Tabby was studying him with confused eyes. ‘The bait?’
‘I had a tacky one-night stand with her,’ Acheron ground out grudgingly, dark colour accentuating his spectacular cheekbones, his jaw line clenching hard on the admission. ‘A couple of stolen hours from a busy schedule of work and travel. I’m being honest here—it meant nothing more to me. Although I treated her with respect I never pretended at any stage that I wanted to see her again.’
Tabby averted her eyes, reflecting that respectful treatment would not have compensated Kasma for his ultimate rejection, when presumably she had persuaded herself that she could expect a much keener and less fleeting response.
‘She picked me up in the hotel restaurant. Afterwards she started acting as though she knew me really well. To be frank, it was a freaky experience and I made my excuses and returned to my own room.’
Tabby was swallowing hard at a level of honesty she had not expected to receive from him. ‘But if she already knew who you were, why did she lie about her own identity?’
Acheron shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘Obviously because I would never have touched her had I known she was my father’s precious little girl.’
‘His precious little girl?’ Tabby queried.
‘Her mother was widowed when Kasma was only a baby. My father raised Kasma from the age of three. She was the apple of his eye, his favourite child, and he couldn’t see any fault in her,’ Acheron advanced tautly, his lips compressing. ‘When I walked into the family dinner the week after the hotel encounter I was appalled to realise that Kasma was my father’s stepchild and furious that she had lied to me and put me in that position, but that wasn’t all I had to worry about. Before I could even decide how to behave, she stood up and announced that she had been saving a little surprise for everyone. And that surprise—according to her—was that she and I were dating.’
‘Oh, my word...’ Tabby was as stunned as he must’ve been by that development. ‘And that one...er...episode at the hotel was really the extent of your relationship with her?’
‘It was, but not according to Kasma. She had a very fertile imagination and over the months that followed she began acting like a stalker, flying round the world, turning up wherever I was,’ he explained, lines of strain bracketing his mouth as he recalled that period. ‘She tried to force her way into my life while telling my father a pack of lies about me. She told him I’d cheated on her, she told him I’d got her pregnant and then she told him she’d had a miscarriage. He fell for every one of her tales and nothing I could say would persuade him that my relationship with his stepdaughter was a fantasy she had made up. And having made that first mistake by getting involved with her that night at the hotel, I felt I had brought the whole nightmare down on my own head.’
‘I don’t think so—’
‘It was casual sex but there was nothing casual about it,’ Acheron opined grimly. ‘I went to bed with a woman who was a stranger and maybe I deserved what I got.’
‘Not when she set out to deliberately deceive you and then tried to trap you into a relationship,’ Tabby declared stoutly. ‘I don’t agree with the way you behaved with her but she was obviously a disturbed personality.’
‘She assaulted a woman I spent time with last year, which was why I was so concerned about your safety and Amber’s.’
‘What did she do?’
‘She forced her way into my apartment and punched the woman while ranting about how I belonged to her.’ He grimaced at the recollection. ‘My father begged me to use my influence and prevent it from going to court but I was at the end of my rope. Kasma was dangerous and she needed treatment but as long as her family turned a blind eye and I swallowed what she was dishing out, she was free to do as she liked. The court accepted that she was lying and had never had a relationship with me and therefore had no excuse whatsoever for attacking the woman in my apartment and calling it a domestic dispute.’
‘Didn’t that convince your father that you were telling him the truth?’
‘No, Kasma managed to convince him that I must’ve bribed someone and she had been stitched up by me to protect my own reputation,’ he proffered with unconcealed regret. ‘The sole saving grace was that after that court case I was able to take out a restraining order against her and at least that kept her out of my hair while I was on Greek soil.’
Tabby slowly shook her head, which was reeling with his revelations. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why wouldn’t you explain?’
His bold bronzed profile clenched hard. ‘I was ashamed of the whole business and I didn’t want to frighten you either. My wealth didn’t protect me from the fact that Kasma could still get to me almost everywhere I went. You have no idea how powerless I felt when she even managed to gatecrash the wedding because I didn’t want to make a scene with my father’s family present,’ he confessed grittily. ‘I didn’t want to publicise my problems with her while my father was still alive either. She caused him enough grief with her wild stories about how badly I’d treated her.’
‘So why on earth did he want you to marry her?’ Tabby queried, struggling to understand that angle.
‘He believed she loved me and he genuinely thought I owed her a wedding ring. He blamed me for her increasingly hysterical outbursts and strange behaviour.’
‘That was probably easier for him than dealing with the real problem, which was her. He would’ve had more faith in you if he had ever had the chance to get to know you properly,’ Tabby opined, resting a soothing hand down on his. ‘Kasma had the advantage and he trusted her and that gave her the power to put you through an awful ordeal.’
‘It’s over now,’ Acheron reminded her flatly. ‘Her brother, Simeon, believed me and tried to persuade her to see a therapist. Perhaps if she had listened she might not have died today.’
‘It’s not your fault though,’ Tabby countered steadily. ‘You weren’t capable of fixing whatever was broken in her.’
Acheron groaned out loud. ‘It’s so not sexy that you feel sorry for me now.’
‘I don’t feel sorry for you. I just think you’ve been put through the mill a bit,’ Tabby paraphrased awkwardly. ‘No wonder you don’t like clingy, needy women after that experience.’
‘I wouldn’t mind if you clung occasionally,’ Acheron admitted.
Tabby rolled her eyes at him. ‘Stop being such a smoothie...it’s wasted on me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Acheron asked harshly as the limo drew up outside the beach house.