Free Penniless and Purchased by Julia James

urgently for someone else. Anyone else. Just not him.
    ‘Wrong call, Sophie,’ he told her, and there was an edge in his voice like a blade. Her eyes whipped back to him, stared. Disbelieving. And somewhere deep in her eyes he saw something that he could not fail to recognise.
    Panic. Dismay.
    But beneath them was something else. Something that made the emotion slicing through him quicken, though he fought against it.
    She was staring at him. The shock—disbelief—flaring in her eyes. No, this couldn’t be. No. Not him. Not him. Not Nikos…
    The denial was flighting through her, urgent, vehement. Oh, God, how could this be? How could it be ? She fought for coherence, comprehension.
    This can’t be happening. It can’t, it can’t!
    She couldn’t be seeing Nikos again, not after it had taken all her strength to cope with what had happened the night before. How could she endure seeing him again? Denial screamed in her mind, but it was like a bird smashing itself against an iron cage. It was Nikos—there, waiting for her. Taunting her. Mocking her.
    She summoned the only weapon she could, crushing downevery other emotion. Her face hardened. ‘What’s this farce all about, Nikos?’ she demanded, every muscle in her body like steel under impossible tension. Her voice was as hard as her expression.
    So was his. ‘Sit down.’ He pulled out a facing chair, holding it for her.
    He saw her balking, and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. ‘I said, sit down, Sophie. I’ve engaged your services this evening, so start earning your money.’
    Sophie sat, her legs suddenly soggy. Numbly, she watched Nikos fold his long, lean body, clad in a superb hand-made suit, into the opposite chair, every centimetre of him assured, sleek, powerful.
    Devastating.
    She felt the hollow gape in her stomach, felt emotions rush into the space, churning and convulsing. Overpowering.
    Nikos, so close she could see every line and plane of his face! So close she could reach out and touch him!
    No! Desperately she fought against the rush of blood as her gaze clung to the man opposite her. No! That was all—the only word she must keep in her head. No! No to everything that made her want to go to him, that made the pulse quicken in her veins, the breath tighten in her lungs.
    She opened her mouth to speak, to voice her protest at what was happening, but he was there before her.
    ‘I’ve booked you for tonight, Sophie, for one reason and one reason only,’ he said, and his voice was steely.
    His face was shuttered, jaw set. His eyes bored into her, pinioning her. She could not move, could only endure—frozen, immobile.
    ‘Didn’t I tell you last night what a dangerous game you were playing?’ he iced out. ‘You’re standing at the gutter’sedge, Sophie, and it will take only a single step to be in it! You can think yourself unsullied because you call it escorting, but that’s not what others will think, believe me!’
    His hard eyes excoriated her. ‘I thought I’d got the message home to you last night, but I haven’t, have I? You’re still on the agency’s books, and your presence here right now is proof you haven’t wised up yet. Or won’t!’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You got lucky last night, Sophie! That jerk Cosmo had other girls to help himself to, so he didn’t turn nasty on you! That won’t happen every time! And a man like that, who thinks he’s paying for a woman for the night, won’t take kindly to being told, sorry, but you’ll go home to your virtuous single bed at midnight!’
    Her face was closed, shutting him out, rejecting what he was saying. ‘I can handle myself,’ she retorted, quelling the churning inside her. She wanted to leap to her feet, run, but she couldn’t move, could hardly get words out while he laid into her.
    ‘Like hell!’ he shot back dismissively. ‘Last night you saw the kind of scene that the men who’ll hire you like to enjoy! All it will take is a spiked drink, or worse,