Читать книгу By Request Collection Part 2 - Шантель Шоу, Natalie Anderson - Страница 26

‘WE WILL BE preparing to land soon.’

Nikos’s accented voice broke into Sadie’s concentration, making her jump.

‘You’ll need to put that away.’

His gesture indicated the laptop on which she had been working ever since the private jet had levelled out on their flight to Athens, her attention totally focussed on the screen.

‘What are you working on anyway?’

‘Greek wedding customs—what else?’ Sadie swivelled the machine round so that he could see the site she had been studying.

She had been glad to disappear into her need to concentrate on the reason she was on the plane in the first place. It had meant that she could try at least to ignore Nikos’s long, lean form sprawled in one of the soft leather seats on the opposite side of the cabin.

But the truth was that her mind hadn’t really been on her research. Instead, it had insisted on taking her back into the past, replaying scenes of the times she had spent with Nikos when the only wedding she had been planning had been her own. She had desperately needed a real distraction from that.

‘I take it that you are planning a traditional wedding, seeing as you have insisted on dragging me out to Greece with you?’

Nikos shrugged off the question with an indifferent lift of one shoulder.

‘Have you even given your bride a choice? Or will you just dictate how things are to be?’

That brought his eyes to her face, coldly probing, as if he was trying to read what went on behind her eyes. And she could see the flash of something fierce and dark in their golden depths.

‘Are you saying that this is how it was with you? That I dictated everything?’

‘No.’

How could she claim that? He had insisted she should have everything exactly the way she wanted. It was her choice, he had told her, her wedding. She should choose everything. And as a result it had really been the way her father had wanted things, not her choice at all.

But then, of course, that had been because he had never truly meant to marry her. All the time Nikos had been planning on using her to distract her father while he and his family worked to ensure his downfall, the ruin of his company. It was only when she found out the truth that she had realised why he had been so unexpectedly easygoing, so unconcerned about having an Orthodox wedding.

‘Of course you didn’t dictate anything. Because nothing mattered enough to you to bother with that.’

‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’

Nikos’s smile sent a shiver down her spine.

‘Oh, of course, there was one thing.’ She flung the response at him. ‘I know only too well just what mattered to you. You wanted me in your bed and that was all.’

‘And I had you there without too much trouble, as I recall. You practically threw yourself at me.’

She had played right into his hands there, Sadie admitted. At first determined that she would wait until her wedding night to give her virginity to the man she adored, she had completely lost her head just a short time before the big day. So she had hired a cottage, enticed Nikos away with her for a long weekend of blazing passion.

Instead it had turned into a dreadful time when her dreams had started to unravel and she had finally begun to learn the truth.

These were the memories that had plagued her as the plane sped towards Greece. Echoes of the time when Nikos, thinking she was asleep, had gone downstairs to answer a call on his mobile phone. But Sadie had only been dozing and, missing him, had crept down after him. Before she’d opened the door she’d caught a drift of his conversation and had stopped to listen. And what she’d heard had shattered her illusions and fantasies, making them tumble in pieces all around her.

‘Don’t worry,’ she’d heard Nikos say, a thread of dark, cruel laughter in his voice. ‘There is more than one way to skin this particular cat. When my ring is on his precious daughter’s finger and she’s part of the Konstantos family too, then Carteret will soon come to heel. We’ll have him exactly where we want him.’

‘It was what I wanted at the time,’ she said now, matching Nikos with an equally dismissive shrug.

Somehow she managed to make her voice hard enough to conceal the way that her memories tore at her heart. She even added a curl of her lips, as if in contempt at her younger self.

‘Don’t forget I was naive and innocent then. I had nothing to compare you to.’

‘Inexperienced, maybe—innocent, never,’ Nikos scorned. ‘You knew exactly what you were doing and you played your virginity as your trump card.’

‘It wasn’t like that!’

‘No? So are you going to tell me what it was like? Are you going to claim that you were truly as crazily in love with me as you pretended to be?’

She was heading into dangerous waters here, Sadie told herself. If she admitted the truth, that she had adored him, that he had been her life, then he would want to know why she had turned on him as she had done. And she still had enough pride to want to hide from him just how much she knew of the way he had used her callously in his determination to bring down her family.

And she needed to tread carefully while Nikos was in total charge of the situation. For his own private reasons he was prepared to be unexpectedly generous. He was letting her mother and George stay in the house for now. But she was terrified that if she rocked the boat in any way he might change his mind. Just the memory of the way her mother’s face had lit up when she had been able to give her good news last night was enough to keep a careful check on her tongue.

‘Crazy would be a good way to describe it,’ she hedged carefully. ‘You were pretty hot back then, Nikos, and I was tired of being a virgin. But don’t kid yourself that you were anything special.’

‘Oh, I won’t.’ Nikos’s response was darkly dangerous, the savage edge to it slashing like a cruel knife. ‘Believe me, I never did. Now, are you going to switch that thing off or not?’

‘Oh—sorry…’

Hastily, she closed down the site she had been studying, saving her notes before switching off the whole computer. Her movements clumsy, partly from haste and partly because of the burning intensity of his scrutiny, she shut it up and bundled it into the case on the floor beside her seat.

‘I’ll take that.’

Nikos leaned over to pick up the case.

‘Oh, but…’ Sadie tried to protest but he dismissed it with a gesture.

‘The staff will see to our luggage and this will go with it. You will get it back when it’s necessary. And what about your phone? Your mobile will need to be switched off.’

‘Of course.’

The phone was in her bag, and as she pulled it out she saw that the words telling her she had a newly arrived text message were on the screen.

‘It’s from my mother. Can I just see this…?’

Another flick of his hand urged her to do just that and be quick about it, his impatience making her all fingers and thumbs as she checked her message.

It was a long one, and she had to scroll down to read it all. Then scroll back again to reread, not quite believing what she had seen.

‘Sadie…’

Nikos’s hand was held out towards the phone. He didn’t quite click his fingers in impatience, but that mood was very much in the air as he waited for her to respond.

‘But…’

Sadie’s eyes were still on the text message.

‘Mum says that she’s had a letter from you—a courier delivery. And you…’

She had to spin round, had to look straight into Nikos’s face to try to read his expression.

‘Is this true? Have you really sent my mother written notification that she can stay in Thorn Trees for now?’

The answer was there in his face, in the swift, darkened glance that he directed briefly at the phone and then at Sadie once again.

‘I instructed my solicitor to send a letter this morning.’

‘But why?’

‘I told you. Your mother and brother played no part in what happened in the past. It would be inhuman to take revenge on a child.’

Which once again brought a shiver of apprehension at the thought that revenge was in his mind at all.

She was here to organise his wedding, wasn’t she?

‘And this is in return for my helping to plan and arrange your wedding?’

The bronze eyes that met her questioning glance were cool and opaque, all emotion blanked out so that there was nothing to read, nothing to give her any help.

Nothing to ease that cold edge of uncertainty that had shivered down her spine.

‘Our arrangement is that you will do a job for me. As long as you carry out that job to my satisfaction then your mother and brother will be able to stay in the house without harassment or upset. I have sent them a letter informing them of that.’

‘Thank you!’

After the fear and uncertainty of the moment she had left his office only the day before the rush of relief was so great that it pushed aside all sense of restraint, driving her into instinctive action without a thought of the consequences. With her phone still in her hand, she bent forward, lifting her face to press a swift, light-hearted kiss on Nikos’s lean cheek.

‘Thank you!’ she said again. Then froze as reaction hit home.

It had been meant to be light-hearted. Rationally, that was what she had told herself. But what thumped straight into her heart was a response that was very far from rational.

Just the scent of his body in her nostrils, the taste of his skin on her lips, the faint rasp of stubble breaking through the olive-toned flesh, went straight to her head like the most potent alcohol. Her mind swam, her vision blurring so that every other sense came into sharper focus. She couldn’t stop herself from letting her tongue slip out to experience, very softly, the faintly salt taste of his skin, knowing in that moment such a sudden rush of memories and sensations that she felt as if the plane they were in had hit sudden violent turbulence that swung them up and down and from side to side until she was dizzy with shock and sensation.

She wanted to press herself up against the hard strength of his body, wind her arms up and around his neck, fingers tangling in the jet silk of his hair. She wanted to turn her head just an inch or more, so that it met with the warm temptation of his lips. She longed to deepen the taste of him as their mouths joined, opened…

She knew her mistake even before the thoughts had fully formed in her mind. She felt his sudden tension, the stiffening of that long body, the way his jaw tightened until his whole face was just one rigid mask of rejection, so cold and unyielding that it was almost like kissing the carved, immobile face of some marble statue. She felt as if her mouth must be bruised by slamming up against it.

‘No!’

Nikos’s response was sharp and violent. The swift jerk of his head repulsed her foolish gesture, and he wrenched himself away from her with a force that had her almost losing her balance. Instinctively, her hand went out to grasp at Nikos’s arm for support, then immediately released it again as she felt the even more powerful rejection that stiffened it against her.

‘I’m sorry!’

Somehow she managed to stay upright. But the fight for equilibrium in her mind was harder won as she struggled with the terrible sense of loss that seared through her with the force of a lightning strike. She had forgotten that Nikos had told her he was marrying someone else, that he was committed to another woman. It was no wonder he had reacted so forcefully to her impulsive response.

‘That wasn’t any sort of come-on—truly it wasn’t. It was only a thank-you!’

Could the look he turned on her be any colder, any more distant? Was it possible that she could endure the icy contempt that seemed to strike with the force of an arctic blast and not shrivel under the force of it, crumpling where she sat?

‘It won’t happen again.’

‘You’re damned right it won’t happen again.’ Nikos turned on her in dark fury. ‘If you thought that you could win me round to giving you whatever you want by seducing me then you couldn’t be more wrong. I may have been caught that way before, but never again.’

‘You were caught?’ Sadie scorned. ‘In my opinion it was exactly the opposite way round! I was the one caught in your trap. The one you hunted down. You could never have been caught because I’m not sure you ever intended to marry me. You simply wanted to use me in your damned family feud with my father.’

‘Oh, I would have married you, all right,’ Nikos tossed back, the words hitting her like a slap in the face. ‘By then I was so completely obsessed with you that I would have done anything—however stupid—to have you in my bed. One night with you was not enough. Could never be enough. I would have put my head right back in the noose if only to have another one.’

What else had she expected? Sadie asked herself, struggling with the bitter pain that had put a taste like acid in her mouth. Had she really believed that Nikos would deny the accusation she had thrown at him? That he would claim—pretend—he had actually felt something for her? That he would even declare that he had loved her?

She’d known the real truth all along. Ever since her father had enlightened her. And yet it still hurt so terribly, ripping great raw and bleeding holes in her heart.

‘But not now,’ she managed.

‘Not now,’ Nikos confirmed darkly.

‘Of course you have a new fiancée now. A new lo…’

But her voice failed her then. There was no way she could form the word love. It didn’t belong on her tongue and it seemed to have formed a cruel knot in her throat, so that she could barely manage to breathe.

‘I will do my very best to create a wonderful wedding for you both.’

It was the only way she could thank him for the reprieve he had offered her and her family. The chance to try and make sure that her mother survived the upheavals in their life and maybe found a future to look forward to. The thought of her mother twisted on nerves deep inside her. She had made the best provision she could for Sarah, and that text at least made it seem that she was coping for now. But Sadie had never been away from home for more than a day since the truth about George had burst on the family. She could only pray that her mother would cope.

‘When will I meet your fiancée?’

Or even get to know her name? It was the first time she’d ever taken on a commission with so little information and no chance to meet the bride-to-be. She had never encountered a set-up like this.

‘You’ll have all the information you need when the time is right.’

At that moment a bell sounded and a light came on over the seats, an indication that they should fasten their seatbelts. Immediately Nikos held out his hand, palm upwards.

‘Phone…’ he snapped, with an impatient beckoning gesture of the hand that was between them.

Her mind still half on her mother and George, Sadie blindly followed the command that was in his rough, irritated voice. She had dropped her mobile phone into his upturned palm before it occurred to her to question what he wanted with it.

‘Hey—hang on…!’

But she had spoken too late. Even as she opened her mouth Nikos’s long fingers had snapped shut over her phone, and without another word he dropped it swiftly into the pocket of his jacket, out of sight and out of reach.

‘You can’t do that!’ she protested. ‘That’s my property!’

The look he turned on her said that he could do whatever he wanted and she couldn’t stop him.

‘I prefer to have your communication with the outside world under my control.’

‘But how can I keep in touch with my mother—with home?’

A touch of panic made her voice raw. How would her mother cope if she wasn’t at the end of a line to offer help if she was needed? The rough and ready support system she had been able to set in place might be enough, but only if Sarah could contact her daughter at any moment she felt she needed to.

‘You will be able to phone Thorn Trees once a day to see how things are. But other than that—’

‘It isn’t enough!’

‘It will have to be enough. Because that is how it is going to be.’

‘But my mother—is unwell.’

She was severely tempted to move forward, try to snatch the phone from the pocket of his immaculately tailored jacket, but the urgent sense of need warred uncomfortably with a strong sense of self preservation. She was here, on her own, in his plane, thousands of feet up in the air. If she caused a scene, started a struggle, then she was at a disadvantage from the off. Nikos would only have to raise his voice and call his staff…

No, don’t be ridiculous. He wouldn’t even need to call anyone, she acknowledged to herself. Nikos could see off her feeble attempt at resistance so easily that she would be a fool even to try it. But even so she still couldn’t give in to such domineering behaviour.

‘You have no right—!’

‘I have every right. I am the one who makes the rules, not you. You are here because I allow you to be here—no other reason. And you are here to do a job.’

‘A job I can’t do without a phone…’

Her eyes went to the laptop case still in his possession, carefully tucked under his arm, and a shiver of cold panic ran along every nerve. Did he really mean to isolate her totally, have her under his complete control?

‘Or my computer.’

‘Any information or help you need will be provided once we are in my villa. All you have to do is ask.’

‘I can’t work that way.’

‘You work any way that I ask of you.’

It was a deliberate verbal slap down, reminding her harshly just who was in charge here. And she would be every sort of a fool to forget that, Sadie reminded herself miserably. She had been in grave danger of forgetting just how important this job was to her.

She was grateful for the lifeline he had tossed her, the chance to let her mother stay in the only place where she felt safe. And now here she was, risking everything by setting herself against the only man who could ensure that would still happen. She should be thanking him, agreeing to go along with anything he suggested. But still—stealing her phone…!

‘I do not want the paparazzi finding out anything about this,’ Nikos went on, snatching the conversational rug from under her feet and stunning her into silence in the space of a single heartbeat.

That she understood. She had no argument against it, and she couldn’t even try to find one. The paparazzi and the popular press had been the bane of their lives when she and Nikos had been together. They had plagued them incessantly, day in and day out. They had never had a moment’s peace or time to themselves. She had hated it, been made miserable by the constant hounding, the pushing and shoving, the shouted demands and the incessant flashing of a hundred or more cameras.

And at the end…Sadie shivered at just the memory. At the end the relentless attentions of those snoopers had made everything a thousand times worse.

She understood why Nikos couldn’t let his new fiancée go through that. But she wouldn’t be human if she didn’t feel a pang of jealousy at the protective way he was determined to shield her.

‘You can trust me!’

The look he turned on her told her that he felt the opposite was true.

‘Trust…’ he said, drawing out the word until it was a sound of pure doubt, cynical and rough. ‘Ah, yes, we had such a trusting relationship, didn’t we?’

Sadie winced away from the contemptuous mockery of his tone. She had trusted him with her heart, her future, her life. And he had torn it all to pieces and tossed it back in her face.

‘This isn’t about you and me. And I wouldn’t—’

‘I trust no one.’ It was a flat, cold statement. No room for negotiation. ‘I find it’s better that way. Now, if you will fasten your safety belt…’

‘What a terribly sad way to live your life,’ Sadie flung at him, but she knew that she had no option but to do as he said. The seat belt light was still flashing and the jet was already beginning to alter its path to turn in the circle needed for descent. Personal safety, if nothing else, demanded that she acted sensibly.

‘That is my phone,’ she managed, determined to keep the defiance up as she sank back into the soft leather of her seat and reached for the belt. ‘And, paparazzi or not, you have no right…’

Except the right of possession, she acknowledged to herself as Nikos blatantly ignored her, strapping himself in. And in this case possession was all, because she had no hope that he would return the phone to her, no matter how she pleaded.

Miserably she yanked the seatbelt tight, tighter than it needed to be. And she forced herself to stare out of the window, blinking fiercely until the tears that burned at the back of her eyes ebbed away, leaving them dry and unfocussed. She wished she could do the same with her thoughts, driving away the bitter sting of the slap of reality right in her face.

Because nothing could bring home to her more definitely or more cruelly the way that, in Nikos’s mind, she was now no longer part of his life than the nasty little exchange she had just endured. Nothing could make it plainer that she was firmly on the outside, kept from the centre of his world by high, strong fences, the ‘Keep Out’ signs clearly and forcefully displayed. He didn’t even trust her, putting her so far outside any circle that could be termed his friends that she could only assume her place was amongst those he considered his enemies. And the thought of being considered an enemy by him made a sensation like the crawl of something cold and slimy slither down her spine.

Out beyond the window she could see the land below becoming clearer and clearer as the plane continued its descent. Down there was Greece, Venizelos Airport and the city of Athens itself. The last time she had been here it had been as the newly engaged fiancée of Nikos Konstantos. She had stared out of the window with keen interest, bubbling with excitement at the thought that she was going to set foot in the homeland of the man she loved for the very first time. How different was this arrival, with no sense of excitement or joy, only a terrible feeling of oppression and apprehension, uncertainty about what was to come.

Then she had felt as if she was coming home. As if she was launching a new beginning, one that would put the tensions and stresses that had ruined her family life behind her and put her on the path to a much happier future.

This time she had no idea what to expect. The prospect of what was ahead of her made her insides twist into tight knots of panic at the realisation that this time she was truly alone, without a single ally on her side. No one she could turn to for help or support.

She might understand, rationally at least, just why Nikos had felt that he needed to take her phone and her laptop. But that didn’t stop the nasty, creeping sense of fear that there might be more to it than he was letting on.

Just what did he have planned for her? And why did she have the terrible feeling that in coming to Greece like this she had made the terrible mistake of jumping right out of the frying pan and into the fiercely blazing heart of a savagely burning fire?