"Out of the question." Calmly he uncorked the champagne and filled three flutes, handed one to Cecily and shooed her out to the balcony. "Go enjoy the view, and leave me to talk to her." When she was well out of earshot, he faced Brianna. "This isn't so much an invitation as a command performance, sweet pea. These people are big names in the fashion industry and we need the contacts. You've been at the top for a long time now, but we're in danger of losing that spot, and I think we both know why." He cast a quick glance over his shoulder. "Cecily's screwed up a few times too many, and word's getting around that she's not reliable. That business in Bali last month made big headlines."
The reminder of her sister's drunken display at a night club made Brianna blush all over again. "I know. People don't forget that kind of thing in a hurry."
"Especially not in this business. And not to put too fine a point on it, but time isn't exactly on your side anymore. You'll be twenty-four in August. The next couple of years are critical-for all of us." He'd given her the lopsided grin she knew and loved so well. "Come to that, I'm no spring chicken myself. The way I see it, when you decide to call it quits, I will, too."
"That's ridiculous, Carter! You're only fifty-three, and there are hundreds of models who'd give their right arms to have you represent them."
"Not interested." He shook his head. "When I've worked with the best, why settle for the rest? There'll never be anyone like the two of you, Brianna-or at least, there never used to be. Now … " He shrugged and raised his eyebrows in a way that spoke more eloquently than words.
Cecily wandered back into the room at that point and helped herself to more champagne. "Straightened her out yet, Carter?"
"I'm not sure." He turned a smiling glance on Brianna, but the message in his eyes was sobering. "Have I?"
She knew how much she and Cecily owed him. Until he came into their lives, they'd been pawns; children at the mercy of a mother who'd exploited them for their appearance, without any regard for their moral or intellectual well-being. She'd looked at her daughters and seen only dollar signs. The money they brought in, she spent. On herself.
Brianna and Cecily had grown up on a litany of familiar refrains.
I don't care if your feet hurt in those shoes … . Forget about joining the library. Reading books isn't going to pay the rent … . And always, as regularly as one season followed another: You owe me … . I could've gotten rid of you and had some sort of life for myself, but I didn't. I carried you to term … raised you all by myself because your dumb-ass father fell off a ladder and broke his neck before you were even born, and left not a red cent of insurance to provide for his brats … .
The ultimate irony, of course, was that "the brats" had inherited their father's looks, as was evident from the one photograph, taken on his wedding day, which their mother had for some reason chosen not to throw away.
Fortunately, when the awkward teenage years had arrived and "the brats" weren't quite as saleable, she'd handed over the job of marketing them to an agency, and Carter had come into their lives. It had taken him less than an hour to ascertain their mother's measure and half that time to draw up a contract giving him sole control of their professional future.
Through his intervention, they'd received a decent education. He hired a lawyer and a financial consultant to protect and invest their earnings against the day when they might not be in demand as models any longer, or decided they'd rather pursue a different career. He became the family they'd never known, the one person in the whole world they could always rely on.
And now, for the first time, he was asking for something in return. How could she refuse him, especially for so small a favor?
"Yes, you've convinced me," she said. "Lazing around on board a luxury yacht for two or three weeks isn't such a bad idea, after all."
Nor was it, until Dimitrios Giannakis taught her the folly of trusting a stranger, and broke her heart in the process … .
She hated the kind of people functions such as the one on the yacht attracted: women in desperate search of a rich husband, and if he happened to be ninety and so frail he could drop dead at any minute, so much the better; men who drank too much and felt their wealth and importance entitled them to paw any women who caught their fancy. She'd fended off dozens in her time, revolted by their excesses, enraged by their arrogance and condescension. She was not impressed by their studiously acquired tans, their expensively capped teeth, their hair implants. She had nothing but contempt for their boastful swaggering. Did they think what showed on the surface defined who they really were? Did they ever look at her and see past the glamorous veneer to the person underneath-one with a working brain and a heart that felt hurt and embarrassment just as keenly as anyone else?
But Dimitrios Giannakis was different. Slightly aloof and rather amused by the jostling for attention, the artificial laughter, the superficial conversation, he appeared content to socialize mostly within his own exclusive circle of friends and acquaintances. Yet when called upon to mingle, he did so with grace and charm. An acknowledged billionaire in his own right, he was rumored to be enigmatic, reserved, powerful and, when occasion called for it, utterly ruthless.
Not a man to lock horns with, from all accounts, but definitely one to admire from a distance for his cosmopolitan sophistication, his wit and, yes, his extraordinary male beauty to which even she, accustomed as she was to the most handsome of the species, was not immune.
He stood a good head taller than anyone else on board. Had a cleft in his chin, eyelashes an inch long and a mouth designed to stir a woman to outrageous fantasies. By mid-afternoon, his square, clean-cut jaw was dusted with a five-o'clock shadow. His high, patrician cheekbones were surely the legacy of some royal ancestor.
Below the neck he was no less impressive. His body, whether clad in an elegant dinner jacket or swimming trunks that defied gravity and clung to his lean hips by sheer willpower was, in a word, perfection. Strong, lean, sleekly muscled and, like his rare smile, dauntingly sexy, it epitomized masculine virility at its most potent.
She caught his attention when she sat across from him at dinner on the verandah deck, on the fifth night. Between courses, a few couples danced under the stars. Cecily sat at another table, engrossed in the leader of a rock band who was busy plying her with flattery and probably too much alcohol, but Carter was keeping an eye on her.
Not in the least interested in the latest celebrity gossip among those remaining at her own table, Brianna had smothered a yawn and glanced up to find Dimitrios's amused gaze fixed on her face.
"Do I take it," he murmured, his English so fluent only a trace of accent betrayed his Greek heritage, "that you find the conversation less than enthralling?"
"Oh, dear!" she said ruefully. "Does it show?"
"I'm afraid so." He rose and extended his hand. "Allow me to come to the rescue."
She'd have liked to say she wasn't in such dire straits that she couldn't rescue herself, but hypnotized by his faint smile and the hint of dark mystery in his eyes, she responded without a moment's hesitation. Docile as a lamb, she placed her hand in his.
Love at first sight? Until she met Dimitrios Giannakis, she hadn't believed in it. Fifteen minutes in his arms, with her body pressed close to his and his breath ruffling her hair, and she decided differently.
And paid a terrible price for doing so.
Chapter 3
The private clinic where she was to meet with Noelle Manning was in Kifissia, a northern suburb of Athens, just over half an hour's drive west of Rafina. The road wound over Mount Penteli, a fairly sparsely populated area of pine-scented forests, with the occasional very grand house interspersed among acreages whose little old cottages were as much a part of the landscape as the grape vines and olive trees planted on the land. Traffic was light, consisting mostly of agricultural vehicles, although once the Mercedes passed a truck carrying massive slabs of marble.
Set in spacious grounds on a quiet crescent high above the city, the clinic rose sleek and white against a backdrop of leafy green trees and brilliant blue sky. A receptionist in the lobby took her name and spoke briefly into an intercom. Within minutes Brianna was escorted to Noelle's consulting room on the second floor, where the doctor wasted no time getting down to business.