It had been mere months before Andrew had died, for her eighteenth birthday. Dmitri had overseen his first million-dollar project and Giannis had made him a stockholder in the company. Two years after Stavros had made it. And had asked him how he wanted to celebrate. Looked at him with such a twinkling light in his eyes when Dmitri had said that he needed to buy a diamond pendant first.
What had he been thinking then? Had he always been waiting for her like this?
No, he told himself, discarding his champagne flute with a flick of his wrist. No, it had been about proving himself. He had wanted to go back to the one innocent in his old life and show her that he had made it. That he was nothing like the man who had raised him.
So he’d had it delivered, uncaring as to how Andrew would explain it. Something inside him roared in delight and he just couldn’t silence it anymore.
Nothing ever touched him beyond an ephemeral satisfaction. Nothing ever held his attention for more than a few days.
Except now, with this woman. If her brother had kept him alive, it was as if she breathed new life into his very veins... As if she held the key to making him whole again.
When the man next to her bent too close to her, she tucked away a curl behind her ear in a nervous gesture.
And that hint of vulnerability tugged at Dmitri.
His hair slicked back, his narrow nose seeming all too familiar, the man stood far too close to her. When he turned, the light illuminated his profile, and Dmitri recognized him.
It was the French photographer, Gaspard Devue.
Devue’s fingers moved over Jasmine’s bare arm, trailed over her shoulder while she froze, her neck holding at an awkward angle, those large eyes of hers too big and trusting.
The bruises, the fear in Anya’s eyes when she had come to his hotel in Paris... Gaspard Devue was one of those who preyed on the innocent, defenseless, who needed to use his fists to make himself feel bigger and stronger...
Just as his father had been...
Something detonated inside Dmitri at the thought of Jasmine even breathing the same air. All the sophistication he had acquired slid off him, and he was that fourteen-year-old boy who had finally had enough. Who had finally found enough strength in his lanky arms to defend himself, who had been terrified that one day he wouldn’t get up after another blow.
That had been the last day his father had ever been able to touch him. But still, he had been too late to save his mother. Always too late.
Adrenaline punched through his blood, his muscles curling for a fight. It was all he could do to stop himself from marching over there and throwing her over his shoulder, from dragging her back to her room and locking her in...
He couldn’t create a scene at Leah’s party even if the bastard deserved it...
All he needed was to get Jas away from the man. And then he would lock her up for the next twenty years...
Christos, where was his head?
He didn’t understand what was happening to him. He did, however, know what it was he wanted, craved. Sex and passion, he understood. That, for some reason, she trusted him and wanted him.
From the moment Giannis had pulled him away from that life, he had thought of her. He had been with countless women and hadn’t felt an iota of what he felt when he just looked at Jas.
He wanted all of her.
* * *
She had known that he was watching her. Not from where or for how long. But the awareness had seeped into her as slowly as the breeze that caressed her bare shoulders, as sinuously as Leah’s soft silk dress brushed against her skin, making her feel as if she, too, could be elegant and sophisticated instead of dirty and vulgar.
It was as though there was a chip under her skin that sent out a signal anytime Dmitri was close.
She had been so attuned to those sensations that she had missed half of what the suave Frenchman had said to her.
From the moment she had come down to the party, he had been so polite and attentive that Jasmine had felt flattered despite knowing that he was nothing but a seasoned flirt. Still, he had been telling her about all the photo shoots he had done with models she had only seen in magazines until she realized Dmitri was back and lost focus.
Belatedly, she caught him staring at her mouth and her face with a detached yet somehow intrusive intensity. Caught between embarrassment and hyperawareness, she froze when Gaspard trailed his fingers first over her jaw and then her neck. His strange gaze creeped her out more than the fact that he was touching her.
“So, mademoiselle, does my offer interest you?” he croaked out in a husky voice that felt just a little too practiced.
Schooling her face into a vacuous smile, she searched her mind for a way to ask the man what exactly his offer was. Because they had been talking about his studio, the project he took on, and if it was some kind of job or remotely like that, she didn’t want to give offense.