Emma Darcy - Irresistible Greeks - Red-Hot and Rich - His Reputation Precedes Him / An Offer She Can't Refuse / Pretender to the Throne

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.

‘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…!