Note to Readers
THE BEDROOM WAS still in shadow, the thick drapes masking the early dawn outside. On feet she could hardly drag forward Talia forced herself to the door. Every cell of her body screamed in silent protest, but she made herself do what she knew she had to do.
Leave.
Leave the man sleeping in the wide bed, the bare, lean-muscled torso that she had caressed in ecstasy exposed by the half-drawn cover.
Emotion stabbed her like a knife eviscerating her insides. To walk out on him—oh, dear God—to make herself walk out on the man who had swept her off her feet, who had taken her to a paradise she had never dreamt existed! The man who had offered her for such a pitifully few blissful hours the hope of something she had never known.
Escape—blissful, wondrous escape—from the prison in which she was trapped.
The prison to which she was returning now.
Because she could do nothing else.
As she turned the door handle as quietly as she could she could feel her phone vibrating yet again in her evening bag. It summoned her back home to the prison in which she had to live.
The knife twisted again. It mocked the wonders of the night she had just spent in this man’s arms—how he had taken one look at her and with that single look she had known she would do what she had never done in all her life: give herself fully and rapturously to him without hesitation or doubt.
She had let him sweep her away from the party, their eyes only for each other, glorying in the sensual desire that had consumed her, that she had never known before in all her life. More—oh, surely more than only physical passion!
Another twist of the knife stabbed yet more achingly. There had been a connection between them as tangible as their bodies entwining in blazing passion in the night—something that had drawn them to each other. An ease in conversation, a natural communication that had brought smiling laughter bubbling up in her, a warmth and closeness that had been more than the physical union of their bodies...
The final twist of the knife almost made her cry out with the pain of it as she silently eased the bedroom door open, unable to tear her eyes from the man she would never see again.
Could never see again.
And now the anguish flooded through her veins, drowning her. She could never do what they had so ecstatically talked of in the long, long reaches of the night.
‘Come with me!’ he had said, his eyes alight. ‘This night is only the start of what we shall have together! Come with me to the Caribbean—a thousand islands to explore! We’ll see them all! And every single one will be for us! Come with me...’
She heard his voice, warm and vibrant, ringing in her head.
‘Come with me!’
Her hand flew to her mouth to stifle the sob that rose in her throat. Impossible! It was impossible for her to go with him.
Impossible to do anything but what she was doing now.
Leaving him.
The previous evening
LUKE XENAKIS GLANCED up at the Victorian warehouse, converted now into highly fashionable loft apartments in the old London Docklands. He’d come here from the City, straight from that final meeting with his broker—the one that had taken him over ten long, punishing years to achieve. And now, at last—Thee mou!—at last he had done what he had set out to do.
Emotion speared through him, hard and vicious. Finally he was exerting his death-grip on his enemy’s throat.
A life for a life.
His ancestors would have had no hesitation in making that bitter truth a literal one. Luke’s mouth twisted as he entered the building. But in these more civilised days there had to be other ways to exert savage justice upon those who so deserved it. And now—tonight—that justice was finally being served upon his enemy.
Within twenty-four hours the man would be destroyed.
Wiped out financially. Ruined.
The twist in his mouth turned to a smile. A savage smile.
He headed up the echoing iron staircase to the topmost loft apartment, from which he could already hear the thump of pounding music, driving all other thoughts out of his head.
It was just what he wanted now.
