Eva stilled at the vehemence of his tone. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your cousin and I did not have any relationship other than the fact that she was—briefly—my employee,’ Markos repeated evenly.
Eva looked at him searchingly. The angry glitter of his eyes and the tension in his jaw were enough to assure her that Markos was telling the truth. The truth as he saw it, at least…
‘Markos, you aren’t the first man to make the mistake of having an affair with an employee which results in awkwardness once that affair is over—’
‘Eva, what did you not understand about my previous statement?’ he cut in exasperatedly. ‘I have not been, and will never be in the future, personally involved in any way with Donna Cresswell.’
Eva blinked. ‘But Donna said—’
‘After the things she screamed at me the night I had to dismiss her from my employment, I can all too easily imagine what your cousin said about me, Eva.’ Markos began to pace the kitchen restlessly. ‘I can only say—once again—that my feelings towards your cousin were never anything other than the polite regard of an employer. And even that ceased the moment she decided to put herself naked in my bed!’
Eva swallowed hard. She’d begun to feel nauseous. ‘But…’
‘Yes?’
Could Donna have lied…?
The possibility of that having been the case was so strong that Eva felt as if the ground had just dropped out from beneath her feet. Eva had seen Markos arrogant, even haughty on occasion, but never coldly, chillingly angry—as he undoubtedly was now.
So much so that he bore little or no resemblance to the man who had treated her so gently the night before, or made love with her such a short time ago.
But what possible reason could Donna have had for lying to Eva about having a relationship with Markos Lyonedes?
Eva thought back to her childhood, to the family occasions when she and Donna had been together—those weekends they had both spent with their grandparents. Eva hadn’t thought of them for years, but now she belatedly recalled how Donna had always had to have a bigger or better toy than her, or have attended a more fun or glamorous birthday party.
Better. Bigger. More glamorous.
And a relationship with the charismatic Markos Lyonedes would no doubt have sounded so much more than even Eva’s marriage to the wealthy American Jonathan Cabot Grey Junior…
‘Donna lied,’ she stated flatly.
‘Oh, yes, she most certainly lied if she claimed the two of us were ever intimately involved,’ Markos confirmed softly. ‘What I wish to know is how, and to what extent, those lies have affected your own behaviour towards me?’
Eva gave him a startled look. ‘I don’t understand…’
‘Oh, I think you do, Eva,’ Markos bit out grimly. ‘And I think your family connection to Donna Cresswell more than explains the little game you played with me at the beginning of our acquaintance.’
She moistened her lips with the pink tip of her tongue. ‘I was predisposed not to like or trust you, yes—’
‘A fact you made more than obvious!’ Markos frowned as he recalled the way Eva, as interior designer Evangeline Grey, had made and then cancelled two appointments with him in a week. She had been scathingly dismissive of him, even insulting, on the evening the two of them had met at Senator Ashcroft’s cocktail party, and had made that cryptic comment concerning his ‘reputation’. Believing the lies her cousin had told her about him would certainly explain that remark!
‘The question is, Eva, how do you feel about me now that we have come to know each other better?’
She gave him a startled glance before focusing that wide golden gaze somewhere over his left shoulder. ‘How do I feel about you?’
‘Yes!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘Now that we have spent time together—talked, made love—what are your feelings towards me?’
Eva gave a pained frown, knowing she couldn’t deny that she had initially behaved in exactly the petty way Markos suspected she had. Quite when her feelings towards Markos had changed from scathing dismissal to a grudging liking Eva had no idea, but she had known last night, when he’d behaved so protectively towards her in regard to Jack, that she not only liked him—a lot—but also that she desired him too. It was a desire the two of them had acted on earlier today—several times.
But the chances of Markos believing that, now that he knew of her family connection to Donna—the woman who had not only completely invented a relationship with Markos, but had also lied to Eva about the callous way Markos had brought that non-existent relationship to an end—were exactly nil!
At least they were if Eva didn’t want to totally humiliate herself and tell Markos how much, and how deeply, she now liked him—perhaps more than liked him. Which was definitely something she needed to think about once she was alone in the privacy of her own apartment.
Eva forced a rueful smile. ‘I believe I told you earlier my intentions are entirely dishonourable!’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘In exactly the way you have imagined my own were in regard to the women who have shared my bed in the past? Women who would, if asked, confirm that I have never deliberately, knowingly, hurt any of them. No matter how much the gossips or newspapers might have chosen to sensationalise those relationships. Certainly I have never behaved towards a single one of those women in the cruel and heartless way that your cousin appears to have claimed I treated her.’