‘You sadist,’ she said, stepping out on trembling legs.
‘You coward,’ he returned. His legs appeared perfectly firm.
‘You could have warned me,’ she muttered. ‘And it’s not funny.’
‘No. And yes, I should have warned you.’ It baffled him how someone as straightforward as she was, someone who was out to get hold of her brother’s money, should also be so contradictory.
He wondered for the first time whether his judgement had been wrong. If so, it would be a first, but that didn’t mean it was impossible.
‘I promised you shopping,’ he said, waiting for the inevitable refusal, which wasn’t long in coming.
‘I’m not much of a shopper.’ Truth was, she wanted to buy a couple of things for Jamie, but that would have been out of the question with Theo guarding her side like a prison warder.
‘In that case, you can window-shop and I’ll do the shopping.’
Still feeling a little queasy from the hellish ride down, Abby couldn’t resist an opportunity to snipe. Besides, why on earth should he have the monopoly on asking questions? Bit by bit he had managed to find out snippets of her past, without her realising, whilst she knew nothing about him aside from what his brother had mentioned to her over time. That he was older, highly successful, fair, protective and a lady-killer. He had also been to boarding school. That was the sum total of her insight into this man who was determined to cut her to shreds if he could.
‘I didn’t realise that business tycoons enjoyed shopping,’ she needled. ‘Isn’t that a bit feminine?’
‘Are you trying to tell me that I’m feminine?’
He sounded so deeply scathing that she decided to press her point a little further. ‘There’s nothing wrong with a man being sensitive. Or liking to shop, for that matter.’ She had no idea where they were going next or even what direction they were walking in. She was fired up by the conversation and the chance to be the one in the driving seat for the first time. ‘I guess some men need to know that they’re wearing the best so that they can impress the opposite sex.’
‘Perhaps some men do,’ Theo agreed silkily, ‘although I take it that you are not one of those women who is impressed by the cut of the cloth?’
‘No.’
‘So you would have still fallen in love with my brother if you had seen him in stained jeans and a sweater with holes?’
Fallen in love?
‘I would love your brother whatever he wore,’ Abby said, sidestepping Theo’s phraseology. ‘Anyway, he wears jeans most of the time, really old faded ones, even if his jumpers don’t have holes.’
‘Maybe I should pay a little visit to Brighton and see for myself,’ Theo mused aloud, and Abby felt tension claw in the pit of her stomach.
‘He’s very busy most of the time,’ she said vaguely. Now they were taking a taxi somewhere, probably to these marvellous shops where he could splash his money around. Dressed down as he was, it was still glaringly obvious that his casual clothes had cost an arm and a leg.
Theo heard the evasiveness in her voice and pricked up his ears. ‘Surely not too busy to see his only brother. Especially now that he is an engaged man. The more I think about it, the more I see that it would only be right if I were to personally come down and visit, take you both out somewhere to celebrate…’
‘I thought that you spent most of your time in Athens,’ Abby said faintly.
‘Used to but that was quite some time ago. Before the company expanded the way it has. Now I spend a fair amount of time in London. I have an apartment in Knightsbridge.’
‘We could come up and see you there,’ Abby said eagerly. The thought of Theo Toyas finding himself in Brighton and then snooping around didn’t bear thinking about. ‘A much better idea, really. I know Michael really enjoys the city and, well, it would be nice for me to go as well. I don’t often get to London.’ Not with the constraints of being a single mum, she thought. Lord only knew what sinister connotation he would put on that particular fact. It would certainly all be grist to his mill, just another reason why she might want to target a rich man and get him to marry her. The best reason, in fact. And if he dug his heels in, then Michael, she knew, would crack. This whole charade was designed to let his grandfather be at peace in the knowledge that his favourite grandson was on the right road. If he ever found out…And the thought of his brother finding out, the brother he looked up to, his protector, terrified him.
Not for the first time, Abby heartily wished that she had never set foot on this perilous path. What did they say about first we practise to deceive…?
‘Why don’t you?’
‘Why don’t I what…?’
‘Get to London. Surely my brother doesn’t demand that you spend all your waking moments at his side?’
‘No, of course not! I just…never seem to get around to it. You know how it is. You keep meaning to do things, go places, but then before you know it another year’s gone and you haven’t got around to doing either…’
‘What things do you keep meaning to do?’
‘What things do you keep meaning to do? There must be something. You can’t be happy just working.’
‘I don’t just work,’ Theo said lazily. He was leaning against the door of the taxi, his body inclined towards her, and he smiled slowly. ‘I’m a great believer in playing as well.’
‘Oh, are you?’ Abby asked politely. ‘And what sports do you play?’
Theo laughed softly and raised his eyebrows in amusement. ‘The kind that involve willing members of the opposite sex.’
In the stretching silence Abby felt her face go redder and redder. She became aware of him watching her, amused by her agonised silence as she pictured just the sort of sport he had in mind.
‘Of course, I play other sports as well.’ He rescued her eventually but not until her body was burning with images she did not want to dwell on. ‘Of a more conventional nature,’ he carried on. ‘I swim and I try and get to a gym at least once a week. It is not always easy. I have several bases around the world, but in my own way I am as much of a nomad as your parents were. Now, enough of me. It’s time for us to do some shopping.’
Abby realised, in a daze, that they had returned to the capital. So much for sightseeing. Yes, she had seen some sights, but her head had been too wrapped up in her companion to really take them in. The camera she had tucked away in her handbag hadn’t once been brought out.
‘As capitals go,’ Theo was telling her as he confidently strode along, ‘this is not the most beautiful in the world, but there are some good designer shops.’
‘I don’t tend to buy designer clothes. I’d really much rather have a look at some craft shops. I wouldn’t mind buying a couple of souvenirs to take home.’
‘You said you didn’t bring a swimsuit with you…’
‘That’s right.’
‘Which is something that we are about to change…’
She realised belatedly that Theo had been striding along with a destination in mind, and the destination turned out to be a small swimsuit shop that reeked of expensive price tags and overzealous assistants.
Abby screeched to a halt and turned to him. ‘I don’t need a swimsuit.’
‘Oh, but I think you do, simply because we’re going to spend a couple of hours at the beach and it’s highly impractical for anyone to go to a beach fully dressed.’
‘I’m not going to a beach!’
‘Why not? I told my brother that I would take you sightseeing and beaches are all part and parcel of the tourist experience.’
‘Michael wouldn’t like it…’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…’ She realised that they were blocking the door when a couple irritably weaved between them.
‘Does he think that I might make a pass at his woman?’
‘No, he does not! And that’s extremely rude!’
Theo flung back his head and laughed. Then, when he had stopped laughing, he shook his head and s
tared down at her from behind his sunglasses. ‘That’s rich, coming from you.’
‘By which you mean…?’
Instead of immediately answering, Theo moved her to one side, forcing her against the wall and then bending over her so that her nostrils were filled with his tangy masculine scent and her eyes had no room to manoeuvre around his powerful body. She felt as though she was choking in his presence.
‘Why don’t we stop playing games?’ His voice was curiously non-aggressive and all the more chilling for that. He leaned into the wall, into her, blocking her completely on one side by resting his arm on the warm concrete by her head. ‘We both know what this so-called engagement is all about. I watched you with my brother and I’ve waited for you to prove me wrong, but nothing you have done or said has managed to convince me that you are not after my brother for his money.’
‘You’re wrong,’ Abby faltered, white-faced. ‘How can you say that?’
‘I can say that because I am not a gullible fool.’
‘And Michael is?’
‘Michael is…Michael. When most boys of fourteen were discovering the joys of testosterone, my brother was thinking of new ways to marinade beef. There is a part of him that lives in his own little world and an even bigger part of him that trusts other people. He places little value on money and somehow expects that the rest of the world feels the same way. I know better.’
‘You don’t understand.’ Abby felt as though she was drowning under a tide of misconceptions, none of which were in her power to put right.
‘What don’t I understand?’ His cool voice pressed down on her like a physical force. It was all she could do to meet his eyes with some degree of control.
Her voice, however, wasn’t being quite so cooperative. When she continued to look at him mutely, he shook his head in exasperation.
‘Let’s go get you a swimsuit. This conversation hasn’t ended and conducting it here is not ideal.’
‘You expect me to go to a beach with you now? After you’ve accused me…of…’
‘We either have this conversation somewhere private or we have it back at the villa. Take your pick.’
‘I’m not after your brother’s money!’ Abby pleaded one last time.
Theo’s response was to spin round on his heel and head straight into the swimsuit shop and Abby had no option but to follow him. Conducting this inflammatory conversation at the villa, where they might be overheard by anyone at any time, did not even present itself as a possibility.
He was waiting for her in the middle of the shop, arms folded. One assistant was simpering next to him and on a chair by the cash register sat the other shop assistant, who was simpering from a distance. Theo was either oblivious to their fluttering eyelashes or else so used to women behaving that way around him that he had ceased to notice. He registered her entrance with a curt nod of his head and had only to look down in the direction of the assistant for her to leap into immediate action.
Abby had never been into a shop and received such suffocatingly subservient service.
‘I don’t want a swimsuit.’
The saleswoman smiled in the blank way of someone who hasn’t quite understood and Theo launched into rapid Greek, the upshot of which was that half an hour later they emerged from the shop the better for a black bikini, which Abby was reluctantly wearing underneath her clothes.
They made the drive to the beach in silence, broken only by Theo informing her that there were towels in the trunk of the car as well as a hamper, which the housekeeper had produced at short notice.
He had obviously worked the whole day out, she thought. Butter her up with a few sights and some harmless conversation and then, when she began feeling safe, launch into his attack. He hadn’t planned a speedy and polite sightseeing tour, he had earmarked the entire day because he wanted the time at his disposal to batter her defences.
Abby could feel her heart beating in trepidation as they drove along, finally arriving at what she was informed was one of the more popular beaches.
‘The satellite islands are better for beaches,’ he said, getting out of the car and stretching. ‘But they are a ferry ride away.’
Abby didn’t answer. Now that he had made clear his intentions, she just wanted the conversation to be over and done with, although she couldn’t see a way out for her. Michael’s theory of being nice hadn’t worked. Maybe his brother was right, maybe Michael was such a basically unsuspicious person that he couldn’t understand how being nice to Theo was a waste of time and energy. Theo, with his arrogance and his thinly veiled threats, was in a league of his own.
He took the hamper down to the beach and managed to find a fairly secluded corner. Abby trailed along behind, glumly admiring the famous black sand, which really wasn’t that black at all, and the calm, clear water which would probably be freezing.
‘There is no need to look so depressed,’ Theo said, once he had spread the towels, which were the size of double sheets. Beach towels meant for the beach, which involved one hundred per cent protection from any stray sand. He stripped off his shirt and she could see now that the shorts rode low on his lean hips, exposing the flat planes of his tautly muscled stomach.
‘I’m not depressed,’ Abby snapped. ‘I’m angry that you’ve brought me here as a hostage so that I have no choice but to listen to you lay into me for things that just aren’t true. I’m angry because you’re treating Michael like an idiot who has to be supervised even when it comes to his love life! I don’t know what you think you’re going to achieve! Is your plan to just relentlessly batter away at me because you think I’ll crack? You’re arrogant and supercilious and quite honestly you don’t deserve to have a brother like Michael who thinks the world of you!’
Theo’s lips narrowed to a fine line. He could feel a thread of white anger spread through him as he took in her flushed face and her self-righteous stance, arms defiantly folded, body held in rigid, simmering tension as she glared at him. The foul-mouthed little gold-digger, he thought. That guileless act had taken his brother in and he had to admit that she had a way about her that seemed transparently vulnerable now and again…God, she had even got him curious about her at one point! But the mask was dropping, wasn’t it? She was spitting fire now.
He ignored the outburst and stretched out on the towel, propping his head up on one of the extra towels he had brought.
‘Well?’ Abby demanded. ‘Aren’t you going to start?’
‘Sit down and stop overreacting.’
‘Overreacting!’
‘Typical hysterical female behaviour.’ He inclined his head and squinted up into the sun at her. Yes, if a bucket of freezing water was at hand, he was pretty sure he would now be the recipient of it.
‘Typical hysterical female behaviour!’
‘This conversation isn’t going to progress very far if you repeat everything I say, is it? Now, sit!’
‘You might think you own the world, Mr Theo Toyas, but you can’t tell me what to do!’
‘No, but I can point out that standing there in this heat is going to get pretty tiring in a minute and there’s nowhere you can go. I have the keys to the car, not that you would have a clue how to get back to the villa anyway, and storming off to another spot on the beach will just result in you getting burnt to a crisp. This must be one of the only free shady areas not already taken up with people.’ He turned away and waited and was gratified when she finally flounced down on the towel so that she could glare at him from a less elevated level.
‘Well, get to the point then,’ Abby snapped, ‘but don’t expect me to have any input because I won’t.’
‘When is the marriage set for?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The wedding. Has a date been set?’
‘No.’
‘No? You surprise me. What’s the point of an engagement if you’re not going to get running up that aisle as quickly as possible?’
‘Kind of blows a hole in your little theory, do
esn’t it?’ Abby shot back with a little sneer. ‘I guess you thought that I would have already bought myself a calculator so that I could start totting you the millions I was going to have at my disposal. Well, so sorry to disappoint but no date’s been set and we haven’t even talked about a wedding.’ That was so utterly true that she couldn’t prevent a certain amount of smugness from creeping into her voice.
‘Why is that?’ Theo asked, directing his question to the sky but then turning so that he could watch the expression on her face. Surprisingly, she had a very mobile face and he was an extremely astute watcher. People invariably gave away their true emotions and he could almost always spot it. It was a talent born from a lifetime’s experience working in the cut-throat world of business where vast quantities of money regularly changed hands and where there were always people on the lookout for a short cut to some of that money.
He also had immense experience of women.
‘What do you mean, why is that? Not every woman sees her life goal as getting a ring on her finger in the least possible time.’
‘No, but most do and all would if they were given a huge financial reward waiting just round the corner.’
‘Really? Then how is it that you never got married? I’m surprised some clever woman hasn’t tried to make a beeline for this amazing Toyas wealth!’
‘Oh, most have,’ Theo remarked dryly. ‘Needless to say, they get nowhere.’
‘Poor Theo,’ Abby mocked. ‘Destined to be on his own for ever because he’s convinced that the only reason a woman might go out with a wealthy man is because of his money.’
‘This isn’t about me,’ Theo said icily. He raised himself into a sitting position so that they were now directly facing one another. ‘And there’s no point trying to swing the conversation in the opposite direction. There’s just you and me here so let’s cut to the chase. I will never allow you to marry Michael.’
Abby’s mouth fell open in shock. No beating about the bush here.
‘You may not have got around to talking about dates, but I suspect that’s simply because you don’t want to be seen to be rushing him into anything. Michael might well be gullible according to other people’s standards, but I certainly don’t consider him an idiot and nor, I imagine, do you. Alarm bells might just start ringing if you move from engagement to talk of marriage in too short a space of time.’
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