his ability to contain what was inside him.
‘You shouldn’t be here. I don’t want you here. This is all your fault.’
‘What is all my fault?’ Stefan tried to ignore the scent of her hair and the feel of her body against his. The hot sun beat down on them but everything else was dark. The rocks, the buildings, the mood …
‘He saw the photographs. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? He was waiting here when I arrived, so if you’ve come here to do more damage you’re wasting your time because there is nothing more you can do than hasn’t already been done.’
He didn’t correct her assumption that he was somehow behind the photographs. Time enough for that later. His priority was to get her away from here.
Ignoring her attempts to free herself, he examined her head. A blue bruise darkened the skin around her eye. Looking at it made him feel sick. ‘He did that?’
‘I fell. I was clumsy.’
She mumbled the words and Stefan bit back his instinctive response to that lie.
‘We’re leaving, Selene. I’m taking you away from here.’
There was a brief silence and then she started to laugh. ‘I came to you for help and doing that made things a thousand times worse. I thought you were a hero—’ Her voice broke on the word. ‘And just when I find out how far from a hero you really are you turn up here to make things worse. I won’t be part of your stupid business rivalry.’
She was so innocent, he thought. Like a child, with a talk of heroes.
She’d stood in front of him in her business suit, spouting numbers and pretending to know what she was talking about, and he hadn’t looked deeper. He’d ignored all the instincts that had told him something wasn’t quite right. Because he preferred all his interactions to be superficial, he hadn’t probed. Like everyone, he hadn’t questioned the happy-family image. Even he, who should have known better, had believed it.
‘I never claimed to be a hero but I’m going to get you away from here. I promise you that.’
‘Forget it, Stefan. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few days it’s that the only person I can rely on is myself.’
Before Stefan could respond someone came striding out of the villa and down the path towards them. He recognised the bulky figure of her father.
Stavros Antaxos. Rich, reclusive and rotten. His features were set in a scowl that made closer to bulldog than man and his body groaned from an excess of good food and a shortage of physical exertion.
Stefan topped him by a foot but the other man didn’t appear to notice him. His attention was fixed on his daughter.
‘You’re hurt, Selene—you shouldn’t have run. You know how clumsy you are.’ His concerned tone caught Stefan off-balance and he realised in those few seconds why no one had questioned the happy-family image so carefully created by this man. He was a master.
His expression was warm and caring as he stepped closer and it was only because Stefan was still holding her that Stefan felt her flinch.
Acting instinctively, he stepped in front of her, shielding her with the muscular power of his body while inside him the anger snapped at its leash. ‘Kalimera.’ His voice was silky-smooth and deadly and the older man stopped and looked at him, apparently seeing him for the first time.
His expression altered. Something flickered in those eyes. Something deeply unpleasant. ‘Ziakas!’ The other man’s face grew ugly. ‘You dare show up on my island after what you’ve done? You made a whore of my daughter. And you did it publicly to humiliate me. You took her innocence.’
Emotion almost blinding him, Stefan was about to answer that accusation with a few of his own when Selene pushed in front of him.
‘He didn’t take my innocence. You did that a long time ago when you became everything no father should ever be.’
Shock crossed her father’s face. ‘If I’ve been strict it’s because I was trying to protect you from unscrupulous men who would use you to get to me.’ His eyes bored into Stefan but Selene shook her head.
‘No. You wanted to control me, not protect me. I know what you are, even if no one else will believe it. I won’t do it any more. I won’t pretend to be this perfect family. It’s over.’
Stavros’s expression changed slightly. ‘You’re very emotional, and I’m not surprised. You must be feeling very hurt. Used.’
Stefan saw the confusion on Selene’s face and presumably so did her father because he carried on. ‘I don’t know what this man said to you, but I’m sure it has confused you. He used you to get at me so don’t make the mistake of thinking that he cares for you.’
‘I know that.’ Selene lifted her chin. ‘And I used him to get away from you, so that probably makes us equally manipulative. It was my choice to have sex with him.’
Her father moved quickly for a man carrying such excess bulk but Stefan was faster, blocking the blow and delivering two of his own, one low and one straight to the jaw that gave a satisfying crack and sent the other man sprawling on the path.
The Antaxos security team moved forward but Stefan turned his head and sent them a single fulminating glance because now he had evidence of why she’d been so desperate to leave home.
‘You really want to defend a man who hits women? Is that in your job description?’ When they hesitated, he transferred his gaze to the man now crumpled at his feet.
The man who was responsible for so much pain.
His knuckles throbbed. ‘Get up.’ Stefan barely recognised his own voice. It was thickened with anger and rage and suddenly he knew he wasn’t safe around this man. ‘This is what you do to women, isn’t it? You live in this place so they can’t escape and then you treat them like this. And they don’t all get away, do they?’
‘Stefan—’
Selene’s voice penetrated that mist of fury but he ignored her, all his attention focused on her father.
‘I’m taking her away from you. You’ve lost her. And I’ll be contacting lawyers and the police. The real police, by the way—not the ones you’ve bribed.’
He watched with a complete lack of sympathy as the tycoon dragged his overweight frame upright, staggering slightly as he stood. Without the support of his security team he appeared to shrink in size.
Stefan turned briefly to Selene. ‘Go. Get in my boat. Takis will help you.’
He knew that, wounded and publicly humiliated, Stavros Antaxos was perhaps even more dangerous now than he’d been a few moments ago but to Stefan’s surprise instead of denouncing his intention to take his daughter the man appeared to crumple, the fight draining from him.
‘If she wants to go she can go, of course. I just want the best for her like any father would. But if she goes then she must live with the consequences.’
Stefan frowned. ‘The only consequences will
