Demetri stared at his father, wide-eyed.
Tito paled.
Christo had them—and he wouldn’t rest till they were finished. He stood, leaning forward and splaying his hands on the frigid marble of Tito’s desk.
‘All those times you locked Thea away, her only contact came from breaking into the computer in your office to speak to her friends. You may have changed your passwords there, but you forgot the passwords on your security system. It was only a matter of my consultants working through the list Thea gave me to find the right one. Apparently the hack isn’t complicated if you know how.’
‘You’re lying.’ Tito’s voice came out hoarse and raw.
‘You want to test that theory?’
The two men said nothing.
Christo smiled. ‘Now, let’s talk about the penalty interest...’
Two hours later Christo sauntered to his car. He slid into the back seat, took a folder from his briefcase and pulled out a sheaf of documents. Flicking through them, he came to Thea’s signature on the back page. He traced a finger over the feminine writing, sitting there with pain embedded in him like a knife as he stared at the blank space where his own signature would go.
‘Where to next, Mr Callas?’ his driver asked.
He swallowed the agony down. Later he’d dwell. For now, he could never forget that everything he did was for her. All for her.
‘To my lawyer’s,’ he said.
Christo slipped a pen out of the top pocket of his suit jacket. Scrawling his name on the line below Thea’s, he did what he had promised all those months ago. He set her free.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THEA FINISHED HER morning coffee. Christo hadn’t come for breakfast, and last night he hadn’t graced their bed. She’d woken that morning to cold sheets where his warm body normally lay and she’d been struck by the realisation that even after one night apart she missed him. Missed his touch, the way it filled her with liquid heat, with something aching, trembling. Out of control.
She didn’t know how she’d lived without it. In such a short time he’d become her every waking thought. Her night-time passion. Her secret addiction.
Should she look for him?
Thea knew he and Raul had been working long hours on the meagre information she’d given them. Trying to connect her father to something illegal and free Christo from Tito’s clutches. Perhaps that was what he’d been doing last night.
Anyway, this morning there was no time to find him. She and Elena were going out together. Maybe to do some shopping now she could spend something of her own money rather than save for a grand escape. It would be fun for a change, and it was her time for a bit of fun. She hadn’t thought about escaping for a long while.
She’d missed Elena desperately, thinking she and her friend would be separated permanently. Now the freedom to do normal things other women of her age did filled Thea with an almost girlish glee. For the first time in her life she felt valued. Cared for as an individual, not as a possession to be traded. Another thing to thank Christo for.
That list was ever increasing.
Thea smiled as she stretched in the morning sun, contemplating the number of ways she would thank her husband. A seductive pulse beat low in her belly...
As pleasant as it was, luxuriating in those thoughts, none of them would get her to Elena any faster. She sighed. Christo would have to wait.
Checking her watch, she made her way through the house, running into Anna.
‘Thea—Mr Callas wants to see you. He’s in his study.’
Thea grinned and her heart missed a few beats. She almost skipped to his office, not waiting to knock before she pushed the door open and walked in, snicking it shut behind her.
Christo sat at his massive oak desk. He clearly hadn’t been home last night. The clothes he wore were the same as yesterday. His usually pristine shirt was crushed and his hair messed, as if he’d run his hand through it too many times. In most men it would look unkempt. In Christo it made him ruggedly handsome.
Thea’s breath caught. The man could ignite her with a glance and she didn’t care. The walls no longer closed in on her in quiet moments. She wasn’t afraid of being trapped. Not anymore.
Christo raised tired eyes to hers. And there was something else she noticed. The lack of heat in them.
Every look he’d cast her way in the past weeks had threatened to singe her to ashes. Today there was nothing but...devastation.