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Nothing more at all.
Until that fatal evening. That fatal moment.
When she realised that she was facing a danger she had never, ever dreamt she would have to face.
It came right at the end of a large, gruelling dinner party. It had not been an easy evening—such evenings never were—but she had done her best, wearing a carefully selected designer gown and appropriate jewellery, her hair styled, her face perfect, every inch the immaculate hostess, smiling and conversing and being very grateful that the expert Theakis staff kept everything running like clockwork. It had gone on and on, and her face muscles were aching as much as her feet in their elegant narrow shoes. But finally it was over, and the last of the guests took their leave. She stood at the foot of the stairs that swept grandly to the upper floors as Theo, in a dinner jacket that sat superbly across his broad shoulders, turned from saying good night to the very last guest.
As he turned, his eyes rested on her for just a moment. And in that single moment she realised, with seismic shock, that she had been totally, completely wrong about him.
She could still feel the echo of that shock wave. Felt it resonate now, as she sat in the padded leather seat, gazing blindly out of the aeroplane window, heading back to Athens.
From that moment on, as that seismic shock had jarred through her, her marriage had changed for ever.
At first she had not believed it. She had assumed that in that moment when his eyes had rested on her with that expression in them she had been mistaken. She must have been mistaken. There was no other explanation. It had been late, she’d been tired, she had drunk wine—and so had he. That expression in them, therefore, had been nothing to do with her. Had been a recollection—or an anticipation. But not of her. Never of her. How could it have been?
Their marriage was a sham, a façade, a hollow charade. They had entered into it for no other purpose than to be exactly that. And until that moment he had treated her with complete and studied indifference. So how, how could that look possibly have been directed at her…?
But it had been—
And it had been unmistakable. Completely and absolutely unmistakable. A look as old as time. As clear as day.
Directly unambiguously, transparently—devastatingly—right at her.
A single look. Nothing more.
Nothing less.
And by it she had known, with a churning in her stomach, with a weakening of her limbs, a debilitating flush of betraying blood in her veins, that her fake, sham charade of a marriage had become something completely, absolutely different.
It had become a hunt.
She closed her eyes in worn, mental exhaustion, drawn back down into that inescapable past.
A hunt. That was what Theo Theakis had conducted. From that moment on, from that one single glance that had stripped away from her all the puerile illusions she’d had, she had become a hunted creature. Prey to a skilled, ruthless and unrelenting predator. A predator who had made her his target and kept her ruthlessly, remorselessly, in his sights.
His campaign had been so skilful. Slow, assiduous, bringing to bear all the expertise he had so abundantly at his disposal, honed to perfection on so many, many women. And she had been the focus of it.
As the days, weeks had followed, and Theo had slowly moved in for the kill, she’d realised that there was only one place that he was guiding her to, only one destination he had in mind for her—his bed.
CHAPTER SIX
LIKE a recording set to endless replay, Vicky again felt the hollowing of her insides that she had experienced when it had finally dawned on her just what Theo had in mind for her. And just as she had that time, she felt the same reaction—absolute blind panic.
Followed by absolute blind fury.
What the hell did he think he was doing?
That was what had screamed through her mind then. It still did now. But now, dear God, now she knew what she had not known then. That Theo Theakis was a man who would balk at nothing—nothing at all—to get what he wanted.
She felt her palms grow cold. God, she knew that all right! Her presence here, now, was terrifying, outrageous testament proof of that!
She heard his cold, chilling words echo in her mind.
‘I want to finish what I
started…’
She opened her eyes, staring ahead of her, blind and unseeing. In her ears Bach’s convoluted intricate harmonies wove a universe of order and serenity. It mocked the raw, ragged torment in her mind.
