‘You wanted to talk to me. In fact, you were very expressive on the subject.’ His voice was clipped, and he didn’t bother to hide the note of sarcasm in it.
‘So,’ he invited, ‘talk.’
He watched her eyes narrow. After all she’d done to him she still thought she had the right to call the shots. Take umbrage. Make demands.
Well, she could make them all right—and she could pay the price, as well.
‘I want my money.’
The bald, bare, shameless words fell from her. Theo felt his tightly controlled anger stab again.
‘Your money?’ He echoed her words, eyes spearing hers. ‘Your money? The law takes a different view—as you very well know. The settlement that Aristides drew up with me is very clear—the money is mine.’
He could see fury leap in her face, and it gave him grim amusement. She spat back at him venomously.
‘You promised it to me! You told me it would be mine when the marriage ended! And now you’re cheating me of it!’
Anger leapt into his face uncontrolled.
‘You dare accuse me of cheating?’
Her expression contorted.
‘It’s my money! And you’re keeping it! What the hell else is it but cheating?’ she demanded furiously.
Cold fire poured from him.
‘Christou, are you really so terminally stupid that you imagine I would have the slightest inclination to let you have that money? After what you did? You deserved nothing—and nothing is what you got!’ His voice changed, become harsh and deadly. ‘What else does an adulterous wife deserve?’
CHAPTER FOUR
VICKY could feel her face whiten. She was back in the past again, and Theo Theakis was laying into her with his vicious talons, ripping her to shreds with his vituperation. She had tried to defend herself but it had been impossible. He had allowed her no chance—no quarter.
Well, this time she would not even make the attempt. She would not stoop that low.
But it was hard—much, much harder than she had allowed for—to stand here, face to face, with that overpowering presence in front of her, the full force of his self-righteous anger bearing down on her. It was like an intense, overwhelming pressure coming at her, trying to make her buckle and crack. Trying to destroy her.
Her spine steeled. She didn’t destroy that easily! She’d survived that first hideous onslaught of his, which had ended their unspeakable farce of a marriage, even though she’d been shaking like a leaf before he’d done with her, desperate only to run, run from his presence as fast as her trembling limbs would carry her.
It might have served its purpose, but that did not mean she could ever forgive or forget that brutal scene, his vicious, self-righteous judgement of her.
So now, gathering a nerve she had to dig deep to find, she slid her hands into her back pockets, shifted the weight of her leg, and looked across at him, her face a mask. Her voice, as she spoke, was cool.
‘I’m not here to discuss ancient history, Theo. I’m here to get the money you’ve been keeping from me. I don’t give a toss how our marriage ended, only that it did—and that you owe me.’
As she finished she had the strangest feeling she’d just lit the blue touch paper—but the rocket didn’t go up. Instead, something slid across his face, almost as if he were wiping it clear of any expression or emotion. She’d seen him look like that often, usually when he was talking to people but revealing nothing of what was going on inside his head. It had been a common expression when he’d been talking to her, as well.
His tone was smooth suddenly, but with the smoothness of steel. ‘We’ve already established that you have no entitlement to it whatsoever. However…’ His eyes rested on her, and there was that same concealed characteristic about them as in his face. ‘I may, perhaps, be willing to change my mind. Tell me—’ the question came out of the blue ‘—what do you want the money for?’
Vicky started. Automatically she veiled her expression. No way was she going to tell him that Jem was anything to do with why she wanted the money—the memory of Theo’s verbal gouging of her two years ago was too deep for that, and Jem’s name would be like a red rag to a bull.
‘What business is that of yours?’ she countered, still keeping that cool, deliberate voice going.
She could see the anger lick through him at her reply. Theo Theakis was a man who liked getting his own way—she knew that, to her cost. Whatever he wanted, Theo liked to get it.
Even when it was personal.
Especially when it was personal.