by Julia James
She should be asleep, Thea knew. Yet she was restless, staring sightlessly up into the dark in the bedroom of her Covent Garden apartment. Outside she could hear the noise of the street, subdued now, given the lateness of the hour—well gone midnight. But London never slept. She knew the city. Knew it like a chronic, malign disease. She had lived here all her life. But not in this London. This London was a world away, a universe away, from the London she had once known. The London she would never, never know again … never go back to.
And now she would be leaving London completely. She would not miss it—would embrace with gratitude and determination the windswept moors of Yorkshire, the new, wonderful life that was opening out in front of her. Where she would be safe for ever.
But even as she lay there, hearing the subdued noise of the traffic far beyond in the Strand, she felt the shadow feint over her skin. A dark shadow—cruel. Flicking a card down in front of her. A deep, hard voice that had reached out of the past.
But the past was gone—over. It would not come back.
She could not allow it to come back.
Giles phoned in the morning, wanting her to go with him to Farsdale, to be presented with the heirloom engagement ring and meet his parents. But Thea demurred.
‘You owe it to them to see them on your own first,’ she said. ‘I won’t cause a breach, Giles, you know that. And I’ve got a photo shoot this morning anyway.’
‘I hope it’s for a trousseau,’ said Giles warmly. ‘To put you in the right frame of mind!’
She laughed, and hung up on him. The troubled, restless unease of the night was gone, vanished in the brightness of the morning. Her heart felt light, as if champagne were bubbling in her veins. The past was gone. Over. Dead. It was not coming back. Ever. She would not allow it. And it meant nothing, nothing, that a spectre from her past had risen from his damnable earth-filled coffin like that last night!
He can do nothing—nothing! He’s powerless! And so what if he’s here in London? If he recognised me? I should be glad—triumphant! Because how galling for him to see how I’ve ended up despite everything he did to me …
She used the defiant, bombastic words deliberately, to rally herself. To give her strength—resolution and determination. The way she always had. The way she’d always had no option but to do … scraping herself off the floor, out of the abyss into which she had been thrust back.
By one man.
The man who, last night, had appeared like a spectre. But the past was gone. She was in the future now. The future she had hungered for all her life. Angelos Petrakos could do nothing do her.
Ever again.
Angelos sat at his vast mahogany desk and drummed his fingers slowly, contemplatively, along its patina. His expression was unreadable, the darkness of his eyes veiled.
Across from him his British PA sat, pencil poised, waiting instructions. He seldom visited London, preferring to run the Petrakos empire from across the Channel, and she was allowing herself the rare opportunity of looking covertly at him. Six foot plus, with broad shoulders and lean hips superbly sheathed in a hand-tailored business suit, strongly planed, ultra-masculine features, and, most compelling of all, dark, veiled, unreadable eyes that sent a kind of shiver through her. What that shiver was, she didn’t like to think about too much. Nor about the way his mouth could curve with a harsh, yet sensual edge …
‘No other calls while I was in Dublin yesterday? You’re certain?’
His PA jumped mentally, summoning back her focus on her work. ‘No, sir. Only those I’ve listed.’
She saw his mouth tighten. Obviously he’d been expecting a call that hadn’t come. Fleetingly, his PA felt a pang of sympathy for whoever it was who hadn’t phoned when clearly they should have.
Few who failed to do what Angelos Petrakos wanted of them enjoyed his reaction.
* * *
Thea walked with brisk purpose along the pavement, heading back to her flat from the local library in the still-light evening of early summer. She was calmer now. Giles was coming back to London tomorrow—she had nothing to fear, nothing to worry about. Relief and gratitude were the only emotions she would allow herself.
As she approached her apartment block, a sleek limo on the other side of the road dimly impinged on her consciousness, but she paid it no notice. This close to the Opera House it would be a chauffeur, waiting for his employer at the theatre. She paused by the block’s main entrance, key already out of her bag. There was a second’s warning, a footfall behind her. Then a man was standing there, closing her in to the doorway.
‘No fuss, please, miss,’ said the man.
He pressed the door open, pushed her inside into the entrance lobby. It was done in a second, and for that second Thea was paralysed. Then gut instinct, rising up from the depths, cracked in. She twisted round, knee jerking upwards. There was a grunt from the man, but even as she started to knife back with her elbow, fisting her other hand, ready to stamp down with her heel, there was someone else there—someone who thrust her back powerfully, effortlessly.
Dark, hard eyes looked down at her. She pulled back against the stone wall, eyes distending.
Shock. Panic. Fear.
And far more powerful than any of those—loathing. Black, virulent loathing.
Something moved in his eyes. Then he spoke.
‘Still the street rat,’ said Angelos Petrakos. He glanced briefly behind him. ‘I’ll take it from here,’ he said dismissively to the bodyguard, who was still catching his breath from the unexpected blow inflicted upon him.
Angelos turned his attention back to the woman against the wall, her eyes narrowed like a cat’s. He could see the pulse hammering in her neck. Immobile she might be, but she had adrenaline kicking through her system.
Well, so did he.
‘Upstairs,’ he said.
Her eyes narrowed even more. ‘Go to hell.’ Deliberately, never taking her eyes from him, she reached for her mobile. ‘I’m phoning the police,’ she said.
‘Do it,’ he said pleasantly. ‘It should make interesting reading in tomorrow’s papers. Especially in Yorkshire.’
Her hand hovered, then fell. Her heart was pounding, adrenaline surging round her body in huge, sickening waves. She had to beat it down, get control of herself—of the situation. She straightened herself away from the wall, lengthening her spine, bringing her body into a pose. Regaining the illusion, if nothing else, of composure.
‘Why the house call?’ she asked. She kept her voice light, incurious.
‘I told you to phone me.’ His voice was terse. Grating.
She raised delicate eyebrows. ‘Whatever for?’
She could see his eyes darken. ‘We’ll go upstairs and discuss it.’ He saw her hesitate. ‘It’s in your interest to do so,’ he said.
Nothing more. He didn’t need it. And he knew she knew that.
Oh, yes, he knew she knew, all right …
Loathing flashed in her eyes, but for all that she turned and walked towards the staircase. He knew why. Even though her flat was on the penultimate floor she would not risk the confinement of the lift. He let her go up first, let his eyes take in the graceful line of her body. She was casually dressed, in a belted sweater dress over leggings and ankle boots, but the dress was cashmere, and the boots the finest soft leather. She wore the outfit with an elegance that might have been natural but which he knew was not. It had been acquired—just as the rest of her image had been acquired. From the sleek fall of her thick blonde hair, caught back in a jewelled grip, to the cultured tones in which she’d told him to go to hell.
But it was all only an illusion—a lie. And now he would be stripping the illusion from her, exposing the lie.
She let him into her flat, setting down her shoulder bag. ‘So. Talk.’ Her voice came—terse and tense. She was standing hands on hips, chin lifted. Defiance—belligerence—open in her eyes.
For a long moment Angelos simply kept his eyes levelled on her, taking in her new appear
ance. She hadn’t just transformed her image, she’d matured—like a fine vintage wine. Become a woman in the fullness of her beauty. No longer coltish, but slender, graceful. Her beauty luminescent.
He felt an emotion spear within him, but the emotion, like her beauty, was at this moment irrelevant. It was obvious what she was doing. Attacking so she could avoid having to defend herself. He knew why—because she had no defence. Had that street-sharp mind of hers realised that already? He’d shown his hand downstairs, when he’d mentioned Yorkshire—she’d picked it up straight away. Did she realise that the concession she’d made then—not phoning the police—had only proved to him just how absolutely defenceless she was?
Not that that would stop her fighting—defending the indefensible.
Like she’d done before.
His lips pressed tighter. Memory darkening in his eyes.
He let his gaze rest on her a while. Impassive. Unreadable. Taking his time. Controlling the agenda. Racking up the tension in her. Then, deliberately, he let his glance pass around the well-appointed living room.
‘You’ve done well.’ He would allow her that—nothing more.
He could see the flare of her pupils. But, ‘Yes,’ was all she said.
‘And you plan to do better still.’ He paused. ‘Do you seriously believe,’ he demanded, sneering harshness in his voice, ‘you can get Giles Brooke to marry you? You?’
The flare came again. ‘I’ve already accepted his proposal,’ she answered. It was a sweet moment—so very sweet.
She watched his face darken, fury bite in his eyes. The moment became sweeter still.
Then the fury vanished from his eyes. His face became a mask. He strolled over to the sofa, dropping down on it, lengthening his legs, stretching out his arms. Occupying her space. She didn’t like it, he could see.
‘Thea Dauntry,’ he mused. His mockery was open. ‘A name fit for the bride of a real, live aristocrat! The Honourable Mrs Giles St John Brooke,’ he intoned. ‘And then, in the fullness of time, Viscountess Carriston.’ He paused—a brief, deadly silence.
Thea felt her stomach fill with acid. She knew what he was going to say … knew it with a sick dread inside her.
His eyes moved over her. Assessingly. Insultingly. Then he spoke. Silkily, lethally.
‘So, tell me, what does he think about your little secret? What does he think,’ he asked, his voice edged like a blade as cold snaked down her spine and Angelos’s malignant gaze pinned her, ‘about Kat Jones …?’
The name fell into the space between them. Severing the dam that held the present from the past.
And memory, like a foul, fetid tide, swept through her …
CHAPTER TWO
KAT raced up the escalator at the underground station, not caring if she was hustling the people standing. She had to race. She was already twenty minutes late. Half of her told her it was a waste of her time, racing or not. The booker had said as much—the snooty one Kat disliked, who looked at her as if she hadn’t washed that morning.
Well, you try keeping lily-white and fragrant in a dump of a bedsit with only a cracked sink in the corner!
Strip washes were all she could manage—mostly in cold water, to avoid the rip-off meter—apart from when she went to the public swimming baths and used the showers there.
One day I’ll have a bathroom with a walk-in shower and a bath the size of a hot tub …
There was a long list of things she was going to have ‘one day’. And to get even a fraction of the way to getting them she needed this job. If she could get there in time, before they’d seen all the girls. If they picked her out from the crowd of other hopefuls. If that then led to other castings, other jobs, other shoots.
If if, if …
She took a sharp intake of steadying breath as she thrust through the exit barrier. Yeah, there were a lot of ifs—but so what? She’d got this far, hadn’t she? And even this far had been way, way beyond her once.
Everything had been beyond her. She’d had nothing except what the taxpayer had handed out to her at the care home. Who had been responsible for her existence she had hardly any idea. Certainly not who’d fathered her—he probably didn’t even know himself. Certainly didn’t care. Not enough to check whether the women he slept with ever found themselves pregnant. As for who that lucky woman had been—well, all Kat knew from her records was that she’d been deemed unfit to raise her own child. The social workers had descended when she was five, finding her hungry, crying and with bruises on her thin arms. Her last memory of her home was her mother screaming slurred obscenities at the policewoman and the social worker as they carted her away. Anything else was just a blur.
Just as well, probably.
She’d never settled well, though, in the care home, and had left school the moment she could, resisting attempts to educate her, drifting in and out of casual work, sometimes being sacked for tardiness, sometimes walking out herself because she didn’t like to take instructions from people.
But at eighteen Kat had found out something that had changed her life. Changed it completely—for ever. She’d got access to the records of her birth and family. She could still remember the moment when it had happened. She’d been staring down at the paperwork, reading the brief, unexpansive notes written in official language about herself.
Father—unknown. Mother—known to the police as a prostitute, drug addict—no attempt at rehabilitation. Died of drug overdose at twenty-three.
Hatred had seared through her—hatred of the woman whom she could remember only dimly as someone who’d shouted a lot and slapped her, and very often hadn’t been there at all, leaving her to pick food out of the fridge, or even the rubbish, and feel sick afterwards. A mother who’d loved her drugs more than she’d loved her daughter.
Yes, hatred was a good emotion to feel about a mother like that.
Then Kat had read the next entry—this time about her mother’s parents.
Father—unknown. Mother—a street prostitute, alcoholic. Knocked down by car and killed at twenty. Daughter taken into care.
The chill that had gone through her had iced her bones. For a long time she’d just stared down at the document. Seeing the damnation in it. Each mother damning her daughter. Generation to generation. Then, slowly, very slowly, she’d raised her head. Her eyes had been like burning brands. Her expression fierce, almost savage.
Well, not me! I’m not going that way! I’m getting out—out!
Her resolution was absolute, fusing into every cell in her body. Fuelling, from then on, every moment of her life. She was getting out and heading up. Making something of herself. Getting off the bleak, relentless conveyor belt that was trying to take her down into the pit that had swallowed her mother—her mother’s mother.
And two things, it was obvious, could push her down there. Drink and drugs. That was why her mother, and her mother’s mother, had become prostitutes, she knew—to fund their addiction. And sex, too, had to be out. Sex got you a fatherless baby, raised on benefits, got you trapped into single motherhood. The way her mother had been, and her mother before her …
Sex, drink and drugs—all toxic.
All totally out of her life.
Out too, all the drifting and aimlessness of her existence. From now on, everything had a focus, an end point, a reason. Everything was a step on her journey out of the life she had into the life she wanted. The life she was going to get for herself.
But how was she going to get that life? She was going to work—work her backside off—but doing what? She’d left school with the minimum qualifications, had hated school-work anyway, so what could she do?
It was Katya who showed her. Katya, whom she’d met at the hostel for the homeless she’d got a room in, who was Polish, blonde and busty. She palled up with Kat, claiming they had the same name, the same hair colour, the same age—and the same determination to make good. Katya’s father was a miner, crippled in an explosion. Her mother had TB. She had eight younger brother
s and sisters.
‘I look after them,’ said Katya simply. She knew exactly how she was going to do so. ‘Glamour modelling,’ she told Kat openly. ‘It makes good money, and at home no one will see those magazines, so I don’t care.’
Kat tried to talk her out of it. Her every instinct revolted against going anywhere along that path.
‘No. I do it,’ said Katya resolutely. She eyed Kat. ‘You, with your looks, can model without the glamour,’ she said. ‘Real modelling.’
Kat had laughed dismissively. ‘Thousands of girls want to become models.’
Katya only shrugged. ‘So? Some of them make it. Why not you?
Her words echoed in Kat’s mind. Resonating like wind chimes, playing seductively in her consciousness.
Why not her?
She took to staring at herself in the mirror. She was thin, like a model was. Especially since she didn’t spend much on food—not having much to spend. And she was tall. Long bones. She studied her face. Her eyes were wide. Greyish. Oval face. Cheekbones high. Straight nose. Bare mouth. Teeth OK. No lipstick, no eyeshadow. She never wore make-up. What for, when she avoided sex—and therefore men—like the plague?
She gave a shrug. Either her face would suit, or it wouldn’t. But she might as well try.
‘You need a portfolio,’ Katya told her. ‘You know—photos to show how good you can look. But they cost a lot.’
Kat took a job—two jobs. In the day, six days a week, she worked in a shoe shop, and in the evening, seven days a week, she worked as a waitress. She was on time every day. She took all the instructions she was given without argument, resistance or attitude. She was polite to customers, even when they were rude to her. She gritted her teeth, steeled her spine, and did the work—earned the wages. Saved every penny she could.
It was slow, and it was hard, and it took her six months to put aside enough. But pound by pound, doggedly hoarded, she put the money together to pay for a professional portfolio.