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With shaking hands, Nikos scanned the article below.
Caught frolicking in a London beer garden yesterday evening, newlywed Kate Nikoladis, recently married to wealthy Greek businessman Nikos Nikoladis, seemed to be enjoying some downtime with an unknown admirer.
Heiress to the Kandy Kate confectionery business, Kate may be the nation’s sweetheart in the US, but will this lead to a sticky situation with her heart-throb husband?
‘Hi.’
He heard Kate approaching behind him.
‘Not late, am I?’
Nikos turned slowly, not trusting himself to speak for a second as rage coursed through him, hot and fierce.
‘What...’ finally finding a modicum of control, he held up the open newspaper, shaking it in front of her ‘...is the meaning of this?’
Kate took the paper from him, her face draining of colour as she quickly scanned the article.
‘Oh, hell.’ She dropped it onto the table.
‘Well?’ Nikos’s voice shook with anger.
‘Look, there was a bit of an incident in the beer garden after you left last night.’
‘Go on.’
‘This guy came on to Sofia...’
‘He did what?’ The heat of his rage intensified.
‘I intervened, and we got into a bit of a scrap, and—’
‘A scrap? Is that what you call this?’ Nikos gestured furiously to the photograph.
‘It was something and nothing, Nikos. I dealt with it.’
‘And this is your way of dealing with it is, is it? Throwing yourself on top of a total stranger and showing yourself up in front of everyone? In front of Sofia?’
Stunned into silence, Kate could only stare at Nikos, her heart thumping harder with every passing second. Okay, she’d messed up, but Nikos was overreacting. She had expected him to be annoyed—angry, even—but not to turn it into a personal attack. Everything they had shared in the last few days together—the pleasure, the intimacy, the sense of really getting to know one another—had instantly vanished, obliterated by the cold rage in Nikos’s eyes.
But then, standing there, unable to move, Kate felt her initial surprise harden into something colder, like a fist closing round her heart. It was Nikos’s use of the phrase ‘showing yourself up’—a phrase she had heard all too often in her childhood and her teens, thrown at her by her mother whenever Kate had a smudge on her nose or a hole in her tights or wasn’t looking one hundred percent picture-perfect.
And Nikos was just the same, wasn’t he? Just as bad. Despite what Kate wanted to believe—what her poor battered heart so wanted to be true—Nikos was using her in the same way as her mother had used her. Like a commodity, a possession, to be paraded around when necessary, to look pretty, smile nicely, and keep her mouth shut. And when she made a mistake his default position was to punish her. Just like her mother.
Nikos had been controlling her from the very start of this ill-fated arrangement. Even during the meetings he had set up for Kandy Kate he had been the one doing the talking, the negotiating—as if Kate was little more than a cardboard cut-out. And she had let him. Because Nikos was a super-successful businessman and she couldn’t even keep her family business afloat. Because Nikos was a hugely powerful, charismatic character.
No doubt he had been controlling her in Venice, and then in Barcelona too, when he had taken her to his bed. And Kate had fallen willingly into his arms, thrown herself headlong into his dark trap of seduction. Blinded by the power and passion of their lovemaking, Kate had allowed herself to imagine it as so much more, entertaining ridiculous fantasies of rekindling their relationship for real. Falling in love all over again. Now she saw that for Nikos it had just been sex.
Firming her quivering lip, Kate pushed back her shoulders, refusing to show her hurt. Her eyes strayed to the wretched photograph, taunting her. She had to admit she could see how it might be construed. The man’s legs were splayed, and Kate had somehow managed to fall in between them, her dress riding up to her thighs. But she hadn’t done anything wrong—that was the point.
‘For your information, I did not throw myself on top of that man.’ She firmed her lips. ‘I was pushing him away from me and we tripped and fell. That’s all.’
