A Face To Die For Read Online Free Page A

cream Italian knit sweater. I liked the look of this man. I liked the cut of his crinkly dark hair. For one thing, he was dressed quite differently from the rest of the men there. He was tanned and looked slightly foreign; Italian or Spanish perhaps?
    He glanced round. 'Sorry. I promise I'm not ignoring you…’
    His intense, deep brown eyes and staggering good looks instantly registered with me. Definitely foreign, I decided. Suddenly no one else in the room mattered; I was smitten. He turned back again to the radiogram. 'I’m trying to get the tone right. Damn thing's useless!'
    He sounded sort of English, apart from a slight mid-Atlantic inflection. But those incredible dark looks certainly weren't. He was the most gorgeous man I'd ever met.
    I swallowed hard as nerves took hold. Speak, you idiot, I told myself. 'Er… good album. I love Sinatra.' In truth I only quite liked Frank Sinatra, but it seemed the right thing to say.
    'Me too. Saw him in Vegas last year. He was awesome.' He straightened and turned to face me. Still looking quite serious, he half-smiled. 'I'm Alex, by the way, Vanessa’s brother. Did I hear her call you Annabel?' Frowning a little, his beautiful dark eyes gazed into mine, captivating me. My stomach flipped.
    'Yes… that's right.' I lowered my eyes; acutely nervous of the way I was feeling. I'd never known anything like it. He was turning me into a quivering jelly!
    He turned back to the radiogram. Vanessa was suddenly by my side again; one hand around my waist, the other waving a ciggie. 'Good, so you two have met at last! Of course, Alex had to turn up quite out of the blue... as brothers always do. Which I'm afraid, darlings, means you two are going to have to fight over who has the spare bedroom tonight. Unless you fancy sharing?'
    Alex looked at me, then at Vanessa. He grinned, showing beautifully even white teeth.
    'Vanessa! Don't embarrass Annabel! We'll do no such thing.' He gazed at me again. 'Actually, she's right, honey. It is my fault, I should have phoned first; but it was chaos at the airport when I landed. Finally I managed to grab a cab and suddenly, I was here.'
    When I arrived earlier, I had noticed a smart leather suitcase and some bags in the hallway; so they must belong to him.
    'Well, I'll leave you two to get acquainted,' Vanessa said, wandering off again in a cloud of smoke.
    Alex's beer rested on the radiogram and, picking it up, he took a large swig. 'It really doesn't matter, honey. You have the spare room. I'll be just fine on the sofa; once this lot have departed.'
    He was standing quite near me now, and I could smell the faintly citrus tone of his expensive after-shave. This man not only looked delicious, he smelled delicious too.
    'Trouble is...' he whispered, 'from past experience, this lot sometimes hang on a bit. But with any luck they'll decide to go on to a club later. I’m sure Vanessa will steer them in that direction, anyway' He leaned even closer, treating me once more to a whiff of his sexy aftershave. Again my stomach did a summersault. 'You're not one of Vanessa's usual crowd, are you?'
    His soft, mildly American voice was a real turn on. I pulled myself together and shook my head. 'No… no, I only started working with her about two and a half months ago.'
    'I didn't think I knew you. Don't get to London too often now, and she and I don't exactly see a great deal of each other anyway.' He wrinkled his perfectly chiselled nose. 'We’re not that close really, and we lead very different lives.'
    'I…I'd no idea Vanessa had a brother. You don't look a bit alike.'
    He leaned back casually against the radiogram with folded arms. 'Ah well, you see, honey, we only share the same blood father, not the same mother. Mine died when I was a small kid, and I can only just remember her.'
    'I see.' By now I was totally mesmerised by him and happy to listen to him forever.
    'Unlike Vanessa, I'm one hundred per cent Greek, although I spent most of my earlier years at