‘So what was, Vicky?’
She couldn’t answer. She could never answer. Silence bound her for ever. Bound her to her terrible, shameful secret.
‘I’ve had a long time to think about this, Vicky. If you won’t give answers, I will.’ He stood up. The movement made her jerk.
He was starting to come towards her. Tall and lean and dark. And terrifying. Her eyes distended. Flaring with terror.
The unfastened jacket of his tuxedo swung, revealing the muscled narrowness of his waist, the whipped leanness of his hips.
She could feel his power. She had always felt it.
And it had always, always terrified her. Time dissolved away and she saw him again, turning to be introduced to her, those dark eyes looking down at her so impassively. She had felt his power then.
She felt it now.
Desperately she clawed her hands over the surface of the breakfast bar.
‘Stay back, Theo—’
The words broke from her.
‘Answers, Vicky.’
He stood there, on the far side of the bar, a foot away from her. So close. Terrifyingly, terrifyingly close.
‘Tell me why you let me think you had a lover. Tell me—’
His voice impelled her. His gaze compelled her.
Terror consumed her. Terror and desperation.
She threw back her head.
‘Why do you think, Theo? You’d just had sex with me!’
There was scorn in her voice, forcibly injected under an intensity of pressure. Her fingertips were still pressing into the tiles, the veins on the backs of her hands standing out like ropes.
‘Sex with the only woman you were going to allow yourself so you didn’t have to be celibate while married to Aristides Fournatos’s niece! So don’t damn well stand there and look for answers—because that’s the reason! I met Jem at the airport because I picked up a text message on my mobile from him, saying he was Athens. I was so upset over…what had happened on the island…I just had to get away. We went sightseeing and talked about the house he was sent to inherit, how it would be brilliant for a youth centre, only we would need a lot of money to do it up. He asked me if I could line up the funds out of what you’d promised to release to me when our marriage ended. The time away from you had me realise that I had to get away from you—permanently. So when you threw those vile photos in my face I grabbed at the chance to make it the reason for ending our marriage immediately. And it worked, didn’t it? Didn’t it? You couldn’t wait to lay into me—to slash me to pieces! And then throw me out like garbage!’
She fell silent, finishing on a harsh, indrawn breath, her eyes spitting at him.
He was standing very still. A nerve was ticking in his cheek.
His voice was controlled. Very controlled. ‘When you came to the penthouse you accused me of adultery myself. All through our marriage you assumed I was sleeping with other women. Was that why you let me think you had a lover, too? To get even with me?’
‘It was to get away from you! What the hell does it matter whether you were carrying on with other women or using me as some kind of bloody sexual relief?’
His eyes were resting on her. ‘You’re right, it doesn’t matter. Because neither is true. But what does matter…’ his voice was conversational again, but the nerve was still ticking at his cheek in his stark, expressionless face ‘…is why you thought either was true—and why that upset you.’
‘I wasn’t upset—I was angry! Angry at being used like that!’
‘But I didn’t use you in that repellent way. Nor did I commit adultery with any other women during our marriage. So now you don’t need to be angry any more, do you?’
Her face contorted. ‘How the hell can you say that?’ she demanded viciously. ‘After the way you treated me—forcing me to have sex with you for the money, saying what you said to me!’
He gave a shrug, his eyes never leaving her. ‘I behaved like that to you because I thought you had taken a lover, that you still had a lover, and yet were prepared to have sex just to get the money you thought you were entitled to. All you had to do to stop me behaving like that was tell me the truth. But you didn’t, did you? You let me go on thinking that about you even when it was no longer necessary. So why, Vicky? Why did you do that?’
He had cut the ground from her feet. She felt herself falling—falling down into the bottomless pit that waited to consume her.