Читать книгу Chosen by the Greek Tycoon - Кэтти Уильямс, Kate Walker, Cathy Williams - Страница 15

THREE days.

It hadn’t sounded long when Theo had given Skye the ultimatum. In fact it hadn’t sounded like any time at all.

Three days—just seventy-two hours—in which to find the courage to face Cyril and admit to him what had happened. She didn’t know how she could do it. She only knew that somehow—God knew how—she had to.

But that had been the day before yesterday. Now more than forty-eight hours of the seventy-two had passed—gone. And she was no nearer to bringing herself to do as Theo had ordered.

If anything, she was further away from it than she had ever been.

For one thing, Cyril hadn’t even been in the house most of the time. He had spent a large amount of yesterday in the village and had returned in such a dreadful mood that Skye had hurriedly retired to her room and left him to himself. This morning he had ordered the helicopter to take him to Athens at what seemed like the crack of dawn and hadn’t been seen since.

Skye could only be thankful that Theo too had made himself scarce. The thought of facing him and the inevitable reaction when he discovered that she still hadn’t given in to his demands and told his father the truth made her shiver in genuine fear.

The future seemed dark and bleak, without a single glimmer of hope on the horizon, and she had no idea which way to turn.

If she didn’t tell Cyril, then Theo would. But how could she tell Cyril when doing so would inevitably mean that he would call off the whole engagement and the wedding that was supposed to follow it?

And without that wedding, then her father had no chance of avoiding arrest, because if thwarted then Cyril would surely press charges even more vehemently. And if he was arrested, then her mother…

‘Oh, heaven help me!’

Skye sank down onto the nearest chair and buried her face in her hands, giving in to despair.

She had never felt so lost and alone. So totally abandoned by everyone.

‘Is there a problem?’

She recognised the husky male voice immediately. It was the one that had haunted her dreams, sounded in her head all day long ever since she had heard it issuing the brutal ultimatum that threatened to shatter her life, and that of all the people she loved.

‘Oh, no, there’s no problem!’ she flung at him, her head coming up sharply, auburn hair tossed back over her shoulder, grey eyes blazing defiance. ‘No problem at all! Only the fact that my life finally seemed to be back on some sort of track—one that I could at least cope with. But then I had the misfortune to meet you and now everything’s blown up in my face!’

‘You haven’t told him.’ It was a statement, not a question, but Skye still felt he was waiting for a response to it.

‘No, I haven’t told him!’

If he’d been around in the house, he would have known that. But for his own private reasons Theo had made himself scarce for the past couple of days. Having delivered his ultimatum, he had backed off and left her alone with his father.

Of course, she knew why. He was expecting her to use the time to tell Cyril everything. She supposed that he thought he was being fair—even considerate—by giving her the space and the quiet in which to broach the subject.

Well, he might not have been actually putting pressure on her directly with his words and his presence, but the knowledge that he was there, waiting, watching, like some cruel hunter lurking in the shadows, waiting to pounce if she didn’t do as he ordered, had kept her in a permanent state of shivering terror, never knowing when his dark patience would run out and he would move in for the kill.

‘For one thing, I haven’t had an opportunity, and for another—well, I just don’t know how he’s going to react.’

‘That’s something you should have considered before you leapt into bed with a complete stranger.’

The cynicism in Theo’s tone seemed all the worse when Skye admitted to herself just how wonderful he looked. With the afternoon sunlight shining on the glossy black hair, making the dark eyes gleam spectacularly between their frame of thick, lush lashes, he was a Greek god come to life in modern dress. The long, lean legs were clothed in jeans so tight they were positively indecent, and the power of his chest and shoulders was emphasised by the loving cling of the soft tee shirt to the muscled contours. The white material threw the colour of his bronzed skin into sharp relief, his tan already deepened by several days in the Greek sun, and the whole picture was one that made her mouth dry in purely sensual delight.

‘I had no idea that the complete stranger was going to turn out to be my fiancé’s son!’

‘No, I don’t suppose you did,’ Theo drawled, strolling into the room and dropping down into a chair opposite with indolent ease. ‘That was rather unfortunate for you.’

‘Unfortunate!’ Skye echoed sourly. ‘That has to be the understatement of the year!’

‘But would it have made things any more justifiable if I’d been a perfect stranger? You would still have been unfaithful to the man you were engaged to. Or are you one of those people who believe that the crime is not in the actual action, but in getting found out?’

‘Not at all!’ Skye denied his words furiously ‘I don’t expect you to believe me, but I don’t make a habit of indulging in one-night stands with complete strangers!’

‘You’d be wrong about that—I do believe you.’

‘And I wasn’t exactly engaged to your father at the time—’

The sudden realisation of the words he had inserted quietly into her tirade pulled her up sharp, her head spinning in shock.

She couldn’t be hearing properly. Had he said…?

‘What did you say?’ she demanded rawly.

‘That I believe you. That you’re not the type who makes a habit of indulging in one-night stands with complete strangers.’

‘You—you do?’

‘Absolutely.’

Stunned relief and delight flooded through her. Her heart leapt, her spirits lifted. A smile she couldn’t suppress spread wide across her face.

‘That’s wonderful! Fantastic! You can’t imagine the relief that makes me feel…’

But something was wrong.

Very wrong.

The smile slipped a bit, faded, as she realised that there was no answering lightening of Theo’s expression. Instead, his features remained set in the sombre, unyielding cast that they had displayed from the moment he had come into the room.

As sudden doubt crept into her mind and took an uncomfortable hold Skye felt her world tilt on its balance, swaying sickeningly.

‘You didn’t mean it?’ she questioned hesitantly.

‘Oh, yes, I meant it. I could hardly think otherwise—could I? After all, I am only too aware that there hadn’t been any man before me. You were a virgin that night.’

Another statement. A flat, blank-toned question that rocked her back in her seat, making her stare into his dark, shuttered face. Had she failed so completely in her attempt to look and act sophisticated and experienced?

‘I—what—you knew?’

The look Theo shot her was dark with cynical mockery. A black humour that wasn’t echoed in any lightening of his expression, not even the tiniest hint of a curve to his sensual mouth.

‘Oh, yes, I knew. Do you know what that did to me?’

‘You’re angry about that?’

She couldn’t understand his reaction, couldn’t understand what was going through his head at all, and the confusion and uncertainty made her too uncomfortable to sit still. Pushing herself to her feet, she prowled about the room, agonisingly conscious of those deep, dark eyes following her every move until she felt like some specimen under a microscope or a caged animal being closely observed by some coldly analytical scientist.

‘I don’t get it! I don’t understand at all! I—I thought it was a deep-seated male fantasy to be some woman’s first lover. To be the one who took her virginity…’

But she’d hit quite the wrong note there. In trying for a levity she was far from feeling, her words had had the effect of lighting the blue touch-paper and failing to stand well back while the whole multicoloured explosion roared into life right in her face.

Theo hurled himself to his feet in a movement that was so expressive of barely controlled violence that it had her stumbling back behind a chair for protection. His face was twisted into a savage scowl that added to her sense of fearful apprehension.

‘In a sordid one-night stand in a cheap hotel?’ he snarled viciously. ‘Oh, yeah—some fantasy! Your—a woman’s—first time should be something special—something to remember. Not just thrown away!’

He meant it! Skye could hardly believe what she was seeing. Theo truly meant this. It was in his eyes, in his voice.

‘Can’t you see?’ she pleaded with him. ‘That’s why I did it—why I was with you. I didn’t want your—my wedding night to be the first. That’s why I was there.’

She’d thought she could make things better by explaining, but to judge from the change of expression, the searing burn of those deep-set eyes, she’d only managed the exact opposite.

‘To throw it away on any man you met?’

He was taking it exactly the wrong way.

‘Not just any man…’

And it had been special, she told him in the privacy of her thoughts, not daring to let on just how special that night had been. It was bad enough knowing it herself, but if she admitted to even a tiny part of it then she knew that it would rip her to pieces inside.

‘Oh, don’t tell me that you met me and instantly knew I was the love of your life,’ Theo scorned.

‘No—I’m not saying that.’

‘I could have been just anyone.’

‘No!’ Never. ‘And the hotel wasn’t that cheap!’

Oh, why couldn’t she stop? It had been obvious from the start that her attempts to pretend that that night hadn’t mattered so much had failed painfully. Theo’s scowl, the way his black brows were drawn tightly together, the black eyes blazing beneath them were warning enough that she was blundering blindly into a dangerous minefield where at any moment things might blow up in her face. But still she couldn’t help herself. Couldn’t stop herself from blurting out totally inappropriate remarks that were only making matters worse.

‘It was to me!’

The savage declaration made her jump like a startled rabbit. In fact, that was exactly what she felt like as he came towards her—a small, frightened rabbit, transfixed in the beam of a car’s headlights, wishing desperately that she could move.

‘I did exactly what you wanted. Took you exactly where you asked. “A quiet, decent hotel”,’ Theo said, and Skye realised that he was quoting her exactly.

‘But, of course, I didn’t know who you were then. If I had, then I might have…’

Something about the icy glare he turned on her froze the words on her tongue, cutting them off completely. In dawning horror, she realised just what she was saying, the impression she was giving. A hot tide of red swept right across her face and her hands crept up to cover her mouth, trying to hold the dreadful words back.

But of course it was far too late.

‘If you’d known who I was then what, Skye?’ Theo pounced on the foolish sentence. ‘Would you have held out for more, is that it, hmm? Would you have insisted on a five-star place, or asked for more? Traded your virginity for a night in a penthouse suite, perhaps—or a little room service?’

‘I didn’t ask for anything from you!’

‘Only a night of meaningless sex with an anonymous man.’

‘Yes! Yes, that was exactly what I was looking for!’

Skye winced inside at the way that sounded. But she was beyond controlling her voice. Because the truth was that Theo was not reacting in any way as she had anticipated.

Not that she had ever anticipated meeting up with the man with whom she had spent that crazy night in London ever again! She had thought that her one night of breaking out into the freedom that soon would be lost to her for ever would be her secret, and hers alone. That it would be totally anonymous, and no one would know.

But there were two problems with that. One was that in no way at all could the sex have been described as ‘meaningless’. It had been wild; it had been wonderful. It had pitched her straight from blind innocence and ignorance into a world of sensation, of knowing—and of hunger.

It had been special—so very special.

And it had left an indelible mark on her for ever.

But at least she had managed to keep the anonymous part to exactly that. And as a result she had been quite safe. Until she had come here to Helikos and come face to face with a black twist of fate in the form of Theo Antonakos.

‘And that was exactly what I got—and what you got as well. It was what you wanted too! Wasn’t it?’

Had she actually been hoping for something else? If she had, then the stupid thought was crushed out of her by his swift retort.

‘Well, I sure as hell wasn’t looking for marriage!’

‘So there you are—we both got exactly what we were looking for. So why can’t you leave it at that?’

‘You know damn well why!’ he flung at her. ‘Because it can’t be left at that!’

‘Why not? Surely if we just put it all behind us and move on, then it can all be over and done with.’

For Theo at least.

‘That isn’t going to work,’ Theo muttered, shaking his dark head slowly.

‘Why can’t it?’

‘Because of who we are—who you are.’

‘Me?’

‘You’re my father’s fiancée. That’s what makes the difference—all the difference in the world.’

‘But it doesn’t have to,’ Skye protested. ‘Only if we let it.’

‘Skye!’

Her name was a violent sound of outraged fury on his tongue and he raked his hands through his hair, pressing them against the bones of his skull in exasperation.

‘Can’t you see that there is no “if we let it”?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘We have no choice but to let it!’ Theo told her fiercely. ‘You are going to marry my father…and…’

‘And?’ Skye prompted when he fell silent, seeming to hunt for the words.

‘Theos! Can you not see it? Can you not feel it?’

‘F-feel what?’ Skye stammered, though she had a terrible feeling that she knew what was in his thoughts. She knew what she had been hiding from for days and the thought of bringing it out into the open terrified her.

‘This thing that’s between us.’

‘There’s nothing between us,’ Skye put in hastily, terrified to even let the idea into her mind. ‘Nothing at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about!’

Liar! his look said. You know exactly what I mean. Exactly what there is.

‘There’s an atmosphere—almost an electricity that’s in the air between us. I can’t keep my eyes—my hands—off you!’

She actually turned white at the words. He watched the blood drain from her cheeks, leaving them pallid and ashen.

He knew exactly how she was feeling. He’d tried to deny it himself at first. But then, like a fool, he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her in anger and contempt, but it hadn’t stayed that way. Other, more primitive feelings had swept through him like a tidal wave and he’d known just why he couldn’t leave the situation that way—why he couldn’t leave the island though, God help him, he’d tried!

He still wanted her. Wanted her more than ever. He didn’t care if she was a gold-digger, didn’t care about anything but having her back in his bed again.

But she was promised to his father. And he had never taken another man’s woman in his life. He didn’t intend to start now.

But if she were to leave Cyril…

‘It isn’t over between us and you know it.’

‘It is!’ It was a cry of panic, of desperation. ‘It is over! It has to be—I’m marrying your father!’

‘Then don’t!’

There, it was out. Theo told himself. The thing that had been preying on his thoughts all day, every day since the moment he had realised just who she was and why she was here on Helikos. The words that he had been trying not to say, words he had sworn that he would never say, but even as he had done so he had known that he would inevitably one day. He would have to.

For days he’d fought with himself. Fought to stay away from her. Fought the need to be with her. He had set himself to a gruelling regime of exercise, running on the seashore, swimming endless laps of the pool, lifting weights in the small gym his father had had built but had very obviously never used. It had kept him out of her way and it had exhausted his body, but his mind had stayed wide awake.

And at night, in the darkness, the memories had come.

Heated memories of the night they had spent together. The one night when he had known all the sweetness and the passion that her glorious body could offer.

And he had known he wanted more.

The sweetness he wanted to taste all over again. The passion he longed to sate himself on once more.

He had barely managed to cope with the past two days as it was. He had only kept himself from giving in to the magnetic pull her body had for his by telling himself over and over again that she wasn’t available, that she was en-gaged—to his father, for God’s sake!

She was not only not available, she was forbidden!

But even knowing that, he had endured two nights without sleep. Spent two long days fighting the need to see her. Fighting his body’s need to bury himself in her again.

He knew now that that was why he had been so insistent that she tell his father about the night they had spent together. He didn’t just want the truth out in the open; he wanted her free from this impossible engagement.

He wanted her all to himself. And he felt he would go mad if he didn’t have her.

‘Don’t marry my father. You can’t marry him feeling the way you do about—’

‘About you?’ Skye inserted swiftly, jerkily. ‘I don’t feel anything for you!’

‘But you do.’ Theo dismissed her protest with a contemptuous flick of his hand. ‘You feel just the way I do—I can see it in your face. In your eyes whenever I’m near.’

‘You arrogant…’

The negligent shrug of broad shoulders under the white tee shirt showed how little he cared about her accusation.

‘I may be arrogant, but at least I’m honest.’

Deliberately he took a slow step forward, then another, his eyes fixed on her face, watching every flicker of reaction that she was unable to hide. He saw the way her head went back, the sudden change in her breathing, the darkness of her eyes.

‘See?’ was all he said, but he knew she’d got the message. Ruthlessly he pressed home his advantage. ‘Damn you, Skye, think about this—about what will happen when my father finds out…’

‘Why should he find out?’

Her voice had changed again and there was a note in it now that he couldn’t even begin to read. He didn’t know what to feel either. His emotions seemed to be running on a loop of anger, through concern, exasperation, and an irrational, overwhelming desire to grab her, haul her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Kissing seemed to be the only function of that soft, sexy mouth that was simple, uncom-plicated—and totally understandable.

Oh, who was he trying to kid? Kissing her might start out as the most straightforward thing in this whole tangle of knots that simply being with Skye tied him up in, but it would very rapidly turn into the most complex and problematical situation before he had time to breathe. He couldn’t kiss Skye while she was with his father; and, for her own personal, private reasons, she seemed determined to try to hold fast to this appalling engagement.

‘I can’t believe you’re asking me that question.’

‘I could pretend—’

‘Oh, hell, yes, you could!’

Theo couldn’t hold back the cynical laughter that escaped him at the thought.

‘You could pretend, all right—but if you wanted to be convincing you’d have to turn in a performance that’s a damn sight better than the one you’re giving me!’

He’d actually silenced her. For the first time since he’d come into the room and found her sitting on the chair with her head in her hands, she was finally stunned into silence, staring up at him, her face frozen in shock.

‘There’s something else, isn’t there? Something you’re not telling me. Damnation, Skye, just what is going on here?’

Her eyes flinched away from his, dropping down to stare at the carpet with an impossibly fierce concentration.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Don’t give me that!’

Dropping to one knee in front of her, he caught her chin in his hand, pushing it up so that she was forced to meet his gaze. When she tried to pull away he simply clamped his fingers more tightly around her jaw and drew her back inexorably to face him.

‘Tell me!’ he commanded. ‘I want to know just why you are so determined to marry my father.’