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.
The start of his new life…
Talia paused in the entrance lobby to the loft apartment, hesitant suddenly. Should she really dive into the party inside? Then she rallied her nerve.
I need this.
Tonight, at least, for the space of a few hours she would lose herself. Forget the pressures of her life—pressures that were increasing all the time, it seemed.
She sighed inwardly. She knew why. Her poor mother’s nerves were more jagged than ever, and her father’s perpetually short temper was even shorter these last few months. Why, Talia had no idea, and she didn’t want to know. She spent all her energy trying to soothe her nervy mother and placate her tyrannical father so he would not turn on her mother.
It was wearying and stressful, but she had no option, she thought bitterly as she paused on the threshold of the party. No option but to go along with what her father wanted of her or it would be her mother who would pay the price of his vicious ill humour and displeasure.
So I have to go on being Natasha Grantham, ornamental daughter of the wildly successful property magnate Gerald Grantham, of Grantham Land. I have to be part of the image he puts out, along with his elegant, fashionable wife, his huge riverside mansion in the Thames Valley and this even more huge villa in Marbella. And the luxury apartments all over the world, the fleet of exorbitantly lavish cars, the yacht and the private jet. All of this so that others can envy his success and wealth and achievement.
It was all her father cared about—his success and his image. Certainly not about his wife and daughter.
The pitiful thing, Talia thought bleakly, was that whereas she was painfully aware of that bleak truth, her mother persisted in believing the fiction that he was devoted to them. She made endless excuses for him—the pressure of work, the demands of his business, he was doing it all for them. But Talia knew that her father was devoted only to one person and one cause: himself.
She and her mother were merely possessions—props to make him look good. Her mother, Maxine, was expected to be a glittering society hostess, and she was to be the decorative dutiful daughter, working for him as his interior designer, overseeing the refurbishment of his property purchases as he directed, and available on demand for the endless social functions he required her to attend. In exchange she was allowed to live rent-free in one of his many London flats, with an allowance to cover her wardrobe expenses.
Talia’s
