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A new look flickered across her face. That look he understood. Those incendiary eyes were all flash and fire. He wanted to set her alight and watch her burn. But he wouldn’t. He wasn’t weak, like his father. Falling for lies about love. Letting a woman trap him into marriage. Love was for vulnerable fools. Not him. Having once been a weapon, he’d learned how to defend himself. And love was the deadliest weapon of them all.
Yet as he looked down at her, Thea’s glorious lips parted. Her pupils went dark and wide. So he dropped his head and brushed his lips across hers as a test. For effect. She gasped when he pulled away.
‘Elena is a pretty dark-haired, brown-eyed girl,’ he said, his lips burning where they’d touched hers. ‘But she could never pass as you. You’re a fool to imagine it.’
He released this new Thea. This aware Thea.
She raised shaking fingers to her lips. He took her free hand, dropped the rings back into it. She snatched her hand away and looked down at them, eyes still wide. Not so good at hiding now. Her mouth fell open, her skin paling to ivory.
He knew that look too. Horror.
His stomach clenched. He’d felt much the same when he’d realised he required a bride. A cruel trick of his father’s. Christo had sworn off marriage until Hector’s actions made it necessary. His father had procured secret loans from Thea’s. Failed to pay the crippling interest. Become indebted to a man who had demanded Christo’s marriage to his daughter to stop the impending foreclosure.
Christo didn’t want this debacle any more than Thea did. Still, no matter how distasteful the task, he’d do whatever was required to save Atlas Shipping. To secure his birthright, his inheritance and the company his father had nearly destroyed.
‘It would have worked,’ Thea whispered. ‘It would have.’
‘Perhaps if you’d married anyone else. Unfortunately, you married me.’
Thea’s hand clenched into a fist, tight around the rings. ‘And what’s so special about you?’
‘I understand people.’ He’d learned as a child. So he knew when to hide from his hostile mother. To avoid his mercurial father. For Christo, people were transparent as glass. ‘It’s why I’m unparalleled in business.’
‘I’d say you have an unparalleled ego.’
He stalked past Thea and opened the rear door of the room. The gritty smell of real life wafted in from the alley behind. He spoke to the man outside and ordered him in.
‘An ego’s only worth something if it’s backed by ability. Which I have. You see, Thea, your plan wouldn’t have worked.’ He stood back and let her take in the hulking security guard he’d posted outside. ‘There was no chance you’d escape. Every exit was being watched. Your transportation is now safely in my garage. You’d failed even before you’d begun. Accept it.’
He nodded to his man, who left the room. Thea watched him go, realisation spreading across her face.
‘I’m not a slave to be traded. I won’t stay with you. This marriage is a sham.’
In some ways, he agreed with her. Yet here he stood, with a gold wedding band prickling on his finger. Thea still held her rings. He needed her to put them on. If she did, he’d won—for tonight.
‘You’re asking me to return you to the tender care of your father?’ A man Christo suspected didn’t have a sentimental, loving bone in his body.
Thea grabbed the back of a spindly chair, clutching it till her fingers blanched. ‘I’m asking you to let me go.’
‘No.’
Christo had heard whispers about Tito Lambros. He was reported to be cruel and vindictive. The bitter burn of loathing coursed like poison through his veins. That his father’s negligence had allowed such a man to hold Christo’s future in his hands...
There was a great deal he needed to learn about Thea’s family—some of which he might be able to use. But that could wait. Now it was time to give her something to cling to. Hope.
‘You’ll come with me as my wife and we’ll discuss the situation in which we find ourselves. That’s my promise. But we’re leaving now.’
She looked down at her clothes and back at him. Her liquid amber eyes glowed in the soft lights. ‘I can’t go dressed like this!’
No more delays. She glanced at the door again. He didn’t want a scene. Her tantrums could occur at his home, where any witnesses would be paid to hold their silence.
‘You look perfect,’ he said, waving his hand in her direction. ‘It shows a flair for the dramatic—which you’ve proved to have in abundance tonight. Our exit will be unforgettable.’
She seemed to compose herself. Thrust her chin high, all glorious defiance. ‘But my hat... I told everyone about it. I can’t disappoint them.’
‘Life’s full of disappointments. Tell them it wouldn’t fit over your magnificent hair.’
Thea’s lips twitched in a barely suppressed sneer, her eyes narrow and glacial. The look she threw him would have slayed a mere mortal. Luckily for the most part he felt barely human.
