The cynicism that twisted Zarek’s mouth sounded darkly in his voice. ‘She was very easily persuaded.’
‘So there’s no one here?’
Was that slight shake in her voice apprehension, relief, or even a strange sort of anticipation? Penny couldn’t begin to decide for herself and, from the faint frown that she saw draw Zarek’s dark brows together so briefly, neither could he.
‘No one but us—and Argus.’
Zarek moved at last, getting to his feet to open the big glass doors to the garden so that the dog could go outside. Once again Penny felt an affinity with the hound as he padded reluctantly forward, obviously needing to get outside, but wanting to be sure that Zarek would not disappear again if he turned his back. Did she look at him like that? she wondered. Could the sense of disbelief, the fear that it might all be an illusion after all, show in her eyes when she watched him?
‘But why?’
‘I thought we had a lot of catching up to do. We need to talk. And that we would do it better if we were on our own.’
‘Oh.’
It was all she could manage, and the gulp as she swallowed down the word gave away more than she was at all comfortable with.
Zarek turned from the door, leaning back against the wall and pushing his hands deep into the pockets of his trousers. Penny knew it wasn’t possible but he really did seem to have grown bigger in the last few moments—taller and stronger and darker. And definitely more dangerous, with that ominous ‘we need to talk’ sounding like a warning bell for what was coming next.
Chapter Six
SHE WOULD HAVE LIKED to have got to her feet. At least then, standing up, she would have been more on a level with him. But she would also betray her discomfort, scrambling to her feet like a frightened child, and moving uncomfortably from one foot to another.
‘Don’t you think you should eat first?’
That at least would give her an excuse to get up from her chair. And if she could spend some time on practicalities like preparing food in the big kitchen then it would be a distraction from his threatening presence, the discomfort of being here like this with a man she knew so well in some ways and yet who was a total stranger in others.
‘I’m not hungry.’
It was a dismissal of what he had recognised as her attempt at diversion, she knew. He had no intention of being dissuaded from the path he was determined to follow.
‘Though I wouldn’t mind a drink,’ Zarek conceded.
‘Of course…’
She was on her feet and turning towards the dresser where the wine was kept when the foolishness of her actions hit home. This was Zarek’s home after all.
‘No, I haven’t forgotten,’ Zarek murmured dryly seeing her hesitation, the embarrassed look she turned on him. ‘Two years is not so very long.’
‘It seemed long enough!’ Her temper flared again, setting her off balance once more. ‘No sign of you, no word from you. I didn’t know what had happened—’
‘I was hardly in a position to give you a phone call,’ Zarek cut across her, breaking into the flow of reproach like the slash of a knife. ‘How did Hermione end up living here? Did you invite her to move in?’
‘No, I did not! She invited herself and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Have you ever tried to get your stepmother to do something she didn’t want to do?’
‘As a matter of fact I have.’
Zarek expertly removed the cork from a bottle of rich red wine and poured a generous amount into a couple of glasses.
‘Well, I don’t happen to have the promise of a generous income—or the threat of withholding one—to dangle over her head like a carrot. Hermione arrived when the news of your disappearance had just broken—I didn’t know what to do for the best. I thought it might after all be an idea if we were all in one place until we found out just what had happened.’
And she had been reeling in shock and distress. It didn’t matter how she and her husband had parted, learning that his yacht had been hijacked by pirates and Zarek himself taken hostage had left her unable to think straight, so that she hadn’t had the strength to fight Hermione over anything.
‘And Jason…’
Something in the way that Zarek reacted—or, rather, his complete lack of reaction—sent her a warning signal that she was entering dangerous territory. She knew what Zarek had seen and heard on the harbour front only the day before. Her husband might not love her but he was her husband and a traditionally possessive, jealous Greek husband at that. He would not take at all kindly to seeing his wife in the arms of another man. Particularly if that man was his hated stepbrother.
‘And Jason…’ Zarek prompted almost casually, holding out one of the glasses of wine towards her. Because of the darkness in the room, she couldn’t read his face properly but the stiffness of his long spine, a clipped edge to his use of his stepbrother’s name, made all the little hairs on the back of her neck lift in wary apprehension.
‘Jason dealt with all the practical things—liaising with the police, the press. He was very—helpful.’
Besides, Jason had been kind and considerate then and his support had been welcome at a time when she most needed it.
‘Good for Jason.’
It was impossible to interpret the strange note in Zarek’s voice as he lifted his glass to his mouth and took a deliberate sip of the wine. But Penny didn’t care what his mood was. If there was any doubt in his mind about what he had seen then it was time she made things perfectly clear. His opinion of her was low enough as it was. She didn’t want to add any further complications to the already explosive mix.
‘We’re not lovers,’ she said starkly and saw his head come up very slightly, though he controlled the movement almost at once.
‘Did I say anything?’
‘No—but you’re thinking it.’
‘Oh, is that what I’m thinking?’
Another slow deliberate sip of his wine, but, watching him, Penny saw how long it took him to swallow it. The burn of his eyes challenged her with the fact that he could have been thinking something else entirely but she wasn’t yet ready to go there. Better to clear the air with the things she could deal with here and now rather than rake up old problems and risk ripping open old wounds.
That would have to come, but it was early days yet—not even days! She was still feeling her way with this man who was her husband and yet, after the time he had been missing, now seemed like a stranger to her. She knew his face, his stunning features, his voice, his mannerisms. But was the Zarek she had married, the Zarek she had been intimate with, made love with—no, no—the man she had had sex with—still inside this façade that was so well known and yet somehow totally unfamiliar to her? For now she would do better to stay on safer ground. If Zarek’s detested brother could ever be considered safer.
‘I
