Sophie Weston - The Millionaire's Daughter

‘What?’

‘I like the transformation. Turquoise suits you.’

He did not actually touch her breast where the evening-sky silk was draped. But Annis recoiled as if he had put his hands on her. The green eyes lifted, intrigued. She saw the sudden speculation there and could have kicked herself.

To hide it, she said, ‘Don’t be deceived. The plumes are borrowed.’

‘I wasn’t deceived,’ he said softly.

Damn!

She said hastily, ‘What exactly do you do for my father? I know you work for him but are you on the payroll of Carew Electronics?’

‘In a way.’

‘That means you don’t want to tell me,’ Annis said wisely. ‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘Business confidentiality,’ he said vaguely.

Annis smiled. ‘My father is in the process of poaching you,’ she deduced.

‘No. I’m my own boss. And going to stay that way. Though I guess Carew does a lot of poaching where he can.’

‘Doesn’t every businessman?’

He looked at her curiously. ‘You tell me. Isn’t that the sort of thing you advise on? Where to poach key staff?’

Annis laughed. ‘If you don’t already know that, then your business is way beyond the help of a management consultant.’

She thought he would laugh. But he did not. Instead there was an unnerving silence while he watched her.

At last he said slowly, ‘You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?’

Annis tensed. She could feel the frown coming and fought it. ‘Am I supposed to apologise for that?’

‘No. No of course not. It’s just—’

But Lynda had got everyone seated at last and the waiter was beginning to take the first course round the table. Annis helped herself to cheese soufflé and Konstantin Vitale’s attention was claimed by the woman on his other side. Annis felt reprieved. By contrast, the massive but uncomplicated ego of Alex de Witt was a piece of cake.

‘So who’s here, then?’ he said, smiling across the table at one of his admirers.

Annis hid her amusement. ‘The usual mix. Carew Electronics. My stepmother’s charity committees. A couple of neighbours.’

Alex de Witt was not very interested in neighbours.

‘Have you seen Totality yet?’

And then she slotted him into place. He was starring in a new play which had hit the headlines. She almost snapped her fingers as she realised.

‘No, I haven’t managed to get there yet but it’s on my list.’ A thought occurred to her. ‘Come to think of it, why aren’t you on stage tonight?’

He beamed. ‘We’re transferring to the West End. Opening next Thursday. Provided the director can get his act together, of course.’

Annis recognised a cue when she heard it. She took it effortlessly.

‘Do you have to rehearse all over again when you transfer from one theatre to another?’

The actor’s monologue carried them through the first course, second helpings, the removal of plates, a change of wine and the appearance of new china for the second course. Waiters arrived with large serving dishes of boeuf en croûte and Annis sighed. She had been well brought up. She knew you talked to the neighbour on your right for the first course, left for the second. Her respite was over.

Mentally girding herself, she turned back to Konstantin Vitale and pinned on a social smile.

‘Have you been in London long?’

He did not answer that directly. ‘Very smooth.’

Annis could feel her social smile stiffening. ‘What?’

‘Only it won’t work, you know.’

Annis’s smile felt like a rictus on her stiff mouth. ‘What do you mean?’ she said in a voice that was not social at all.

‘If we’re going to talk at all, tell me something I don’t know. Like what your sort of management consultant does. And what turned you into a workaholic. Don’t bother asking me pretty questions about myself because I don’t play that game. It bores me.’

Her skeleton smile disintegrated abruptly.

‘Well, we mustn’t have that, must we?’ said Annis furiously.

‘I’ll trade. One secret—that’s all, just one—for everything you want to know about me.’

‘I don’t want to know a thing—’ Annis began with heat, until she saw the mocking glint in his eyes. Oh, how quickly she had risen to his baiting! She drew a long, careful breath and said, ‘Anyway, I don’t have secrets.’

She did not sound encouraging. She did not mean to. Konstantin Vitale’s eyes narrowed appreciatively.

‘Yes, you do.’

‘What?’

‘Mystery lady,’ he said, so softly that only she could hear.

‘I am not a mystery,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And if you are trying to flirt with me, you can just stop right now.’

He did not say anything, waiting.

‘I don’t play that game,’ she quoted back at him, goaded.

He raised his eyebrows, acknowledging a hit. Annis nodded coolly, half in triumph, half in simple relief.

Kosta Vitale looked at his companion thoughtfully. He really had been drawn to her the moment he saw her across the room. More than that, he had felt a shock. It was as if he had been waiting for her, or as if she was someone he’d recognised from a long distant, idyllic past. In fact, he had looked twice to make sure that he did not know her. But he knew he had never met Tony Carew’s daughter.

And then, as soon as Tony had introduced them, Kosta had known this was going to be a whole new experience.

Annis Carew was not the sort of woman who usually attracted him. For one thing, from that first handshake, she had turned him into an opponent. For another, though she duelled well, she seemed to wince away from ripostes that she had asked for. He did not like women like that. They handed it out, but any man they went to war with was expected to pull his punches. Maybe it came from being a millionaire’s daughter.

And yet…And yet…Her eyes were full of mysteries. Kosta was shocked to find how much he wanted to explore those mysteries. But he did. Through and through. From the height to their depths.

I’ll have to be careful with this, thought Kosta, shaken.

‘All right,’ he said after a moment. ‘No secrets,’ adding silently, Yet. ‘Tell me about your career. Unless that’s on the classified list too.’

She bit back a nasty remark and said with icy civility, ‘I trained as a management consultant with Baker Consulting. I set up a partnership with a colleague six months ago.’

‘That’s why you’re a workaholic?’

Suddenly she smiled with real amusement. It turned her eyes gold, like the lamplight. Kosta watched, fascinated.

‘No, I’ve always been a workaholic.’ She drew a deep breath and the gold died out of her eyes. ‘Now can we talk about something that interests me?’

Raise your foil, Kosta, off we go in the next bout, he thought dryly.

But there was something he wanted to know first. No, not wanted. Needed to know.

‘So who is this partner? The reason you don’t date?’

Annis put a lid on her annoyance and registered a private resolution to rock the damned man off his complacent axis if it was the last thing she did.

In pursuit of this end, she sat back in her chair and sighed elaborately.

‘I don’t date because I don’t want to,’ she drawled. ‘To use your own words, it bores me.’

It was not true. But Annis was in too much of a temper to remember that. Especially as she seemed to score a hit. Not the bull’s-eye maybe. But a definite hit. The steady green eyes even blinked for a second.

‘Dating bores you?’

He sounded outraged, thought Annis, pleased.

‘I’m not keen on competitive games,’ she explained sweetly.

‘Competitive?’ He sounded disbelieving. ‘You must have dated some real oddballs.’