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‘The paparazzi are increasing by the second. My security won’t be able to hold them back for much longer. And I really need to talk to you. Please,’ he tagged on in a ragged voice.
The mouth she’d opened to blast him with clamped shut again. Glancing closer at him, she noticed the shadows in his eyes and the pinched skin bracketing his lips. Against her better judgement, her heart lurched but she still pulled away until her back was braced against the door. He saw her retreat and his lips firmed.
‘You have two minutes, then I’m getting out of this car.’
Before she’d finished speaking, the car was rolling forward. Half a minute later, they were in a school yard three streets away parked in front of a familiar aircraft.
‘You landed your helicopter on a school compound in the middle of London?’ she asked as he helped her out of the car.
‘Technically, this isn’t the middle of London, and the school is shut for the holidays. I’ll pay whatever fine is levied and, if I have to go jail, well, it’ll be worth it.’
‘What will be worth it?’
He didn’t respond, only held the door to the chopper open. With the paparazzi within sniffing distance, it would be only a matter of time before they pounced again.
She got in. Sakis followed her. When he reached over to help her buckle her seatbelt, she shook her head. Having him this close was already shredding her insides. His touch would completely annihilate her.
The journey to Pantelides Towers was conducted in silence. So was the journey in the lift that took them to his penthouse.
‘What am I doing here, Sakis?’
He closed his eyes for a second and Brianna remembered how he’d said the sound of his name on her lips made him feel. But that had all been an illusion. Because his unforgiving heart had cast her away from him with the precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel.
‘Where were you going when you left her your apartment?’
‘None of your damned business. You can’t push me around any more, Sakis. My life is my own—but go ahead, do your worst. I’ll fight whatever charges you bring against me. If I lose, so be it. But from here on in, I control my destiny.’
She ground to a halt, her breath rushing in and out. Sakis glanced from her face to the phone he’d taken from his pocket.
Belatedly, she realised it was her phone. ‘What are you still doing with that? I thought you were going to turn it over to the authorities.’ Her voice trembled but she raised her chin and glared at him.
‘Not after I saw what was on it.’
‘What...what did you see?’
He walked slowly towards her, contrition and desperation in his eyes as he held the screen in front of her face.
‘I saw this.’ The shaken reverence in his voice sent an electrified current through her. Almost fearing to, she glanced down.
You can go rot in hell, Greg. You once tricked me into taking the fall for something you did. And now you want me to betray the man I love? No chance.
She looked up from the screen, her heart hammering against her ribs. ‘So what? You shouldn’t believe everything you read. For all you know, I could’ve sent that text just to throw you off the scent.’
He glanced down at the screen again and stared at the words as if imprinting them on his brain for all time. ‘Then why did you warn me about him?’
She shrugged.
‘Brianna, Greg confessed that he coerced you into signing the papers he used to divert funds into his offshore account.’
Shock ricocheted through her body. ‘He came clean? Why?’
‘He’s facing charges in three countries for bribing Lowell to crash the tanker. I told him I would delay the Greek charges if he gave me any useful information. He gave up the dates, figures and codes to his Cayman Islands accounts and confessed he tricked you into helping him siphon off the money.’
The handbag she clutched slipped from her fingers. ‘So...you believe me?’
Pain washed over his face. ‘Wasting time feeling sorry for myself gave Landers time to spill your real identity to the tabloids. But I shouldn’t have doubted you in the first place.’
‘I don’t really care that everyone knows who I was. And, given the overwhelming evidence, you would’ve been a saint not to doubt me.’
