‘I don’t speak Greek. I didn’t know,’ she repeated, numb with the knowledge that he was right. This was her fault. If she hadn’t come here…
‘I’m sorry.’ She gripped her hands before her and stared up into his dark, disapproving face. ‘Was there no way you and your fiancée could—?’
‘What? Maintain our engagement while I was still all too publicly married to you?’ His eyes flashed derision. ‘I think not. Even if Angela had been willing, I couldn’t have expected it of her. I ended the engagement the day the Press got the story.’
The look in his eye told her the experience hadn’t been pleasant. And that he intended to exact revenge for it.
Her pulse skittered as anxiety took hold, deep in her belly. She felt like a fish trapped on the end of a line, drawn closer and closer to its doom.
His lips curved up in a smile that held no warmth at all. Tessa had to lock her knees against the impulse for instant flight as she read the searing intent in his eyes.
‘So that leaves just the two of us,’ he murmured, pacing closer. ‘How cosy. Just me and my lovely wife.’
He reached out and, before she could escape, closed hands as unyielding as iron around her shoulders, drawing her inexorably towards him.
She looked up into those cold eyes and knew real fear. Try as she might, she couldn’t wrench out of his grasp. Perhaps that was what he wanted: an excuse to constrain her even more tightly.
Instantly she stilled, her heart pounding and her breathing rapid.
‘That’s better,’ he purred in a voice of rough silk. ‘It’s nice to see you so biddable.’
He slid one hand across from her shoulder to her collar-bone, so his palm rested flat on her bare skin and his fingers splayed across her throat. It was the lightest of touches but she sensed that his hold would tighten if she made a single unwary movement. His touch felt hot enough to brand her skin.
‘Now,’ he mused, a dark smile hovering at the corners of his mouth. ‘The question is: what should I do with you?’ He paused. ‘No suggestions?’
Tessa’s throat closed.
His fingers moved, stroking the length of her throat in a feather-light caress that drew all the strength from her. Then he was cupping her jaw, his hold light but unbreakable.
‘It’s a shame I have an appointment with my legal team in Athens. But you’ll understand I don’t want to miss that.’ His voice held an edge of mockery. His thumb slid across her bottom lip in a parody of a lover’s caress and Tessa felt an answering tug of sensation deep in her belly.
‘But don’t fret, wife.’ He leaned close so that his breath feathered her skin. ‘I’ll think on the matter and we can talk about it when I return.’
Tessa had seen the helicopter leave an hour ago. She knew Stavros had gone, and yet it had taken her this long to summon the strength to leave her room.
He’d been toying with her; he wouldn’t really resort to violence. Yet she shivered as she remembered the velvet menace in his voice. There’d been such fury in his eyes, in his very stance. And a smouldering desire that scared her more than the rest put together.
Even now, knowing she was alone, she paused at the bottom of the staircase, listening before she ventured out into the gardens.
That was when she heard it. A rapid click-click-clicking. No voices, no movement, just the quick sound of…what?
Intrigued, Tessa walked down the broad ground floor corridor till she came to a large tiled living area. Then she faltered. On the other side of the room a man sat beside a carved table, intent on moving counters on a wooden board.
His appearance snagged her breath. The wide shoulders, the arrogant tilt of the head, the massive frame. All were familiar; the family resemblance was so strong. Yet this man was much older than Stavros Denakis. His hair glinted silver, his face was lined with age. He’d been ill too; his cheeks were sunken and his shirt hung loosely.
The clicking stopped and his gaze lifted to meet hers unerringly, as if he’d known all along that she hovered there at the perimeter of the room.
‘Kalimera, Kyria Denakis.’ He inclined his head, still watching her with eyes that looked startlingly familiar under strong black brows.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I don’t understand Greek. What did you say?’
His mouth twisted up in a movement that could have signified either welcome or impatience.
‘Good day, Mrs Denakis,’ he rumbled, his voice like a husky echo of Stavros at his most superior.
His words, as much as his tone, welded her to the spot, horrified. She opened her mouth to deny the title he’d given her, and then shut it again.