by Julia James
She steeled herself mercilessly. Oh, sure, Theo Theakis was compellingly masculine—but what the hell had that to do with the current situation? The whole point of this set-up was not to take any notice of her awareness of him, to completely and resolutely ignore it. Because what would be the point of doing otherwise? Theo Theakis had entered into a temporary, unreal marriage to save her uncle’s company. And nothing…nothing…else came into the question!
And it wasn’t just her who thought so. Even as Theo made his remark he glanced behind him, his gaze picking out the long three-seater sofa in the sitting room behind them.
‘I’ll sleep on that,’ he told her.
That idiotic emotion fleeted through her again as she registered what he intended, and again Vicky tossed it aside and stamped on it. Hard. Very hard.
‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
‘Not at all,’ said Theo. His voice was formal. There was an inflexion in it she did not pick up.
Their sleeping arrangements set the tone for the rest of the honeymoon—which Theo passed in meetings with various government trade officials and other businessmen, and Vicky in sightseeing tours—and continued thereafter when they returned to Athens, to take up residence in the huge Theakis mansion in an exclusive district of the city. There, they hardly ever saw each other, and Vicky was grateful. The house was so large it was easy to keep out of his way, though she was always relieved when he went off on business to other parts of Europe or, better still, farther afield to America.
It was quite difficult enough coping with the bizarre situation she was in without him being around to add to the strain. Being Theo Theakis was just that much easier when he wasn’t around.
Not that it solved her other problem—boredom. The main occupation of the social circle she found herself in seemed to be spending money and socialising with each other, neither of which Vicky took pleasure in. Shopping seemed mindlessly extravagant, and because of the prurient envy and resentment that she so often received from other women, socialising was out of the question. She would have happily spent more time with her uncle, had it not been clear that right now, as was understandable, his prime concern was his business—seeing off the corporate raider now that he had accepted the financial support of Theakis Corp. Besides which, she was also worried she might let slip just how much of a contrived sham her marriage was.
To pass the time she explored Athens, and all the cornucopia of ancient sites in this region of Greece. She also, inspired by discovering the heritage of her father, started to learn Greek, struggling with the difficulty of the alien script to get to the language it embodied, as well as assiduously studying Greek history, art and philosophy. Then there were concerts, opera and the ballet to divert her, and she became a regular at the theatre. Back at the Theakis mansion she also spent a good two hours a day in the pool, swimming lengths, as well as making the most of the fully equipped gym.
But that, as it turned out, was the easy bit of her marriage. Much, much worse was the time—far too much of it!—when Theo was back in Athens and they had to take part in what seemed to her a never-ending round of social activities. She didn’t want to, but it was, she conceded, all part of the show that was the purpose of their marriage in the first place.
But being part of a ‘couple’ with Theo was a highly uncomfortable process. She felt eyes on her, curious and critical, only adding to her feelings of acute self-consciousness in the role she was being required to play. It was the reason, she knew, that she was so particularly stiff in her manners, and the reason why, too, though she was forced to buy ridiculously expensive clothes for such occasions, she always chose styles that were above all discreetly understated—outfits that did not emphasise or overly reveal her figure, or make her conspicuous. They might draw disdainful looks from the chicly sophisticated women from whom Theo Theakis selected his sexual partners, but what did she care?
Her concern was simply to get through the ordeal of being Theo Theakis. Constantly at her husband’s side, conscious all the time—punishingly so—of his tall, commanding presence beside her, was making it impossible, quite impossible, for her ever to relax.
The hardest occasions, she came to realise, were those when she had to play the role of Theo Theakis in his house, entertaining others. It seemed to exacerbate her pointless, enervating awareness of him, to put her in an oh-so-visible position where she was indelibly linked to him. Bride of a man that other women wanted and resented her for having.
Help yourselves! she wanted to shout at them.
And especially one of them.
She’d glided up to Theo at one of the social events Vicky had attended with him on their return from their fake honeymoon, and Vicky had recognised her instantly. She was the spectacularly svelte woman who had had been at her uncle’s dinner party the evening she had been introduced to Theo, who had been all over him, ignoring Vicky completely.
She ignored her now, too.
‘Theo!’ Her voice was a rich purr, and she spoke Greek, effectively cutting out Vicky while she used a low, intimate voice to the man at her side. She stood too close to him, in his body space, and the contrast between her closeness and the stiff distance that Vicky habitually kept from Theo was marked. So, too, Vicky registered, with a sudden tension in her muscles, was the difference in the smile that Theo bestowed on the woman.
It was a smile of familiarity—sensuality.
He’s never smiled at me like that…
The words formed in her head before she could stop them. Immediately she dismissed them. Of course Theo had never smiled at her like that—it was a smile for a lover to give a woman whose pleasures he had enjoyed.
Not for a woman he’d married in a token arrangement for the sole purpose of saving her uncle’s beleaguered company. A woman who meant absolutely nothing else to him…
Forcibly, she stiffened her spine. What on earth was she thinking of? Let him have as many lovers as he wanted. It was nothing to do with her.
And this woman now wasn’t anything to do with her, either.
To prove it, she held out her hand.
‘Hello—we haven’t met yet, have we? I’m sure I would have remembered you,’ she said sweetly.
The woman’s sloe-like eyes flickered to her. Vicky’s voice had been bland, deliberately sticking to English, but she could see the other woman register the subtle insult. Theo’s lover—past or present—was not a woman that other women forgot having seen before.
‘Christina Poussos,’ she returned dismissively. ‘An old friend of your…husband.’ She hesitated pointedly before giving the descriptor of the man she was too close to.
Vicky’s smile was even sweeter.
‘Oh, no,’ she murmured in a saccharine voice. ‘Not that old, surely?’
Her gaze upon the other woman’s immaculately made up, thirty-something face was limpid.
At her side, she could hear Theo clear his throat suddenly. She almost frowned. That couldn’t possibly have been a smothered laugh, could it?
Then he was intervening, his voice smooth and emollient.
‘Christina—Victoria, as I’m sure you know, is Aristides Fournatos’s niece.’
The other woman smiled. It was her turn for a shot now, and she took aim pointedly.
‘Of course—and I’m sure you will both allow me to congratulate you on an excellent match. Fournatos and Theakis—a formidable commercial combination. And now, my dear Theo,’ she went on, having relegated her lover’s marriage to nothing more than a corporate merger, ‘you must tell me when you will be free for lunch. I need your business acumen in selecting the best investment of my divorce settlement.’ She reverted to Greek, once more cutting out Vicky.
Vicky could feel her muscles tense again. If the woman was talking investments in that slinky voice she’d eat her nonexistent hat! She stood there, a fixed, doggedly polite smile on her face, sipping at her glass of wine, until with a final throaty laugh Christina Poussos reached up, brushed her mouth agains
t Theo’s, and glided off again.
‘Until Friday, then, Theo darling,’ she murmured, in a Parthian shot that found its mark dead on Vicky, whose fingers suddenly tightened around the stem of her wineglass.
Forcibly she made herself relax them. She didn’t care squat what Theo got up to with Christina Poussos. Or anyone else.
Deliberately she raised her wineglass and took a larger mouthful than usual.
I don’t care. I don’t care squat.
Not even microsquat…
And why should she? She hadn’t even wanted to marry Theo Theakis, so of course she didn’t give squat about him carrying on with any women. She just didn’t particularly want to know about it, that was all.
Brightly, she turned to Theo, fuelled by the wine inside her.
‘Sorry about making that bitchy remark about her age. A bit of a low shot. I do hope I didn’t hurt her feelings.’
Theo’s dark gaze swept over her before answering. She pinned the bright look to her face with sustained effort.
‘I’d say she got her own back quite easily, wouldn’t you?’ One eyebrow quirked sardonically.
Vicky widened her eyes. ‘What, talking about the commercial advantages of a Fournatos-Theakis marriage? What’s bitchy about that? It’s only the truth.’ Her tone was dismissive. ‘So long as she doesn’t blab to my uncle that it’s a totally fake, totally temporary marriage. Speaking of my uncle—isn’t that him over there?’ She craned her neck slightly, seeing past the people around her. ‘Yes, it’s definitely him. I’ll go over and say hello. I can’t stick here by your side like I’m on a string all evening.’
She made to move, but a light touch on her arm stayed her. Theo’s long fingers loosely circled her wrist. She felt a current of electricity go through her that dismayed her, and she froze.
‘Why not?’ Theo’s voice was easy, but she could discern something underneath it—some note that made her muscles tense yet again. ‘We are newlyweds, after all.’
She gave a pointed shrug. ‘Oh, if you think the show must go on, so be it. Shall we go arm in arm?’ she said, with deliberately heavy, terse jocularity.
‘Why not?’ said Theo again, with smooth assent this time, and now there was a blandness in his voice that somehow managed to grate at her. He tucked her arm into his and drew her forwards towards her uncle. Stiff as a board, Vicky went with him.
The moment she could, she disengaged.
She knew it was only for show, but it didn’t make it any easier. Keeping her distance from Theo Theakis was the only way to get through this ordeal.
Her mood was bleak. What the hell had she gone and let herself in for? She wanted to go home—to London, to Jem, to Freshstart, and her safe, familiar world.
A long, long way from Theo Theakis and her ridiculous fake marriage that meant nothing, nothing at all to either of them.
And let’s keep it that way! she thought vehemently.
It was far, far too disturbing to think of anything else.
But at least, to her relief, she only had to play the part of Theo Theakis in public. In private, audience gone, she could finally go off duty and let the tension racking her slacken off. And Theo could, too. He could drop all the pretence he had to put on of being the attentive husband and do nothing more than treat her with indifferent civility, his expression completely neutral. When he spoke to her she might have been anyone—anyone at all—fifteen or fifty, male or female. She was glad of it, and told herself so. It was totally abundantly obvious that Theo Theakis was as indifferent to her as she could possibly want. Off duty, she could revert to the truth of what she and Theo were to each other. Passing strangers who’d united to help her uncle in the only way he would accept help.
Nothing more at all.
Until that fatal evening. That fatal moment.
When she realised that she was facing a danger she had never, ever dreamt she would have to face.
It came right at the end of a large, gruelling dinner party. It had not been an easy evening—such evenings never were—but she had done her best, wearing a carefully selected designer gown and appropriate jewellery, her hair styled, her face perfect, every inch the immaculate hostess, smiling and conversing and being very grateful that the expert Theakis staff kept everything running like clockwork. It had gone on and on, and her face muscles were aching as much as her feet in their elegant narrow shoes. But finally it was over, and the last of the guests took their leave. She stood at the foot of the stairs that swept grandly to the upper floors as Theo, in a dinner jacket that sat superbly across his broad shoulders, turned from saying good night to the very last guest.
As he turned, his eyes rested on her for just a moment. And in that single moment she realised, with seismic shock, that she had been totally, completely wrong about him.
She could still feel the echo of that shock wave. Felt it resonate now, as she sat in the padded leather seat, gazing blindly out of the aeroplane window, heading back to Athens.
From that moment on, as that seismic shock had jarred through her, her marriage had changed for ever.
At first she had not believed it. She had assumed that in that moment when his eyes had rested on her with that expression in them she had been mistaken. She must have been mistaken. There was no other explanation. It had been late, she’d been tired, she had drunk wine—and so had he. That expression in them, therefore, had been nothing to do with her. Had been a recollection—or an anticipation. But not of her. Never of her. How could it have been?
Their marriage was a sham, a façade, a hollow charade. They had entered into it for no other purpose than to be exactly that. And until that moment he had treated her with complete and studied indifference. So how, how could that look possibly have been directed at her…?
But it had been—
And it had been unmistakable. Completely and absolutely unmistakable. A look as old as time. As clear as day.
Directly unambiguously, transparently—devastatingly—right at her.
A single look. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
And by it she had known, with a churning in her stomach, with a weakening of her limbs, a debilitating flush of betraying blood in her veins, that her fake, sham charade of a marriage had become something completely, absolutely different.
It had become a hunt.
She closed her eyes in worn, mental exhaustion, drawn back down into that inescapable past.
A hunt. That was what Theo Theakis had conducted. From that moment on, from that one single glance that had stripped away from her all the puerile illusions she’d had, she had become a hunted creature. Prey to a skilled, ruthless and unrelenting predator. A predator who had made her his target and kept her ruthlessly, remorselessly, in his sights.
His campaign had been so skilful. Slow, assiduous, bringing to bear all the expertise he had so abundantly at his disposal, honed to perfection on so many, many women. And she had been the focus of it.
As the days, weeks had followed, and Theo had slowly moved in for the kill, she’d realised that there was only one place that he was guiding her to, only one destination he had in mind for her—his bed.
CHAPTER SIX
LIKE a recording set to endless replay, Vicky again felt the hollowing of her insides that she had experienced when it had finally dawned on her just what Theo had in mind for her. And just as she had that time, she felt the same reaction—absolute blind panic.
Followed by absolute blind fury.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
That was what had screamed through her mind then. It still did now. But now, dear God, now she knew what she had not known then. That Theo Theakis was a man who would balk at nothing—nothing at all—to get what he wanted.
She felt her palms grow cold. God, she knew that all right! Her presence here, now, was terrifying, outrageous testament proof of that!
She heard his cold, chilling words echo in her mind.
‘I want to finish what I
started…’
She opened her eyes, staring ahead of her, blind and unseeing. In her ears Bach’s convoluted intricate harmonies wove a universe of order and serenity. It mocked the raw, ragged torment in her mind.
I have to do this. And I can—I can do this.
Because I must…
And when she had—when she had done it—she would finally be done with Theo Theakis. For ever.
I’ll have finished what he started—what I never, ever wanted him to start.
And then Theo Theakis could go to the hell he deserved.
Grim, dogged determination filled her, and a loathing of the man who was doing this to her crammed every cell of her body.
She felt the plane tilt, circle down, come into land, touch down, the jet engines screaming into reverse thrust to brake the plane, decelerate to a standstill.
Limply, she let her hand lie in her lap, then jerkily she unfastened her seat belt and looked around. Theo was already on his feet, and so was his aide. Theo did not look at her, simply headed for the exit, pausing to murmur brief thanks to the steward and stewardess, and acknowledge the pilot and copilot. Demetrious followed him, carrying his briefcase. He half hesitated, Vicky saw, as if to turn and speak to her, then simply hurried off after his employer.
It was the stewardess who came down to her to escort her from the jet. Theo was long gone, and Vicky knew why and was glad of it—even though she knew perfectly well that Theo had only been concerned about himself, not her. But at least it meant that she was spared what she had been dreading—being spotted by the paparazzi that hung around waiting for VIP passengers to come through.
If they knew I was back in Greece with Theo they would have a field-day!
She shivered involuntarily. Hadn’t it been bad enough being an object of virulent curiosity to every woman who had had, or wanted to have, an affair with Theo? But on top of that she had also, thanks to her marriage, been an object of voyeuristic fascination to the Greek paparazzi, and to her consternation she had become used to the flash of photographs being taken whenever she went anywhere public with Theo, and often when she was on her own, as well.
