A stunningly beautiful female. A woman to catch the breath of any man.
But then she always had been that. But not like this. Not with sleek, pale, perfect hair—styled immaculately, drawn off her face into a sculpted chignon at the nape of her neck—her make-up so subtle that it was as if she were wearing none, the shimmer of pearls at her earlobes, her couture dress the colour of champagne in tailored silk, high-cut, long-sleeved.
Almost, he laughed. Harsh, unhumorous. To see her like this—chic, elegant, soignée … A thousand miles from the way she had once looked. Five long years from that. Five long years in which to create the transformation his outward eye now saw. The illusion.
More than an illusion. A lie.
His shadow fell across her. She turned her head. And in the one microsecond that it took he saw the shock—far more than shock!—detonate in her eyes. Then it was gone. Almost he admired her. Admired her for slamming down the visor over her face, the blankness—the flawless, perfect lack of any sign whatsoever of recognition, of acknowledgement of his identity.
But admiration was not what he felt for her. What he felt for her was—
Something different. Something quite, quite different. Something that had been buried deep for five long years. Crushed like rocks under lava that had once burnt blisteringly hot and which had cooled to impenetrable basalt.
Until this moment. Out of nowhere.
His hand slid inside the silk-lined inner breast pocket of his jacket, withdrawing a card. He flicked it down on to the table in front of her.
‘Call me,’ he said. His voice was expressionless. His face expressionless.
Then he turned and walked away.
As he did, he reached for his mobile phone, pressing a single number. Instantly it was answered.
‘The blonde. I want a full dossier on her when I get back to my suite tonight.’ He paused minutely. ‘And her swain.’
Then he slid the phone away and rejoined his table. His face was still expressionless.
‘My apologies,’ he said smoothly to his host. ‘You were saying …?’
‘Thea? What on earth?’ Giles’s upper-class accents sounded bemused.
She lifted her eyes from the card. For a moment something seemed to move in her face.
‘Angelos Petrakos.’ She heard Giles read out the name on the card. It came from a long, long way away. Down an endless corridor of purgatory.
Angelos Petrakos. The name speared through her mind. Five years. Five years—
She could feel shock still detonating through her. Invisible, but explosive. A destructive force she could barely endure. But endure it she must—must. It was essential. Yet she felt as if a Shockwave was slamming through her, convulsing her, and all she could do was hang on—hang on with her fingernails—as its force sought to overwhelm her.
In the wake of the Shockwave came another devastating force—panic. A scorching, searing heat, screaming up in her chest, suffocating her. With an effort she could scarcely bear, she crushed down the shock, the panic. Regained control. Frail—paper-thin. But there all the same, holding everything down, pinning everything down.
I can do this!
The words, gritted out into the seething maelstrom in her head, were called up from the depths. Familiar words—words that had once been a litany. A litany that had somehow, somehow, got her through. Got her through to where she was now. In control. Safe.
She forced herself to blink, to focus on Giles’s face. The face of the man who represented to her everything that she had ever craved, ever hungered for. And he was still there—still sitting opposite her. Still safe for her.
Everything’s all right—it’s still all right …
Urgently, she crushed down the panic in her throat.
Giles had turned his head to look at the tall figure striding across the restaurant. ‘Not the type to bother with good manners,’ he said, disapproval open in his voice.
Thea felt a bubble of hysteria bead dangerously in her throat, seeking to break through her rigid, desperate self-control.
Good manners? Good manners from Angelos Petrakos? A man whose last words to me five long bitter years ago had been to call me a—
He mind slammed shut. No! Don’t think. Don’t remember—not for a single moment!
Giles was talking again. She forced herself to listen, to keep crushed down the storming emotions ravaging inside her with sick, sick terror. To deny, utterly, what had just happened. That Angelos Petrakos—the man who had destroyed her—had just surfaced out of nowhere, nowhere, like a dark, malignant demon …
Panic clawed again in her, its talons like slashing razors.
‘Perhaps he wants to engage you,’ Giles said, looking back across at her. ‘Seems an odd way to go about it, though. Extremely uncivil. Anyway …’ his voice changed, sounding awkward, self-conscious suddenly ‘… no need for you to accept any more bookings—well, that is if you—Well, if you—’
He cleared his throat.
‘The thing is, Thea,’ he resumed, ‘what I was going to say before that chap interrupted was—well, would you consider—?’
He broke off again. Inside Thea the claws stopped abruptly. A stillness had formed. She couldn’t move. Nor breathe.
For a moment Giles just looked at her—helpless, inarticulate. Then, with a lift of his chin, and in a voice that was suddenly not hesitant or inarticulate, but quiet and simple, he said, ‘Would you, my dear Thea, consider doing me the very great honour of marrying me?’
She shut her eyes. Felt behind the lids tears stinging.
And everything that was storming in her brain—the shock, the panic, the terrified clinging of her fingernails to stop herself plunging down, down, down into the engulfing depths that she could feel trying to overwhelm her—suddenly, quite suddenly, ceased.
She opened her eyes. Gratitude streamed through her. Profound and seismic relief.
‘Of course I will, Giles,’ she answered, her voice soft and choked, the tears shimmering in her eyes like diamonds. Relief flooded through her. A relief so profound it felt like an ocean tide.
She was safe. Safe. For the first time in her life. And nothing, no one, could touch her now.
As the terror and panic drained out of her in the sweet, blessed relief of Giles’s proposal, she almost twisted her head to spear her defiance across the room—to slay the one man in the world she had cause to loathe with all her being. But she wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that he even registered in her consciousness. Whatever malign quirk of fate had brought him here tonight, it had allowed him to witness—even if he had no idea it was happening!—a moment of supreme achievement
