by Pippa Roscoe
Still, the Theo that she fell in love with all those years ago was now long gone. There had been no trace of him in the eyes of the man who had mocked her so cruelly. Who had taunted her, teased her into furious, anger-filled words in the Parisian garden just three weeks ago. And if there had been traces of him only in the kiss he stole from her, she chose to ignore it.
The large security guard beside the entrance to the club gave her a cursory glance and allowed her to pass through the doors into the dark, cavernous chamber beyond. Music assaulted her ears, and she blinked against the chaotically strobing light throbbing in time with a baseline she felt buzz through her skin and bone to the soft inside of her.
She shouldn’t be doing this. She should just let someone else confront Theo, but she knew—instinctively—that this was what he had wanted. As if he had planned everything down to the finest detail and only her presence would do.
Sofia brushed aside her concerns, her fears, and scanned the chaotic mass of people on the dance floor. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine Theo amongst the thriving group. No. He was far too voyeuristic for that. She remembered the feel of his gaze upon her skin at the Parisian ballroom. Remembered the feel of being hunted by a predator purposefully choosing when best to strike.
Her gaze finally took in the raised area of the club, an entire glass-fronted section roped off and guarded by another large, dark-suited man. She caught sight of the blonde model she recognised from the tweet, and, sure enough, Theo was sitting with one arm draped around her, the other draped around the thin shoulders of the other, the only difference in the scene being the additional upturned bottle of champagne beside the other two. Either the staff were very slow at tending to the tables in this club, or Theo was enjoying showing off his power and wealth. Sofia very much leaned towards the latter.
She made her way towards the large, suited man, and when she tried to pass he thrust out a meaty arm to block her. Shocked, she very nearly uttered the famously awful words, Do you know who I am?, but just managed to prevent herself. She was here incognito and she had not the first idea of how to get around the man. She had no experience in these situations, no idea what was required, as usually her security handled every single small thing...but she had dismissed them. Boarding school had been the last time she’d been allowed her freedom and since her return to Iondorra she hadn’t exactly been out ‘clubbing’.
Did she offer him money? she wondered, then belatedly realised she didn’t have any. And even if she had, Sofia had no idea how much would have been appropriate. She could have given the man a year’s salary, or not even enough to buy milk. Suddenly feeling completely out of her depth, she felt the sting of tears pressing against the backs of her eyelids and blamed Theo Tersi wholeheartedly. She had not cried once since the night of the debutante ball when she and her mother had spoken. When she had realised there truly was no other option but to assume the throne and marry her childhood friend, Antoine. But in the three weeks since Theo had stormed into her life and turned it upside down, she felt as if she were only a breath away from it at all times.
Suddenly he appeared at the top of the stairs behind the bouncer, towering over her like an avenging angel, and she hated the way that her pulse instantly kicked at the sight. She pushed away the thoughts of how she had reacted to the kiss that night, with all the wanton, suppressed desire of ten years of need and yearning that she had refused to acknowledge. The photographer had caught the exact moment that she had clung to him as if her life depended on it, and the memory brought a furious blush to her cheeks even now.
She took in the sight of Theo’s broad shoulders filled out from youth with powerful masculinity, dark hair artfully messy—or at least she hoped it was by design and not the hands of either of the models he was currently parading about. She bit down on the thread of shocking jealousy unfurling in her chest, and replaced it with anger as Theo growled the phrase, ‘Let her come.’
It sounded more like the taunt of a battle cry than permission to enter some private section of a club. He’d turned his back on her before she’d taken the first step, and by the time she’d reached the top of the stairs he was nestled in between the two women once again.
She stood before the three of them, separated by the depth of a table with half-filled glasses and empty champagne bottles.
‘Can we talk?’ she shouted over the loud music.
He placed a hand to his ear, and simply shrugged in confusion as if the blasted man hadn’t heard what she’d said.
‘I said—’ she shouted, only to realise that a sudden lull in the music had carried her voice far and wide over the private section of the club.
The two models snickered into their hands and Theo’s smirk made her utterly convinced that he’d known that would happen.
‘I said,’ she tried again, ‘can we talk?’
He waved a hand before her in a way more regal than any gesture she’d ever managed to achieve. He still had yet to say a word to her.
‘In private?’
‘Anything you have to say to me can be said here.’
Sofia wanted to snarl. She felt the deep yearning to be reckless, to act out, to do something so un-princess-like as to throw the remaining contents of the glass on the table all over his proud, defiant face. But ten years of suppressing that wild inner instinct won out. Even though she suspected he knew exactly what she wanted to do, what she would have done in the past. Unconsciously she rubbed at the old ache on her forearm, the other arm wrapping around the long since faded bruise against her ribs, while she chose and discarded what to say next.
‘We have...business to discuss.’
‘Sit,’ he said, knowing full well the only place to sit was beside one of the two women he still had his arms around. And Sofia point-blankly refused to add to the collection of women he’d gathered about himself.
‘I’ll stand.’
He shrugged, once again as if it were her choice.
One of the girls leaned over and whispered in his ear, producing a high-pitched giggle from the other, and an amused grin and a nod of agreement from him as they both returned their attention to her, making it clear she was the subject of the private discussion.
It was becoming increasingly hard to hold on to the thin thread of her control. She locked her eyes on his, ignoring the two women either side of him, and waited. Because the one thing that no one had been able to remove from her in all her years of royal training was her stubbornness. So she watched and waited. She’d have stood there all night too, but he seemed to realise that, and finally dismissed the two women, who pouted and protested but ultimately removed themselves to a table further away. Not before casting her glances that Sofia was sure would have quelled lesser individuals. She had won that battle, but not the war. Not yet.
Theo called over a waitress and requested a chair for her, which was duly produced, and Sofia finally sat down opposite him.
‘I see that you have dressed for the occasion,’ Theo said as his gaze covered her once again from head to toe and back to her head again.
She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. ‘When in the henhouse...’
‘Are you calling me a hen?’ he asked, full of mock-horror. ‘Pecking and scratching around for any little titbit you’d throw my way? Oh, no. I assure you, Sofia, that is not how this is going to play out.’
‘For goodness’ sake, Theo. It’s the cock in the henhouse. You’re the...’ A painful blush rose to her cheeks before she could finish the sentence.
‘Oh, that’s adorable, sweetheart.’
‘Don’t call me that,’ she commanded.
* * *
Theo felt the thrill of satisfaction as he watched her crystal-blue eyes storm like a Mediterranean downpour. He’d never failed to find enjoyment in teasing her. But seeing her feathers ruffled, seeing her annoyed and angry, held a bittersweet taste this evening.
Good. He wanted her angry. He wanted her annoyed. He wanted her to feel every single thread of emotion that had wrapped around his heart the moment he’d realised just how artfully she’d played and betrayed him. Because it wasn’t just him that her machinations had affected. That his mother had been caught up in the fallout was untenable. So when Sofia failed to issue the apology he knew he deserved, she had sealed her fate. The photographer he had hired had done well and been paid well for his services too. Securing front-page headlines throughout the world had been exactly what Theo had wanted, knowing that it would back her into a corner. Knowing that no other royal would want to go near her after being associated with his debauched reputation. He had ignored her for weeks, knowing that it would only infuriate her more. Until yesterday, when he had begun to leave little breadcrumbs on social media of where she might be able to find him. He wanted her on his turf, he wanted her on the back foot, needed her to be. This was only the second step towards his utter and complete revenge. She would know the sting of humiliation, she would know the deep slice of hurt and betrayal—feelings that were so familiar to him it was as if he had been born with them—and she would know, ultimately, that she had brought it on herself.
His gaze ate up the image before him. She was wearing clothes he’d never seen her in, certainly nothing that would ever grace the style magazines she was often lauded in. The tight grey denim riding low on her hips made his mouth water, and the silky white top tucked into them was nowhere near indecent, but as it moulded to her perfect breasts, topped by thin straps, he couldn’t imagine that she was wearing a bra. He would have seen the evidence of it. The low heel of the suede nude-coloured heels gave her overall appearance a conservative contrast to the barely dressed women at the club, teetering on almost death-defying stilettos.
He had imagined her monstrous over the years, every heartache added to the list of crimes she had perpetrated against him and his mother. He had imagined her begging and pleading for forgiveness, but in reality he could not deny the effect she had on him and cursed his body’s weakness for her. Even now, he had to lean forward to hide the evidence of his arousal, his desire for her. The one thing that had never gone away.
Her pupils dilated at his slow perusal, and the realisation that she too was as beholden to their mutual attraction was the only balm to his ego.
‘Theo—’
‘Princess Sofia de Loria of Iondorra...’
This time she scowled. More like the youthful woman he had once known, and it struck him in his chest. He slowly exhaled the shock, but took great pleasure as those about them started to produce their smartphones and snap pictures of the two of them—some not even bothering to be discreet. He would not be her dirty little secret. Not this time. This time, he would make it impossible for her to walk away from him.
‘You must issue a denial,’ she said finally, as she tried to ignore the flashes punctuating the beginning of their exchange.
‘A denial of what, Your Highness? That we kissed? I believe that is quite undeniable at this point.’
‘That we are in a relationship,’ she hissed beneath her breath. ‘I can’t have the world thinking that...’
‘Thinking that you are involved with an illegitimate Greek commoner?’
‘I was going to say Greek millionaire playboy.’
‘Please,’ he scoffed. ‘It’s billionaire playboy to you.’
She artfully raised an eyebrow.
‘You can look at my financials if you doubt it,’ he replied, unable to keep the heady mixture of pride and arrogance from his voice. Everything he’d achieved, every grape, bottle, vineyard and investment, had been despite her machinations and through his own hard work. She could hardly claim the same.
‘I’m not here to debate what names the press call you, I’m here to get you to put a stop to the ones they’re calling me.’
He held back the smile that his lips itched to tease into. Instead, shaking his head and offering her a simple shoulder shrug, he said, ‘Óchi. No. I don’t think so.’
‘Why not?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘It doesn’t suit my purposes to do so.’
‘What do you want, Theo?’ Suspicion darkened her eyes to a midnight-blue. A colour he remembered from his past, and he thrust the thought aside.
‘I want,’ he said, unfurling his large frame from the sofa beneath him, closing the distance between them in order to see the moment she realised that she was helpless, that she had no other choice... ‘you to learn the consequences of your actions. I want you to learn that we mere mortals will not be as easily discarded as you seem to think.’
I want you to learn that you cannot destroy me and everything I hold dear and just walk away, he concluded silently.
‘I want you to pay for the way you set me up—’
‘Theo—’
He didn’t even register her interruption as the wave of indignation and fury pounded in his veins, competing with the heavy base of the club’s music.
‘I want what you once promised me, what you once begged me for. I want you to make a truth from your lies. I want you to wear my ring.’
His eyes narrowed as Sofia failed to move a muscle, blink even. This mask that she wore, this impossibly regal poise, was different to the young woman he remembered. He had seen her desire to throw a glass of champagne over him earlier, a fit of female pique. But this? No, this was unacceptable. He didn’t want poised. He wanted furious. He wanted her to feel what he felt.
‘In fact,’ he pressed on, now standing, towering above her, cocking his head to one side in a way that showed only disrespect, ‘I don’t just want you to agree. You see, your name is now entwined with mine. No one of royal pedigree would attach themselves to you in marriage, no matter how desperate they are. No one would want my seconds, my cast-offs. No one would ever choose you again. It doesn’t matter how long you wait. Every time I cause a scandal—and trust me, agápi mou, I am more than willing to engage in as many I can find—every time I’m seen out with my next conquest, your name will be dragged down with me. Compared to whatever woman graces my bed, the speculation as to whether your poor, wounded little princess heart is breaking over my latest indiscretion will be on every single front page around the world.
‘You should be happy, Sofia. You are now tied to me as securely—if not more so—than you used to pretend you wanted to be. So no, I don’t want you to simply agree to be my wife. I want you to beg.’
Just like the way his mother had begged her employer to reconsider. Like the way she had been forced to beg her own family to take them in once again. Just like he had been forced to beg to buy the first piece of neglected land that he’d wanted to develop for his own grapes from his mother’s family. So that was what Sofia would have to do now.
* * *
‘I want you to beg.’
The words cut through Sofia like fire and ice.
Surely he had to be joking. There was no way they could marry. Not with all this hurt and anger between them. Not with the events of the past between them.
But she only had to look at him, take in the determined gleam in his eyes, the slightly forward bent of his body, the tense muscles of a predator that had already struck, had already cornered its prey and was now only playing, toying with it, before the poor creature was completely devoured. She was that creature. And she hated it. Hated him.
Still, just like that prey, she sought a way out.
‘What do you get out of this?’
‘Do you not see how this works? My wine sales will go through the roof. I may even request a royal seal,’ he said again with that infuriating shrug.
‘You’d tie yourself to me in marriage for the rest of your life, just for sales?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘Princess, how is that any different than marrying for the good of your country?’
‘But w
hat about...’ She trailed off.
‘Love? Happy-ever-afters? I think we learned that lesson quite some time ago, don’t you?’
She wanted to argue, to deny his words, to find some way of reasoning with him.
‘You are blackmailing me? I have no choice in this whatsoever,’ she said, panic rising from deep within her.
‘Of course you have a choice. You can walk away, with your reputation in tatters and never see me again. Or we will marry. Give this little scandal a royal fairy-tale ending.’
Sofia knew that he meant it. Knew that he wouldn’t let this go. Knew when she had fled the garden in Paris that she had taunted the lion in its cage.
‘I’ll need that answer now, Sofia.’
She bit back the curses, because there was definitely more than one ready to fall from her lips. There was too much to take in. He had set her up because he thought she had set him up? Was this really just some obscene marketing plan for his vineyard? The thoughts were crashing through her mind at lightning speed, but it was the realisation that he was right that came through loud and clear. There was no way that she would ever not be associated with him now. And she knew enough about him to take him at his word. He would make sure of it. No one would go near her now that she was linked with a debauched billionaire playboy. She had run out of time. Her father’s recent deterioration had seen to that. The only way forward was the one he was offering. No, demanding. The one he had orchestrated and executed so perfectly.
She hated the smile that unfurled on his lips. The thrum of satisfaction she felt coming off him in waves that lapped her skin so very painfully. Sofia bit her tongue, as if her body was protesting the words that she was being forced to say.
‘Theo Tersi, please. Pretty please, with a damn cherry on top. Will you marry me?’