‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he said. His eyes didn’t meet hers, his body didn’t touch hers—he just stood there, blocking her way. Letting Theo Theakis get away from her and stride off with total and complete unconcern for the fact that he had taken something from her that was not his to take and had kept it.
Her self-control was at breaking point. She could feel it snapping like a dry twig beneath her high heels. She felt her hand arch up, gripping the soft leather clutch bag she was holding like some kind of slingshot, and with every ounce of muscle in her arm she hurled it towards the man who was walking past her, walking out on her. Totally stonewalling her.
‘Speak to me, you bastard! Damn well speak to me!’
The handbag bounced off one of the suits’ shoulders, falling to the ground. The bodyguard in front of her caught her arm, too late to stop her impetuous action, but in time to force it down, not roughly, but with the strength his profession required of him.
‘None of that, please,’ he said, and there was a slight grimness to his mouth—presumably because, she thought, with a glance of vicious satisfaction, he hadn’t expected a ‘nice young Englishwoman’to behave in such an outrageous fashion.
Not that it had done her the slightest good at all. The entourage just kept going—hastened, even. Though the man at the centre did not change his pace by a centimetre. He simply walked out of the building and disappeared into the sleek black limo that was waiting at the kerb. The car moved off. He had gone.
You swine, thought Vicky, trembling all over. You absolute, total swine.
She had never, ever hated him so much as at that moment.
Theo let his gaze rest silently, impassively, on the newspaper clipping that had been placed in front of him. He was at breakfast in his London apartment, and on the other side of the table his private secretary stood, uneasily waiting for his employer’s reaction. It would not be good, Demetrious knew. Theo Theakis hated anything about his private life getting into the press—which was ironic, really, since the life he led made the press very interested in him indeed, even though they could never get much information on him at all.
Theo Theakis managed his privacy ruthlessly. Even when the press could smell a really juicy story bubbling beneath the expensive surface of his tycoon’s existence, Theo would remain calm. Eighteen months ago, when rumours had started to circulate like buzzing wasps about just why his apparently unexceptional marriage had proved so exceptionally brief, the press had been hot on his tail. But, as usual, they’d got absolutely nothing beyond the bland statement issued at Theo Theakis’s curt instruction. Which was exactly why, Demetrious knew with a sinking heart, the tabloid from which the cutting had been taken had snapped up this latest little morsel.
He stood now, watching and waiting for his employer’s reaction. He wouldn’t show much, Demetrious knew, but he was aware that the mask of impassivity would be just that—a mask. Demetrious was grateful for it. Without the mask he would probably have been blasted to stone already by now.
For a few seconds there was silence. At least, thought Demetrious gratefully, there was no picture to go with the newspaper article. What had happened yesterday in Theakis HQ would have made a photo opportunity for any paparazzi to die for. As it was, it was nothing more than a coyly worded few paragraphs, laced with speculation, about just what had caused the former Mrs Theo Theakis to hurl her handbag at him and call him an unbecoming name. The journalist in question had teamed the article with an old photograph from the press archives of Theo Theakis, looking svelte in a tux, walking into some top hotel in Athens with a blonde, English, couture-dressed woman on his arm. Her expression was as impassive as his employer’s was now.
But she certainly hadn’t been impassive yesterday. And nothing could hide the glee with which the brief, gossipy article had been written up.
Theo Theakis’s eyes snapped up.
‘Find out who talked to these parasites and then sack them,’ he said.
Then he went on with his breakfast.
Demetrious stood back. The man was ruthless, all right. There were times, definitely, when he felt sorry for anyone who ever got on the wrong side of Theo Theakis. Like his ex-wife. Demetrious wondered why she’d done what she had. Surely by now she must know it was just a waste of her time? She’d been plaguing his boss for weeks now, and he’d not given an inch. He wasn’t going to, either. Demetrious could tell. Whatever it was she so badly wanted, she could forget it! As far as Theo Theakis was concerned she clearly no longer existed.
Demetrious turned to go. He’d been dismissed, he knew, and sent on an errand he would not enjoy, but which had to be done all the same.
‘One more thing—’
The deep voice halted him. Demetrious paused expectantly. Dark eyes looked at him with the same chilling impassivity.
‘Instruct Theakis to be here tonight at eight-thirty,’ said his employer.
CHAPTER TWO
VICKY was ploughing through paperwork. There was a never-ending stream of it: forms in triplicate, and worse, letters of application, case notes, invoices, accounts and any number of records, listings and statistical analyses. But it all had to be done, however frustrating. It was the only way, Vicky knew, to achieve what this small voluntary group, Freshstart, was dedicated to achieving—making some attempt to catch those children who were slipping through the education net and who needed the kind of dedicated, intensive, out-of-school catch-up tutoring that the organisation sought to provide them with.
Money was, of course, their perpetual challenge. For every pound the group had, it could easily have spent five times that amount, and the number of children who needed its services was not diminishing.
She gave a sharp sigh of frustration, which intensified as she picked up the next folder—the batch of quotes from West Country building firms for doing up Jem’s house. Jem had deliberately kept the work to the barest minimum—a new roof, new electrics, new flooring—to secure the property and make it comply with Health and Safety regulations. Everything else they would have to do themselves—painting, decorating, furnishing—even if they had to beg, borrow or steal. But the main structural and safety work just had to be done professionally—and it was going to cost a fortune.
Yet the house, Pycott Grange, was a godsend. Jem had inherited it the previous year from his childless maternal great-uncle, and now that probate had been granted he could take occupation. Although it was very run down, after years of neglect, it had two outstanding advantages: it was large, standing in its own generous grounds, and it was close to the Devonshire seaside. Both those conditions made it ideal for what everyone hoped would be Freshstart’s latest venture. So many of the children it helped came from backgrounds that were grim in the extreme—deprived, dysfunctional families, trapped in dreary inner-city environments that simply reinforced all their educational problems. But if some of those children could just get a break, right away from their normal bleak lives, it might provide the catalyst they needed to see school as a vital ladder they could climb to get out of the conditions they’d been born into rather than the enemy. Two weeks at the Grange, with a mix of intensive tuition and space to play sport and surf, might just succeed in turning their heads around, giving them something to aim for in life other than the deadbeat fate that inevitably awaited them.
But the Grange was going to cost a lot of money to be made suitable for housing staff and pupils, and a lot more to run, as well, before Jem’s dream finally came true. Disappointment bit into Vicky again. If the building work could start, without more delay, then there was a really good prospect that the Grange could open its doors in time for the long school summer holidays coming up in a few months. Already Freshstart had a list as long as your arm of children they would like to recommend for the experience. But without cash the Grange would continue to crumble away, unused and unusable.
If we just had the money, she thought. Right now. And they should have the money. That was the most galling part of it. They should—it was there, sitting uselessly in a bank account, ready to be used. Except that—
I want what’s mine!
Anger injected itself into the frustration. It’s mine—I was promised it. It was part of that damned devil’s agreement I made—the one I knew I shouldn’t have made, but I did, all the same. Because I felt…