Читать книгу Chosen by the Greek Tycoon: The Antonakos Marriage / At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding / The Greek's Bridal Purchase - Кэтти Уильямс, Kate Walker, Cathy Williams - Страница 12

IF LOOKS could kill then she would have died a thousand times over tonight, Skye thought miserably as she tried once more to make a pretence of eating the meal that had been put in front of her. The cold blaze of fury in the black eyes of the man sitting opposite felt as if it had the power to shrivel her into nothing where she sat, reducing her to just a small bundle of ashes on her chair.

She wished that the earth would just open and swallow her up, anything so that she didn’t have to be here. She would much rather have escaped to her room and stayed hidden there all night.

But there was no escape. Cyril Antonakos liked a formal dinner in the evenings and he expected his family and guests to dress up for it. So she had been forced to put on the elegant peacock-blue silk dress he had told her to wear, pin her hair up into an elegant roll at the back of her head and sit down at the big wooden table to endure the worst sort of torture by food.

She had no idea at all what she was supposed to be eating, only that it had as much taste and texture as stewed sawdust and that it was impossible to swallow anything because her throat seemed to have closed up completely.

And the all the time Theo Antonakos was watching her like a hawk eyeing its prey, watching, waiting, judging the best time to swoop down and pounce. And just like some tiny, shivering dormouse cowering on the ground and watching the shadow of the predator’s wings circling overhead, she had no doubt that when he did decide to act, then the attack would be swift, merciless—and totally lethal.

She was just surprised that he hadn’t denounced her to his father from the first moment he had realised who she was. She had fully expected the condemnation to come as soon as the introduction had been made and her heart had stopped beating, her breath catching in her throat as she’d waited for the words that would ruin her and her family and bring the whole delicate structure of Cyril’s unexpected offer to rescue them tumbling down around her.

But to her astonishment it hadn’t happened. Somehow Theo had controlled the burn of fury deep inside him, though, seeing the anger that had blazed in his eyes, Skye had recognised that it was there and only the most savage and ruthless control was what held it back, kept it from showing in his voice when he had replied to his father’s introduction.

‘Ms Marston and I had just made ourselves known to each other,’ he said smoothly. So smoothly that Skye actually blinked hard in shock at the skilful way he managed to fake an easy calm that he was clearly so very far from feeling. ‘You’re a lucky man, Father, to have such a beautiful fiancée.’

And then, when she was least expecting it, and when she certainly wasn’t at all emotionally prepared, he shocked her rigid by holding out his hand to her in a pretence of a formal greeting.

‘It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms Marston.’

That ‘pleasure’ was laced with a darkly sardonic intonation that turned it into a mockery of the true meaning of the word.

And it made Skye recall, so unwillingly, the way that earlier he had taunted her, ‘Do we shake hands formally and really do everything totally back to front?’

The memory almost made her snatch her hand away, jumping back from the burn of his skin against hers, the pressure of palm on palm. But to do that was to risk alerting his father to the fact that something was wrong. At the moment, Cyril Antonakos was beaming with proud satisfaction as he watched what he believed was the first meeting between his fiancée and the estranged son who had newly returned home. How quickly that smile would fade, his mood changing rapidly if he was even to suspect that they had met before—never mind realising in what circumstances that meeting had taken place.

Just thinking of it made Skye’s hand shudder still within Theo’s grasp, and feeling it he tightened his grip on her cruelly. Looking into the black depths of his eyes, she saw the danger that smouldered there, searing over her face in a look of pure contempt. It was as if he was sending her a wordless message through the merciless pressure on her fingers.

‘I can break you as quickly and easily as I can crush your hand,’ he seemed to be saying. ‘And I will—as and when I want to.’

She had been waiting for him to act ever since. All through the painfully awkward moments after Cyril’s arrival, and Theo’s realisation of just what her position in his family was. Then she had had to go to her room to shower and change, and get ready for the evening. She had had to leave father and son alone then, unable to find any excuse to stay with them, but she had rushed through her preparations, terrified by the thought that when she returned to the main living room Theo might have decided to tell his father the truth, and all hell would have broken loose.

She had nerved herself to see a dark scowl on the older man’s face. A smug, cruel satisfaction lighting his son’s black eyes. Struggling with the fear that gripped her at the thought that she might be told to pack her bags and go home—and that her father, her family, could rot in hell—she had found that her legs were trembling so hard they would barely support her as she’d made her way from her bedroom on the lower floor and into the airy white-painted living room.

But Theo had said nothing, it seemed. If he had then Cyril would not have come forward with a smile to give her his usual peck on the cheek, and offer her a drink.

‘We’re having champagne tonight, my dear,’ he said. ‘It is, after all, a time for celebration.’

‘The return of the prodigal son,’ Theo supplied dryly.

Like his father, he got up from his seat as she came into the room and was holding out to her a delicate crystal flute filled with bubbling pale wine.

‘And of course to celebrate your own arrival into the family.’

He was so close to her that there was no way his father could have seen the cold black stare that accompanied the apparently welcoming words. But Skye saw it, and as a result her hand shook so violently as she took her drink that some of the champagne slopped over the edge and spilled onto the fine silk of her skirt.

‘Careful,’ Theo said. ‘You don’t want to spoil things.’

He smiled as he spoke, but the icy glitter of his eyes, and the soft but deadly menace of his tone, left Skye in no doubt at all that the warning was meant in a way that was very different from a concern about her dress.

As a result she had been desperately on edge all evening, waiting for the axe to fall, for Theo to speak out and reveal the dark secret that would ruin everything.

But for now he was clearly biding his time, and hiding his cruel intent behind a smiling mask.

‘So how did you two meet?’ he asked now, pushing aside his plate and leaning back in his chair, a glass of rich red wine in one hand.

It was an innocent enough question—on the surface at least. But underneath the lazily drawled words lurked so many dangerous rocks that could sink her totally if she wasn’t careful.

Instinctively Skye turned to Cyril, conceding to him automatically. When he had come up with his proposal, he had insisted on absolute secrecy. Their marriage was to look genuine, with no hint of the deal behind it, and of course both Skye and her father had been only too glad to agree.

‘Business,’ was what he said, helping himself to another portion of the rich baklava that had formed their dessert. ‘Skye’s father runs a couple of my hotels in England.’

‘In London?’ Both Theo’s tone and his eyes had sharpened and Skye shivered faintly, knowing where his thoughts were heading.

‘No—Suffolk. Country house hotels—part of the group but out of the capital.’

‘But Suffolk isn’t far from London, is it?’

Theo raised his glass to his lips, sipped slowly, black eyes moving to lock with grey over the top of it. His fierce, unwavering gaze held hers mesmerically.

‘Do you go into London very often, Kyria Marston?’

‘Skye, please.’

She forced it from between lips that felt as if they were carved from wood.

‘And, no—I don’t go into London.’

‘Not at all?’

Careful! Skye warned herself. One false step and he would swoop like that hunting eagle. But she didn’t want him to think he had her on the run. It might feel like that, of course—she was very definitely trapped with her back against a wall, but she was damned if she was going to run away in panic and leave the field to him. She might just as well surrender right here and now and tell Cyril the truth about their meeting herself.

She could at least give Theo Antonakos a run for his money.

Deliberately she picked up her own glass, swirled the wine around in the bottom of it, then looked him straight in the eye again.

‘Well, obviously, I do go to London every now and then—but not often. And to tell you the truth, I can’t remember the last time I was there.’

Her defiance caught his attention. One black brow lifted sharply in sardonic response and he inclined his dark head in a small acknowledgement of the way she had parried his attack.

Oh, but she was good, Theo admitted to himself. This Skye Marston was a superb actress—so good that, if he didn’t now know exactly what was going on, he would have been totally convinced by her performance.

He had met her precisely twice—for less than a day at a time—and on those occasions she had been perhaps half a dozen different women, changing her personality and her behaviour as quickly and easily as he changed his clothes.

Looking at her now, no one would ever guess that she had been that nervous, distressed creature in the London bar, let alone the wild, passionate woman who had been in his bed that night.

Now here she was the picture of cool elegance in that sleek turquoise silk dress, sleeveless and with a deep vee neckline. Silver glittered at her ears and around the long graceful neck, exposed by the way she had piled that glorious rich coloured hair up at the back of her neck, and she looked calm, relaxed and totally in control.

But she couldn’t really be in control, any more than he could. She had to know that their shared secret was there, between them, like a dark shadow.

He lifted his glass again to drink, then reconsidered and only pretended to sip from it. His head was clouded enough. His thoughts had been reeling since the instant in which his father’s announcement had hit him like a punch to his jaw, and he still hadn’t decided what to do about it.

‘You don’t want to go out—to clubs—or bars?’

He wasn’t quite sure who was watching whom—only that it seemed to him as if there were no one in the room but the two of them. His father might have disappeared completely, and the quiet, decorous presence of a couple of maids barely impinged on his consciousness.

‘Skye doesn’t frequent clubs and such.’

It was Cyril who answered, reminding Theo sharply of the fact that he was there, at the head of the table. That this was his house—his father’s home—and the woman opposite was his father’s future bride.

‘That’s one of the things that attracted me to her. Her innocence. She’s not like so many modern young women.’

This time Theo really did have to gulp down a large mouthful of his wine, if only to stop himself from laughing out loud, or making some cynical comment, revealing just precisely how he felt about that statement.

So she had his father totally conned. The old man had no idea at all what she was really like.

So why didn’t he just tell him? Why didn’t he just open his mouth and say the words?

Your fiancée is not at all the woman you think she is.

The words sounded so clearly inside his head that for one heart-stopping moment he almost thought he’d said them aloud and froze, waiting for the explosion that would follow.

But nothing happened. The declaration had just been in his imagination and the conversation continued just as be-fore—his father blithely ignorant of the emotional grenade that had almost exploded right in his face.

Because that was the effect it would have had. In one split second, Cyril Antonakos would have gone from being the proudly possessive fiancé of a beautiful, stylish, sexy…

Oh, Theos, so devastatingly sexy…

A gorgeous, glamorous, much younger woman.

One moment, Cyril would have been the envy of all men with such a woman on his arm—the next he would have known the sordid truth.

‘Her mother has been unwell. So Skye spends most of her time at home, caring for her.’

Except when she’s out trawling bars, picking up strange men…

Once more Theo had to bite down hard on his lower lip to stop the words from escaping.

Skye’s stunning eyes had dropped, staring down at her hands on the table, and it was all he could do not to laugh out loud in cynical admiration. As a pose of innocent modesty, it was damn near perfect—except that he knew it was a lie and so did she.

So why didn’t he just admit it? Why didn’t he announce to his father that the woman Cyril thought was a sweet, unworldly, family type wasn’t anything of the sort?

Because if he did then, as well as damning her, he would destroy himself in his father’s eyes. In fact, he would probably end up painted as the villain of the piece and Cyril would turn his back on him once and for all—for good this time. His father would cut him out of his life without a second thought.

And he had vowed that if his father ever held out an olive branch of peace he would grab it with both hands. That he would do everything in his power to repair the breach that had come between them; end the estrangement if he possibly could.

That was why he was here now. Why he had come to be the best man at the wedding—unaware of just who the bride his father had chosen was. He knew what interpretation his father would probably put on it. That he had come crawling back because he thought that doing so would change Cyril’s mind about cutting him out of his will.

Well, if that was the case, then he would take a great delight in letting the old man know that he had no need at all of anyone else’s money. He had more than enough of his own.

But this island was a very different matter. Helikos had come to Cyril through his first wife—Theo’s mother. It had been in her family for centuries. Calista Antonakos had been buried here, as had both her father and mother before her. It was Theo’s rightful inheritance, and one he would fight for with the last strength in his body. He certainly didn’t intend to lose it because of some little gold-digger who had caught his father’s attention. This year’s wife who, if she followed the example of every other Kyria Antonakos, would be here and gone again in the space of a couple of years.

‘That is unusual,’ he managed, knowing from the tiny flicker of a glance in his direction that Skye was unable to control that the acid tone of the words hadn’t been lost on her. ‘I have to admit that in anyone else I might find it hard to accept about any modern young woman. But, having met your lovely fiancée, I can believe anything of her. Why, when I first encountered her this afternoon, she was embarrassed at being caught in just her swimming costume—in spite of the fact that it was a far more modest design than so many I have seen.’

She was listening hard again. All her attention was focused on his face, and the way those slender, elegant hands were nervously folding her napkin over and over on itself betrayed the inner tension that she had managed to smooth from her expression. She was not at all sure just in what direction he was going to take this and that thought gave him an intense, dark satisfaction.

He waited a nicely calculated moment before continuing with deliberate casualness.

‘In fact, there was one woman I met last weekend…She was exactly Skye’s age—and build—but the skirt she wore was barely there. She was probably showing far more flesh than you were this afternoon, Stepmama.’

Oh, she didn’t like that! She had definitely winced at that ‘Stepmama’, flinching back in her chair at his tone.

‘So it was hardly surprising that she got herself into trouble with some roughs in a bar—’

But Skye had clearly had enough. Dropping the napkin down on the table, she suddenly met his mocking gaze head on, a new flame of bravado in her soft grey eyes.

‘That’s precisely why I never go into bars or clubs if I can help it!’ she declared defiantly. ‘You can never tell what sort of thug you might meet there.’

Thug! It was meant to sting and it did.

Whatever else he had been that night, thug didn’t describe it. He had treated her as well as she had any right to expect, when she had come on to him as she had. But of course she would want to make out that she had been the innocent in all this, to win the sympathy vote, just in case Cyril ever found out the truth.

A black tide of rage swamped his mind, drowning all rational thought, and his hand clenched so tightly on the stem of the wineglass that he was within an inch of snapping it sharply in two.

He couldn’t stand to be in the room with the lying, conniving little bitch any longer. He had to get out of here or explode. And if he did lose his temper, then he would take Skye Marston and her calculated play-acting with him. He would tell the truth about their meeting—give his father every single gory detail, and then walk out while the shock waves were reverberating round the house.

But those shock waves would damage his world too. They would take the fragile peace he had made with his father and shatter it irrevocably into tiny, irreparable pieces. If he took Skye Marston down, then she would take his last chance of inheriting Helikos with her. And he wasn’t prepared to let that go.

Not for a cheap little tramp who was clearly well practised in lying through her teeth.

‘Well, you don’t need to worry about getting rid of me,’ he said, tossing down his own napkin and getting to his feet. He directed what he hoped was obviously a fake smile of understanding, his gaze going to where his father’s hand still rested on her arm.

‘I can see that you two would obviously like to be alone—and I’d hate to intrude. Besides, I’m expecting a call from a young lady.’

It was only his secretary with news of a contract he was working on, but hell would freeze over before he would admit to that.

‘So I’ll say goodnight, Father—Stepmama. And I’ll see you in the morning.’

He was proud of the way that he managed to stroll from the room. Pleased with the fact that he didn’t pause or look back, or even show that he gave a damn about what he was leaving behind him. He knew he appeared relaxed, casual and totally at ease.

The truth couldn’t be more different.

Because, no matter how much he might tell himself that he had kept quiet only because of Helikos, he knew that the real truth was much more complicated than that. Ever since that night they had spent together in London he hadn’t been able to get the searingly erotic images of Skye Marston out of his thoughts—and he still couldn’t. Just sitting opposite her had set off a string of heated images that circled over and over in his thoughts until he felt he would go mad.

He didn’t want to think of them—didn’t want to think of her.

But the truth was that he could think of nothing else.