by Kali Anthony
‘Offer? You never asked me to marry. I was an afterthought. You and my father negotiated the terms of my servitude. One day I woke up engaged and was thrown a ring in a box. Stop trying to turn this into some grand sacrifice on your part.’
‘Don’t presume to know anything about my sacrifices!’
Christo’s words snapped like a whip-crack. Thea couldn’t see his face, shrouded in darkness as they were. But the cut of his voice carved right to her soul.
‘I was informed that you were satisfied with the arrangement. So you wanted a man on bended knee, professing love and adoration? If I’d done that what would your answer have been?’
Thea dropped her head, toying with the wedding and engagement rings which itched and burned her finger. She’d refused her father’s demands to marry at first, and so he’d cut off any meagre freedoms she’d still had.
Demetri’s methods of persuasion had been more brutal. The twin threats of social seclusion and physical force usually ensured her compliance, but she’d become braver since Alexis had entered her home. That day he’d stepped in to protect her had changed everything.
Her father then realised his importance to Thea. Not only as her bodyguard, but her half-brother. He knew she’d do anything to save him—the love child her mother had been forced to give up before entering a loveless marriage.
She wrapped her arms round her waist. Closed her eyes.
‘As I thought,’ Christo said. ‘You’re having a tantrum because I didn’t play Prince Charming.’
‘You can think what you like.’
‘I invariably do.’
She turned to look out at a world which had always passed her by. ‘I don’t care. Your good opinion of me doesn’t matter.’
Self-recrimination ran riot through her head. She should have run earlier. But when Alexis had confessed who he was, everything had changed. He’d told her of the promises he’d made to protect Thea if their mother couldn’t and each day had become a little more tolerable. So she’d stayed. Worked to ensure her future so she would be able to do more than eke out an impoverished existence like her mother had.
Yet when it had almost been time to leave, fate intervened. With Alexis paying the price for her cowardice.
She slumped in the seat.
‘Perhaps you should learn to cultivate a friendly benefactor,’ Christo said. ‘It could make your life easier.’
She adjusted one of the loathsome hairpins, now pricking into her scalp. ‘There’s no vacancy for the role of friendly benefactor in my life.’
‘Shame. If there was, I’d be available to fill it.’
Something had shifted his tone. Now there was a lightness. Was he entertained by this?
She looked over at him, and even in the dim light of the cabin she glimpsed the hint of a smirk. She wouldn’t be baited.
‘Since you’re more unsociable detractor, fortunately you don’t meet the job description.’
‘I’m known to be extremely affable in the right circumstances.’
The car’s interior closed in on her. She needed to get out of here.
Breathe. She must stay calm.
But how? In this claustrophobic space? Drowning in the scent of Christo?
It was something more than expensive cologne. A dark, intoxicating essence whispering of wild places. Of powerful, untamed male.
Thea shivered. Clenched her fists till the nails bit into her palms. She could do this. Christo had promised they’d talk. She’d hold him to it.
The car drove up to a wrought-iron gateway which slid open before it. As the vehicle slowed to a halt outside the front entrance of Christo’s mansion Thea moved to open the door. Escape the confines of this space threatening to crush her.
‘Stop,’ Christo said.
She did—without thinking. His voice, quiet as a whisper on the breeze, had carried such force she knew he wasn’t someone she could trifle with. She must make no mistake. Whatever liberties she took, it would only be those that he allowed her to take.
‘You will play your part as a happy new bride. Even if...’
His eyes traced a path from her head to her toes and back again. Everywhere his gaze touched ignited in a flare of heat.
‘Even if you don’t look like one. Freedom is bought. You start paying now.’
Christo didn’t wait for the driver. He exited the limo, bending down to hold out his hand for hers.
She looked at it for a heartbeat. Long, elegant fingers. Square, perfect nails. The shiny wedding ring that caught the light and glinted. She placed her hand in his. Warm, strong. Curling possessively around hers.
A strange feeling wove through their connected fingers. A sinuous tempting thing that whispered to her, heated her cheeks, made her pulse thready and panicked. There was power in his touch. And the sense of possession was overwhelming as he squeezed gently.
Snakes of fear uncurled in her belly. Slithering. Contorting. Knotting into one another. She couldn’t take her eyes from the place where he held her tight. Held her prisoner. Would he ever let her go?
‘Now look at me.’
She couldn’t resist. His voice was like the sprinkle of rain on a summer’s day, the breath of a warm breeze. Then there was his stillness. It terrified her more than any lashes of emotion.
‘Not like that.’ He frowned.
‘Like what?’
‘Like I’m a Cyclops,’ he said. ‘I want you to look at me in a way that tells everyone what you crave is a locked door, a big bed and me inside you for hours.’
His words cut off her breath as surely as if he’d grabbed her by the throat. She tore her hand free of his, almost crawling back into the car as she did so.
‘I can play my part, but I’ll never look at you like that.’
He raised one mocking eyebrow. ‘Afraid you might like it?’
‘Enough!’
She was no coward. Thea slid out of the limo. Stood. Waited for a moment to suck at the air before Christo placed a heated palm on the small of her back. And then she allowed herself to be escorted through the monolithic front doors to where a line-up of staff waited.
‘Let’s get this over with,’ she said.
His home was a vast display of modern, elegant lines in whites, golds and blues. Though she didn’t have much time to survey the place as Christo swept through it like a tidal surge.
He introduced her to each staff member by name. All of them were eager to meet the new Mrs Callas, but they slid by in a blur as he led her up a winding staircase, past artwork bursting from white walls.
Yet she couldn’t take her mind from Christo’s hand at the base of her spine. Strong. Possessive. She supposed it was meant to appear affectionate, but the staff had long ceased watching and had melted away as if they were ghosts. There was no need for it now.
‘Where’s my bag? My phone?’ Thea asked, trying to take her mind off the burn of his palm.
She’d hardly brought anything with her—only enough to maintain the ruse.
‘I have your phone. Your bag’s being unpacked together with all your other possessions, which the removal company delivered this morning.’
Yet again she hadn’t been consulted. Choking bile rose in her throat. There was nothing at her father’s she wanted. Her life was meant to be starting elsewhere. Fresh, clean. Something she could create for herself, not borrow from others.
‘How efficient. And unnecessary. I won’t be here long.’
‘You’ll be here as long as I need you.’
His voice was all quiet intent. They were deep in the house now. Away from everyone—especially prying eyes.
‘That’s something we need to discuss,’ she said.
He looked down upon her. Cold. Unreachable. Her heart slammed into her ribs.
‘And we will.’
‘Where?’
she asked as they stopped before a set of double doors.
Christo turned the handles and thrust them open. ‘In the bedroom, koukla mou.’
‘I’m not sleeping with you!’
Her words were a breathy gasp as she stopped, rocking back on her feet.
Christo ignored her and strode inside, a hot burst of irritation running through him. What was she thinking? He’d never force himself on her.
Her presumption that he would made him reckless.
‘Really, Thea? It is our wedding night. That’s what newly married couples do.’
He turned. Thea was frozen like a statue on the threshold of his room. Eyes wide. Surveying him up and down.
‘This isn’t a real marriage. It was arranged.’
‘Marriages are “arranged” for people like us all the time. This could be a real marriage.’ Or as real as possible for someone in their position.
He’d anticipated a relationship with no passion. A performance of duty for them both. But a lack of passion was not something he could imagine now. This new Thea intrigued him. His heart throbbed with a curious rhythm, as if charged with a fresh energy.
What he’d been promised by Tito Lambros, when Christo had realised the position his father had forced him into, was a sweet, obedient, chaste girl. He didn’t hold much value in chastity. Better a woman who knew what she was doing, in his opinion. So he’d steeled himself for a wedding night of tutelage. The sweet and obedient type didn’t thrill him either, but she would make a trouble-free sort of wife.
The woman in front of him was another creature altogether. One he didn’t recognise from the quiet investigations he’d asked Raul to conduct, to ensure there was at least a modicum of truth behind her father’s words.
He needed to check the work Raul had been asked to do.
‘This can’t be a real marriage. It’ll never be consummated.’
Christo reached for a phone in the corner of the room and called the kitchens. ‘Cognac. Two glasses, please.’
He shrugged off his jacket, cast it onto the chair next to him and tugged at his bow tie, letting it hang loose.
Thea hadn’t moved, still standing in the doorway.
He undid the shirt button at his throat. Her gaze lowered, watching the flick of his fingers.
He undid the next. And the next. Then he stopped.
Her eyes hesitated at the open shirt showing part of his chest. As they burned on him with that strange heat, a crackling tension tightened in his gut.
‘Come in. Close the door. Sit.’
A small flush whispered across Thea’s cheeks and was gone. She looked away.
His stomach clenched at the loss of her eyes on his body. It was too much like disappointment. He ignored the sensation, removing his phone from his trouser pocket and tossing it on a table before sprawling on a plump couch.
His bedroom was more of a suite—the size of a small apartment and the one place in his home where he was rarely disturbed. They were safe here, for whatever histrionics were about to come.
He motioned to an armchair on the opposite side of an occasional table.
‘I’m not your lap dog.’
‘No, a lap dog would be less trouble. And it would at least jump all over me and be happy when I came home.’
She perched on the edge of the chair and glared at him as if she had murder on her mind.
A quiet knock at the door disturbed the uneasy silence. A young woman in a crisp black uniform entered, carrying a silver tray.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ Christo said. ‘Please leave the bottle.’
He suspected at least one of them might need fortifying for the negotiations to come.
The young woman placed the drinks on the table between them. ‘Congratulations again, Mr and Mrs Callas. It’s a happy day for you both.’
He tried to appear as pleased as his staff were. ‘You have no idea...’
‘Will that be all?’
Christo nodded.
Anna smiled at Thea and left the room.
He picked up one of the brandy balloons and swirled the glass in the light. Amber liquid coated the glass in a slick film of gold.
‘A toast,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
Thea took a glass and sniffed it, wrinkling her nose. There was an unexpected cuteness about her when she did so. He smiled.
‘Cognac.’ Christo took a sip. Enjoyed the burn. The same type of burn as Thea’s gaze upon him now. ‘The colour of your eyes.’
She stopped and cocked her head. There was something so cool and unreachable about her. Yet her ferocity shone through. Those eyes of hers, spitting golden fire. The need to witness more of it, to experience her and the wildness she hid, grabbed him in a breath-stealing grip.
He hadn’t expected to feel this way. The natural desire from contemplating a night with a beautiful woman, yes. Not this consuming sensation which thrummed through his every nerve, making him heavy and tight with lust for a woman he couldn’t touch.
Thea placed the glass on the table without tasting it and slid it towards him. ‘I’ve nothing to toast.’
‘Shame... It’s twenty-five years old. Obviously more mature than you.’
‘I’m not the one being childish. I’m not the one playing games.’
She still refused to accept her part in the position where they now found themselves. ‘Yes, Thea. You are. You’ve been playing games with me since the beginning and now I want answers.’
She leaned back into the armchair, feigning disinterest. But he could see by the tense set of her shoulders and the way her bottom lip puckered as she chewed at the inside that she was deeply concerned about what was happening here.
He reached over to his jacket, slung on the chair, and pulled out the white envelope. It might well have been a glass of water for someone parched in the desert the way Thea watched it, with a desperate craving stare.
Christo slid his thumbnail to unseal it. Made a show of inspecting the contents. Two thousand US dollars. Not so much. Certainly not enough for an escape. A passport. Nothing unusual there.
He unfolded a white piece of paper with account numbers written on it.
‘Who taught you to ride a motorcycle?’ he asked.
Her eyes widened a fraction. She hadn’t been expecting that question, he was sure of it. Which had been his intention all along.
Thea licked her lips. They shone moist and pink. ‘M-my brother... Demetri.’
Her brother was a dissolute, soft, rich boy, who only knew how to drive so he could show off his newest supercar. The thought that he could ride a motorcycle was absurd.
He let her lie sit unanswered, for now, and returned his attention to the paper in his hands.
‘What bank is this?’
Thea crossed her arms.
‘How much money is in the account?’
The silence stretched till it was thin and fragile. He waited.
When the thread was so thin Christo thought it would snap, Thea spoke. A low hiss, but he heard it nonetheless.
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘You’re my wife. Everything about you is my business. We can treat this...’ he waved the paper about ‘...as your dowry.’
‘No!’
He didn’t need her money. The gift her father had granted him, halting the foreclosure, was greater than any paltry amount she no doubt held. But this was a battle he’d win. Her antics wouldn’t put Atlas Shipping at risk. Not in the company’s seventy-fifth year. It was a year for celebration, not failure. He’d never allow it. Never.
‘One call to my personal banker and I’ll have not only the name of your bank, but the balance of your account transferred into mine and secure.’
Thea twisted her small, delicate hands in her lap. ‘You can’t...’
; ‘He was at the wedding,’ Christo said, picking up his phone. ‘All I need to say is that you’ve forgotten the details and want me to take care of it. Would you like me to get him now? No matter the time, he’ll take my call.’
She looked at him. Eyes narrow, lips thin. Hatred evident. Once, long ago, he might have cared. Tonight, he didn’t.
‘Four million.’
He put down the sheet of paper. Leaned forward. He couldn’t have heard properly.
‘How much?’
‘Four million US dollars or thereabouts.’
She lounged back in the chair looking like the fox who’d stolen a prized chicken. How had she accumulated that kind of money? Tito Lambros was known for being stingy. A banker who made money through frugality and questionable practices.
‘Your father gave it to you?’
She snorted, before catching herself. There was his answer. Tito Lambros would never have given his daughter those sorts of funds. She must have stolen it, somehow.
‘I’m thrifty.’
‘Or a criminal. Should I ask your father to check his accounts? Perform an audit to look for a missing four million “or thereabouts”?’
When she spoke it was with pure derision. ‘I’m no thief.’
‘So what is my beautiful new wife? Not thrifty... Your clothes and shoes are exclusive designer.’ He should know—he’d spent enough on former lovers to understand that much. ‘Unless you’ve acquired a goose capable of laying golden eggs or the touch of Midas?’
The twitch of a smile played at the corner of her mouth. She was dying to tell him how she’d done it, so he let the statement linger. He needed to know how she’d acquired her money. It would inform what he did next, because he was beginning to watch Thea very closely.
Thea crossed her legs, wrapped her hands around her knee and studied him. He could see the thoughts behind her golden, intelligent eyes. She was calculating. Weighing up her options.
‘My clothes and shoes were all given to me by Elena when she’d finished with them.’
‘Then where—’
‘In exchange for letting you know, I want something in return. To discuss our short and unfriendly future together.’
