he went on, his voice commanding her as if she were the most junior minion in his employ, ‘if your hysteria is finally spent, listen to me!’
Heart still pounding in her chest, every limb trembling, jerkily she nodded.
He let her go. Her eyes flashed. ‘Well, go on,’ she ground out, breath still painful. ‘You said you’d explain to me! Go on. I’d love to hear you explain away what you’ve done to me, Mr Oh-So-Almighty Theo Atrides! And then you can tell it to the police!’
His face darkened at her hostile, vicious tone. No one spoke to him like that! His body stiffened, growing taller and even more imposing, Leandra felt, suddenly shrinking her to about a centimetre high.
‘You will not speak to me in that tone,’ he informed her coldly, every inch the head of the Atrides Corporation and a man held in respect by all who crossed his path.
It was the wrong attitude to take. The pressure cooker inside her head might have blown its lid, but there was still a whole lot of anger boiling away in the depths!
‘Try saying that to the judge sentencing you for criminal abduction and false imprisonment!’ she bit back, her chest still heaving with emotion.
He flashed a hand upward imperiously.
‘Be silent! I had no part in this debacle, I assure you! And if you will finally condescend to listen to me I will explain what has happened.’
He glanced past her. ‘But not here.’ He glared balefully down at her. ‘It has been a tiring day. I will speak to you in twenty minutes on the terrace. Be there.’
Then he was striding away towards the villa, leaving behind a fuming, shattered Leandra.
Slowly her hands fell to her sides. She could not credit what she had just heard him say.
He dismissed me, she thought incredulously. He kidnapped me, imprisoned me, and now he’s just walked away.
Unbelievable, she thought. Unbelievable!
Twenty minutes later he walked out on to the patio where Leandra sat at an ironwork table, nerves still shot to pieces. Suddenly she had something else to make her breathing ragged. Her eyes fastened on Theo Atrides and could not move.
Dear God, but he was devastating!
He had obviously had a shower. His dark hair was still damp, gleaming like ebony, and he had changed out of his business suit into casual trousers, immaculately cut, and a polo shirt with a top designer logo discreetly on the pocket. His sunglasses had been discarded and now Leandra could get the full glory of those powerful, hooded eyes surveying her as he approached.
Just as he reached the table and sat down opposite her the elderly housekeeper emerged from the living room immediately behind the patio, carrying a tray with a glass of beer on it and a pot of filter coffee.
Theo nodded at her, signing a brief response which made her smile and nod before backing away.
‘Agathias is deaf,’ said Theo, draining a generous portion of his beer as if he needed it, indicating to Leandra that she should help herself to coffee. ‘So is her husband Yiorgos.’
‘So I discovered,’ Leandra said repressively. ‘How very convenient to hire gaolers who can’t hear their prisoners demanding to be released!’
The night-dark eyes flashed at her.
‘As a non-hearing couple, especially of their generation, they find it easier not to be always amongst hearing people. This island they look after for me is a haven for them. But they will return to stay with their family on the mainland when the weather worsens in winter. And they are not, Ms Ross, my hired gaolers!’
‘You just admitted this was your island!’ Leandra shot back.
‘Yes,’ said Theo heavily, ‘this is my island. But Agathias and Yiorgos are not here to be gaolers, only caretakers. All they know about you is that you were carried in from the helicopter insensible.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I’m afraid Agathias assumed you were drunk.’
An outraged expression formed on Leandra’s face.
‘Drunk?’ she said furiously. ‘I was drugged, Mr Atrides! Abducted from Edgware Road and forcibly knocked out! Don’t even think of making out that I was drunk!’
‘Of course I don’t think you were drunk! I know perfectly well what happened to you.’
Her eyes widened, her expression instantly accusing.
‘My God, so it was you who did it! It was you all along!’
A rasp sounded in his throat. ‘No! I had nothing to do with this, Ms Ross. Absolutely nothing!’
She looked across the table at him, lips thinning.
‘Oh? Then who, pray, is responsible? Do tell me!’ she enquired venomously.
For a long moment he just looked at her.
‘It was my grandfather,’ he said quietly.
She started. ‘Your grandfather? Is he completely mad?’
Theo sighed sharply and reached for his beer again. ‘Not mad, no. But old, Ms Ross, nearing the end of his life.’
He looked at her directly. She looked nothing like the way she had at the gala, hanging on to Demos’s sleeve!
The memory, which also sent an unwanted kick through his system, reminded him of why he was here. The only reason he was here. To separate her from Demos—and not he reprimanded himself grimly, to wonder how it was that her eyes could shift from amber to gold, then back to amber…
‘My grandfather is determined not to die before he sees my cousin marry. Demos must surely have told you that he will shortly be marrying a Greek girl?’
He watched her face closely as he spoke. Had Demos told her, or was she wallowing in ignorance of the fact that their affair was going to hit a brick wall any time now?
For her part, Leandra was wondering how best to react. It had just dawned on her that she was going to have to stay in character as Demos’s mistress—or completely destroy the whole charade. She thought fast. If she had been Demos’s mistress, would he have told her about Sofia?
She gave a little shrug. ‘I know his family want him to marry,’ she returned. ‘But that’s up to Demos, isn’t it?’
Her answer was a clear provocation, and Theo took it as such. He ignored her jibe and ploughed on.
‘My grandfather is an old, sick man, Ms Ross, who has had much grief in his life. In his…urgency…to hasten the wedding he…’ Theo chose his words carefully, as if he were conducting a press interview with news-hungry journalists ‘…may have overstepped the mark in this instance.’
Leandra felt a spurt of anger. Overstepped the mark? Abducting and imprisoning her was ‘overstepping the mark’?
‘He had me kidnapped!’ she threw at him fiercely.
Theo’s
