Recalling her proclivity for designer thongs—and how he’d been obsessed with taking them off—he felt a pulse of heat shoot through him, surprising him with it intensity.

His frowning gaze rose to her face. She wore her hair differently now. A heavy fringe slanted over one temple, covering most of the right side of her face, while the rest of her long, dark hair hung thick and luxurious down her back. Her make-up was a little more on the heavy, dramatic side than he remembered her favouring, but even without those camouflaging accessories Damion recognised her immediately.

Reiko Kagawa.

The woman he’d been hunting for weeks. The woman who’d become so skilled in camouflage and subterfuge she’d eluded his security experts. And almost eluded him, too, save for a chance conversation with a drunken duke …

Damion’s gaze travelled over her as she moved through the small gathering. She was still a strikingly beautiful woman … if you preferred your women pocket-Venus-size and duplicitous to the core.

People changed. He knew that. Hell, the five years since he’d last seen Reiko had taught him fresh life lessons he would willingly unlearn. But he’d never thought she would end up this way …

The epitome of all he despised.

Tightening his fist, he reminded himself of why he was here—because of his grandfather, the last of his blood relatives. The only one he cared enough about to put himself through this …

Damion refused to let heartache linger at the thought of what lay ahead. He would do what needed to be done for his grandfather, regardless of the personal cost to himself. Five years had passed since he’d set eyes on Reiko—five years since he’d learned that the woman he’d thought he knew was just an aberration.

This time he had his eyes wide open. And once he had what he wanted, she could go back to being a minor blip in his past.

Rounding the old Manor, he marched up the front steps.

A shiver raced down Reiko’s spine a split second before the knock came. She tore her gaze from the window, where it had swung as if compelled by an unknown force.

For several moments her mind remained blank, a whisper of premonition shivering over her skin as she glanced back at the tall windows. There was nothing out there except overgrown bushes and the odd fox or two.

Yet …

The knock sounded again, followed almost immediately by the pull of the ancient doorbell no one used much any more.

Recalling that she’d sent Simpson, the day butler, home, Reiko put down the loaded tray she’d been carrying and headed towards the door. The party had been a bad idea. The financial strain alone didn’t bear thinking about. But Trevor had insisted.

To keep up appearances.

Her lips twisted. She knew all about keeping up appearances; she had a master’s degree in it, in fact. When she needed to, like tonight, she could smile, laugh, negotiate her way through tricky conversation, while desperately keeping a lid on the demons that strained at the leash just below the surface.

The facade was cracking. Nowadays even the little effort it took to smile drained her. And it had all started since she’d heard he was looking for her …

Her thoughts skated to a halt as the door flew open. The hundred-year-old oak, worn from lack of proper care, stood little chance of avoiding a collision with the stone wall.

Reiko gasped at the huge figure filling the doorway.

‘There you are.’ The deep, velvety voice oozed satisfaction and barely suppressed anger.

‘Do you always crash your way into people’s homes like some wannabe action hero?’ she fired back, despite her thundering heart.

She’d feared this moment would come ever since she’d heard on the grapevine he was looking for her. That was why she never stayed in the same place for more than a few days.

A thick wave of panic rolled over her as she stared at him.

The unmistakable French accent and the air of brutal self-assuredness hadn’t lessened since she’d last clapped eyes on Damion Fortier. If anything, time had added a maturity and depth to the sexy, charismatic man recently polled by French Vogue as the most eligible bachelor in the western hemisphere—possibly the whole frickin’ world.

The Sixth Baron of St Valoire, descended from a pure line of French aristocracy, was six-foot-four-inches of swoon-worthy masculine beauty—even when in the grip of bristling fury.

Wavy hair the colour of dark chocolate grew long enough to touch the collar of his bespoke grey suit without looking unkempt or unfashionable. Broad shoulders, honed to perfection during his rugby-playing late teens and early twenties, moved restlessly, drawing attention to their sheer width and power. But, as arresting as his body was, it was his face that captured her attention.