Purchased for Passion: Shackled by Diamonds / A Mistress for the Taking / His Bought Mistress. Julia JamesЧитать онлайн книгу.
clawed back to sanity just in time.
And she was safe now. Safe.
Slowly, very slowly, she felt her heart-rate come down.
Never, ever again would Leo Makarios push her that close to the precipice.
Never.
Her mouth thinned.
Never.
’Plunge your hands in. Now lift them out—lift, lift, lift! Yes. Hold them up! Up!’
Anna held her hands the way she was being told to. So did the other three models. They were standing around the vast oak table in the castle’s echoing hall again, but this time none of them was wearing any of the Levantsky jewels.
Their hands were all in a huge golden bowl into which had been poured rivers of diamonds, emeralds, rubies and sapphires. And now the four models were plunging into this golden cornucopia and lifting them out, their fingers dripping necklaces and earrings and bracelets.
‘Basta!’ Tonio Embrutti called, simultaneously summoning the stylist and her assistants. ‘Now I want the jewels just draped over their shoulders, in their hair, over their arms, their breasts. Not fastened, just draped.’
His pudgy face took on a sulky look. ‘Of course, their bodies should be naked, but—’
He contented himself with merely making an Italian gesture of exasperation with his hands, waving his camera around as he did so.
Anna stood patiently as the stylist’s assistants got to work.
Her mind was strangely numb. She’d got hardly any sleep last night, and the disapproving make-up artist had commented adversely on the effect thereof on her eyes and complexion. Anna didn’t care. She was, she knew, beyond caring. She had only one overriding impulse.
To get out of here. Out and home.
But she still had today and tonight to get through before she could run. At least today there was no sign of Leo Makarios. He’d gone off with his guests—some whisked off to ski slopes, some on horse-drawn sleigh rides, some on helicopter tours of the Austrian Alps, or back to Vienna and Munich for shopping trips.
Even so, today’s shoot seemed longer than yesterday’s, but finally it was done. Released at last, changed back into her normal clothes, Anna headed back up to her room. Vanessa had disappeared instantly—presumably Markos was in the wings somewhere—and Kate almost as quickly.
‘There’s an early concert in the town’s Musikverein,’ Kate had explained to the others eagerly. ‘Maestro Lukacs has given me a ticket!’ She’d said it as though he’d given her the keys to the kingdom, her eyes shining.
‘Have fun,’ Anna had said dryly. Preferably, she added silently, not in Antal Lukacs’s bed. Kate was far too impressionable.
She headed off after Jenny, also making for her room. The other model had a head start on her up the vast stairs. Anna sprinted after her.
‘Wait for me!’ she called. But Jenny was ploughing on, reaching the set of stairs that led to the upper floors. She seemed to be walking faster and faster, as if the devil was driving her.
But then it was, Anna knew. Her face shadowed. God, she might have been an idiot the night before, letting Leo Makarios get to within a hair’s breadth of tumbling her down into bed, but at least she’d found her sanity in time! Jenny had never found hers with the man who had got her into this mess. And now she was facing the complete disintegration of her life. Forced to cash in everything she had and flee.
Flee to keep her baby safe from the man who would take it from her.
Anna’s eyes darkened. Well, whatever it took she would make sure she stood by Jenny! Money, support—someone there at the birth of her child—whatever Jenny needed, she’d stick by her.
But right now Jenny just needed reassurance. Someone to keep her spirits up, take away the edge of fear that was eating into her day by day at the thought of her pregnancy being discovered.
Anna hurried on, up the second flight of stairs and along the corridor to her bedroom. Jenny had rushed ahead and was out of sight. Anna paused outside her friend’s door, wondering whether Jenny would like a cup of tea with her.
‘Jen, do you want a cuppa? Rosehip or chamomile?’
There was no answer.
Anna opened the door and poked her head round. Maybe Jenny was in the bathroom.
She wasn’t.
She was sitting on her bed. Like Anna, she was wearing trousers, but unlike Anna she had a large, fleecy long-sleeved pullover on.
And out of the sleeve she was sliding a long ruby bracelet.
For one long, timeless moment Anna did not believe what she was seeing. And then, with a rush of icy water in her stomach, she stepped into the room, closing the door behind her.
Jenny was staring at her. Staring at her with shock and fear naked on her face. She was as white as a sheet, every bone in her face starkly outlined.
Slowly, Anna came forward.
‘Oh, my God, Jen, what have you done?’
Her voice was hollow.
Jenny just stared; she was beyond speech, Anna could see—wound up so tight she would break if stressed any further.
Carefully, Anna went and sat down beside her.
Jenny turned huge distended eyes on her.
‘Do you know—’ her voice sounded taut and strange ‘—Khalil wanted to give me a ruby bracelet? I said no. He wanted to give me lots of jewels, but I always said no. It made him angry, I know. He hid it, but it did.’ Her eyes went down to the ruby bracelet lying across the palm of her hand, winking in the lamplight.
‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ she said, and her voice still had that strange breaking quality about it. ‘If I’d just taken one, just one of all the jewels he wanted to give me, I’d be all right now. I could sell it and have enough…enough money to…to escape with. But I never took them. Not one. Even though he wanted to give them to me.’
She touched one of the stones with her finger.
Carefully, very carefully, Anna spoke.
‘But these aren’t Khalil’s jewels, Jen. And he never gave them to you.’ She paused. ‘I’ll take the bracelet back.’
She reached across to lift it from Jenny’s palm. For a moment so brief it hardly happened she saw Jenny’s fingers start to claw shut over the bracelet. Then, as if exerting a vast invisible effort, the fingers stilled.
‘You can’t keep it, Jen. You know you can’t.’
Anna’s voice was quiet, reassuring.
Slowly Jenny opened her palm completely, letting the glittering stones run red across her hand. She stared down at them.
Anna lifted them away. Her heart was beating fast, the icy water still in her stomach. Slowly she got to her feet. Her mind was racing, almost going into panic. But she mustn’t panic—she mustn’t.
What the hell am I going to do?
And, shooting right through her panicking brain, came one grim question.
How long have we got before it’s discovered missing?
Claws pincered in her stomach. The security arrangements for the Levantsky jewels were draconian. They had to be, obviously. Every time they were brought out or put away—either for a shoot, or for her and the other models to wear the night before—security guards were all over the place. Every item was catalogued and signed in and out on a computerised check system personally entered by Leo Makarios’s sidekick, Justin.
So how the hell had