Irresistible Greeks: Red-Hot and Rich: His Reputation Precedes Him / An Offer She Can't Refuse / Pretender to the Throne
Eva turned instinctively towards the blue and cream drawing room—a room which she had designed for Jonathan four years ago, before her marriage to his only son had come to such an acrimonious end—all the time aware of Markos’s brooding preoccupation as he walked beside her, his hand still lightly on her elbow.
He was deservedly preoccupied. Despite Eva’s advice to the contrary a few minutes ago, she knew that Markos’s thoughts must be running riot as he considered all the possible scenarios for her being acquainted with a man like Jonathan Cabot Grey.
Jonathan Cabot Grey Senior.
Because Jack, Eva’s ex-husband, was Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior…
‘Are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ Markos prompted softly once he and Eva were standing beside the unlit Adams fireplace a minute or so later, the two of them having been supplied with glasses of champagne by one of the many attentive waiters circulating the crowded and noisy room. ‘Why didn’t you want to come in? And exactly what is—or was—Jonathan Cabot Grey to you?’ he added harshly.
‘Jonathan Cabot Grey was my father-in-law.’ Eva was still too distracted by Jonathan’s unfinished warning even to attempt to prevaricate, wondering what it was Jonathan had wanted to warn her about. He hadn’t sounded in the least threatening, so it obviously had nothing to do with the fact that she was here with Markos. So what—?
‘Your father-in-law?’ Markos repeated incredulously, totally stunned by this unexpected revelation.
She nodded abruptly. ‘Cabot Grey was my married name.’
‘Of course. Evangeline Grey—Jonathan Cabot Grey…’ Markos realised with a pained wince, inwardly kicking himself for not having added two and two together before now.
She shrugged bare shoulders. ‘I established my business under the name Cabot Grey Interiors, but dropped the Cabot part after my divorce.’
‘So you were married to Grey’s son?’
‘The one and only,’ Eva confirmed, aware that several of the other guests had seen and recognised her now. Their gazes were speculative as they also saw the identity of the dark and handsome man standing beside her. Even in a roomful of other men dressed in evening clothes, Markos stood head and shoulders above them all, in both looks and autocratic bearing.
Eva realised she was grateful for his presence; if she was to be forced to meet any of Jonathan and Jack’s friends again then she was glad it was in the company of a man as impressively handsome and wealthily powerful as Markos Lyonedes!
She turned to smile at him regretfully. ‘I really am sorry about this, Markos.’ She placed her hand lightly on his arm. ‘I would never have put you in this embarrassing position if I had known it was Jonathan’s party you were inviting me to.’
Markos was still coming to terms with the fact that Eva had been married and divorced. Not that he had anything against divorce; he was of the opinion that it was far better to end something that wasn’t right than spend a lifetime of unhappiness with the wrong person. No, it was the thought of Eva having been married at all that disturbed Markos. That left him with so many questions unanswered…
When, and for how long, had Eva been married? Why had the marriage ended? Who had ended it? Eva or Jonathan Cabot Grey’s son? And if it was the latter, did she still love the man who had once been her husband?
He drew in a ragged breath. ‘Eva, what—’
‘Hello, angel.’
Markos found himself as irritated at hearing Eva addressed as ‘angel’ by another man as he had been the previous week when Glen Asher had called her ‘baby’. But even without Eva’s hand tightening to a painful grip on Markos’s arm at the first sound of that man’s voice, a single glance at the man standing behind her would have immediately identified him as being Jonathan Cabot Grey’s son.
The hair was golden-blond, where Jonathan’s was turning silver-grey, but other than that the family resemblance was unmistakable: blue eyes in similar boyishly handsome faces, both men lean and elegant in black tailored evening clothes.
There was no doubt in Markos’s mind that this was the man who had once been Eva’s husband.
This was what Jonathan had been going to warn her about a few minutes ago, Eva realised numbly, even as the full force of Jack’s presence hit her with the force of a blow.
He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t even be in the States. He had moved to France over a year ago, when he’d taken over the Paris offices of Cabot Grey Enterprises.
Yet it was most definitely him standing just behind her. Even if Eva hadn’t known his voice as well as she knew her own, there was no one else on earth who called her ‘angel’.
What was she supposed to do now? What was the protocol for introducing your ex-husband to the man you were now…now what? She couldn’t claim to be dating Markos when this was the first evening they had gone out together, but she knew they weren’t only business acquaintances. So what were they?
Well, she had better make her mind up—and soon—because the three of them couldn’t continue standing in this frozen tableau for much longer.
‘Angel?’ Jack prompted dryly, obviously coming to the same conclusion.
Eva gave a pained wince as once again he used the name he had once affectionately called her by. A long time ago. A lifetime ago. A different lifetime ago…
She drew in a deep breath and finally looked up into Markos’s rigidly set features. He stared past her at the other man with eyes as hard as the emeralds they resembled, his mouth thinned, jaw tight.
His harshly etched features softened slightly as he finally looked down and saw her expression of mute appeal. ‘Introduce us, will you?’ he prompted huskily even as his arm moved possessively about her waist.
The gentleness of Markos’s tone, and that supportive arm about her waist, instantly reassured Eva that whatever his inner feelings were about this strange situation Markos was there for her now—even if the warning gleam in his eyes also told her that he would expect answers to his numerous questions once they were alone.
Eva turned slowly to face Jack, her expression deliberately non-committal as she took in the subtle changes in his appearance since the two of them had faced each other across a divorce court.
He was now in his mid-thirties, and there were touches of grey at Jack’s temples that hadn’t been there three years ago. His face was thinner too, with lines etched beside his nose and mouth. Other than that he was still as lean and boyishly handsome as he had always been, and looking every inch the wealthy Cabot Grey heir in his tailored black evening suit and snowy white shirt.
‘Markos, this is Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior.’ She made the introduction stiffly. ‘Jack—Markos Lyonedes.’
Eva knew there was just a hint of satisfaction in her clipped tone as she stated Markos’s name. Understandably so, she inwardly defended herself, when the last time she and Jack had spoken for any length of time he had taken great pleasure in telling her all of her faults.
Jack’s eyes widened in obvious surprise as the other man’s identity registered. ‘Mr Lyonedes,’ he greeted him smoothly as the two men shook hands.
‘Cabot Grey.’ Markos coolly returned both the handshake and greeting.
‘Please call me Jack,’ the other man invited lightly, the smile fading from those narrowed blue eyes as he turned to look critically at Eva. ‘You’re looking well, angel.’
‘Eva looks beautiful,’ Markos corrected coldly.
Eva’s continued tension against his encircling arm left him in no doubt that this was the man who had somehow succeeded in convincing Eva that she was neither beautiful nor sexy. The very same man who had once been her husband.
Markos wondered under what circumstances Jack Cabot Grey could have made those hurtful and demeaning comments to Eva. Obviously they had not been happy ones, or the two would not now be divorced.
‘That’s what I meant, of course,’ Jack Cabot Grey agreed, with the same smooth charm as his father.
‘I’m afraid Jack and I are well past the stage of being insincerely polite to each other, Markos,’ Eva dismissed with noticeable brittleness. ‘Speaking of which—shouldn’t you be cosying up to your father’s other guests rather than wasting your practised charm on the uncharmable?’ She raised mocking brows and looked challengingly at her ex-husband.
The hardening of those deep blue eyes was Jack Cabot Grey’s only noticeable reaction to the taunt. ‘I believe Mr Lyonedes is one of my father’s guests…?’
But Markos was no more inclined to be charmed by this man than Eva was. Basically because he had never particularly liked men with the smooth and, as Eva had already stated, practised charm of a politician, but mainly because Markos resented the fact that this man had once been married to Eva. Lived with her. Known her longer and more intimately than any other man ever had.
Or possibly would again.
The tension between Eva and her ex-husband went a long way towards explaining her cynicism about men and relationships. Especially if their marriage had ended as badly as their attitude towards each other would seem to imply.
Markos straightened determinedly. ‘A politeness only,’ he clipped. ‘For obvious reasons Eva and I will not be staying long.’ He looked challengingly at the other man.
‘Jack, darling…’
Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior avoided meeting Markos’s challenge as he turned to smile warmly at the tiny blonde-haired woman who slipped her hand possessively into the crook of his arm as she moved to his side. ‘Come and say hello to Markos Lyonedes and Eva, Yvette. Markos, Eva—this is my wife, Yvette.’
Those blue eyes glittered with malice as he deliberately looked at Eva as he made the introduction.
If Markos had thought Eva pale before then she now turned an ashen grey, obviously shocked as she looked at the woman who was Jack Cabot Grey’s second wife. Yvette was a little over five feet tall, with glowingly lovely features and shoulder-length blonde hair. The rounded swell at her waistline showed that she was also very pregnant.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘IF you will all excuse me…’ Eva turned and hurried blindly from the crowded drawing room as the felt the nausea rising at the back of her throat, only just managing to make it into the ladies’ powder room down the hallway and lock herself into one of the two marble-tiled cubicles before she was violently ill.
This couldn’t be happening!
On top of every other humiliation Eva had suffered at Jack’s hands, his second wife was obviously at least six months pregnant, with a baby that Eva, at least, knew couldn’t possibly be his!
Unless—
No, it simply wasn’t possible that it was Jack’s baby. Jack was totally incapable of fathering a child of his own. And yet Yvette Cabot Grey was undeniably pregnant…
How? By another man? Or by the IVF that Eva was contemplating for herself? If that were the case, the baby Yvette carried wouldn’t be Jack’s…
That was perhaps the thing that hurt Eva the most. After tests had shown that Jack could never have a child of his own Eva had begged and pleaded with him to adopt, or for him to allow Eva the possibility of becoming pregnant by an anonymous donor. Tearful pleas Jack had always denied, with the disclaimer that he could never love a child that wasn’t truly his.
‘Eva?
‘Markos…’ She straightened abruptly as she recognised his voice on the other side of the cubicle door… inside the ladies’ powder room!
‘Are you all right?’
Was she all right? Of course she wasn’t all right! Not only had her ex-husband remarried, but his second wife was pregnant with the baby Eva had so longed for herself!
No, she certainly couldn’t claim she was ‘all right’. But what seemed more pressing right now was that Markos shouldn’t be in the ladies’ powder room in Jonathan Cabot Grey Senior’s house…!
Markos looked at Eva searchingly when she unlocked and opened the door, her gaze quizzical as she stepped out into the carpeted area where ladies usually freshened up. It was now empty of all but the two of them. Deliberately so, Markos having turned several of those ladies away before he stepped into the room and locked the door behind him to prevent anyone else from entering.
‘You really shouldn’t be in here.’ Eva gave a derisive shake of her head as she moved past him to one of the porcelain sinks to wash her hands and face before filling and drinking a glass of water. Her face was still that sickly grey colour.
He raised dark brows. ‘You are obviously unwell.’
‘That’s still no reason—’
‘The door is locked, and I will go where I want whenever I deem it necessary,’ Markos declared harshly.
Eva gave a pained wince. He now appeared every inch the arrogantly forceful Markos Lyonedes, joint owner of Lyonedes Enterprises. ‘And you deemed it necessary tonight to lock the two of us in a ladies’ powder room in my ex-father-in-law’s home?’
His jaw tightened. ‘Yes.’
That was what Eva had thought he would say. And he was right, of course; she could imagine nothing worse than that anyone else should witness her humiliating reaction to being introduced to Jack’s very pregnant second wife. It was enough that Markos must now be wondering why she had reacted so strongly…
She took another sip of water and deliberately avoided meeting Markos’s gaze in the mirror above the sink. ‘I’m sorry about this. I suddenly felt ill—I must have eaten something earlier that disagreed with me.’
‘Or met someone…?’ he suggested dryly.
Eva gave a humourless smile. ‘Or met someone,’ she acknowledged self-derisively.
Even in her distress Eva couldn’t help noticing how out of place Markos looked in this ultra-feminine room, with its rose and green floral wallpaper. Even the soaps next to the sinks were the same deep rose colour, and several bottles of expensive perfume and pale pink towel ling squares were arranged neatly on the onyx marble top. There were also two comfortable chairs covered in rose-coloured velvet.
‘Could we possibly leave now, do you think?’
He nodded tersely. ‘I have already asked for the car to be brought round.’
Eva’s tensed shoulders slumped with relief. ‘Have I mentioned before how wonderful you are?’
‘I do not believe so,’ Markos answered dryly. ‘But I will be happy for you to tell me so once we are well away from here.’ His face darkened grimly.
Eva couldn’t even begin to imagine how awkward this situation was for Markos. How awful to have brought her here, expecting to spend a pleasant evening at the home of a business colleague, only to learn that business colleague was in fact Eva’s ex-father-in-law—and, even worse, that her ex-husband was also here with his second and very pregnant wife…
‘Markos, I really am sorry.’
‘As I said, we will talk about this once we are well away from here.’ He continued to frown grimly as he took a firm grip of her elbow to hold her firmly at his side as he unlocked the door. ‘We will leave now.’
She blinked. ‘Without saying goodbye?’
Markos nodded abruptly. ‘Without speaking to anyone.’
Eva sensed the anger burning beneath the surface of Markos’s outwardly calm demeanour as they stepped out into the huge hallway, but she didn’t know him well enough yet to know who that anger was directed at: this uncomfortable situation or her.
‘Markos—’
‘Ah, there you are, angel. Feeling better…?’
Eva’s heart skipped a beat at the sound of Jack’s voice. Markos’s fingers squeezed her elbow reassuringly before the two of them turned to face the other man in the otherwise deserted vestibule of the entrance hall. Eva breathed an inward sigh of relief as she saw Jack was alone; she wasn’t sure she could bear to see the pregnant Yvette again this evening.
‘Markos and I are leaving now,’ she said coolly.
Jack raised blond brows. ‘You only just got here.’
‘And now we are leaving,’ Markos bit out coldly. ‘Please inform your father than I will telephone and speak with him some time next week.’
The other man’s cheeks became slightly flushed. He obviously resented Markos’s authoritative tone. ‘It would be more polite if you were to tell him that yourself.’
‘As I am sure you are only too well aware, the current situation is beyond politeness.’ Markos looked at the other man with coldly glittering eyes.
‘Markos—’
‘Stay out of this, angel!’
Markos released Eva’s arm and strode quickly across the hallway until he stood only inches away from the other man. He was slightly taller than Jack Cabot Grey. He was not touching him, but was still intimidating nonetheless.
‘Her name is Eva. And you will not speak to her in that way. Ever again! Do I make myself clear?’ he grated softly.
The other man’s jaw tightened. ‘You can’t just come into my father’s home and threaten me—’
‘I believe I just did,’ Markos purred softly. Dangerously.
‘I call her angel because her name is Ev-angel-ine.’ Jack Cabot Grey met his gaze challengingly for several seconds before those deep blue eyes slid away and he instead looked at Eva. ‘It would seem that your marriage to me gave you a taste for powerful men, angel,’ he drawled insultingly.
Markos drew in his breath sharply. ‘You—’
‘I only see one man who fits that description, Jack,’ Eva cut in scathingly. ‘And it isn’t you!’
‘Why, you little—’ Jack Cabot Grey broke off warily as Markos placed a hand against his chest.
‘I believe I have warned you never, ever to insult Eva in my presence again,’ he reminded him in an icily soft voice.
‘What on earth is going on here?’
Eva turned a stricken face to see her ex-father-in-law, Jonathan Cabot Grey, stride forcefully into the vestibule.
Shrewd blue eyes narrowed on his son and Markos Lyonedes as they faced each other challengingly. ‘Is there a problem…?’
Markos gave Jack Cabot Grey one last contemptuous glance before slowly stepping away from him to stroll back to Eva’s side. He faced his host. ‘Eva and I were just leaving.’
‘So soon?’
Markos might have been more impressed with the older man’s attempt at regret if he hadn’t seen the look of relief in Jonathan’s eyes before it was quickly masked by polite query. It was a politeness Markos was too displeased to indulge at this moment.
‘I am of the opinion that it would have been better if we had left some time ago,’ he said dismissively, giving Jonathan a disapproving look as he took a hold of Eva’s arm, his mouth tightening with displeasure when he realised she was trembling again as she leant into his side.
What could have happened between Eva and Jack Cabot Grey in the past to have caused this severe reaction in her? For her to be physically ill just from seeing him again?
Except…
Unexpected as it might have been, it hadn’t been seeing Jack Cabot Grey which had made Eva ill. That had only happened when the other man’s second wife had joined them.
Was it because Eva still had feelings for the man, and the existence of that second wife now made reconciliation impossible?
Her scathing attitude towards her ex-husband whenever she spoke to him would seem to imply otherwise. And yet… There was no denying that something had made Eva ill just a short time ago. The same something that was still causing her to tremble.
Markos had no idea what Eva was reacting to any longer, and that irritated him as much as everything else about this evening displeased him; he had believed earlier that they were coming to know each other, to like each other—and now this!
‘We will speak again later in the week, Jonathan,’ he assured the older man stiffly before turning to leave.
‘I’ll be in touch, angel.’
Eva stiffened as Jack called after her softly, not fooled for a moment by the pleasantness of his tone, and pretty sure she knew the reason Jack intended contacting her again…
Almost as soon as Eva and Jack had married, and had moved to New York to live, Jonathan had started talking of the possible arrival of his grandson—Jonathan Cabot Grey the Third. It was something which Eva and Jack had eventually realised was never going to happen, but Jack had never, at least to Eva’s knowledge, confided in his father. The fact that Yvette Cabot Grey was now pregnant, supposedly with Jack’s child, was either a medical miracle or something that Jack did not wish Eva to discuss with his father.
Eva didn’t know whether to be insulted, because Jack thought she would tell his father that the child Yvette carried couldn’t possibly be his, or angry, because Jack thought she would feel vindictive enough towards him that she would deliberately hurt the man who had once been her father-in-law.
The latter emotion won out as she turned to look coldly at Jack. ‘We have nothing to talk about,’ she assured him scathingly.
He quirked blond disbelieving brows. ‘No?’
‘Absolutely not,’ she snapped, before turning to her ex-father-in-law. ‘Goodbye, Jonathan. It was nice seeing you again.’ Her voice warmed slightly as she spoke to the man she had always rather liked.
Jonathan must have been surprised when Jack had returned from working in London for two years with Eva as his wife—a young Englishwoman who wasn’t in the least wealthy or of the same social strata as the Cabot Greys. But never by word or deed had Jonathan ever shown her anything but the respect and liking due to her as his son’s wife. The future mother of his grandchildren…
‘Take care,’ she added huskily, not sparing Jack so much as a second glance as she and Markos finally left together.
‘Not here and not now,’ Markos advised gruffly as Eva tried to speak once they were outside.
She shot him a fleeting glance. ‘I was only going to say thank-you.’
Markos’s tension eased slightly and he relaxed his grip on Eva’s arm. The last few minutes had been far from pleasant. For any of them.
‘If you insist, you may offer me suitable thanks once we are alone together in my apartment,’ he assured her gruffly.
She looked uncertain. ‘Your apartment…?’
He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘We have to return to Lyonedes Tower in order for you to collect your car. Once there, we might as well go up to my apartment and talk in comfort.’
An argument to which she had no rebuttal, Eva acknowledged ruefully. Her car was at Lyonedes Tower, and she did owe Markos a suitable thank-you—although she had a feeling her idea of suitable and Markos’s might differ greatly in content! He had been so supportive of her this evening and she owed him an explanation as to the reason he had needed to be so.
‘Coffee, wine or brandy?’ Markos offered dryly once they were once again in the anaemic sitting room of the penthouse apartment at Lyonedes Tower.
‘Oh, I think this situation calls for brandy all round, don’t you?’ She sighed wearily as she sank down in one of the boxy cream armchairs.
‘I am unsure as yet exactly what this situation is.’ He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over a chair, before moving to the bar situated at the other end of the room and pouring brandy into two glasses.
Eva grimaced as she took the glass Markos held out to her before moving to stand a short distance away from her. ‘It isn’t every day that you meet your ex-husband by accident!’ She sipped the brandy, instantly feeling the effects of the fiery alcohol as it slid easily down the back of her throat. ‘The last I heard of Jack he was living and working in France.’
‘Which is obviously where he met and married Yvette.’
‘Obviously,’ Eva echoed noncommittally as she stared down at the beige carpet.
‘Are you still in love with him?’
She gave Markos a startled look and the glass shook precariously in her hand. ‘What?’
His smile lacked humour. ‘In the circumstances it is a relevant question, I would have thought.’