And, all the time, he’d known something else that she did not know. He’d known the sex of the child she carried for him. A boy child. More tears burned and she blinked them angrily away. His ultimate weapon in a power game so despicable that it filled her with a bilious disgust of all of them—Leon and his family.
The car turned in through the security gates and came to a stop at the yacht. She was trying to open the door even as the engine died.
‘Jemma—’ Leon’s hand on her arm sent a shudder of revulsion through her and she struck it away, not even looking at him as she got out of the car and walked quickly up the steps of the yacht.
She did not stop until she was in their stateroom with the door locked firmly behind her. Then she walked into the bathroom, switched on the shower, stripped off her clothes and stepped beneath the stinging hot spray.
Arriving back in the bedroom, wrapped into her long white towelling robe, she stopped dead, surprised to find Leon standing by the darkened window.
He must have sensed what she was thinking because he murmured, ‘I have a pass key to all the locks on board,’ without turning to look at her.
Of course, she thought wryly. He would have, wouldn’t he? It belonged to him, after all—which by his philosophy meant he had the right to open any door he chose to and damn the invasion of someone else’s privacy! Just as he had been damning his invasion of her privacy since he’d decided to make her one of his precious possessions!
Well, never again. ‘I’m tired,’ she informed him stonily. ‘Would you please leave?’
He turned to face her at that, his eyes dark and carefully guarded. ‘We have to talk,’ he said quietly.
Talk—? Her mouth tightened, losing all of its natural sensual softness. ‘The way I read it, it has all already been said.’
‘No,’ he denied. ‘There is a lot you haven’t heard. A lot you need to know if you are to understand why I had to do what I did tonight.’
‘Used me?’ she mocked him bitterly. ‘Used our child—and its sex!—as a means to an end, you mean?’
‘You have to understand,’ he persisted grimly, studiedly ignoring her pained remark. ‘I was playing for high stakes tonight. I needed you on my side! Not bristling with indignation and openly despising me as you surely would have been if I had warned you what I was about to do!’
‘And that excuses you, does it?’ she demanded, blue eyes hot and bitter.
‘No,’ he conceded. ‘It simply explains why I didn’t tell you. Look,’ he sighed when she continued to wither him with her eyes, ‘the company is mine by right! And there is not a person connected with the Leonadis name who does not know that it belonged to my mother, and her father and grandfather before that! I was even named Leonadis in anticipation of the day I take over! Of course I am not going to let anyone cheat me out of what is mine by right!’
‘So you sacrificed my rights for your own.’ She nodded in bitter understanding. ‘How honourable!’ she added scathingly.
He winced, but didn’t try to defend himself from that attack. ‘I had to do what I had to do!’ he insisted instead. ‘You heard my father tonight,’ he went on harshly. ‘His health is failing him. He has known for several months now that he is no longer fit to run a company the size of ours with the success he used to enjoy. But you also heard him say that accepting that point has not been easy for him. As he feels himself grow weaker he has to watch me grow stronger! He resents that, naturally! And, in a last-ditch attempt to prove his power over me—the only person worthy of taking over from him,’ he said with angry conceit, ‘he dredged up an old grievance of his—the one where he made the ultimate coup by marrying me off to Melva Markopoulou and so uniting two of the most powerful families on this island! He wanted to bow out on a high note. But, as always when he tries to bully me, I refused to comply! So he had that stupid document drawn up and proceeded to threaten me with it. It was a bluff!’ he muttered on an angry shrug. ‘Just a bluff! He plays these games with me all the time!’ From nowhere, the memory of the newspaper article saying how his father had tied Leon’s hands over the New York deal popped into Jemma’s mind. ‘But eventually he tires of the game, sees sense, gives in, if you like.’ Another shrug. ‘He’s not a fool; he knows the company needs me! That I am its strength and its future! And, left to his own devices, he would eventually have withdrawn the threat. Except that Anthia got to hear of it.’ His grim mouth tightened. ‘And suddenly Nico is announcing his intention to marry and the damned document is mysteriously made public! Which means my father cannot withdraw it without looking a complete fool. So he begs me again. “Marry Melva—marry anyone and get yourself a child before Nico beats you to it”!’
‘So I was your father’s scapegoat,’ Jemma concluded, hurting in so many ways that she didn’t know which one was the worst. ‘How convenient it was to you both that you happened to find me like this!’ she mocked. ‘The ideal solution to your problem, in fact!’
He looked at her through hard, impatient eyes. ‘If I attempted to deny that, you would not believe me, so I will not!’ he snapped. ‘But I will insist that you believe me when I say that even without the threat hanging over my head the consequences of my discovering you were pregnant with my child would not have changed. I would still have married you, Jemma. I—care for you. I always have.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she jeered. ‘You cared enough to bring me on board this yacht and spend the last two weeks personally supervising my return to robust health so I wouldn’t look so pathetic when you made your move tonight!’
He sighed, seeing no way past her bitterness. ‘That is not true, Jemma,’ he said grimly. ‘And when you have calmed down a little, you will see that.’
‘All I see,’ she retaliated, ‘is that everything you have done since you walked back into my life has been one huge deception. Everything,’ she repeated thickly, bright tears of hurt and humiliation filling her eyes when she remembered the beauty of the day before. ‘You used me,’ she whispered tremulously.
‘Yes,’ he sighed, not even trying to deny it. ‘I’m sorry if that hurts you, but—yes—’ He sighed again ‘—I used you.’
And it did hurt, hurt so deeply that she had to turn her back on him so that he would not see the tears burning in her eyes. It was as she turned that she saw it, glittering luridly among her tears, and in an act of sudden violence she snatched up the necklace from where she had tossed it angrily on her dressing-table top earlier, and threw it contemptuously at his chest.
‘There,’ she said as Leon caught it instinctively. ‘One of your props returned to you. But I am afraid you will have to wait several months more for the other, more important one to arrive to complete your victory!’
‘Dammit, Jemma!’ he exploded, his rough voice shaking as he took a step towards her. ‘You are blowing this up larger than—’
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ she choked, spinning away so that she didn’t have to see the look of pained appeal in his eyes.
He muttered something in angry frustration, sending her spine stiff in rejection as he took another step towards her.
‘Just leave me alone,’ she whispered, pressing her clenched fist against her quivering mouth again.
There was another tense pause, when he seemed to hesitate. She couldn’t look at him. If she had done she would have seen the anxiety pulling at his face, and the underlying burn of anger aimed entirely at himself.
Then he sighed heavily. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘If that is what you want.’ Then she heard him quietly let himself out of the cabin.
It was then the tears came, hot and pained and scalding. She let them flow, let her hurt and anger and miserable sense of disillusionment pour out with them.
When eventually the storm of weeping subsided, she crawled into the bed and went to sleep still huddled in her robe.
The next morning she got up, dressed herself, plucked the bankroll of drachmas out of the drawer she had put it in and walked outside and right off the yacht. Sh
e did not stop to tell anyone where she was going, nor did she even attempt to look for Leon. She needed time, time to be herself again—to learn to be herself again and not the person Leon had been turning her into. So she walked across the quay and out of the security gates enclosing their private moorings, across the busy quayside road and turned down the first street leading away from the harbour, putting herself right out of sight of the yacht as quickly as she could, unaware that Leon stood against the boat’s rail, watching her every step of the way, and unaware of the way he snapped out instructions to one of the crew who quickly scuttled after her.
She eventually found herself in what could only be the town square—a big place, flanked by brightly adorned tourist shops and cafés.
She picked a café at random and ordered herself fresh-orange juice and a bottle of chilled water, then sat back simply to let the world go by, her mind swept ruthlessly blank of anything even vaguely contentious.
It felt good, being just a simple tourist enjoying a simple breakfast in a simple café. And slowly, whatever had driven her to walk away as she had eased, until she began to feel a semblance of peace within herself.
After that, she spent the whole morning just wandering around the town, browsing through its narrow busy streets all tightly packed with interesting shops, and, in an absent, purely superficial kind of way, enjoying herself. The Kefallinían people were friendly, warm, and instinctively caring when they noticed her condition, going out of their way to find her a chair if she happened to walk into their shop, asking after her health, the baby’s health. Nice people. Genuine people who made her want to weep because they reminded her so much of the man she had married—or the man she’d thought she had married.
Wretchedly, she swung her mind away from that. She didn’t want to think of Leon—didn’t think she could cope. It wasn’t as if he’d told her lies! she reminded herself painfully. He’d just been so cleverly economical with the truth.
And even accepting all of that, accepting that he had married her for very specific reasons of his own did not hurt her as much as the way he had betrayed her with the sex of their baby.
The tears returned, burning at the back of her eyes and forcing her to swallow them down. To think, she scoffed cruelly at herself, I had actually let myself consider that he may love me!
What a fool!
Play with him and you’re playing in the big league, someone had warned her once. Well, she’d played, and got burned—not once but twice.
You utter fool!
Could she go on living with a man like that? Did she want to?
It was then she saw it, and she stopped dead, her brain burning with a combination of horror and excitement at the sudden idea which popped unexpectedly into her head.
It was only a tiny place, its windows cluttered with posters advertising the services it sold. But it was the instantly recognisable logo of one of Britain’s biggest airline companies that had caught her attention.
With the sun beating down on her uncovered head, she lifted a hand to shade her eyes. Her fingers were trembling. She wasn’t surprised. The idea was so incredible that she could barely believe she was actually considering it!
Yet it was tempting—so very tempting—tempting enough to send her feet uncertainly into the shop...
* * *
Hot, tired, and ready for a nice cool shower followed by a long rest, Jemma stepped back on to the yacht, hoping Leon was not around to waylay her. Two crewmen watched her come aboard, but other than that she managed to slip quietly back to her own room, the coolness of the air-conditioning a relief after the fierce heat outside.
Walking over to her dressing-table, she dropped down wearily on the stool. She was clutching an envelope in her hand, and she gazed dully at it.
This was it. Her means of escape. Her heart shook, making her sigh heavily.
The price they’d quoted her was in drachmas, yet, even as she’d dug out her roll of notes and begun carefully counting them out, she hadn’t really believed she would have enough. She had been wrong. Leon’s idea of a few pounds turned out to be the equivalent of a few hundred pounds. Enough—more than enough to buy her a seat on a plane home to England.
It had been so easy—so damned simple that she had to believe it was fate that had sent her into the shop.
Saturday. The day after tomorrow. The envelope held her ticket to freedom. The day after tomorrow she would be flying home and away from Leon. She did not know what she was going to do when she got there, what she was going to live on or even where she was going to stay, but suddenly she knew it was the right thing to do. The only thing to do. She just couldn’t stay with a man who could use her so carelessly. It hurt too much.
A sudden knock at the door had her jerking upright, and she spun around, eyes wide, face pale, heart palpitating so badly that she actually felt dizzy with it.
Leon. It had to be Leon. Only he would dare knock in that peremptory way.
‘Jemma.’ Not a question but a quietly issued command. It was him, and on a sudden spurt of panic she opened her dressing-table drawer and pushed the envelope in it, what was left of her money following it before she turned back to stare at the door.
‘Jemma!’ His voice was not so quiet this time, and the knock was sharp with impatience. Pulling herself together, she schooled her face into a cool mask and went to open the door.
He looked just the same as always, she noted bitterly. A little tired maybe, but no sign of guilt spoiling his handsome face, no hint of remorse. She stared coldly at him, hating the wretched ache she felt stir inside her, and turned back into the room. He followed, closing the door behind him.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked quietly enough.
Still she bristled. ‘Out,’ she said, moving jerkily to close the dressing table drawer when she saw she had left it open. ‘Why?’ she challenged, fingers curling around the smooth cedarwood as she turned back to face him. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’
His eyes had narrowed on her hands, making her heart thump agitatedly in her breast. Did he know what she’d done? Could he have found out?
‘No,’ he answered. ‘But it would have been—kinder if you had warned someone about what you intended to do.’
‘Like you do, you mean?’ Her chin came up, her meaning excruciatingly clear.
Still, he ignored it. ‘The doctor said you should rest. Yet you’ve been gone for hours. Didn’t it occur to you I may be worried?’
‘For whom?’ she goaded. ‘Me or the child?’
‘Both,’ he said. Then, with a hint of impatience at last, ‘Listen, I did not come here to argue with you, Jemma. I am not a fool; I am quite aware that you consider me beneath your contempt at the moment. But, despite what you prefer to think or believe, I am concerned for your health. I have to attend a meeting this afternoon,’ he went on grimly. ‘But I would rather go to it without worrying whether your desire to punish me could make you foolish enough to go out again and thoroughly exhaust yourself.’
‘Then go to your meeting.’ She shrugged indifferently. ‘Despite what you seem to think, I care for this baby’s health too. I shall not be leaving the yacht again today.’
‘Good,’ he murmured. ‘And thank you. Your reassurance eases my mind.’
‘You trust me to keep my word?’ Surprise at his instant acquiescence coloured her tone.
Leon looked steadily at her. ‘I have always trusted you, agape mou,’ he said softly. ‘I am the deceiver here, not you, remember?’
On a bleak self-mocking smile he let himself out of her room, leaving her to deal with the sudden rush of guilt she was troubled with. He trusted her. And she was already planning to break that trust.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JEMMA didn’t see Leon again that day—thankfully, she told herself firmly when she found her solitary meal that evening an interminable affair where a white-coated steward served small, tempting dishes to her in a concerned effort to inspire her lost appetite.
She had eaten little lunch, had found her usual ability to fall into an undisturbed sleep for a few hours in the afternoon had deserted her, and had in the end wandered restlessly around the yacht, not quite knowing what to do with herself.
You miss him, that little voice inside her head informed her bluntly. And if you can miss him now, when you’re riddled with hurt and anger at his deception, then how will you feel when all this hurt fades and you’re back in England, having completely cut yourself free of him?
The hurt will never fade, she told that voice when, by ten o’clock, Leon had still not appeared and she took herself off to bed, exhausted by the see-sawing stress of her ravaged emotions. How can it when I only have to feel our son move inside me to remember how cruelly he used us?
Our son. Every time she let herself think the words, her eyes filled with the aching tears of that cruel betrayal. No daughter with blue eyes and her mother’s soft mouth. No sweet little girl with golden hair or even her father’s dark exotic looks.
But a son, with Leon’s bottomless black eyes and charm enough to captivate anyone who came into contact with him. A boy with a sturdy build and an independent mind. Would he have any of her softer genes in him? Or would he be all Greek—all Stephanades—big and strong and heart-rendingly ruthless?
She shuddered, feeling sick but not really understanding why. It wasn’t as if she minded whether her baby was a boy or a girl so long as it was whole and healthy. But—
Rape, she realised. It felt like rape. As if someone had come along and coolly robbed her of the most precious part of motherhood.
And it was that which hurt her above everything else, and why she was determined to leave him. He had taken something else from her he could never give back, only this time she minded, minded so much that she could not forgive.
Sleep came suddenly, like the throwing of a switch, as if her brain had taken the decision to shut her off from the stresses of the last two days.
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