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She surfaced from her dark cogitations to find one of the maids hovering.
‘Please come…’ said the girl in hesitant English.
Wondering why, but getting to her feet all the same, nodding to Tina and murmuring to Ari that she would be back soon, Ann followed the maid back indoors. Did Mrs Theakis want to see her? But the room she was shown into was not Sophia Theakis’ sitting room.
It was Nikos Theakis’s office. And seated at the desk, the flickering computer screen to his side, his planed face illuminated through the half-closed slats of the Venetian blinds at the window, was Nikos.
Too late she made the realisation as she stepped inside. The maid closed the door behind her. Too late she instantly turned to leave.
‘Don’t bolt, Ann. I have something to say to you. Sit down.’
The voice was clipped and impersonal.
She looked across at him. He was formally dressed in a business suit. She hadn’t seen him so formal since they had arrived. And she had forgotten just how formidable he could look—every inch the captain of industry, born to give orders and have them obeyed by a host of minions doing his bidding.
Well, she wasn’t one of them! Automatically she felt her hackles rise, and she stiffened.
‘There’s nothing I want to hear from you,’ she said tersely.
Something flickered in his darkly veiled eyes, and she felt a shimmer go through her.
He did not reply, instead sliding open a drawer in the desk and removing an object. It was long and slim. He placed it at the front of the desk, facing her.
‘This, Ann,’ he said, and his eyes did not change expression, ‘is yours.’
Warily, as if it might be a loaded gun, she reached for it. What was it? And why was Nikos telling her it was hers? She picked it up and realised that it was a case of some kind. It could be a case for spectacles, or a pen. But why should that make it hers?
She opened the case.
And stared disbelievingly.
A ribbon of white fire glittered in the dim light.
‘What is this?’ Ann heard her own voice speaking.
‘A diamond necklace. Whilst I appreciate you prefer to operate on a cash basis, that is not something I am prepared to do in these circumstances. But you are welcome to see the receipt for the necklace—to know how much I consider you are worth. You can be flattered, Ann—it’s a considerable amount.’
She dragged her eyes from the necklace, glittering against the dark velvet of the interior of the jewel case. She looked at him. There was a glitter in his eyes too, as if reflecting the diamonds he was offering her. She felt an emotion spear through her. She did not know its name—only that it was powerful. Very powerful.
‘You see…’ said Nikos, and he shifted very slightly in his seat, the hand that was resting on the polished mahogany surface of his desk flexing minutely. His eyes with that dark glitter were still resting on her. ‘I have decided to cut to the chase. As a businessman I apply the motivations that are sufficient for each transaction to succeed. Your motivation, Ann, is consistent—money. Money is what drives your actions—whether it is giving up your sister’s child, or giving up your invaluable time to come to Sospiris. And therefore I apply it now to this transaction—albeit in a form that is, let us say, an alternative to cash. So—’ he took a sharp intake of breath ‘—now that we have successfully concluded this transaction, you must excuse me. I am leaving for Athens shortly. But I will be back later tonight. Wear the necklace when I come to you, Ann.’ He paused, and the dark glitter intensified. ‘Just the necklace.’
She went on standing there, immobile, incapable of moving, incapable of anything except feeling the emotion spearing through her. Then, from somewhere, she found her voice.
‘You think a diamond necklace will get you into my bed?’
She said it flatly, getting the words out past the emotion that was seizing on them even as she spoke them.
‘Why not? Your track record shows you are very amenable to such an approach to life.’ There was a twist to his mouth as he answered her, his voice terse.
It made the emotion spear deeper into her. Her eyes went to the necklace again—the necklace Nikos was offering her in exchange for sex. Emotion bit again—a different one. One that seemed to touch the very quick of her. But she must not allow that emotion—only the other one, which was as sharp as the point of a spear.
Her eyes pulled away, back to the man sitting in his handmade suit at his antique desk, rich and powerful and arrogant. The man who had kissed her deeply, caressed the intimacies of her body, who had melded his body with hers, who had transported her to an ecstasy she had never known existed.
Who was offering her a diamond necklace for sex…
Carefully, very carefully, she snapped shut the lid of the box and placed it back in front of him.
‘I am not,’ she said, ‘a whore.’
