move, there was the sound of a vehicle approaching, drawing to a sudden halt, and then, moments later, the huge front door of the Schloss swung open and Leo Makarios walked in.

He was in skiing clothes, Anna registered absently. And he was also, she realised, fully cognisant of the fact that the ruby bracelet was missing.

He strode up to the security guards and barked something at them. Anna saw them shake their heads and then resume their painstaking search. Anna found herself wondering quite what they were doing. Then it came to her.

They must have realised that the only opportunity the thief had had was when the jewels had been spilt. Which meant—

Oh, God, she felt sick—if they thought that, then they could also severely limit the number of suspects.

For one long moment she stared down at Leo Makarios, standing hands on hips, thick skiing jacket pushed back, continuing to watch the guards. His face was expressionless, but his eyes—his eyes made a sick, cold punch go through her. Then, appearing out of the nether regions of the Schloss, she saw his gofer, Justin, come hurrying up to him. His face looked like curd-cheese, and Anna almost felt sorry for him.

But she couldn’t think about him now, or the kind of tonguelashing, and worse, he was about to get from his employer. She had to think of herself—and Jenny.

You can’t just stand here—go—move! Clear off!

She jerked back from the balustrade.

It was a mistake.

The movement caught Leo Makarios’s eye. His head whipped up from where he was on the receiving end of Justin’s agitated discourse.

He saw her instantly.

And in that moment, Anna knew that she would rather die than have him discover the bracelet on her.

She just stood there, frozen. And then, from somewhere, she found a strength of mind she’d never even known she possessed. Slowly, she began to walk down the stairs. A model’s walk—almost a saunter.

As she did so, she saw Leo Makarios’s eyes narrow. Something leapt in them, and for a second she reeled from it. Then a flood of relief went through her.

She knew that look. And though at any other time she would have felt her hackles rise automatically, now, for the first time in her life, she could have gone down on her knees at being on the receiving end of such a look.

Casually, knowing she absolutely, totally and completely must not—must not behave in any way other than utterly ignorant—utterly innocent—she kept on walking downstairs.

Think—think! What would you do if you were seeing Leo Makarios for the first time after that scene last night?

But she was, of course. Seeing him for the first time since last night…

And it just so happens—the cold poured through her insides again—that you currently happen to have his priceless Levantsky ruby bracelet in your pocket.

For one overwhelming moment Anna felt the urge to just walk up to him, fish the bracelet out of her pocket, and hand it to him with some kind of smartass remark like, Is this what you’re looking for?

But it was impossible—completely impossible. To reveal she had it, however innocent she might be as to its original theft, would simply be to condemn Jenny. And she couldn’t, wouldn’t do that. She’d promised herself she would help Jenny get through this ruination of her life, and she would stick by that. Jenny’s problems were far too great to have to cope with being accused of theft as well.

So, instead, she had to behave as she would have if she’d had no idea what was going on. As if her only concern was ignoring the man who had almost got her into bed last night.

She reached the bottom of the stairs. Leo was still looking at her, standing stock still. At his side, Justin stood, silenced and cowed. The two security guards were impassively continuing their search.

Anna glanced towards them, a slight frown on her face registering just the right amount of casual curiosity at what they were so inexplicably doing. Then her eyes drifted past them to the tall, threatening figure in the dark skiing jacket.

He was just looking at her. Quite expressionlessly.

Anna’s face hardened. For an instant all knowledge of the fact she was walking past him with his stolen bracelet on her person disappeared. All she could see was him, Leo Makarios, who had had the audacity, the nerve to think he could turn up in her bedroom at midnight and tumble her over for a quick lay! Sating his carnal appetite on her conveniently available body.

Fury flashed in her eyes—and more than fury.

She kept walking past him.

It was like going through a forcefield, every step.

‘One moment.’

Leo’s voice was like iron.

She halted. She turned her head towards him. Saying nothing. Just letting that look of scornful anger sit in her eyes. Totally ignoring the sick fear inside her.

‘Where are you going?’

Her lips pressed together. ‘I’m off duty now, Mr Makarios. So I’m going to get some fresh air.’

Did she sound insolent? She didn’t care.

His brows snapped together.

‘Without a jacket or boots? In the dark?’

She gave a shrug. It cost her, but she did it.

‘Five minutes won’t kill me,’ she returned indifferently.

She went on heading for the vast wooden doors.

It took every ounce of strength she possessed. Every nerve was screaming. Every muscle tearing. Every step was as if she were walking on glass.

The doors seemed a mile away. If she could just reach them and get outside she would be safe.

Safe outdoors. Safe from Leo Makarios’s deadly, dangerous regard, with the bracelet safe in her pocket…

She didn’t mean to. She really, really didn’t mean to. But she could not stop herself. It was an instinct so overpowering that her hand moved of its own accord.

Her fingers brushed along her right thigh, feeling the hidden lumpiness of the rubies. Telling her they were still safe.

She was nearly at the doors. Behind her, she could hear Justin’s voice agitatedly resume, presumably telling his employer all the things the security personnel were doing to recover the missing jewellery.

Her hand was reaching out for the iron ring, to turn it and open the door.

Ten more seconds and I’ll be outside.

Just hold your nerve. Hold it!

‘One moment, if you please, Ms Delane.’

Leo’s command was like ice. Cold and very, very hard.

Anna froze.

She stood, quite immobile, her hand still reaching out to open the front door. She did not turn round. Had no power to do so. No power to do anything except stand there with her mind screaming at her.

She heard his heavy-booted footsteps ringing on the stone flags, walking up to her.

‘I’d like a word with you.’

She twisted her head round slowly, disdainfully. Claws crushed at her stomach, but she knew she had to keep her nerve.

What would she do if she were innocent?

She would be uncooperative, rejecting.

Her mouth tightened.

‘Yes?’ she said stonily.

‘In private.’ His voice was grim.

Deliberately, Anna stared at him. It was hard, punishingly hard, but she met his eyes. They were completely expressionless, and somehow that frightened her even more than if she had seen that look in them she hated.

‘I have nothing to say to you, Mr Makarios,’ she said, in a tight, low voice.

His expression did not change.

‘I have some questions to ask you.’ His voice twisted, and for a second she saw that look flash briefly. ‘Be assured it has nothing to do with the subject you so clearly wish to avoid.’ He gestured with his hand. ‘This way.’

Should she refuse? What would look worse?

If she made too much objection would she draw attention to herself? Arouse suspicions? After all, there was nothing he could know—nothing he could do.

Except ask questions she would find—would have to find!—innocent answers to.

‘Very well,’ she said, in a clipped, tight voice.

She marched off in the direction he was indicating. It was to a door on the far side of the hall, and she had no idea where it led. Behind her she could hear Leo Makarios’s heavy booted tread ringing on the flags. In her stomach acid pooled; her heart was racing.

Be glad about last night! It’s giving you a cover for your obvious tension now!

Anna gritted her teeth. She just had to hold her nerve, that was all.

She stopped outside the room. Leo Makarios opened the door and ushered her in.

It was an office, she saw instantly. Lined with bookshelves and predominantly occupied by a vast desk on which stood a PC.

She walked in and stopped. Then turned around and looked belligerently at Leo Makarios closing the door behind him.

It was not a small room, but as the solid wood door snapped shut it suddenly seemed claustrophobically confined.

‘Well?’ she demanded. ‘What’s all this about?’

Her chin lifted, but behind the belligerent expression on her face she could feel herself paling.

Leo was standing there very still, just looking at her.

Quite expressionless.

The dark padded ski jacket made him look even more formidable than he usually looked.

‘I would like you, Ms Delane, to empty your pockets.’

The blood drained from her face completely.

With an effort of will she forced an expression of astonishment to her features.

‘What?’

He did not move. ‘You heard me. Empty your pockets.’

‘No!’ she retorted indignantly, trying desperately to stay in character. She took a harsh breath. ‘What is this? What the hell is going on?’

‘You’ve gone pale, Ms Delane. Even paler than usual. Why is that, I wonder?’

His eyes were resting on her like weights, but she had to keep staring back at him angrily. Not letting her fear show.

But the fear was there, all right—like pickaxes gouging in her stomach.

‘Because I don’t want to be anywhere near you. That’s why! Isn’t it obvious, Mr Makarios?’ she thrust defiantly at him.

Did his eyes narrow very, very slightly?

‘Obvious—or convenient?’

‘What?’

His mouth tightened.

‘Just empty your pockets, please.’

‘No, I will not. What the hell is this about?’

‘Just do it.’

Anna’s expression hardened.

‘How dare you harass me like this—?’

Leo Makarios’s face suffused with instant thunder. His hand slammed down on to the surface of his desk.

‘You will not use that word! Christos—’ He took a harsh, ripping breath. ‘Very well—if you do not wish to empty your pockets, you need not do so.’ He moved his hand, picking up the phone. ‘You can instead let the police search you.’

‘The police?’ With all her nerve she tried to inject as much withering bewilderment into her voice as she could. ‘Are you mad?’ she challenged derisively. ‘I’ve had enough of this!’

She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

It was locked. Between fear and fury she rattled the handle viciously. She could no longer tell whether she was still in character as someone totally innocent, or succumbing to an overriding instinct to run and run and run.

‘Let me out!’

Footsteps sounded behind her across the carpet. Then Leo Makarios was right behind her.

‘Of course,’ he said smoothly. His arm came around her to unlock the door.

The other hand slid into her trouser pocket and drew out the bracelet.

He stepped back.

For one endless second Anna froze. Then she twisted round, pressed back against the door panels. Like a deer at bay, cornered by a ravening leopard.

Leo Makarios was just standing there, hand palm up, a river of fire draped over his long fingers. He was so close to her his presence pressed on her like a crushing dark weight.

For a moment he said absolutely nothing, just hung her eyes with his as if he were crucifying her.

Then he spoke.

Each word a nail in her flesh.

‘Well, well, well,’ he said slowly, and the way he spoke was like acid dripping on her bare skin. ‘So the virtuous Ms Delane—so virtuous she won’t allow her lily-white breasts to be photographed, so innocent she is outraged by a man’s touch on her—all along is nothing but a thief.’

She couldn’t move, couldn’t think. Could only feel the horror spreading through her like freezing water.

Think! Think—say something. Anything…

But every synapse in her brain was freezing.

She watched him walk back to his desk, lay the bracelet on its surface. Then he turned back to look at her.

Fury flashed across his face. Anger so intense she thought it would slay her where she stood. Then, with monumental effort of will, his face stilled.

Behind her back she could feel the hard panels of the door pressing into her. Nowhere to run; nowhere to hide.

Caught red-handed in possession of stolen property. A ruby bracelet worth untold tens of thousands of pounds!

And the only way to clear her name would be to incriminate Jenny.

I can’t! I can’t do that! Whatever happens, I’ve got to keep her out of it!

But even as the resolution went through her she felt fear buckle. It was all very well to say something like that, but if she took the can for appropriating the bracelet it would be her the police sirens would sound for, her the jail would beckon—and her career would be left in tatters.

Oh God—please, no!

Leo was looking at her, just looking. There was nothing in his face. Nothing at all.

Then, softly, he spoke.

‘What shall I do with you? My instinct is to hand you over to the police, to hear the prison doors clang shut on you. And yet…’

He paused. His dark, expressionless eyes rested on her.

Into the silence Anna spoke, each word cut from her. ‘What’s the point of getting the police involved? You’ve got the bracelet back. No damage done.’

She was speaking for Jenny; she knew she was. Jenny had acted out of desperation, not greed. Pregnancy did things to you—to your head—and, terrified as Jenny was of the man who had done it to her, the balance of her mind had tipped for a few short, fatal moments. It had been an impulse—desperate, insane—to slip the bracelet into her shoe…

She saw his face change.

‘You steal—from me—and think no damage done?’ His voice was like a thin, deadly blade.

‘Well, there isn’t, is there?’ She made herself give a shrug. Instinctively she knew she had to hide her fear from him. It would show him her vulnerability, and that was something she must never, never show to Leo Makarios.

Another line of defence came to her, and she lifted her chin defiantly. ‘Besides, I can’t imagine you’d welcome the publicity that would arrive with the police. You’re supposed to be getting good publicity from this launch bash—not bad! And it would make your security precautions look pretty pathetic—having some of your precious Levantsky jewels walk off from out under your very nose.’

Even as she spoke she wished she had never said a word. Something was changing in his face again, and it was sending icy fingers down her spine.

He fingered the bracelet, looking across at her, leaning his hips back against the edge of his desk.

‘How very astute of you, Ms Delane,’ he said. His voice was soft, but it raised the hair on the nape of her neck. ‘I would indeed prefer not to make this incident—official. Which is why—’ his eyes rested on her ‘—I am prepared to allow you to make your…reparation…for your crime privately, rather than at the expense of the taxpayer.’

Something crawled in her stomach.

‘What—what do you mean?’

‘Let’s just say…’ he answered—and his voice still had an edge in it that was drawing along her skin like a blade—‘…that I am giving you a choice. I can hand you over to the police—or I can keep you in personal custody until such time as I think you have made sufficient…amends.’ His eyes held hers. ‘Which is it to be?’

She swallowed. Her heart was thumping in hard, heavy slugs.

‘What do you mean?’ Her voice was faint. She wanted it to sound defiant, but it didn’t.

Leo Makarios smiled. It was the smile of a wolf that had its prey in its clutches. Her stomach clenched. His eyelids swept down over his eyes, the lashes long and lustrous.

‘Oh, I think you know, Ms Delane. I think you know.’ For a long moment he held her gaze, telling her in that exchange just exactly what he had in mind as reparation.

She felt a shiver go through her.

It was revulsion. It had to be.

It had to be.

A sharp breath rasped in her throat.

‘No!’ It was instinct—pure survival instinct—that made the word break from her.

He raised an eyebrow.

‘No? Are you sure about that, Ms Delane? Have you, I wonder…’ his voice was conversational, but it screamed along Anna’s nerves ‘…ever been in prison? You’re a very beautiful woman, as you know—exceptionally so. And I’m sure that it isn’t just men who find you so. In prison, for example, there will be inmates who—’

‘No!’

It was fear this time. Naked and bare.

Just for an instant something showed in Leo Makarios’s eyes. Something that did not fit what he was taunting her with. Then it was gone. In its place was merely that cold, scarily level regard.

‘No? Then, given the choice, which will you make, hmm?’

Her face convulsed. ‘Choice? You’re not giving me a choice!’

Anger showed like a flash of lightning in his features.

‘You think you deserve one? Thee mou, you’re a thief! A thief. You stole from me! You had the audacity, the stupidity, to think you could do so with impunity?’ His eyes scorched her, as if he would incinerate her on the spot.

Suddenly a Greek word spat from him. He turned, seizing up the phone on his desk, and punched in a number.

‘Polizei—’

Anna jerked forward.

‘Please—don’t! Don’t…don’t call the police.’

There was panic in her voice. He mustn’t involve the police—he mustn’t! They would investigate the theft, Jenny would realise she’d been found out—and she’d confess—Anna knew she would.

And the consequences would be unthinkable. The case would hit the press, Jenny’s condition would inevitably be exposed in the time it took to come to trial, and when it did she’d lose her baby for ever.

The man who had threatened to take her child from her would arrive to make good his threat. Jenny would lose her freedom and her baby. She’d be branded a criminal and end up in jail, her life ruined, her child taken from her…

And Anna could not let that happen.

Not if there was some way to avoid it.

Slowly, as if from a long distance, she saw Leo Makarios lower the receiver to the handset and turn back to her.

Faintly, forcing her voice to pass her throat, Anna spoke.

‘I need to know…know…exactly what would be involved if I agreed to…to the…the reparation you…you spoke of. I mean—how…how long for…and…when? I mean…’

He was looking at her. Something was in his eyes again, and it made her feel cold.

‘How long?’ he echoed. His voice was silky suddenly. ‘Why, Ms Delane—until I’ve had all I want of you. Or—’ there was a note in his voice that shivered down her spine ‘—until you please me sufficiently to earn your parole. There—is that exact enough for you? Or would you like me to spell out exactly—’ his repetition of the word mocked her ‘—how I envisage you earning your parole?’

He was baiting her, taunting her, wanting her to lash out, scream her defiance, her revulsion at him. She could see it, knew it all the way through her.

And she burned to do it! Burned to tell him to take his disgusting sick ‘choice’ and—

But she couldn’t. Couldn’t do anything except just stand there and let him say such things to her.

‘And…’ She swallowed, forcing herself to go on. ‘And if I…if I agree, then…then you won’t involve the police, or the press, or…anyone else? No one will know except…you?’

His mouth curved in a contemptuous curl.

‘No one will know that you are a thief—is that what you mean?’

‘Yes.’

She stared at him. It was essential, essential that he agreed that. Because somehow she had to keep this from Jenny. Her mind went racing ahead. If she could tell Jenny that she’d safely returned the bracelet, that no one had found out, that it had all gone quiet, she might just save her friend.

What else am I going to have to tell her?

Oh, God, what on earth was she going to say to Jenny? No, she would think about that later. Not now. Not when Leo Makarios was looking at her with a contemptuous expression on his face that would have made her flush with shame if he’d had the cause for it he thought he had.

But he didn’t have cause. She knew he didn’t!

So was that why she lifted her chin and stared back at him defiantly, refusing to let herself be cowed, humiliated, ashamed.

She felt her resolve stiffening as she held his coruscating gaze. What did she care what he thought of her? What did she care if he thought her a thief or not? Because she knew exactly what she thought about him—a man who’d walked into her bedroom last night in the sublime assumption that she was just going to sigh with gratitude and lie down for him…

No—don’t think about that!

Because if she thought then she might remember, and if she remembered then she might…

She might prefer Leo Makarios to phone the police after all…

But she couldn’t let him do that.

Oh, God, it was like being crushed between walls closing in on her, closing in—

With a mental strength she hadn’t known she possessed she pushed them apart. She could not collapse now—could not panic, or faint, or burst into tears. She had to keep going—keep going with what she had done. So she went on staring at him defiantly, chin high.

She could see it angered him. See it in the flash of blackness in his eyes, and she was darkly, viscously pleased. She knew it was irrational, and certainly stupid, to anger even more a man who had such cause to be furious with her.

And part of her brain told her it was unjust as well.

He thinks you’re a thief. He’s got a right to be mad with you!

But reason did not hold sway. Somehow keeping Leo Makarios angry with her made her feel safer—safer than Leo Makarios feeling anything else about her…