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The smooth purring of the lift only increased her tension, and when it stopped at the appropriate floor Jade almost turned tail and ran, feeling more frightened than she’d ever done before in her life.
You pathetic little coward, she told herself, before stepping forward and rapping loudly on the door.
The door was opened by the man who had been talking to Constantine downstairs. The man she had been sure had been with Constantine in the taverna, thought Jade as she stared into impassive brown eyes.
She forced herself to stay calm. ‘I’m Jade Meredith. I believe that Constantine is expecting me.’
A dark head made the faintest inclination, but he offered no introduction of his own. ‘Mr Sioulas is inside.’ He stepped aside to let Jade pass, and she got the strangest sensation of being summoned into the presence of some ancient potentate, an im- pression which was only partially dispelled by the sight of Constantine, his back to her, in the most rigid and forbidding of stances, an awesome stillness about him which completely unnerved her.
‘Hello, Constantine,’ she said, not surprised at the unusually high squeak in her voice.
He stayed unmoving. There was a rustle behind her, and the man who had shown her in rattled off what sounded like a question in Greek.
‘Ochi!’ Constantine’s negation was savagely controlled, and the other man withdrew from the suite, one last curious look at Jade as he did so.
There was silence for a moment. This is ridicu- lous, thought Jade. Is he going to pretend I’m not here?
But he turned around then, and Jade wished that he hadn’t, for it was as though the Constantine she had known had gone forever, and in his place was the face of a hard, cold and implacable stranger. She had seen a glimpse of it once, had suspected that it existed, that steely streak—but now she saw it revealed in all its true, formidable strength. And suddenly she knew that only a fool would have be- lieved Constantine to be the owner of a restaurant on a tiny Greek island. This man was no small-time achiever, she realised with a sudden and penetrat- ing flash of insight; here stood a ruthless tycoon.
‘Hello, Jade.’ But the greeting was denied any warmth by the cutting note of scorn which dis- torted it. ‘To which, I would imagine,’ he con- tinued implacably, ‘you reply, “Fancy meeting you here!’”
His mimicry, she thought bizarrely, was quite superb considering that it was not done in his native tongue. ‘Wh-what are you doing here?’ she blurted out, sounding nothing like a journalist and more like a schoolgirl confronting her head teacher with more than a little trepidation.
‘What do you think I’m doing here, Jade?’ he queried softly. ‘Perhaps doing a little trading in the yoghurt or honey which our restaurant produces?’
‘Dressed like that?’ she blurted out.
He gave a little laugh; Jade had never heard any- thing more chilling in her entire life. ‘Dressed like what, agape mou?’
But the term he had once used, she thought, with deep affection now sounded like nothing more then denigration when spoken in a tone which dripped scorn.
How dared he?
‘Dressed in clothes which would probably cost a restaurateur’s entire year’s wages!’ she returned. ’The man you allowed me to believe you were!’
He nodded. ‘You’re correct, you’re absolutely correct, Jade. But I think that your accusation is a little misplaced. I did wonder,’ he mused, almost as though she were not in the room with him, ‘why you agreed marriage to a poor Greek so promptly. Why such a woman would be so willing, so eager to marry such a man—a man so many light-years away from the sophisticates she doubtless deals with in England.’ He turned cold, black eyes on her. ’You are wasted in journalism, my dear—you should have turned your hand to acting. Such a fine performance! So convincing!’
It was like some awful dream. So much of what he said confused her, but one
thing stood out in her mind: that he had somehow discovered her true identity. In a minute, surely—she would wake up? ‘When did you find out that I was a journalist?’ she asked quietly, her long fingers pleating at her skirt. ‘Did you know on the island?’
He gave her a steady, stony stare. ‘On the island?’ His mouth twisted into a cruel parody of a smile. ’I think not. If I had known then…’ He gave a deliberate pause while his gaze flicked to her breasts, and, hatefully, humiliatingly, she felt them prickle with anticipation; his cold smile indicated that her reaction had not gone unnoticed. ‘Then I should not have played the gentleman quite so assidiously.’
The implication was as clear as crystal. ‘Then— when?’
He was shrugging out of the linen jacket now, throwing it negligently across the butter-coloured sofa. He walked across to the bar and poured himself a large shot of brandy. He didn’t even offer her any, and Jade was suddenly more affronted by this simple lack of courtesy than by any of his earlier insulting remarks; because on Piros he had shown her more courtesy than she had ever re- ceived before.
‘I’d like a drink, please.’ Never in her life had she needed one more.
‘Then get it yourself,’ he ground out, in a voice of granite.
He watched while she walked over to the cabinet and picked up the heavy decanter with a hand which trembled uncontrollably, and she heard him make a muttered curse in Greek before taking the bottle from her and sloshing some brandy into a second glass.
‘Here.’ He pushed the glass into her hand, but even that brief contact of skin on skin was electri- fying. Jade felt his touch like a whisper of fire to which her body screamed its instant response as if it were bone-dry timber, and she looked up to see his eyes darken, before an expression of disgust marred the autocratic features, and he stepped away from her, swallowing the rest of his brandy in an abrupt gesture of dismissal which spoke volumes.
He walked away from her and began talking softly. ‘Let me see, where were we?’
Jade swallowed some of her brandy and the burning liquid to her stomach seemed to revive her. He will not intimidate me, she vowed, wondering why she chose to stay, to lay herself open to the inevitable hurt which would follow, rather than walk right out of that door. But she had to know. ‘You were about to tell me when you found out that I was a journalist,’ she said, amazed her voice should now sound so steady.
