by Julia James
Not letting her escape…
She’d wanted to—desperately—but she hadn’t been able to. Hadn’t been able to run, hadn’t been able to move. Had only stood there while he walked towards her, reached for her…
He was reaching for her now, his hand fingering down the long fall of her hair beside her face. Hair was supposed to be unfeeling, and yet, if so, how was it that a million nerve-endings had started to fire within her?
For a long, endless moment he said nothing, just held her eyes, his eyelids lowering infinitesimally as he contemplated her. She stood immobile, quivering with awareness of him. Of his closeness.
Of his intent.
Then, in a gesture that was almost leisurely, he let his hand fall.
‘Dinner first, I think,’ he murmured.
He strolled through into the dining room that opened off the drawing room. Vicky followed behind. Her heart had started to thump. She tried to make it stop, but it wouldn’t. So she took another mouthful of her vermouth. Its spiced headiness made her feel better.
Stronger.
And she needed to be strong. She needed to be absolutely strong.
One of the house staff was holding her chair, and she took it with a murmured thank you. It came out automatically in Greek, and the realisation made her uneasy. She didn’t want to feel she was in Greece. Didn’t want to do anything.
Except get this over and done with.
She cast a belligerent eye at Theo as he took his own place.
Why the farce of dining with me? Why not just lug me straight up to that ludicrous bed and do what you brought me here to do?
But she mustn’t think about that—that was a bad idea, very bad. She took another mouthful of vermouth. Then, seeing that a glass of white wine was being poured for her, she seized that and drank from that instead. It didn’t mix well with the vermouth, but she didn’t care. She wanted the alcohol.
Needed it.
‘If you’re thinking of passing out cold on me, think again.’
Her eyes flashed to the far end of the table. Words rose in her mouth, words that would tell him that being out cold would be the best way of facing what he had in mind for her. But the presence of the staff, however impassive their expressions, stilled her. Instead, she made a show of pushing her wineglass aside in favour of the tumbler of sparkling mineral water that had also just been poured for her.
They ate in silence. It was difficult to do anything else while the staff hovered. Vicky wasn’t sure whether she was glad they were there or not. Their presence kept a veneer of normality over the proceedings, but to her that only made it even more hypocritical.
How she got through the meal she did not know. Theo said nothing more to her, seemed preoccupied. And she did her best not to look at him. Nor to let herself think. Or feel. Feel anything at all. She must not, she knew. She must just sit there, lifting food to her mouth and lowering her fork again. Taking sips, repeatedly, of the wine poured for her by the silent, soft-footed staff who waited on them. Did they find it odd that their employer and his latest mistress sat and ate in complete silence? If they did, she didn’t care—wouldn’t care. God knew what they’d seen here in their time! She didn’t want to think about it. Let alone imagine it…
Theo, with all his willing, willing women…
Well, not me! Not me!
Anger spurted through her. Then, like a house of cards, it collapsed.
A voice sliced into her head. Low, insidious, and so, so deadly.
Liar…
She stilled. Every muscle in her body freezing.
Liar, came the voice again, the one inside her head.
You were willing once…
In the end…
Of their own volition, drawn by a power she could not resist, her eyes went to him. She felt her breath catch in her lungs.
Why—why did it happen every time she looked at him? Because ever since she had first laid eyes on him she had felt it—felt his power. Power to disturb her. Dismay her.
And power to do much, much more to her. To make her do what she so did not want to do.
Her mind slid away to the past, the wine in her veins making it all too easy to do so, and memory suffused through her.
From the moment, so vivid still in her mind, when he had let his eyes rest on her as she stood at the foot of the stairs, and she had seen and felt his intent, he had hunted her down.
Relentless, purposeful, knowing what he wanted and set on getting it. Until, at the last, he had breached her resistance.
The island. How had she been insane enough to go there? She had thought it a refuge, a haven. A place where she could hide—escape. She should have known it was not that at all. That it was a trap, a lure, and once there she would have no place to run. No retreat.
She had fled there, to the private island Theo had mentioned in passing, never realising, in her stupidity, that she had done exactly what he had wanted her to do. Played right into his skilled hands. That the deliberate pressure he had exerted on her in the immediately preceding days, when he had racked up the tension so that she was incapable of rational thought, had all been part of his campaign.
The campaign had not been hurried or precipitate. No, it had started slowly, oh, so slowly, from that fateful initiation. A slow, deliberate process of letting her know, little by little, what his intentions were. Even when she had realised, disbelievingly, that she really was not misunderstanding the signs, that for some insane reason Theo Theakis thought he could enjoy her in his bed, he had continued.
I should have challenged him right there and then! Told him where to get off!
But she hadn’t—little by little, week by week, he had worked on her. A look, an assessing regard, a flicker of awareness of her, the way he spoke to her, set his eyes on her. Until, finally vulnerable, trapped within the demands of her fake marriage with all the terrifying opportunities for an intimacy that had never, never been in the contract, he had turned on her the full force of the potency of his power and magnetism.
He had succeeded in making her weak and vulnerable—and gullible.
So gullible.
It had come to a head when, returning to Athens after nearly a week in Zurich on business, he had informed her that there was a gala ball to which they had been invited. It had been bad enough just realising that her heart rate had quickened discernibly when she had returned to the mansion and heard Theo’s deep tones issuing instructions to one of the house staff. Worse when, hearing her arrival, he had emerged from his study, still wearing his business suit, and her lungs had squeezed out the air in them at the sight of him after a week. Had he seen her betraying reaction? With hindsight she knew he must have. He was far too experienced not to know. He had strolled forward, enquired after her health in a formal fashion, then reminded her of the hour at which they would have to leave that night.
The ball had been her worst ordeal yet. She had had to dance with Theo.
Of all things, a waltz.
She had been wearing a ballgown of red satin, strapless, with a high bodice that wrapped her torso tightly, gliding in to her waist then falling in a long, straight skirt to her ankles. A diamond and ruby necklace, one of the dozen items of similar jewellery that Theo had bestowed on her to wear for the duration of their marriage, had glittered at her throat, diamond and ruby drops at her earlobes. Her hair had been up, in a severe French pleat, and her make-up had been subtle and subdued.
Theo’s eyes had narrowed very slightly, she recalled, as she had descended the staircase in the Theakis mansion, to where he waited, tuxedo-clad, in the hall below. As she’d come up to him, her expression impassive, she’d seen and been sure of it, a glint in his dark veiled eyes.
‘Very English,’ he observed, and the glint came again, making nerves flutter in her chest.
‘Shall we go?’ was all she said, and started towards the door.
Only the sudden pressure of her fingers on her satin evening bag betrayed her agitation.
&n
But she was less glad of her uncle’s presence when, after letting her chat to him for fifteen minutes, he said to her, with a mixture of indulgence and reproof, ‘Go and rescue your husband from Christina Poussos before she thinks she can steal him from you, pethi mou!’
Vicky stifled an urge to say that Christina Poussos and her entire sisterhood could whisk him away any time they fancied, knowing she must say no such thing to Aristides. So she made her way to the cluster of people where Theo stood, his arm still held by the woman who, Vicky idly assessed, probably fell into the category of females whom Theo had once enjoyed, and had since replaced, but who had ambitions to return to his bed. Certainly the Greek woman’s eyes glittered malevolently at Vicky as she arrived to join the group. But her reception by the middle-aged Argentinean was quite different. He broke off in mid-sentence to pay her a fulsome compliment, his eyes working hotly over her. Christina introduced her, and Vicky could almost hear her teeth gritting. Then, as the orchestra started to play, the other woman’s eyes lit.
‘Dancing at last! Theo, you know I love to dance!’ She smiled flirtatiously at him before switching her gaze to the Argentinean. ‘Enrique, take care of Victoria, won’t you? Theo—’ The flirtatious smile was back on her red-painted lips.
How it happened, Vicky did not know. Presumably with the same cool, ruthless skill and will that he brought to bear on everything. But the next moment Christina Poussos was disengaged from Theo, and her own hand taken. Then he was saying, in deceptively casual tones, ‘The first dance must be with my wife, I think,’ and she was being led out on to the huge dance floor as the orchestra swept into a waltz.
It had happened so fluidly she had no chance to realise his intention—and now it was too late.
She had been taken in his arms. His hand slid around her waist, resting lightly, firmly—immovably—in the small of her back, and his fingers laced through hers.
‘Your left hand goes on my shoulder,’ he murmured, glancing down at her.
Numbly, she did as she was bid, her feet starting to move as he impelled her forward. Her heart seemed to have gone from being frozen solid in her chest to lodging breathlessly in her throat.
They started to dance. And as they did Vicky understood for the first time in her life just why waltzing had once been considered scandalous.
She was so close to him! Closer than she had ever been! Held almost against him, her body posed and positioned by the subtle pressure of his hand splayed at her waist, his long, strong fingers laced through hers, and worst, worst of all, his lean, muscled thighs brushing against her skirts as he moved her backwards into the dance, turning her as he did so.
She gazed up at him—quite helpless. His face was so close to her, too—far, far too close. She could see the blade of his nose, the lines around his mouth, the firm outline of his lips, the smooth, freshly shaven jawline and more devastating yet, the dark glint of his eyes half veiled by thick black lashes.
And there was something more powerful still. Primitive, potent. The scent of his masculinity, the faint spice of aftershave, teasing at her. Her left hand rested as lightly as she dared on the smooth, expensive surface of his jacket, and through the fine material she could feel the sinewy muscles of his broad shoulders.
The music was haunting and rhythmic, old-fashioned but reaching deep, deep into her psyche, and they moved around and around, turning and turning on the dance floor, so that she could see nothing else, nothing at all except his lean, tanned face looking down at her, and her eyes locked to his—the only still point in a turning world. She was breathless, floating, caught and held, moving along the path that he set for her, guiding her, taking her where he wanted her to go…
Into a realm where only he existed for her.
And she gave herself to it as the music flowed in her limbs and her body. Helpless to do otherwise.
When, after an eternity, the music died, he stilled her, but her mind was whirling still, and all she could do was stand and gaze up at him, into his fathomless eyes.
And she recognised, deep, deep within her blood, what had happened to her. For one long endless moment she went on standing there, as all around couples were moving away, reforming, talking and laughing. She just stood there, trembling in every limb, and gazed at him, lips parted.
He looked down at her. Looked at her from his dark, dangerous eyes.
And smiled. The smile of a predator who had captured his prey at last…
She did not know how she got through the rest of the evening—had no recollection of it, no awareness. All her consciousness was focussed on one thing only.
She must escape.
Where—how—with what excuse? What reason?
It was during one of the distracted conversations she had during the course of that endless evening, when she made some remark about how hot and breathless Athens was at the end of September, that Aristides suggested the island Theo owned.
‘It will be cooler there. Fresher than here. You should have a holiday, both of you.’ He beamed at them. ‘You could go there tomorrow!’
Vicky stiffened automatically, and Theo said, ‘Impossible, unfortunately. I can’t get away until the weekend.’ He glanced at Vicky. ‘You could go, however, and then I could join you on Friday evening.’ There was a bland look in his eyes, but Vicky had seen the glint in them.
But all she murmured was, ‘Very well.’
‘Splendid!’ Aristides exclaimed. He beamed at both of them again.
Vicky forced a smile to her face. Oh, she would go to this island, all right. But she would not be there, waiting like a tethered goat, when Theo arrived at the weekend to finish off his kill. She would be gone by then. Where, she didn’t know or care—but agreeing to go to this private island of Theo’s would buy her the precious time she needed. From there she could make her own arrangements.
So she had gone. Like a fool, an idiot. Thinking she had found a haven, a refuge from what she fled.
But Theo outmanoeuvred her effortlessly. She set off after lunch, Theo safe in his offices in Athens. When she landed on the island he was already there.
The island. Fragrant with the scent of thyme, cooled by the breeze off an azure sea, a place of magic and enchantment. An enchantment that sapped her will and lulled her senses even as it awakened them.
When had the moment of yielding come? She did not know, but it came all the same—a moment so silent, so imperceptible, that she was not even conscious of it. As she walked up to the tiny white-walled villa, framed by olive trees, splashed crimson with bougainvillea, in all its bewitching simplicity, she felt her heart lift, her spirit lighten. Beyond the whiteness of the building she could see the cerulean blue of the sea, merging into the infinite sky above.
She felt a strange tranquillity steal over her, a sense of journey’s end and resolution. Her pace slowed and she looked about her more deeply, drinking it in.
Then the sound of a door opening made her turn back towards the villa.
Theo stood in the doorway.
For one brief moment she stood, transfixed.
Waiting for the fury. The dismay.
But they did not come.
He held his hand out to her. He was not wearing his perpetual business suit. His short-sleeved shirt was open, the bronze of his chest darkened, his trousers nothing more than long swimming trunks, his feet bare, his hair feathered by the breeze. She felt desire shimmer in her. More than desire. Finally, more than desire.
There was nothing more she could do. She had fought, and run, and resisted.
But it had still come to this. She walked towards him and he looked down at her, took her hand, and led her in.
It was, in the end, all she could do.
Yield to him.
Why had she given in to him? Gone to his bed? Let him do to her what she had fought so hard against? She knew the truth of it—because she had not had the strength to go on resisting him. That was all.
He had sensed his victory from the moment she had walked up to him, and from that moment on she’d been lost. It had been as if all the fight had gone out of her—and he had known it. He’d said nothing of that, however, simply greeting her as if it had all been prearranged by both of them.
Maybe it had been the remote beauty of the island, their isolation, with no one else there once the helicopter that had brought her from the mainland had whirred off into the sky, letting the peace crowd back again into the silence.
‘Come down to the beach,’ Theo had said, taking her small suitcase and carrying it into the single bedroom. A simple room—whitewashed walls, stone floor, an old-fashioned bed, wooden furniture and slatted blinds.
Not a room for Theo Theakis—head of a mighty corporation, corporate captain par excellence and one of Greece’s richest men.
And yet, as Vicky watched him curiously, he seemed at home here.
As did she. That was the strangest thing of all—the way she simply accepted what had happened, abandoned her fight. Let herself be taken over by him at last, to spend a lazy, easy day together on the beach, in the water, in the sun and the shade, letting the island work its strange, alluring magic on her, and then, as night fell, eating simple food, cooked by themselves in the low-tech kitchen, sitting at a rustic wooden table set out under the olive trees, drinking wine while the stars burned golden holes in the patches of the sky between the silvered olive leaves.
What they talked of she did not know, for another conversation was taking place, running silently between them, weaving their eyes together, until at last Theo rose to his feet, took her hand, and took her to his bed.
In the early morning, as he lay asleep beside her, she got up and dressed, and phoned from her mobile for the helicopter.
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