by Kali Anthony
She wrapped her arms around his neck. Pulled him down. If she was to drown, he’d drown right with her. And as she fell into the intoxicating rhythm of their breaths and lips and tongues he pulled back.
She gasped. Christo turned her, his arms banding her waist. Holding her upright because she’d fall if he didn’t. His lips at her ear. And she looked in the mirror opposite, saw herself. A wanton creature she didn’t recognise. With wild hair and passion-drugged eyes. Red moist lips and her chest heaving. Her nipples tight and proud against the soft knit fabric of her top.
‘That—’ he pointed to the mirror ‘—is what a woman who leaves my room looks like.’
He let her go and she stumbled. The heat of him, gone. Everything, cold. He looked at her with a face which told her nothing. No sign of the kiss that had almost destroyed her marred his perfect features.
‘Now you’re ready to see my father.’
CHAPTER SIX
THE OLD MAN was hunched in a wheelchair in the oppressive wood-panelled library, a blanket round his legs, living the wheezing, broken half-life left to him by his dying heart. Though none of that stopped his rheumy eyes scrutinising Thea with an intensity belying his age and ill health.
Christo leaned against a dark-stained bookcase. She was executing her role as new bride to perfection. Hector would never guess their arrangement, so superb was her performance.
She was pandering to his father. And every glorious, gracious smile was driving Christo to hell.
He’d sworn never to succumb to Hector’s weakness for a beautiful woman, only to find himself trapped by a viper cleverly disguised. Yet here he was, teetering on the brink. And all because of a kiss which had been meant to challenge Thea’s claim that there was nothing he could teach her.
Vanity—that was what it had been about. The moment their lips had touched, when she’d responded as if he was everything she’d always craved, reason had escaped him. And now he couldn’t think of anything but the drugging wonder of her plush mouth. Of immersing himself in her body till he drowned. Never coming up for air.
Her throaty, musical laugh dragged him to other thoughts. To the memory of her curves in his arms. To the smell of sweet spice and a warmth that had curled inside and licked at the cold heart of him.
He’d left the flame kindling for a while. Soaked in that tempting heat before extinguishing it. There were things about Thea he mustn’t forget. His investigations into her former bodyguard, Alexis, proved she was a woman held together by lies. Cleverly woven, but lies nonetheless.
He knew all about lies. About a war of attrition being fought through a child.
‘If your mother comes for your birthday, I’ll buy you a puppy.’
As if he’d ever had any control over what his mother did. But he’d asked, and begged. Like any little boy wanting something badly enough. Extracting promises that had always been broken. His mother had never come. He’d never owned a dog. He’d been raised on lies, like tainted sugar stirred into his milk.
Christo clenched his teeth against the burn of acid in his gut.
‘We should leave, Hector. You seem tired.’ He motioned to a nurse hovering nearby.
‘When I’m dead I’ll have all the rest I need.’
His father didn’t look at him. Only at Thea, sitting opposite. Ignoring Christo like he always did.
What irritated him more than discovering Thea’s untruths was her obvious belief that he wouldn’t find out. Did she think him a fool?
She laughed at something Hector said and his father gazed back, mesmerised. Yes, she did. Thea believed she could con them all.
Soon enough he’d show her how easy she’d been to expose.
‘You’re kind to an old man,’ Hector said, patting her hand, which sat on his knee. ‘A rare and precious beauty.’
She shone like an angel, perfect in a cream sheath dress that skimmed her curves and highlighted her honeyed skin.
‘Not too old to pretend to charm,’ Christo muttered.
Hector peered up at him, dusky lips stretched in a thin, disapproving line. A look so familiar it was etched for ever in Christo’s brain. This was the father he knew—the one who had constantly reminded him he was a mistake. A child that no one wanted. A child who should never have been born.
‘I speak the truth. She is beautiful like Maria.’
Christo pushed away from the bookcase. This can of worms shouldn’t be opened. Not here. Not now. He suppressed a snarl. He’d never let Thea know the extent of his indebtedness to her father, because that would give her a power over him he couldn’t allow. He wouldn’t lose Atlas to his father’s foolishness.
His eyes narrowed in warning, but Hector focused his attention on Thea.
‘You knew my mother?’ she asked. She toyed with a thin chain clasped at her throat, the hunger for any morsel of information written in wide-eyed desperation on her face.
‘We all knew each other back then.’ His father smiled wistfully.
That could be the reason why Hector had sought loans from the Lambros bank, believing an old acquaintance wouldn’t foreclose on him. More poor judgement that Christo could not forgive.
‘She was a bird of paradise. Your father wanted to cage her. He never could. So she flew away.’
‘You think I’m like her?’
‘Yes. Does my son try to cage you?’
The old man was no fool. He must have some inkling as to why Christo had chosen Thea as his bride.
Christo’s stomach clenched as Thea turned to look into the soul of him with mournful, over-bright eyes.
‘Why would you say that about your own son?’ she asked, sounding incredulous, though the slight tremor in her voice betrayed her. ‘He’s taking me to New York.’
‘Such pretty lies. You’re a clever girl. I knew you’d make him a good wife.’
Bile rose sour in Christo’s throat. The gall of it. This from the man who’d invited an enemy to slip craven fingers into his birthright. Into the company he’d earned with his own blood. Through each abandonment by his mother. Every rejection by his father. The debts Hector had incurred would take a lifetime to undo—if that Gordian knot could even be unravelled.
Christo had done his duty. This farce had gone on long enough. He strolled towards Thea. Touched her gently on the shoulder and ignored her tremble under his hand.
‘Koukla mou. Our flight’s this evening. We should leave.’
‘You must come again,’ Hector said, to Thea alone. ‘This old man doesn’t have enough company.’
She squeezed the parchment-thin skin of his father’s arm. Did she see through the cruel glint in Hector’s eye? Perhaps. But her voice was all sparkle and flirtation.
‘How can I resist? Your son’s overworked. Whenever you feel lonely, please call. No doubt I’ll be feeling lonely too.’
Her words tugged at parts of him long dead. Threatening to rouse them from the grave where they’d been safely buried. Lonely was being shunted off to other people to be cared for on school breaks. Lonely was having only servants to talk to for days. Lonely was recognising the one truth in your life. That your parents didn’t want you.
His father beckoned for the nurse. As she came to take the old man away he looked at Christo, his eyes filled with a wicked fire. He waggled his finger and cackled as the nurse wheeled him down the hall.
‘Don’t leave this one alone for too long, son, or she might run away too.’
Christo settled into the comfort of his limousine, the blood freezing through his veins. His father always did that to him—left him colder than the Arctic.
He looked at Thea and the chill thawed with a sliding heat. Her gaze dropped to his lips and a flush of colour swept over her cheeks. The throb of hunger started low in his gut.
Against his better judgement she intoxicated him. One moment all flash and fire, the n
ext moment beautiful blushes. He could lean across the seat, right here, in this warm car filled with her scent of honey and spice. Slide a hand behind her neck and kiss her till she melted with wanting him. Call her out as the liar he knew her to be.
Which was all the reminder he needed to pull back from these delusions.
‘You played your part well. There’s no need to subject yourself to my father again.’
She cocked her head. ‘Why do you hate him?’
Christo undid the buttons on his shirt cuffs. Rolled the sleeves up. Thirty-one years of parental contempt layered tarry and thick. Nothing could wash that stain away. And then, when it had come time to take what was his—when what he’d been born to do had been so close he could have caressed it with the tips of his fingers—Hector had almost thrown it away. He didn’t care about Christo at all.
‘Fathers and their sons.’ He shrugged. These were weaknesses he’d never disclose, because weaknesses could be exploited. ‘That’s the way it’s been even before Zeus and Cronus.’
Thea stared out through the window, absentmindedly scratching at her knee. ‘Not in my experience. My brother and father are close. Partners in every crime.’
He stiffened. How much did she know about her father’s and brother’s activities? He suspected she despised both men. In that way, their views on their fathers were strikingly similar. The rest he could only imagine. Tito and Demetri were too careful. Even Raul had come up with nothing.
What would Thea share if she was asked the right way?
He watched her white-tipped nails digging into the flesh above the hem of her dress. Pricks of red bloomed under her skin.
‘Are you all right?’
He leaned over and placed his hand on hers. Thea’s slender fingers were cool and tempting under his. He drifted his thumb over the back of her hand. She turned to him, eyelids heavy and slumberous, her raspberry lips parted as if it were hard to breathe.
He looked back to where he touched her. Glorying at her silky skin, paler than his. Light to his dark. So tempting to slide higher. To stroke his errant fingers along the flesh of her inner thigh and watch those golden eyes glaze with need. See if she’d gasp and yield, relax her legs and allow him to explore all her honeyed dark places till she sighed his name and clenched around his fingers as she came.
He could do that in the back of this quiet car, with no sound bar her shallow breaths and the low thrum of the engine. Trapped in this tiny world of their own.
Time slowed, the moment pregnant with anticipation as his pulse pounded with desire. Did she feel it too?
As he looked up at her Thea’s eyes widened, her gaze flicked away and she jerked her hand from under his as if burned.
No, clearly not.
Christo sat back in his seat once more, ignoring the roar of blood coursing in his ears.
‘Something bit me.’ Thea smoothed the hem of her dress over the red mark on her thigh and clasped her hands in her lap, fingers twisting. ‘Anna says when we get to New York we’re staying in your apartment near Central Park. She seems excited.’
Christo accepted the brisk change of subject. It was safer this way, when all he craved was to touch. To push. His body didn’t listen to sense when he was around her. It wanted—like a fractious child grasping for a jar of sweets placed out of reach. And Thea was the last woman he should desire. He’d discovered things about her. Secrets and lies.
The time would soon be arriving to show her he was no fool. He’d never be fooled again.
‘I’ve a gift to keep you company whilst we’re away,’ he said.
Now to see how well she’d handle what he’d found out, and how fine an actress she was.
‘Ooh, goody.’ She rubbed her hands together with mock glee. ‘What is it? A puppy?’
Christo stilled. Ignored the pang in his chest. No. Assuming his specifications had been met, his gift wasn’t something she’d be able to tame and train.
‘I’m not sure you’re mature enough for that responsibility,’ he said as the car slid through his home’s open gates and pulled into the garage.
He led her to his study. A quiet, book-lined room where fortunes had been made and lost. Nothing had been lost since he’d acquired the house. Thea was to thank for that, but she’d never know it.
He sank into the chair behind his huge desk.
‘I can hardly bear the thrill of it all,’ she said.
Yet she hovered in the corner of the room. Tense, as if she was a woman who hated surprises.
There was a rap at the door.
‘Come.’
In walked a hulk of a man. Christo recognised him. He was one of Raul’s operatives, who’d been assigned for a month to go over the house’s security before he and Thea married. He was perfect. Taciturn. Incorruptible. Raul had chosen well. Thea wouldn’t wrap this man around her little finger, as she’d obviously done to so many others.
‘Thea, meet Sergei Ivanov.’
A deep frown marred her forehead as she looked Sergei up and down. ‘Who the hell is he?’
Christo leaned back in the leather of his chair and smiled. ‘Your new bodyguard.’
She stiffened. ‘I don’t want him. I want Alexis.’
Now the game began.
Christo moved from behind his desk to lean against its front corner. He’d investigated her former bodyguard out of curiosity, though he’d never have employed a man who’d missed so much. It meant Alexis was either careless or complicit. From what he’d learned, complicit seemed more likely. Although there was more to it than that...
‘Sergei comes highly credentialed, with impeccable qualifications for the role.’
Thea wouldn’t look at him, her eyes darting instead to Sergei’s massive form. ‘Impeccable qualifications for a jailer. Were they your instructions?’
‘You said you’d become reliant on a bodyguard.’ Christo folded his arms. ‘Sergei’s brief is to keep you safe.’
‘I won’t feel safe with him.’ Her hand reflexively slid the small coin-sized pendant backwards and forwards along the chain round her neck. ‘I want—’
‘Alexis. I know.’
She was a clever woman—she had to see he’d caught her out. But Thea stood there, tall and defiant. He’d give her a chance to redeem herself, to tell the truth once and for all.
‘I’m wondering why you want him so badly. Is there anything I need to know?’
She licked her lips. ‘If you want someone to protect you, you have to trust them.’
‘Perhaps. Sadly, Alexis is unavailable.’
She seemed to relax a little. Her shoulders rose and fell with a long, deep breath. How would she take the rest of the news?
‘He’s on the run. Your father alleges that he stole fifty thousand euros.’
‘No!’
The colour drained from Thea’s face till she was as pale as moonlight. She slumped against the wall. Was she going to faint?
Christo jumped up from the desk at the same moment Sergei moved towards her. She held up her hand, halting them both. Sergei stood down but remained within arm’s reach. Thea’s trembling fingers moved to touch the pendant at her throat and she seemed to compose herself.
‘Alexis is no thief.’ Her voice scraped the words out.
A hot throb of anger burned in his chest. He looked at Sergei. ‘Excuse us.’
The bodyguard nodded acknowledgement and left the room.
Christo glared at Thea. ‘You said the same of yourself.’
Her denial was futile in the face of his evidence.
‘I think your professed skill at accumulating money is a myth, and that you stole it like I originally suspected. With the help of a complicit bodyguard.’
‘You can think what you want.’
She chewed at her lip, teeth biting so hard she might draw blood. Mercifull
y the colour had returned to her cheeks, though she still used the wall as support.
‘All you give me is lies,’ Christo growled. ‘One truth. That’s all I ask. Tell me one deep, abiding truth about yourself.’
Thea’s plump bottom lip quivered, then firmed. The hand fiddling with her necklace fell to her side, clenching in a tight fist. She pushed away from the wall, bringing her luscious body closer to his.
Every part of him stood on high alert. He didn’t care that Sergei waited outside the door. He didn’t care that Thea was a liar. He craved to slide his arm round her slender waist, to push her back against the wall and take her so hard the only word from her lips would be his name, screamed loud.
‘A truth, Christo?’
She tossed her head. The soft chocolate waves of her hair swirled round her shoulders. Her mouth curled into a bitter smile as she placed her hand on his chest where it seared like a brand.
‘I’m not very partial to ouzo.’
Then she stalked from the room with an exaggerated sway of her hips, slamming the door behind her.
Thea jogged away from the building which housed Christo’s apartment. She took a route to Central Park in a steady rhythm, with Sergei following a discreet distance behind. New York rushed in its gritty, inexorable way around her. Every part vibrant, hustling and alive.
She should have been enthralled by this place—the city that never slept. Yet after five days here all Thea wanted to do was sleep. There was no way to ease the pressure winding inside her, tighter and harder. It crept up on her as she dressed. Tried to throttle her as she fastened around her throat the fine necklace her mother had given her as a child.
Alexis was on the run, and she couldn’t help from this beautiful, blazing city. This place her mother had always wanted her to see.
Thea had once had childish dreams of coming here with someone she loved. Those dreams had died the day her mother had. Now she wanted none of it. The risk of losing her heart, and with it her freedom, was too high a price to pay.
