She had her own agenda for this hellish interlude, and she’d stick to it through thick and thin.
She sat back in the soft leather seat as the chauffeured car whisked her luxuriously to her destination. It did not take very long to get there, and she was not surprised. After all, it had to be a convenient distance from Athens. A quick enough run to fit in with the crowded agenda of a busy chief executive whose time was scarce and valuable.
‘Kyria?’
The voice of the driver was impersonal, but his glance, as Vicky got out of the car at her destination, was less so. As she caught the discreet appraisal in his eyes, his expression of brief puzzlement only confirmed that she had been delivered to the correct place. Why else would Theo’s chauffeur think it odd that he had just delivered a woman dressed in jeans and a cheap top to a place like this? The women who were brought here were light years away from her—they would never have worn chainstore clothes, or have been seen without a full face of make-up and hair done up to match. They would be svelte and chic and sophisticated, and above all always stunningly beautiful—the way Christina Poussos was.
And they would be preeningly gratified to be the object of his attentions. Even more gratified, Vicky knew, with another caustic glint in her eye as she surveyed her destination, to have been brought here.
Her eyes ran over the house in front of her. It had been built well off the main coast road, tucked discreetly away, far from prying eyes, deep in lushly watered gardens, surrounded by a high wall and the usual electronic security the wealthy found normal. It was small by the standards of the rich, not a mansion, but it was opulent and luxurious and Vicky knew exactly what sort of place it was.
She’d been told about it—but not by her husband. By a woman who had been at one time a guest here—‘Many times, my dear’—so she had informed Vicky, with one of those sweetly insincere smiles she had become accustomed to. Vicky hadn’t reacted—why should she have? It had meant nothing to her—and her blankness had clearly annoyed the woman.
She reacted with the same blankness now as she walked into the house, the door opened for her by a member of staff she had no reason to recognise from her marriage. The staff here would be quite different from those at any of the other Theakis properties in Greece—the vast mansion in Kifissia, the apartment in the city centre, the ski lodge in the mountains and the faux-primitive beach villa on the island.
Even if they did recognise her, it would not matter. The staff here, Vicky knew, would have been selected not just for their ability to be invisible, but primarily for their absolute and total discretion, blind and deaf to the identities of their employer’s ‘guests’. There would be no leaks to gossip columnists or paparazzi from these servants.
It was cool indoors, compared to the brief heat of the exterior between the air-conditioned car and the air-conditioned interior, and Vicky gave an unconscious shiver. It was the sudden chill that had made her shiver, she told herself. Nothing else.
With studied blankness she strolled forward, across the marble floored entrance hall and then into the shaded reception room beyond. It had been, she surmised, professionally designed for style and luxury, lacking any kind of personal touch. Through the slatted blinds she could make out a veranda, and the sea beyond.
Hefting her backpack to her other shoulder, she walked back out into the hall and headed upstairs. There was no sign of any more staff anywhere, but Vicky knew that if she dumped her backpack on the hall floor it would invisibly be taken upstairs at some point, and its meagre contents unpacked for her.
On the upper landing were several doors, and she opened one at random. It was a guest bedroom. The next was a bathroom as large as a bedroom. A small, scornful smile nicked her mouth, devoid of humour—with a sunken bath easily able to accommodate two people, plus a Jacuzzi and a walk-in shower. The next door opened to what must be the master bedroom, with a bed the size of her own bathroom.
She shut the door abruptly and returned to the first bedroom. That, at least, though still opulently decorated in the same professionally anonymous style of the downstairs décor, lacked a football pitch of a bed in which sleeping was obviously not the designated activity.
Like an automaton she crossed to the window, drawing up the blinds and staring out. She could see down over the gardens and the swimming pool to a small, private shingle beach, with a jetty to one side and the sea glinting with a blue that the colder shores of the UK never saw.
Emotion moved within her, and she slammed down on it. Her face set, she dumped her backpack on the bed and started to empty the contents over the counterpane. Unpacking would help to pass the time.
Stop her thinking.
That was essential. Quite essential.
But her unpacking took almost no time at all, and within minutes it was done. She glanced out of the window again. The shadows were lengthening; the two-hour time difference, plus the flight time, had eaten up the day. On a sudden impulse she lifted the house phone. It was answered immediately, and she issued a request for coffee to be served on the terrace. Then, armed with her book, she went downstairs.
The temperature on the terrace, despite the time of day, was still warm enough
to make her wish she’d changed into more lightweight clothes. But if she’d done that she would have had to have a shower first, and she was in no mood to do that. It would have meant stripping off, seeing her naked body.
Her stomach plunged. Suddenly the reality of why she was here hit her all over again like a sledgehammer. She felt panic explode in her chest.
Oh, God, I can’t do this! I can’t! I can’t!
Panic beat like a wild animal, and she could feel her heart rate leaping. Then, clenching her hands, she forced herself to calm.
Stop it—stop it right now. Ruthlessly she clamped down on her burst of emotion. You can do it—but the only way is to not think. Just don’t think about what you’re doing. That’s all you have to do.
That’s all…
Grimly, she forced herself back into that state of deliberate blankness she’d managed before, sitting herself down on one of the padded chairs set out in the shade from which she could see the swimming pool, one end curved around into a whirlpool, with a set of waterproof switches inset into a stone slab at one end. She looked away and flicked open her book, making herself start to read. A few minutes later the coffee arrived. It was filter coffee, not Greek, and there was a plate of little Greek pastries and biscuits to go with it. She eyed them a moment. She ought to make herself eat something, she knew, because she’d been unable to eat on the plane, and breakfast had been an impossibility, too. But she contented herself just with sipping coffee instead.
Sip and read. Sip and read.
Don’t think. Sip and read. Sip and read.
But thoughts came all the same. Threading into her brain between the words of her book, pooling like acid into her stomach.