The other voice slammed back. Well, you’ll just have to do without it, then!
She swallowed heavily. Do without it. But they couldn’t. That was the problem. Without the money that she’d promised Jem there was no way the house could be ready for the summer—which meant they’d have to wait another season before being able to take in any kids, if ever. The whole scheme depended on her getting the money.
We need that money! We’ve just got to have it!
Anger spurted through her again. Theo had no right to that money! It didn’t matter what the damn law said, the money was for her, at the end of their stupid, insane marriage, and him keeping it was sheer bloody vindictiveness! Petty revenge, that was all!
She took another vicious gulp of wine. It was coursing through her system, making her feel angry and aggressive.
It was a marriage of convenience. That was the whole point! Something just to keep Aristides happy, to make him able to accept Theo Theakis’s help without losing face. That’s all I went along with it for! And that’s what Theo said, too! A temporary marriage of convenience, for my uncle’s sake.
Indignation burned along her veins.
It had been a deliberate, business-based marriage of convenience, and therefore obviously, obviously, the issue of fidelity was irrelevant! How could anyone think otherwise?
Her face darkened. But Theo Theakis had. The all-time original dinosaur—with vicious talons and an even more vicious tongue, that had verbally ripped her to bloodied shreds before he’d done with her!
Angrily she answered him in her head—the way she had that terrible day when he’d confronted her.
It was a marriage of convenience, Theo! Not a real one! An empty façade, meaning nothing—nothing at all! And you damn well should have treated it as such, instead of…instead of—
Her mind cut out. No. No, no and no. She wasn’t to think of that—never. Ever. Forbidden. Locked door. Never to be opened.
Except that tonight, to her face, Theo had opened that door and made her look inside.
Her face drained of expression. She knew what Theo wanted. His taunting, insolent words formed in her brain—‘I like to finish what I started.’ But that wasn’t why he’d made that outrageous condition tonight. It had nothing to do with it. He wanted something quite different.
Revenge.
And he knew exactly, exactly, how to get it.
A shudder went through her.
Adultery—that had been the crime that Theo had thrown so viciously in her face. So unjustly.
She could have defended herself in terms that even he would have had to accept—but if she had…
No, that had been impossible! It had been impossible then, and it was impossible now.
And for the same reason.
Her fingers clenched around the wineglass, threatening to break the stem. She must not, must not, let her mind go in that direction. It wasn’t just dangerous—it was suicidal…
Desperately she pulled her mind away from the precipice it tottered on. Adultery was not the only crime she had committed in Theo’s eyes. There was another, far, far worse, and he wanted revenge for that, too.
And he would get it, she knew, with a terrible chilling in her guts. The revenge that he would exact from her would be an exercise in humiliation.
Her humiliation.
And Theo would extract every last gram from her until he was satisfied—satisfied that her crime against him had been paid for.
I can’t go through with it! I can’t! It’s impossible! Impossible!
Anguish filled her, and she could feel herself start to shake.
I can’t face the humiliation—I can’t face Theo taking that revenge on me! I can’t!
Abruptly she got to her feet, and went and refilled her wineglass. She took another large slug from it, and stared blindly around her small studio flat. It was a world away, a universe away, from the life she’d led in Athens as Theo Theakis.