‘You’re so trenchant in your suspicion!’ She tilted her chin, her eyes blazing fire at him.
‘And you’re so predictable.’ A pity. He wondered what it would be like to meet a woman who was everything Tessa Marlowe claimed to be.
The idea was a chimera, a mere fantasy.
He’d wasted enough time mulling over this. He drew his phone from his pocket and turned away.
‘Don’t worry, Ms Marlowe. I’ll find out exactly how and when the news was passed on, and by whom. Then there’ll be a reckoning.’
He was already looking forward to it.
CHAPTER SIX
THEY were still there.
Tessa stood hidden in the shadows as she peered out of the window to the road that ran beside the Denakis compound. News vans and cameramen clogged the area. Telephoto lenses focused on the gates and periodically swept the windows on this side of the mansion.
The paparazzi had surrounded the place two days ago, as soon as the news broke. Ever since the world had discovered the head of the mighty Denakis clan had married an unknown Australian.
The media had reached fever pitch, speculating about how one of Europe’s most successful men came to have both a wife and a fiancée. Tessa had cringed at the few seconds’ footage she’d seen on television last night, of a grim-faced Stavros leaving a sleek limousine to stride past shouting reporters on his way into a city building.
He’d looked suave, sexy, powerful, and so forbidding he might have had murder on his mind. In all honesty, Tessa couldn’t blame him for his fury. She’d erupted into his life at the most inopportune time imaginable.
She was glad she hadn’t come face to face with him since he’d accused her of selling her story. He’d been incandescent with rage. Enough to make her wonder if he was the type to resort to violence. After the media circus of the last couple of days, she dreaded to think what sort of mood he was in now.
Tessa craned her neck to see the side-gate. What would the photographers do if she managed to get past the guards and escape? Could she stroll past, pretend she was a stranger, an anonymous tourist?
The early-morning sun glinted off a massive camera lens as it swept the perimeter wall and her heart sank.
No. No chance she could sneak out unnoticed. Which left her few options.
She’d rung the Australian embassy. To her surprise there’d been no bar on the call, though she suspected it would have been different if she’d tried to ring a Press agency. Their advice had been to stay where she was.
Tessa had hesitated, about to blurt out that she no longer had her passport. That she was virtually a prisoner. But something had held her back. Perversely, the Denakis villa had become a sanctuary. The lassitude she’d felt for weeks was fading but she wasn’t up to organising her future or coping with the full onslaught of the Press. It was easier to stay as Stavros’ unwanted guest for the moment than summon the energy to leave.
Abruptly she swung away and strode to the stairs. She needed air, and the grounds of the estate were private.
She was skirting a wide tiled living area on the ground floor when a sound made her pause. To her left a door opened and there stood Stavros, watching her. As if he’d known she was there.
Tessa shivered at the intensity of his gaze, wishing she could walk on and pretend she hadn’t noticed him. But inevitably she faltered to a stop.
He wore a dark suit of tailored perfection. A snowy white shirt, a silk tie of deepest crimson. He looked the epitome of the successful businessman.
Yet something about the expression in his eyes, the way he held himself, hinted at another Stavros Denakis: a man of primitive power, as if the trappings of the tycoon were a camouflage for something far more elemental. And far more dangerous.
It seemed to Tessa, as she absorbed the sight of him, that the authority he wielded so effortlessly had little to do with his business or his enormous wealth. It came instead from his steely determination, his innate confidence and the aura of unvarnished masculine power that even the best tailoring couldn’t tame.
Brute strength had never appealed to her. But, as her pulse tripped up a notch and her breathing jagged out of rhythm, she faced the fact that this man affected her in ways she couldn’t begin to understand.
‘Ms Marlowe.’ He inclined his head just as if they’d parted on polite terms.
‘Mr Denakis.’ She met his gaze, refusing to be cowed.
One corner of his mouth tilted briefly, creating the merest hint of a half-smile that surely couldn’t be as compelling as she imagined. It was gone in a flash, leaving him looking more sombre and forbidding than before.
‘We need to talk.’
Said the spider to the fly. But there was no avoiding his invitation. Tessa pushed her shoulders back and walked towards him, grateful when he stepped to one side so she could enter the room. The more space she had around this man the better.