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Her fingers clenched tight again. He knew what she was doing now. Castigated himself for not realising before.
He took her hands in his. Stroked his thumbs over the blanched knuckles, absorbing the tremble running through her. She relaxed a fraction. He opened her fingers. Her nails had scored red crescents into her palms. He circled his thumbs over the livid marks, trying to smooth them away.
‘You hurt yourself...’
Her eyes flicked to him. They were red-rimmed, her face flushed.
‘This, the candles, the tattoos...’
He continued soothing her palms. Her hands burning hot under his thumbs.
‘Not the tattoos. They’re a reminder.’
‘Of things you should never have experienced. If I’d known—’
‘You wouldn’t have done anything differently.’
Sunlight flooded in through the window behind her. It was such a glorious blue-sky day outside, and yet she spoke truths that broke a storm inside him.
Her accusation was right. He would have done anything to save Atlas Shipping. The knowledge sat heavy on his chest, making it tight and hard to breathe.
He couldn’t change the past, but he could help with the present. ‘Tell me about Alexis.’
The tremble in her body intensified, as if she was barely holding herself together. He steadied her hands between his.
‘He’s my half-brother,’ she whispered, as if she were disclosing some terrible secret.
‘And your father didn’t know about him?’
Thea lifted her head, looked at him straight on. She chewed on her bottom lip, which quivered under her teeth.
‘My parents were promised to each other from birth—an arrangement to merge two families’ wealth. But my mother fell in love with someone else. At seventeen, she had Alexis. He was taken away. Adopted. My father still married her. He was only interested in the money he’d gain from it.’
Thea seemed so tired and worn down, with no fight left in her. As if it was an effort for her not to curl into herself and disappear.
‘How did Alexis become your bodyguard?’ asked Christo.
‘My mother spent half her life trying to find him. When she did, she told him he had a little sister. He said he’d find a way to look after me.’
She stopped. Took a shuddering breath. Christo squeezed her hands in reassurance.
‘He worked in security. A position became vacant in my father’s home. He applied. When he finally told me who he was it was like life began again.’
Thea sat up, pulling her hands from his. She wrapped her open shirt around her, hugging herself.
‘The theft...it’s a lie. When I agreed to marry you, I negotiated some money. Fifty thousand euros. Alexis was supposed to leave the country. Start again. But I couldn’t save him.’
She dropped her head, toying with her engagement ring—another symbol of her failed efforts to protect her brother.
Christo’s heart ached for her. She blamed herself, and yet Thea’s only failure was in trusting that her father and Demetri would keep their side of the bargain.
‘Do you know where he is?’
She shook her head. ‘Sergei’s been looki
ng.’
He understood the blackmail now. The last resort for a desperate woman.
