Forgiven but Not Forgotten?

‘Don’t worry,’ Andreas sliced in cuttingly. ‘I will be assured once I’ve checked out your company thoroughly.’

With that he turned and walked in the direction he’d last seen Siena moving. He had something much more urgent to take his attention now: making sure Siena DePiero didn’t disappear into thin air.

* * *

A couple of hours later Siena was walking quickly through the moonlit streets around Mayfair. She still hadn’t fully processed that she’d seen Andreas Xenakis, here in London, where she’d come to hide and move on with her life. To her everlasting relief she hadn’t bumped into him again, but she’d been horribly aware of his tall form and had endeavoured to make sure she stayed on the far side of the room at all times.

Now, as she walked and felt the blisters on her heels, she cursed herself for letting Andreas get to her like that. Yes, they had history. She winced inwardly. It wasn’t a pretty history. She didn’t want to be reminded of the blazing look of anger and betrayal on his face when she’d stood beside her father five years ago, holding her dress up over her chest, and agreed shakily: ‘Yes, he attacked me, Papa. I couldn’t stop him…’

Andreas had cut in angrily, his Greek accen

t thick. ‘That’s a downright lie. She was begging me—’

Her father had held up an imperious hand and cut Andreas off. He’d turned to face Siena and she’d looked up at him, terrified of his power to inflict punishment if he chose to believe Andreas.

He’d said quietly, ‘He’s lying, isn’t he? You would never let a man like this touch you, would you? Because you know you’re infinitely better than him.’

Struggling to hide her disgust and hatred, Siena had given the only answer she could. She’d nodded and felt sick. ‘Yes, he’s lying. I would never allow someone like him to touch me.’

Thinking of the unpalatable past made Siena feel trembly and light-headed. She didn’t want to contemplate the very uncomfortable fact that he still had such a profound effect on her.

Once again, though, she marvelled at how far removed he was from the man who had once presided over servers in a hotel. In all honesty she was surprised he’d recognised her at all from his lofty position. She knew how easy it was to see only the hand that served you, not the person. Siena recalled her father’s blistering anger when he’d berated her once for aiding a waiter who’d dropped a tray at one of his legendary parties. He’d hauled her into his offce and gripped her arm painfully.

‘Don’t you know who we are? You step over people like him. You do not stop to help them.’

Siena had bitten back the angry retort on her lips. Just like you stepped over your own illegitimate son in the street? Our own brother? That audacious comment alone would have merited her sister a severe beating. That was his preferred twisted form of torture—if Siena provoked him, Serena would be punished.

Siena saw the bus stop in the distance and breathed a sigh of relief. Tomorrow she would have forgotten all about bad memories and running into Andreas Xenakis. Her insides lurched, mocking her assertion. For one second earlier, when she’d first seen Andreas, she’d imagined she was dreaming.

She’d never forgotten what she had done to that man by falsely accusing him. More often than she cared to admit she remembered that night and how, with just a look and a touch, he’d made her lose any sense of rationality and sanity. On some level, when she’d read about his stellar success in the newspapers, she’d been relieved; to see him flourishing far better than she would have ever expected assuaged some tiny part of the guilt she felt.

Resolutely Siena pushed down her incendiary thoughts. Familiar nagging anxiety took their place. She wondered now, as she approached the bus stop, if the two jobs she had would be enough to help her sister. But she knew with a leaden feeling that nothing short of a miracle could do that.

Siena had just arrived under the shelter of the bus stop when she noticed a sleek silver sports car pulling up alongside where she stood. Even before the electric window lowered on the passenger side Siena’s heart-rate had increased.

The starkly handsome features of Andreas Xenakis looked out and Siena backed away instinctively. His presence was evidence that he wasn’t about to let her off so easily. He wanted to torture her and make the most out of her changed circumstances. In a second he’d jumped out of the car and was lightly holding her elbow.

‘Please.’ He smiled urbanely, as if stopping to pick up women at bus stops resplendent in a tuxedo was entirely normal for him. ‘Let me give you a lift.’

Siena was so tense she felt as if she might crack in two. Very aware of her ill-fitting thin denim jacket in the biting early spring breeze, and the fatigue that made her bones ache, she bit out, ‘I’m fine, thank you. The bus will be along shortly.’

Andreas shook his head. He had that same incredulous expression that he’d worn when she’d spoken to him before. ‘Are your co-workers aware you could probably have conversed with every foreign guest in that room in their own tongue?’

Hurt at this back-handed compliment, and his all too banal but accurate assessment of her misery Siena pulled her arm free. She acted instinctively, wanting to say something to prick his pride and hopefully push him away. ‘I said I’m fine, thank you very much. I’m sure you have better things to do than follow me around like some besotted puppy dog.’

His eyes flashed dangerously at that, and Siena hated herself for those words. They reminded her of the poison that had dropped from her lips that night in Paris. They were the kind of words Andreas would expect her to say. But they weren’t having the desired effect at all. She should have realised that he wasn’t like other men—she remembered the way he’d stood up to her father with such innate pride. One of the very few people who hadn’t cowered.

He merely looked even more dangerous now, and grabbed her arm again. ‘Let’s go, Signorina DePiero. The bus is coming and I’m blocking the lane.’

Siena looked past Andreas and saw the double-decker bus bearing down. A sharp blast of the horn made her flinch. She could see the others waiting at the bus stop shooting them dirty looks because their journey home was being held up.

Siena looked at Andreas and he said ominously, ‘Don’t test me, Siena. I’ll leave the car there if I have to.’

Another blast of the horn had someone saying with irritation, ‘Oh, just take the lift, will you? We want to get home.’

For a second Siena felt nothing but excoriating isolation. And then Andreas had led her to the car and was handing her into the low seat before shutting the door. He slid smoothly into the other side.

‘Do up your belt,’ he instructed curtly, before adding acidly, ‘Or are you used to having even that done for you?’