The Dark Side of Desire Read Online Free PDF Page A

Just what she would do once her grandmother died was still uncertain, but she knew she would do her very best to hang on to Harford. She loved it far too much to let it go. Her plan was to run it as an upmarket holiday let, though it would require modernising for the bathrooms and kitchen, plus general refurbishment—all of which would require some kind of upfront financing, on top of coping with the inevitable death duties. One thing was certain, though—her father wouldn’t offer her a penny to help.
    Not that she would take it. It was bad enough owing him for her grandmother’s hip operation, let alone anything else. Her father, she thought bitterly, was
not
a good man to be in hock to … Who knew how he might wield such power over her head?
    She reached out to turn off the bedside light. There was no point thinking about anything other than her current concerns. Her grandmother’s needs were her priority, and that was that. There was no room in her life for anything else.
    Any
one
else….
    Yet as she slowly sank into slumber echoes seemed to be hazing in her memory—a deep, drawling voice, a strong-featured face, dark, unreadable eyes … holding hers …
    Leon Maranz poured himself a brandy, swirling it absently in his hand. His face was shuttered.
    He was alone in his apartment, though he might easily have had companionship. He knew enough women in London who would have rushed to his side at the merest hint of a request for their company. Even at Lassiter’s cocktail party he could have had his pick had he wanted to. Including—he gave an acid smile devoid of humour—Lassiter’s current
inamorata
, who had shown her interest and looked openly disappointed when he’d declined her pressing suggestion that he accompany them to a nightclub.
    What would she have done, he thought cynically, had he decided to amuse himself by inviting her back here? Would she have played the affronted female and gone rushing back to her ageing lover’s side? Or would the temptation to gain a lover much, much richer than Lassiter—and so much closer to her in age have overcome whatever scruples she had left in life? And what would Lassiter himself have done? Tolerated the man he so badly wanted to do business with bedding his own mistress? His cynicism deepened.
    Not that he would have put either of the pair to such a test. Anita’s bleached-blonde, over-made-up looks had no allure for him—nor the voluptuous figure so blatantly on display. When it came to women his tastes were far more selective compared to the likes of Lassiter.
    An image flickered in his mind’s eye as he slowly swirled the brandy in its glass. Flavia Lassiter was cut from a quite different cloth than her father’s overdone mistress.
    Contemplatively Leon let his mind delineate her figure, her fine-boned features that were of such exceptional quality. The very fact that she did not flaunt her beauty had only served to draw his eye to her the more. Did she not realise that? Did she not see that hers was a rare beauty that could not be concealed, could not be repressed or denied? Leon’s dark eyes glinted as he raised his brandy glass to his nose, savouring the heady bouquet. She could not repress or deny what she had betrayed when she’d met his gaze, what had been evident to him—blazingly so—in the flare of her pupils,the slight but revealing parting of her lips. She had responded to him just as he to her. That had told him everything he needed to know …
    His expression hardened. The curt disdain she had handed out, dismissing him, burned like a brand in his mind. Had it indeed been nothing more than an attempt to deny her response to his interest in her—for reasons he could not fathom? Since he did not intend that denial to persist he could afford to ignore it. An expression entered his eyes that had not been there for many, many years. Or had it been the result of something quite different? Something he had not encountered for a long time, but