by Maya Blake
She dropped the sketchpad. ‘Theo?’
‘No. No! No! Thee mou, no!’ The words were hoarse pleas, soaked with naked fear.
Both hands shot out in a bracing position and his head twisted from side to side.
‘Theo!’ She rose to her knees, unsure of what to do.
‘No. Stop! Arghh!’ With a forceful lunge, he jolted upright with a blood-curdling cry. Sweat poured down his face and he sucked in huge gulping breaths.
‘Deus, are you okay?’ The question was hopelessly inadequate but it was all she could manage at that moment. Because her heart was turning over with pain for what she’d just witnessed him go through.
She reached out and he jerked back away from her. ‘Don’t touch me!’
‘Theo, it’s me. Inez.’ Tentatively, she reached out and touched his arm.
He shuddered violently and lurched away from her, staring blankly at her for several seconds before his face grew taut and haunted.
‘Inez,’ he said with a dark snarl. ‘I fell asleep?” There was self-loathing in the question, as if he hated himself for having lowered his guard enough to let the demons in.
Her stomach flipped and her fingers curled into her palm. ‘Yes. You…you had a nightmare.’
His mouth twisted with a cruel grimace. ‘No kidding. What the hell are you doing here?’ he snapped, looking around the room with unfocused eyes.
She frowned. ‘We…um, we fell asleep together after…’ She stopped as heat rushed up her face.
He turned back to her and his gaze slowly travelled over her. He brushed the hair out of his eyes and gradually the dull green lightened into golden hazel. ‘We had sex. I remember now.’
She flinched and watched him with wary eyes.
With sure, predatory moves, he lifted the tangled sheet off his body and prowled to where she was poised on her knees. He stopped a hairsbreadth from her.
‘Can I…can I touch you?’ she asked, unwilling to have him pull away from her, but a part of her longed to soothe the turbulent blackness in his eyes.
His mouth pinched and he took several steadying breaths before he spoke. ‘You want to comfort me?’
‘If you’ll let me.’
Another deep shudder and he closed his eyes. His head lowered until his forehead rested between her breasts. His arms closed around her and tightened so hard she couldn’t move. They stayed like that until his breathing steadied.
‘Theo?’
‘Hmm?’
‘Tell me about your dream.’
He tensed immediately and she bit her lip. He raised his head and stared at her.
‘Take my shirt off,’ he commanded, his voice hardly above a tortured whisper.
Concern spiked through, despite the heat his words generated. ‘Theo, you just had a nightmare—’
‘One I want to forget.’ His hands were on the back of her thighs, hard and demanding as they caressed up to her bottom. He cupped the globes with more roughness than before but there was no pain in the caress. ‘Inez, if you want to help me, do it.’
She drew the shirt over her head and dropped it. His eyes devoured her breasts and his tongue darted out to rest against his bottom lip.
Between her legs, liquid heat dampened her folds and he groaned in dark appreciation as his seeking fingers found her core.
‘So ready. So tight,’ he rasped. With almost effortless ease, he picked her up, pivoted off the bed and sat on the side. Grabbing a condom, he slipped it on and positioned her legs on either side of him.
‘You will make me forget.’ The words were almost a plea but with a promise of things to come. ‘Yes?’
Before she could do so much as nod, he pressed her down on top of him. She cried out as he filled her with his hot, heavy length. His hard grip on her hips controlled the rhythm, which grew more frantic with each thrust.
‘Theo,’ she gasped as pleasure scalded her insides and rushed her towards ecstasy.
‘Shh, no talking,’ he instructed.
Biting her lip, she stared into his face.
Torment, anger, pleasure and more than a dose of anxiety mingled into an oddly fascinating tableau. He was still caught up in the hell of his nightmare and her heart broke over his anguish.
She tried to catch his gaze, to transmit a different sort of comfort from the carnal that he clearly sought but he avoided her eyes. Instead he buried his face between her breasts and mercilessly teased her nipples until she whimpered at the torture.
He increased his thrusts, bouncing her on top of him with almost superhuman strength that had her reeling.
Her orgasm crashed into her, flattening her under its fierce onslaught before proceeding to completely drown her.
Through the thunderous rush in her ears, she heard his guttural roar as he achieved his own ruthless release.
Sweat slicked their skin and their breaths rushed in and out in frantic pants. This time, though, there were no pleasurable caresses and giggling was the last thing she felt like doing.
With lithe grace, he twisted around and deposited her on the bed. Without speaking, he strode into the bathroom.
Inez lay on the bed, grappling with what had just happened. In the last twenty-four hours she’d glimpsed the man tortured by his nightmares, had seen a side to Theo she was certain very few people saw. Instead of guarding her own heart, she wanted to open herself up even more to him, find a way of taking away his pain and torment.
Had she not learnt her lesson with Constantine?
No, Theo was nothing like that man who’d taken delight in humiliating her. The retraction Theo had promised had appeared in the online evening edition of the newspaper and she was sure she’d seen a look of contrition in his eyes when he’d watched her read it.
Darkness and light.
She was deeply, almost irreversibly attracted to both. Again her heart twisted and she looked towards the bathroom.
A crash came a second later, followed by a pithy curse. She was off the bed and running into the bathroom before she could think twice.
‘I’m fine!’ he ground out.
She hesitated in the doorway and watched him. His fingers were curled around the marble sink and his head was bent forward. ‘What’s wrong, Theo?’
‘Dammit, woman, I’m not made of glass. And I’ve been grappling with my nightmares long before you came along, so leave me alone!’
Hurt shredded her inside. ‘Don’t push me away.’
He locked eyes with her in the mirror and sighed. ‘You’re too stubborn for your own good, you know that?’
‘Maybe, but before you throw me out I need the bathroom,’ she lied.
‘Fine; it’s all yours.’
He started to turn. That was when she saw his scars. ‘Meu deus, what happened to you?’ she whispered raggedly.
His glance ripped from her face to where she pointed to his left hip. The marks were puckered and too evenly spaced and shaped to be an accident. But still her mind couldn’t grasp the idea that someone had deliberately inflicted pain on him.
‘You mean you haven’t guessed already, querida? Your father happened.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
INEZ STAGGERED BACKWARDS until her legs hit the vanity unit and she collapsed onto it. ‘I don’t…you’re saying my father did this to you?’ She shook her head in fierce disbelief.
Theo’s mouth twisted. ‘Not personally, no. He hired thugs to do it.’
She felt the blood drain from her head. Had she not been seated, she would’ve swayed under the unbelievable accusation.
‘But…why?’
He grabbed a towel and secured it around his waist. ‘You did your research on my family. You know what happened to my father.’
She nodded. ‘He was indicted for fraud, bribery and embezzlement.’
‘Among other things. He was also involved with some extremely shady people.’
He turned and strode from the bathroom.
She followed him, the fear she’d harboured for a long time
blooming in her chest. ‘And my father was one of these shady people?’
Theo turned and watched her. Shocked knowledge flared in her eyes. For a brief moment, he sympathised with what she was going through. Having the truth blown up in front of you wasn’t easy.
In his deepest, darkest moments he still couldn’t believe how painfully raw he felt at his father’s abandonment.
‘My father owed him a lot of money on some crooked scheme they were working on when he was arrested and all our assets were frozen. Your father took exception to being out of pocket. When he realised he wouldn’t be paid, he decided to pursue a different route.’
Her haunted eyes dropped to the scars covered by the towel and quickly looked away.
‘So I’m here to pay for my father’s sins,’ she whispered raggedly.
That had initially been his plan. Somewhere along the line that particular plan had become questionable. But he’d be damned before he’d admit that.
‘Your father made me pay for my father’s. Money and power were his bottom line, and he wanted payback. Nothing else mattered to him, not even the tortured screams of a frightened boy…’
He compressed his lips as her mouth dropped open and anguish creased her face. ‘How old were you?’
He raked a hand through his hair. Even as a voice shrieked in his head to stop baring his raw wounds, he was opening his mouth.
‘I was seventeen. I was returning from a night out with friends when his goons grabbed me. He had me smuggled from Athens to Spain and threw me into a hole on some abandoned farm in Madrid. Ari found me there two weeks after I was taken. After he damned near bled every single cent he could find from every relative and casual acquaintance in order to stump up the two million dollars ransom that your father demanded.’
Her hands flew to her head, her fingers spiking through the long tresses to grip them in a convulsive stranglehold. ‘Please tell me when you say a hole…you don’t mean that literally?’ The words were a desperate plea, as if she didn’t want to believe how real the monster that was her father.
His smile cracked his lips. ‘Oh, yes, anjo. A twelve-foot-deep literal hole in the ground with vertical sides and no hand or footholds. No light. No heat. One meal a day with a bucket for my necessaries.’
‘No…’
‘Yes! And you know what his men did for fun when they were bored?’
She shook her head wildly, her eyes wide and horror-struck as he loosened the towel from around his waist and exposed his puckered skin. ‘Cigar tattoos, they called them.’
Tears welled in her eyes and fell down her cheeks. Still shaking her head, she walked to the bed and sank down on it. She buried her face in her hands and a gut-wrenching sob ripped from her throat. After the first one, they came thick and fast.
His chest tightened with emotions he was very loath to name. Each sob caught him on the raw, until he couldn’t bear to hear another one.
‘Inez! Stop crying,’ he instructed hoarsely after five minutes.
She shook her head and sniffled some more.
‘Stop it or I’ll throw you overboard and you can swim to shore.’
That got her attention. She brushed her hands across her cheeks and speared him with wide, imploring eyes.
‘If the only people you saw were his men, how did you know it was my father?’
He couldn’t fault her for trying to find a different reality to the one he’d smashed her world with. Hell, he’d done that for a long time after his father had been indicted. ‘I followed the money.’
She frowned. ‘What?’
‘I traced the ransom my brother paid through dummy corporations and offshore accounts. It took a few years but I finally found where it ended up.’
‘In my father’s account?’
‘Yes. And since then I’ve made it my business to find out how every single cent was spent.’
Her shoulders slumped and tears welled again. He could tell the ground had well and truly shifted beneath her feet.
After several seconds, she raised her head.
‘Okay. I’ll do whatever you want. For however long you want.’
It was his turn to feel the ground shift under his feet. Shock slammed through him as he realised just how much he wanted to take her. To hang onto her.
But not for the sake of revenge. For an altogether different reason; because he wanted her. Not for her father but for her.
He shook his head. ‘Inez…’
‘I can never buy back those two weeks that were taken from you or the horror you’ve had to live with. But I can try and find a way to make up for what was done to you.’
‘How? By giving me your body whenever and wherever I ask for it?’
She paled a little. But the brave, spirited woman he’d come to see underneath all that false gloss raised her chin. ‘If that’s what you want.’
His mouth twisted. ‘I don’t want a damned sacrificial lamb. And I sure as hell don’t want you throwing yourself on your sword for that bastard’s sake!’
‘Then what do you want? You have his company. His campaign is falling apart. He will be left with nothing by the time you’re done with him. How much more suffering do you need before you let go of this anger? When will you feel pacified?’
Theo started to answer, then realised he had no answer. The satisfaction he’d thought he’d feel was hollowly absent, as was the deep-seated sense of triumph he’d always thought he would feel when this moment came.
Looking into her face, he saw the pain and confusion reflected there and his puzzlement increased. The ground was still tilting beneath his feet but he’d been on this path for too long to let go.
Hadn’t he?
He forced his gaze to meet hers.
‘I will let you know when I’m adequately appeased.’
* * *
Over the next week, she watched as he slowly dismantled her father’s campaign piece by piece. Allegations of impropriety surfaced, triggering an investigation. Although nothing was found to indict Benedicto, his credibility suffered a death blow and any meaningful points he’d managed to retain in the polls dropped to nothing.
On the Monday morning after returning from their sailing trip, the calls to her cell phone started. Both her father and Pietro bombarded her with messages and texts, demanding to know what was going on.
She hadn’t needed Theo to warn her not to take their calls. After his revelation, each time she saw her father’s name pop up on her screen, her stomach churned with pain and disgust.
Although she’d long suspected that her father’s business dealings weren’t as pure as the driven snow, she’d never in her wildest dreams entertained the idea that he would condone the brutality that Theo had described. Each time she saw his scars—and she’d seen them every night since their return, when he’d moved her into his suite—a merciless vice had squeezed her heart.
And that vice had tightened every time he’d cried out in the middle of the night after another nightmare.
She’d been surprised that first night after their return when he’d pulled her close after a fiery lovemaking and instructed her to go to sleep.
When he kept her with him the following night, she’d boldly asked him why.
‘I don’t want to be alone,’ he’d stated baldly. And each time he’d come awake he’d reached for her, wrapping his trembling body around her and holding on tight until his nightmare receded and his breathing returned to normal.
More and more, her foolish heart had begun to believe that her presence was making the nightmares, if not any less horrific, then at least tolerable.
Or she could just be living in a fantasy land where her mind and heart had no idea what language the other was speaking. Because she was beginning to believe that her heart was more involved in Theo’s welfare than was wise. And yet she couldn’t control it enough to make it stop wrenching in pain when he suffered another nightmare, or soar with joy when he took her to the heights of ecstasy. Even the knowledge that
some time in the very near future, after his goal to destroy her father was achieved, Theo would pack up his bags and leave Rio for good, made her heart ache in a way that was almost a physical pain.
Santa Maria, she was losing her mind—
‘There you are. Teresa told me you’re still here. I thought you’d be at the centre by now.’ She’d shared more details of her volunteer work with him during the times when he’d been Normal Theo, not Revenge Theo. And she’d been ridiculously thrilled when he hadn’t been judgemental or condescending.
She looked up as he entered the living room and crossed to where she sat, applying finishing touches to the sketch she’d been working on since breakfast an hour ago. She’d thought he’d left for the day but obviously she’d been mistaken.
Glancing up at his lean, solid frame and gorgeous face, her heart performed that painfully giddy flip again and she glanced away. ‘I took a day off. I’m…I’m still thinking of resigning.’
He stilled then dropped to his haunches in front of her. ‘Why?’
She struggled to breathe as his scent surrounded her, making her yearn to lean in closer. ‘This whole thing with my father has brought unwanted attention to people who are already struggling with life’s difficulties. I don’t think it’s fair on the children.’
A look resembling regret passed through his eyes before he blinked it away. After a full minute, he murmured, ‘No, it’s not. But you won’t resign.’
Her heart caught. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I won’t allow you to give up something you love doing. The publicity about your father will go away. I’ll make sure of it.’
She met mesmerising hazel eyes. ‘Why are you doing this?’
He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I’m beginning to realise that I was mistaken about how much collateral damage I was prepared to accept.’
Collateral damage. She was grappling with that when he spoke again.
‘I have something for you.’
She glanced warily at him. ‘Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. I’m sure I’ve read that warning somewhere.’
His smile held a certain chill but was heart-stopping nonetheless. ‘For the most part, I’d urge you to heed that warning. But this one is completely harmless.’ He pulled something from his back pocket and presented it to her. The look in his eyes made her stomach flip as she glanced from his face to the box.
