Forcibly, she stopped herself shuddering and made herself stand up, walk out into the cloakroom. Her bag and coat were hanging on a peg. The bag held her ordinary clothes, but she didn’t waste time changing, only yanking off her high-heeled shoes and slipping her feet into her worn loafers. She could walk faster in them.
Memory sliced through her.
That night, walking out of the St John, walking along the pavements, walking without thought, without direction, without anything in her mind except that terrifying absolute blankness. She did not know how long she had walked. People had bumped her from time to time, or woven past her, and still she had gone on, stopping only at crossings, like a robot, then plunging across when the coast was clear. She had walked and walked.
Eventually, God knew how long later, she’d realised she could not go on, that she was slowing down—as if the last of the battery energy inside her was finally running out. She had looked with blank eyes. She’d been on the far side of Oxford Street, heading towards Marylebone Road, on a street parallel to Baker Street, but much quieter. There had been small hotels there, converted out of the Victorian terraces. There had been one opposite her. It had looked decent enough, anonymous. She’d crossed over the road and gone in.
She had spent the night there, lying in her clothes on the bed, staring blindly up at the ceiling. Very slowly, her mind had started to work. It had been like anaesthesia wearing off.
The agony had been unbearable. Tearing like claws through her flesh. The agony of disbelief, of shock.
Of shame. Shame that she could have been such an incredible fool.
To have been so stupid…
I thought he had started to feel something for me! I thought I meant something to him—had come to be more to him than a mistress…someone who mattered to him. Someone who…
Her hand had slid across her abdomen, and the agony had come again, even more piercing.
What am I going to do?
The words had fallen like stones into her head.
They had gone on falling, heavier and heavier, crushing her, hard and unbearable.
It had taken so long to accept the answer that she had known, with so heavy and broken a heart, was the only one possible.
I did the right thing. I did the only thing.
The words came to her now, as she yanked on her coat.
Nothing else was possible. Nothing.
A hard, steely look came into her eyes. And what did it matter that Xander Anaketos was out there? What did it matter? Nothing at all! He was nothing to her and she—oh, dear God—she was nothing to him.
Had always been nothing to him…
She came back to the present with a jolt. Steeling herself to forget.
Don’t remember. Don’t think. Just pick up your bag and go. This job is over before it started. I don’t care, I’ll get another one. Only one thing is important—only one. That I never, ever have to set eyes on Xander Anaketos again.
With grim resolution she walked out of the cloakroom.
He was waiting for her outside.
It was like a blow across her throat, punching the breath from her. Then, with an inhalation that seared in her lungs, she said, ‘Let me pass.’
He didn’t budge. His frame, large and powerful, blocked the narrow way.
He said something in Greek. She had no idea what it was. It sounded hard, and angry. Then he switched to English.
‘What the hell did you think you were playing at? Pulling that disappearing act at the St John when you walked out on me?’ There was naked belligerence in his voice.
Her mouth fell open. Then closed again. A wave of unreality washed over her, even deeper than the shock waves that had been washing over her since she’d impacted her eyes on Xander Anaketos.
‘Do you know what hell you put me through?’ His tone was unabated, his dark eyes flashing with dangerous fury.
Sickness warred with shock. She stared at him with wide, uncomprehending eyes. His dark eyes narrowed.
‘I thought you’d been run over, killed, injured. I thought you’d gone off to someone else. I thought—’
‘You thought what?’ There was incomprehension as she spoke. What was he saying? She did not understand.
His eyes flashed again. ‘What the hell did you think I’d think? Don’t even bother to answer that! It took me a while, but I finally realised you’d done it entirely on purpose. To get me to come after you!’
Her mouth fell open. Then closed again. A grim, hard look came into her face.
‘You really thought me that stupid? Stupid enough to think you’d come chasing after something you’d just replaced with a new model and paid off with a diamond necklace?’
His expression hardened even more. ‘I was concerned about you,’ he bit out.
She laughed. It was a harsh, brief sound. Then it cut out.
‘Let me pass,’ she said again.
There was a movement behind her, and she turned. Tony, the barman, had come through the service door, and was regarding them with a concerned expression.
‘Clare—is everything all right? Why have you got your coat on?’
She turned to him.
‘Tony—I’m sorry. I’m going home. I can’t work here. I apologise for the nuisance. I’ll phone Personnel tomorrow and sort out the formalities.’ The words came out staccato and uneven.
He frowned, his eyes going from her to the tall, imposing figure of someone who very obviously was a guest of the hotel.
‘Is there a problem? Do you want me to fetch the manager?’ His question embraced both her and Xander Anaketos.
Behind her, Clare heard Xander’s voice. The one she was so familiar with. Giving orders to underlings.
‘There’s no problem,’ he said, his accented voice clipped and dismissing. ‘I’m seeing Ms Williams home.’ He stepped back, giving her room to walk by him. For a moment Clare hesitated, then walked past him. She was not going to make a scene here, in front of Tony. She would get out of the hotel by the service exit, and then head for home. She’d take a taxi. It was an extravagance, but she didn’t trust her legs.
It seemed like a million miles to get to the staff entrance, and she could feel Xander’s breath almost on her shoulders. She was in shock, she knew. It could not be otherwise. The past had reared up to bite her, like a monstrous creature, and she could not cope with it—could not cope at all…
As she pushed the door open and stepped out on to the pavement by the staff car park, she took in deep, shivering lungfuls of air.
Her elbow was seized in an iron grip.
‘This way.’
Her head snapped round, and she pulled away from him violently.
‘Let me go!’
‘I said, this way,’ Xander repeated with grim heaviness.
She tried to shake herself free. It was impossible. His grip was unshakable.
‘Do you want me to scream?’ she bit out.
‘I want you to come this way. You,’ he ground out, ‘have a lot of explaining to do! I don’t appreciate the game you played—’
The word was like a trigger in her skull.
‘Game?’ She stared at him. Four years had changed him little. It was like looking into the past. The past that had almost destroyed her. The past that was ravening at her again, trying to devour her. Trying to swallow her up with memory of how once her heart had leapt every moment she had seen this man. Each time he had touched her, kissed her, she had come alive…
Pain lashed at her as she stared at him—but what was the use of pain?
It got you nowhere. She’d had four years of knowing that. Four years of getting over it. Moving on. She’d changed.
‘Game?’ she said again. Her voice was flat now, the emotion gone from her eyes. ‘How can you stand there and say that to me? How on earth could you think that I was playing some infantile game? How can you possibly have been anything other than relieved by how I reacted? Do you think I didn’t know you by then? Didn’t know that you would never tolerate scenes? Let alone by women you had finished with. I saw you when Aimee Decord came up to you, half-cut—remember? That time in Cannes? I saw how ruthless you were to her. So when it was my turn I knew what the score was. You know,’ she said, and there was an edge of bitterness in her voice she could not conceal even now, four long years later, ‘you should be grateful to me. I must have been the easiest ex-mistress you’ve ever had.’
Abruptly, he dropped her arm, and stepped back.
‘I spent days looking for you! You just vanished.’
His voice was accusatory. His Greek accent thick.
‘What are you complaining for?’ she flashed back. ‘You’d just pressed the delete button on me. I was supposed to vanish.’
Xander’s expression darkened.
‘Do not be absurd! I had made arrangements for you. Of course you were not simply supposed to vanish! Besides, there were all your things still in my apartment—’
Clare’s head shook sharply.
‘There was nothing of mine there. Nothing personal.’
‘There were your clothes, all your belongings!’
‘They weren’t mine. You’d bought them. Look—what is this? Why this totally pointless post-mortem four years later? You finished with me, and I left. It was very simple. I don’t know why you’ve followed me out here, I don’t know why you’re talking to me, and I don’t know why you think you’ve got some sort of right to lay into me!’