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ELENA CONSTANTIS WAS speaking Greek, clearly intent on cutting out Ann and Tina. Ann was glad of it. Glad that she could focus her whole attention on Tina, discussing her forthcoming wedding, and give none at all—not the slightest iota—to the man to whom Elena Constantis was devoting her attention at the dinner table.
She was welcome to him.
Every woman on God’s earth was welcome to him.
Emotions still roiled within her like bilge water—dark and angry. She had got through the remainder of the day somehow, but she wasn’t even sure how. She’d had to stay in her room until she could finally face going back downstairs, face washed, breathing controlled. But it had still been hard. Hard to behave normally, and harder still now, in Nikos’s loathsome presence at dinner.
Abruptly, Elena switched back to English—and to Ann.
‘Will you be looking after darling little Ari as his new nanny?’ she enquired in saccharine tones.
‘I am his aunt, but I’m only visiting, Kyria Constantis,’ replied Ann. ‘I have no qualifications to be a professional nanny.’
The Greek woman’s eyes hardened a moment. ‘Yes, even on a salary as generous as working for a family such as the Theakises would bring you, it would be difficult to afford designer clothes,’ she purred. Her heavily mascaraed eyes flicked over Ann’s dress, then became tinged with satisfaction. ‘I do love your outfit—I had one very similar when that particular collection came out. When was it now? Oh, five years ago, I believe. It has scarcely dated at all!’
‘Yes,’ responded Ann, not rising to the pinprick. ‘Some fashions last longer than others.’
Longer than those who bought them—
The unbidden thought rose in her mind, making her throat tighten suddenly and her vision blur. Emotionally raw as she was, despite her outward display of calm, as she blinked to clear her eyes she diverted her thoughts from their painful subject and became aware of Nikos Theakis’ dark gaze resting on her. Or rather on her dress. He was staring at it critically.
Ann’s mouth thinned. Oh, yes, go on, do, she thought viciously. Cost it down to the last penny—something to condemn me for! Why should she care what he thought of her?
I won’t let myself be hurt by what he did today! I won’t! I knew all along that he despised me for taking his money, and I knew it was just sex that he wanted me for! Just sex—a passing appetite. He helped himself, and didn’t have to think twice about it, because he thought he only had to toss me a diamond necklace and I’d roll over for him! Because that’s the sort of woman he thinks I am.
So how can a man like that hurt me?
A silent shudder went through her. Thank God she had the strength to know she must not have anything more to do with Nikos Theakis! Had had that strength even when he was sitting on her very bed, reaching for her, and her whole body was suddenly aflame. Because if she hadn’t, if she had allowed Nikos to sweep away her frail, pathetic defences against him, as he had done on the beach she would never have known just how low he thought her.
But now she did. Bald, brutal knowledge. And she had to cling on to it with all her might. Like clutching a scorpion to her breast.
Somehow she got through the rest of the meal. But that night, as she lay in her bed in the beautiful guest bedroom, despite all the luxury of the Theakis villa around her she felt very alone.
Nikos would not be alone, she knew, with a tearing feeling inside her that she knew she must not, must not feel. No, tonight he would have Elena to keep him company! It would be Elena who would know the sensual bliss of his touch, the lush pleasure of his kisses, his caressing. Her body which would catch fire, burn in the flames he would arouse—her throat that would cry out at the moment of consummation, of ecstasy.
The pang came again, like a stiletto blade sliding between her ribs, seeking the quick of her flesh. Restlessly she turned over, pulling the bed coverings around her, wanting only the oblivion of sleep.
When it came, it brought no peace. Only the torment of dreams—dreams she would have given a diamond necklace not to have! And it brought too—dimly, like an excess thudding of her heart—a sound penetrating her unconsciousness that she did not quite believe: the thudding of helicopter rotors.
But in the morning she discovered that the Theakis helicopter had indeed been busy. Not only had it ferried Elena Constantis back to Maxos just after midnight, but it had also just departed again, this time taking Nikos with it.
‘He must spend some time in the office, he tells me,’ said Mrs Theakis to Ann over breakfast. ‘He will be back for Tina’s wedding, of course. Now, my dear,’ she went on, ‘how are you feeling this morning?’
She gave her customary serene smile, but even as Ann managed to murmur politely that she felt better, thank you, simultaneously trying not to show the relief on her face at hearing that Nikos had left Sospiris, she was sure she saw an assessing flicker in her hostess’s expression. Then it was gone.
For the next few days Ann devoted herself entirely to Ari, glad to do so. But if during the day she told herself—over and over again—how glad she was too for the respite from Nikos’s presence, at night her unconscious mind was a traitor to her, giving back in dreams what was a treacherous torment, a coruscating humiliation to rememb
er. The sensual bliss she had felt in his arms. She awoke restless, aching, yet knowing she must not, must not feel that way…
And not just her unconscious mind was traitor to her. For when, the day before Tina’s family were due to arrive for the forthcoming wedding, Ann came down to dinner, she discovered Nikos had returned to Sospiris.
She was taken by surprise—she had thought she had another twenty-four hours to steel herself. But she had no time at all—none. And that—surely only that?—must be why she felt her heart crunch in her chest. Just shock and being unprepared. That was all. Not because her eyes went to him immediately and her stomach hollowed, as she took in his tall, commanding figure, sheathed in that hand-made business suit of his, with a dark silk tie echoing the raven satin of his hair, the planed face, the sculpted mouth, the hooded long-lashed eyes that flicked devastatingly to her.
She felt them scorch her, as if a laser had gone through her, and in them was something that made her breath catch.
No! Her own weakness appalled her. God, she’d had days to collect herself, compose herself.
Cure herself.
