‘No, we don’t, as a matter of fact. Okay, well, thank you so much for walking me to my room, although I suspect I would have got here safe and sound by myself.’ She stood with her back to the door and delivered a bright smile.
‘You don’t live together? I confess I’m surprised.’ With a movement so accomplished that Abby was unaware of it being done, Theo reached behind and pushed open the bedroom door, then insinuated himself inside the room before she had time to open her mouth in protest.
Now it was his turn to face her. ‘I didn’t think that the conventions of separate living quarters still applied in this day and age when two people are engaged.’
Behind him, the single lamp on the chest of drawers illuminated the sofa which Michael had used earlier on to have a quick nap on, and which neither of them had bothered to remake.
They had both been scrupulous in keeping up appearances since they had arrived. Before the room was cleaned, all evidence of sofa occupation had been eradicated. Just in case. Housekeepers had a habit of gossiping and gossip had a habit of spreading.
Why they hadn’t had two separate rooms, Abby had no idea, but Michael’s reasoning had been that his grandfather would have been startled at that arrangement. More so than his mother, and certainly Theo would have been more than startled. Back in England, it had seemed pretty easy to fit in with his plans.
With one disarranged sofa staring her in the face, complete with rumpled pillows, Abby felt her stomach go into cramp mode.
She stayed put in the doorway and linked her hands behind her back. Nervous, fidgeting hands told a story of their own. ‘I’m accustomed to living in my own space,’ Abby blurted out, tearing her eyes away from the wretched sofa. ‘I have all my things around me…and besides, with Michael’s working hours, it’s not as if we would be spending all our evenings together watching television and pottering in the kitchen…’ She thought of Jamie, running around her townhouse, scattering toys in the sitting room. One more thing to be kept under wraps. Thank God the man was leaving later on that day.
‘But it would have been more convenient, surely, not to have the expense of keeping on two places…?’
‘I guess. Well…’ She yawned and took a small step backwards to psychologically encourage him to follow suit. He stayed put.
‘Where are you going?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re going backwards, Abby.’ He reached forward and switched on the overhead light and, in the same motion, swung round and stepped aside.
Abby reluctantly stepped into the room and followed the direction of his curious gaze. The sofa could not have shown more indication of its occupancy. Two pillows, still bearing the imprint of Michael’s head, cushions tossed on the carpet, and, as the final touch, a sheet carelessly screwed up down one end. The bed, on the other hand, was untouched.
‘Well, well, well…’ Theo strolled forward, picked up the cushions and placed them randomly on the sofa, then he turned to her and folded his arms. ‘Little domestic tiff, perhaps?’
‘Have I told you how tired I am?’
‘Several times.’
‘If you had an ounce of decency you’d take the hint and go. But then we both know that you and decency are not words that go together in the same breath.’
‘Curiouser and curiouser…’ The wolfish smile sent a shiver of apprehension racing up and down Abby’s spine. She drew herself up and gave him her coldest stare, but her mind was a blank. ‘So explain…’
‘There’s nothing to explain. Michael wanted a nap and the sofa seemed as good a place as any.’
‘Even with a king-sized bed only feet away? Are you telling me that my brother is a masochist?’
‘I don’t have to tell you anything at all!’
Theo advanced towards her, backing her against the wall. He then proceeded to lean against the wall, resting on one arm and efficiently blocking her exit with the other. ‘You’re not sleeping with my brother, are you?’
‘That’s a ridiculous assumption!’ Ridiculous? It was a natural conclusion. If the shoe was on the other foot she would have thought exactly the same thing. She could have kicked herself for not tidying up the room before she left, but she had been so flustered, her mind wandering on to other things, that she had barely noticed the telling disarray. Nor, it had to be admitted, had she expected anyone else to go inside the room, least of all the man towering over her now.
‘I must say I’m asking myself why…’
‘Get out!’ Abby demanded desperately. ‘Or else I’ll…’
‘Scream? Slap me again? Stamp your feet…?’
‘Does my brother not attract you…?’ He didn’t know why, but that gave him a tremendous surge of well-being. He could see the wariness underneath the glare and he felt the satisfaction of knowing that he had cornered her. Not in the way he had originally imagined, but he had definitely cornered her.
And she wasn’t sleeping with Michael.
‘Well?’ he prompted.
‘I’m not going to answer any of your questions and if Michael knows that you’ve been bullying me…’
‘Me? Bullying you? I’m showing a healthy interest. Why are you and my brother sharing a room if you’re not even sleeping together? Maybe…’ His eyes gleamed darkly. ‘Maybe you prefer tantalising him with your body…look but don’t touch…’
‘That’s disgusting!’
‘You think so?’ Theo seemed distracted for a few seconds. Abby could work out without too much difficulty what sort of images were occupying his mind, images of women performing stripteases for his own private pleasure, she thought waspishly.
‘Or maybe,’ he mused, enjoying this little game of discovery, ‘the fact that you’re not attracted to my brother makes no difference to you at all.’
Abby was aware of her heart beating and the fine film of perspiration that was making her skin tingle. She had never felt so trapped in her life before and, while common sense was telling her that whatever Theo Toyas said it would all be speculation, she still felt the fear of the hunted slowly being circled by the predator.
Theo was not at all deterred by her silence. He no longer knew whether he was driven by a need to protect his brother, which had certainly been his aim at the start, or by an even more powerful and baffling need to find out about the slight woman standing there, locked effectively in his cage. Her eyes were wide and cautious but the superficial calm of her features was betrayed by the pulse beating rapidly in her neck. He would have liked to have touched that pulse, feathered his finger over it…
‘I don’t care what you think, Theo…’
‘Of course you do.’
‘Why? Why should I? Just because everyone you ever meet is interested in what you have to say, doesn’t mean that I am.’
‘You might not want to be interested, but you are, because I am Michael’s brother, because whether you like it or not Michael does not live in a vacuum. You claim that you have no interest in my brother’s money. If that was the case, then why are you conducting a relationship with him when you’re not attracted to him?’
‘I never said I wasn’t attracted to Michael. I think he’s exceedingly attractive, as a matter of fact.’
‘But not attractive enough to get you into bed. I believe in consideration between two consenting adults, but isn’t that taking it a bit too far? And what happens when my brother decides that the time has come to stop playing the gentleman? Do you then insist on the wedding ring on the finger? Is that where your feminine modesty springs from? A more pedestrian need to keep Michael on his toes, dangling the carrot in front of him so that you have him where you really want him? Very clever. The chase is always so much more enticing than the actual catch…’
Abby raised her hand, anger and panic guiding her, but this time there was no connection with that arrogant face. Instead he deftly caught her wrist and held it.
‘Uh huh. You’ve done that once and it’s once too often as far as I’m concerned.’
He pulled her slightly towards him and felt the atmosphere change with electric speed.
Her breathing quickened and her pupils dilated. It no longer seemed to matter whether he had been attacking her or not. Her mind might have been responding to what he had been saying, but her body was responding to him. That one certainty rushed through him on a wave of powerful force. Theo felt his mouth go suddenly dry as he was caught up in a vortex of similar wanting, because there was no other word to describe what he was feeling. Suspicion and curiosity melded together into shattering animal attraction.
A succession of images whizzed through his head, starting from his first look at her, unobserved, as she had emerged from that taxi, and ending with how she looked tonight.
‘You make me want to slap you!’ Abby said in a strangled voice. His dark eyes were piercing her, burning a hole in her defences and his mouth…she looked at his mouth and hurriedly looked away.
‘What else do I make you want to do, Abby?’ he murmured softly. In the intensity of the moment, Michael was just an image, rapidly receding.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Abby stammered. ‘You’ve got me all wrong.’
‘You know what I mean.’ He released her wrist but he didn’t step back. Instead, he enfolded her in an embrace in which no physical contact was made because he wasn’t touching her at all, just leaning against the wall over her, supporting himself on the flat of his hands, elbows bent so that he was only inches away.
Abby felt as though she was slowly suffocating. But she liked the feeling. It was so intense and so blindingly real. With a jolt, she realised how successfully she had managed to withdraw from all meaningful contact with the opposite sex over the years. She chatted, she went out in a group, but no one ever got very close. The doors she had always had open to the world had been firmly sealed and locked. It was just mystifying how this one man, the least suitable man in the world for a host of reasons, had managed to prise them open.
Her lips parted on a desperate protest but nothing emerged. She was aware of him leaning down and then the only sound she heard herself make was a groan as his mouth covered hers and his hands reached to cup her face, tilting it so that her whole body was arched up to receive his kiss.
A couple of minutes, if that, when she was lost. All the needs and urges that had dried up inside her flared into sudden, breathless life. She responded with every ounce of her being as his tongue invaded her mouth like something seeking to reach straight into her soul.
Then lessons learnt and years of self-preservation rushed back into focus. And with it the image of Michael.
She pushed hard, struggling to free herself, gasping like someone deprived of oxygen.
Theo withdrew immediately. Her fabulous blonde hair was tangled around her face and he resisted smoothing it back, angry with himself because he hadn’t wanted it to end. He had wanted to take them both to their destination.
Now Michael’s face rose up accusingly and his anger shifted on to her.
‘How dare you?’ Abby demanded.
‘Bit late in the day for self-righteous anger, don’t you think?’ he ground back at her. ‘Michael doesn’t do it for you, does he? Or maybe you’ve just decided that I’m the better catch? Hmm?’
‘That’s a despicable thing to say!’
‘But then I’m despicable, as you keep saying. Yet not so despicable that you don’t melt when I touch you.’ He pushed himself away, knowing that he now had the ammunition to do what he had wanted to do from the start, to provide ample proof to his brother that his beloved fiancée was not the pure young thing he obviously mistook her for.
He could, he knew, wrap it all up before he left to return to Athens. She would then be out of his brother’s life for ever and he would never have to clap eyes on her again.
‘I…’
‘You…? Carry on. I’m all ears…’
‘You should leave now.’
‘Is that all you have to say?’
‘Michael will be here any minute…’
‘Don’t pretend that you give a damn about my brother or about what he thinks! You’ve just proved to me exactly how much you care about him!’
For a few tense seconds neither said a word. The air was thick with regret and accusations and with the lingering remnants of lust which Theo was finding frustratingly difficult to get out of his system. She looked away and his eyes were drawn to the fragile pallor of her skin and the vulnerable way she was clasping her hands together, as if trying to steel herself from shaking all over like a leaf.
He was assailed with the treacherous thought that if he had had to find out about her this way, then he would have wanted to go the whole distance, to scoop those breasts out and taste them, to yank down the dress and expose every inch of her nudity. He stifled the guilty, distasteful thought but his painful erection still told him what he didn’t want to hear.
‘I’ll do you the favour of not being the one who provides this piece of proof to Michael about your duplicity. I’ll leave it to you to break off the engagement of your own free will, in whatever manner you see fit.’
‘Big of you, but how do you know that I want to do that? Or that Michael would, even if you went to him and told him about…well…one kiss…’
This wasn’t what Theo had expected to hear. ‘My brother might be fooled by pretty words and simpering looks, but I don’t think my mother or my grandfather would take a similar view and, in case you haven’t noticed, my brother holds them both in very high regard.’
Abby flushed. ‘Okay.’
‘And don’t even think of trying to pull a fast one.’
‘Such as what?’
‘Such as keeping quiet or, worse, bringing forward plans for the white wedding. It won’t work. I’m in Athens for the next few weeks, but as soon as I’m done there I’ll damn well get in touch with Michael and make sure that you’ve done precisely what I’ve told you to.’ He walked towards the door and pulled it open, then he turned to her. ‘I bet you’re wishing now that you had accepted my original offer to disappear with your pockets lined…’
Abby whitened but kept silent. What was the use of any retort? She only realised how rigidly tense she was once he had gone, softly closing the door behind him just like a clandestine lover would have.
Then her whole body sagged. She could barely bring herself to go to the bathroom, to go through all the motions of getting undressed, getting into her night clothes, removing her make-up. But she did, operating on automatic pilot like a robot. Having cursed Michael earlier on, when it had become clear that in his absence Theo was going to walk her to her room, she now prayed that he wouldn’t return in a hurry. Her thoughts were so chaotic that she felt that he might take one look at her and read every one of them.
And the most sinful of all those thoughts were the ones of what she had felt when Theo Toyas had touched her. All the awareness she had stored up unconsciously had rushed out at her, like a flood bursting through the fragile walls of a badly made dam. She had wanted him so badly that her body had felt as though it were on fire, a great raging fire that started deep inside her and radiated outwards, devouring every scrap of common sense in its rampaging path.
Under the comfort of the light blanket she shivered convulsively in the darkened room and whimpered.
If she kept her eyes open she heard his voice, his dark, seductive voice leading her astray so that he could turn on her with his vicious accusations. If she closed her eyes she could see him and see her reaction to him, like a third party spectator witnessing a huge error of judgement taking place in slow motion.
Why had she not fought him off? No, she wouldn’t even have had to fight him off, she knew that. He was not a man to pursue his interests in the face of opposition, not when it came to a woman. One hint of reticence on her part and he would have sensed it, would not have made a move. She could hardly blame the alcohol level in her blood. Her head had never felt clearer.
She hadn’t fought him off because she h
ad been desperate to touch him and to have him touch her.
The acceptance of that fact made her moan softly into the covers. She felt stripped bare. All the defences she had painstakingly built up over the years had been knocked down in one fell swoop and in the most dramatically awful way possible.
Of course she would tell Michael but there was an ache inside her at the thought that Theo would get what he wanted, what he had set out to get from the very start, and he would vanish out of her life believing her to be the woman he had conjured up in his head. A cold-blooded gold-digger who had trapped his brother and who would have gone to the final limit had he not managed to trick her into virtual self-confession. He would congratulate himself on a job well done. Where words hadn’t worked, action had spoken.
Sleep eventually overtook her but it was a restless sleep. She imagined that she would tell Michael what had happened the following day but, with utter predictability, he was so deeply asleep when she finally woke up at a little after nine in the morning that Abby didn’t have the heart to wake him. And what good would her confessions do at this point in the holiday, anyway? He would spend the rest of his short break on tenterhooks. Better, she decided, to leave it until they returned to England.
The villa, as she had expected, was full of activity. People were leaving and the huge open tiled hall was full of various holdalls. Lina was busily clucking around everyone, making sure that the transport they had arranged had arrived on time. Abby melted into the jumble of mostly hung-over guests, smiled and made sensible remarks about how successful the party was, kissed cheeks and uttered the right noises about hoping to meet again. She would have liked to, she thought. All these friends and relatives were a lively, interesting bunch and it had been wonderful being part of one great big family for a short while. Having had nomadic parents who had never even put down roots when she had been a child, it was a wonderful eye-opener to be confronted by this huge group who had. Uncles and aunts and cousins and nieces and nephews all knew one another and many knew the friends of friends of each other.
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