The Millionaire's Daughter (The Carew Stepsisters Book 1) Read online

  ‘Going out?’ said a voice she knew.

  Just what she needed to make a grim evening disastrous.

  Annis halted and turned back. She could feel the raindrops on her eyelids and was almost certain there was one on the end of her nose. She refrained from sniffing but it was an effort.

  ‘If you want your report, you’ll have to wait.’

  Konstantin Vitale did not answer immediately. For a moment he just sat there in the back of his chauffeur-driven limousine, looking at her quizzically. It was The Look, the one he had worn the first night they met. It said he only had to lift his little finger and he could command the world. Including her.

  Annis hated The Look. And the silence that went with it. It made her feel hunted. She stamped from foot to foot, trying to keep warm while she thought what to say.

  The car door opened.

  ‘It looks as if you could use a lift.’

  ‘No, thank you. I’m going to the theatre. You don’t want to go into all that traffic. I’ll get a cab.’

  ‘Not at this time of night on a wet Saturday, you won’t,’ he said unarguably. ‘Get in. I’ll take you there.’

  Annis gave in. She slid into deeply upholstered cream leather. The door shut behind her with a solid thunk. She saw that there was a glass panel between passengers and driver. As she settled her cape and shook the drops off her fingers, Konstantin leaned forward and snapped the panel decisively shut.

  Annis felt her mouth open and shut like a fish. She stared at him, her hand stuck mid-shake as if some robot designer had wired her nervous system and then pressed the ‘off’ switch. She felt oddly naked and yet at the same time completely incapable of movement.

  Konstantin touched her cheek. It was so fleeting that she could hardly believe that he had done it. Yet the jolt went right through to her frozen nerve centre.

  Shaken, Annis felt her whole body judder back into life. Her hand fell to her lap and her throat closed. She tried to swallow.

  ‘Have you come straight from the airport?’ she demanded in a high, unnatural voice.

  ‘Of course.’

  His eyes were green and piercing and much, much too close.

  ‘And you thought you’d check up on my progress on the way home?’ she said ironically.

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  Much too close. Annis could hold out no longer. She sniffed.

  At once Konstantin pulled out his handkerchief and handed it across.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said with as much dignity as she could muster. She blew her nose.

  ‘No problem. Now, which theatre?’

  She told him. His eyebrows rose. But he did not comment, merely giving the instruction to the chauffeur on the intercom. Then he settled back in his corner and looked at her.

  ‘You’ve got raindrops on your eyelashes,’ he said. He sounded fascinated.

  Annis blotted them quickly.

  ‘Who are you going with?’

  She blew her nose. ‘I’m not. I mean, I’m seeing one of the actors afterwards.’

  ‘Ah. A date.’

  Annis did not know why she should suddenly feel hot. But she did. Hot and uneasy and out of her depth. She straightened her shoulders and looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘So?’ she said, defying him.

  ‘I thought you didn’t date.’

  ‘I—er—’

  He stretched lazily. ‘In fact that’s one of the first things you ever told me about yourself.’

  ‘That’s the only thing I’ve ever told you about myself,’ she said sharply.

  ‘You think so?’

  His body might be lazy but his eyes were laser-sharp. Annis felt herself slipping further and further out of her depth. Now was obviously the time to explain her mistake that first evening. Explain and—though it went against the grain—apologise.

  She tried a winning smile. ‘I’m afraid that there was a small misunderstanding the first time we met.’

  ‘I don’t think so. You were very precise. Crystal-clear, in fact. “I’m twenty-nine years old, I live for my work and I don’t date,” you said.’

  ‘I know I said that…’

  ‘I was impressed. So few women will come out and tell you what they want up-front.’

  Annis was beginning to realise that, underneath the mockery, Konstantin Vitale was very angry.

  She said stiffly, ‘I’m sorry if I was rude…’

  ‘Do I take that to mean that you do date? Just not me?’

  ‘Yes. No. I mean, I didn’t want—’ She was floundering and they both knew it. Annis drew a couple of steadying breaths. ‘Look, Mr Vitale—’

  ‘Oh, I think you can call me Kosta, now you’ve blown your nose on my handkerchief,’ he said, with a soft, ferocious smile that left his eyes hard. ‘Don’t you think that’s intimate enough? I’d say that was intimate.’

  Annis swallowed. ‘Like I said, I’m a workaholic. I’m not much of an expert on intimacy.’

  It was not a very good joke. It fell flat.

  He looked her up and down. The lazy glance was calculated provocation. ‘You know, you’re an odd mixture. Very contradictory.’

  He clearly expected her to ask in what way. Annis folded her lips together, refusing to give him the satisfaction of feeding him the line. So he told her anyway.

  ‘Your father said you were a hotshot consultant. I expected a confident businesswoman, sharp as a whip.’

  ‘I am confident,’ said Annis, startled by how much that stung.

  ‘In some ways, perhaps. So what is it about me that makes you defensive?’

  This was provocation with a vengeance.

  ‘You do not,’ said Annis, her jaw so stiff with fury she could hardly open her mouth, ‘make me defensive.’

  He shrugged.

  ‘You don’t.’

  ‘You mean you would be like this with your date tonight? With…’ he waved a hand distastefully ‘…what’s-his-name de Witt.’

  ‘How do you know who I’m—?’ But a more dangerous question pushed its way forward. ‘Like what?’

  His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘Like a cat about to spring.’

  Annis did not like that. She went very still.

  When she did not say anything, he added musingly, ‘Will you spring on Alexander de Witt, I wonder?’

  Thereby proving that, in spite of his bland pretence, he knew Alex de Witt’s name very well. She was unwise enough to point it out.

  He whipped round on the seat to face her. He was, thought Annis, taken aback, really very close indeed. Surely he did not have to sit that close in a limousine of this size? Surely…

  ‘Alex,’ he echoed in disgust. ‘You do date, just not me. Tell me, what has Alex de Witt got that I haven’t?’

  And he dragged her into his arms.

  It was not like what Annis had been referring to in her mind all week as ‘the tango kiss’. It was harsh and, she thought muzzily, nothing like as calculated. In fact, if she had been asked, she would have said that Konstantin Vitale had not intended to kiss her at all and was not at all pleased to find himself doing so. His breathing was uneven and his hands only just the civilised side of cruel.

  Only, of course, no one was going to ask her. Which was just as well, as she was incapable of rational thought let alone speech. And if anyone found out about this she would just die. Though, just at the moment, she could not have said why.

  Annis felt as if she had gone too near a fire. She was burning up and the fire did not know it. A small protest forced itself between her throbbing lips.

  He let her go as abruptly as he had seized her. A small muscle worked in his jaw.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said curtly. ‘Put it down to jet lag.’

  Annis put a hand to her mouth. She could still feel him, taste him. She did not move.

  He said, unsmiling, ‘No need to look like that. You call a halt. I respect it. I don’t force myself on women.’

  Annis flushed horribly. ‘I never
thought…’

  ‘Didn’t you? Then it’s a good imitation you’ve got there.’

  He was more than angry. He was furious. What was more, even Annis was experienced enough to recognise that he was at least as angry with himself as he was with her.

  She said shakily, ‘Why are you like this? I don’t understand.’

  ‘Don’t you?’ It was his turn to draw a long breath. ‘Then maybe you need chemistry lessons.’ He was not smiling.

  She made a helpless gesture.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s like you said on the phone. I’m no good at chemistry.’

  She tried to smile but it went badly awry.

  He cupped her face and looked deep into her eyes. It was an odd gesture, awkward, reluctant even. ‘Maybe we both need lessons.’ His voice was curt.

  The limousine was inching its way through the crowds. Some people bent to see who was in the long, powerful car. Annis suddenly realised any one of them could have spied on that fierce kiss. Certainly the driver would have had seen it in his mirror. Her whole body flinched at the thought.

  She hauled the cape round her like a magic cloak.

  He said, ‘Annis, I—Don’t look like that. I never meant—’

  ‘I know. It was chemistry,’ she said, suddenly savage. ‘Out of your control and mine. The perfect excuse for any damned thing you want to do.’

  He said gently, ‘Not an excuse. A reason. A powerful reason.’

  And he touched her face again, as if he could not help himself.

  Annis shivered with that terrible longing she had never known before.

  Whipping herself into saving anger, she flung at him, ‘Chemistry! Garbage! What you need is a lesson in civilised behaviour.’

  His hand fell.

  The car edged along St Martin’s Lane. Neon signs for plays, movies and bistros vied with a bewildering array of traffic lights on all sides and at every angle. Annis found that the brilliant outlines were blurring. She dashed an angry hand across her eyes.

  ‘Rational people don’t do things like that,’ she said not very clearly.

  Konstantin still said nothing. There was a strange, blank look in his eyes.

  The traffic light turned red. The car glided to an expensive halt.

  Why didn’t he say something?

  Annis could feel treacherous tears rising again. She could not understand it. She felt as if she were a teenager again full of uncertainty and rioting hormones.

  ‘Oh, this is crazy,’ she exploded.

  She fumbled briefly with the handle and tumbled out among the traffic and the cheerful pedestrians weaving between the cars.

  ‘Thank you for the lift,’ she said, not meaning a word of it.

  And slammed the door on his look of dawning alarm.

  She dived for the theatre without a backward look.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ANNIS hardly took in a word of the play. Her thoughts returned inexorably to Konstantin. How he had looked; what he had said. The shockingly uncontrolled kiss in the limousine. In the dark of the theatre she admitted to herself that it was not just Konstantin who had been uncontrolled.

  What is happening to me? I am not like this.

  She kept touching a hand to her lips as if she could brush away the imprint of his mouth. She did not manage it.

  Dinner could have been a disaster. The image across the table from her kept dissolving from Alex de Witt’s handsome features to a dark, furious face. And then, worse, that face turned to an appalled and silent blankness as he realised—what? Annis had to keep giving herself a mental shake and large gulps of iced water to bring her back to the here and now.

  Fortunately the restaurant was full of people who were determined to claim Alex de Witt’s attention away from her. They came up in a steady stream to congratulate him or to exchange telephone numbers. So many people, in fact, that he was more often slewed around in his chair, talking to someone else, than he was talking to her. There was a chance, thought Annis, that Alex did not even notice that she was only half with him.

  He took her home in a taxi.

  ‘I won’t ask you in,’ she said, as he saw her courteously into the building. ‘I’m sure you must be exhausted. Such a powerful performance.’

  Kosta would not have accepted it for a moment, she thought. But Alex de Witt saw nothing evasive there. Easily, he bent and kissed her goodnight. Then, with a casual wave, he was gone.

  Annis was grateful for that kiss. It had been pleasurable, practised, and it had left absolutely no shadow pressure on her mouth afterwards. Nothing to keep her awake at night.

  Back to normal, she told herself thankfully.

  But she wasn’t. Nothing was normal. She could not sleep, though she tried, and it had nothing to do with the glamorous Alexander de Witt.

  ‘Damn,’ said Annis, struggling up on one elbow after a useless battle with the images behind her closed eyelids.

  She gave up and pushed the bedclothes back. Then she padded out to the kitchen and made herself a large and comforting pot of tea. She put some soothing piano music on the stereo.

  It was no good. Under the Mozart, she could still hear a man’s low voice saying savagely, ‘Maybe you need chemistry lessons.’

  Annis wrapped her arms round herself. She could not remember that anyone had ever made her feel so inadequate before. So gauche. As if she were not quite a woman. And yet at the same time reminded every atom in her body that she could not escape the imperatives of her womanhood.

  ‘That is nonsense and you know it,’ Annis told herself loudly.

  But it wasn’t. She could cope when Konstantin laughed at her. She could even cope with his equivocal teasing, although she was not as polished at repartee as Bella and at least once he had had her blush.

  But, ‘you need chemistry lessons’! That was what she could not cope with. There was no teasing in that. It was straightforward contempt. It sounded as if he despised her from the bottom of his heart. That thought left her feeling cold and vulnerable, and very, very small.

  She cradled the mug of tea to her breast, trying to warm herself.

  ‘Overreaction,’ she said, trying to be sensible. ‘What does it matter, even if he does despise you? He’s a client for heaven’s sake. He doesn’t have to be in love with you.’

  But I want—

  She spilled her tea.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ she said very loudly indeed.

  And replaced Mozart with a pacey Brazilian samba compilation that would have had the neighbours pounding on the walls if the block had not been sound-proofed to a level that would have muffled cannon-fire.

  She worked through the night.

  She fully expected Konstantin to turn up the next day. Or at least to telephone. She told the porters to be certain to call up when any visitor arrived for her, no matter how well they thought they knew him. And she screened all her calls.

  It was all quite pointless. Konstantin Vitale stayed resolutely silent. Alex de Witt rang to allow her to thank him for dinner. The mother of her godson asked her to the child’s birthday party. Roy rang, worrying about their big contract and summoning her to a meeting first thing on Monday morning. She answered them all distractedly and rang off as soon as she could.

  Lynda, finding Annis positively pliant in the matter of going to a charity dance the following Saturday, was concerned.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Annis wearily.

  It was eleven-thirty in the morning and she had been working for nearly eight hours.

  ‘You did hear what I said?’

  Annis peered at her telephone pad.

  ‘Save the rainforest. Bash next Saturday, Godwin House. Drinks with you and Dad at seven-thirty.’

  ‘And you don’t mind?’

  Annis gave a ghostly chuckle. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. I just said I’d be there.’

  Lynda digested this.

  ‘Do you—er—want to bring anyone?’

  Annis could
not help herself. Konstantin’s harsh face flipped in front of her eyes.

  ‘No.’

  ‘No need to shout,’ said Lynda, injured. ‘Didn’t the dinner with Alex go well, then?’

  ‘Dinner…?’ Oh, so that was what this call was about. ‘Dinner with Alex was fine.’

  ‘Because I’d be happy to ask him…’

  Annis sought for an excuse and was inspired. ‘Surely an actor in a new West End play would be working on a Saturday night?’

  There was a frustrated silence.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ admitted Lynda. ‘Well, I’ll think of someone.’ She added unguardedly, ‘I thought I’d got my table filled but the Larsens have dropped out.’

  ‘Well, if you can find a matching pair, cross me off and you’re even again,’ said Annis, preparing to ring off.

  ‘It’s very formal,’ Lynda said, raising her voice and speeding up. ‘You will remember, won’t you? I mean, you’ll need something really dressy.’

  It sounded like another assignment for style consultant Larsen, thought Annis. She did not say so.

  ‘I’ll break out the magic ball-dress and glass slippers,’ she promised. She rang off before Lynda could demand more details.

  She scribbled the entry in her diary and promptly forgot about it. The diary was very full between now and next Saturday. Anyway, after presenting Konstantin with her assassination of his management technique, she thought ruefully, maybe she would not even survive. To say nothing of the make-or-break meeting with the major client that Roy had arranged for Monday.

  She went to bed early and slept no better. If Konstantin had been in the room with her she could not have been more conscious of him. Annis tried to convince herself that she was worried about what he would say when he read her report. But it was not that and she knew it in her heart of hearts. It was that damned chemistry.

  ‘The sooner I’m out of Vitale and Partners the better,’ Annis told herself.

  The next morning she had three copies of her report bound at the small jobbing printers she used and jumped into a taxi.

  ‘I want to go to the City. But I need to drop something off in Mayfair first.’