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She stared and saw his gaze leave her, sweep around the room

She frowned—felt confusion in her h her tortured emotions at his accusation Why was Nikos here, in the home of a half-brother she hadn’t known he possessed?

Her confusion deepened as she ree of convenience, had told her that he wanted to ive him an entrée into her upper-class world of landed estates and stately homes

But he has that already, here with his brother the Comte So why—?

His sweeping gaze came back to her Unreadable Masked Heeye contact with her Looking instead so about

His past

She heard hied from him by pitiless steel-tipped hooks

‘My mother, Comtesse du Plassis Wife of Antoine’s father’ He paused His eyes were on her now ‘Who was not my father’

He shifted again restlessly, his handaway froht to rest it there

‘The man who fathered me,’ he said, and Diana could hear a chill in his vioce that nate—you would know his name if I told you He was notorious for his affairs withe, and her chill increased ‘Because it meant that if there were any unfortunate repercussions there would be a handy husband on the scene to sort theain, then, ‘As Antoine’s father duly did’

Restlessly he shifted his stance again, his eyes sliding past her

‘I was farmed out when I was born Handed over to foster parents They were not unkind toschool, and then university here in France At twenty-one, after I’d graduated, I was sue’

An edge came into his voice, like a blade

‘He told me thatI signed docu his paternity’ The blade in his voice swept like a knife through the air ‘I tore up the cheque and stor from such a man ould disown his own son Then I drove out here to find my mother—’

He stopped abruptly Once again his eyes swept the roo that had not been there before Soain what she had felt so unwillingly when he had first started speaking The shaft of pity