Then he thrust her away from him and she fell—down, down, down, into the pit he’d opened beneath her feet.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE destruction had been systematic and ruthless. The power of Angelos Petrakos had seen to that. Her contract with the agency had been cancelled, and no other London modelling agency would take her on—unwilling to risk the wrath of so rich and powerful a man. He’d had her evicted from her bedsit, sacked from her day job. Everything Kat had achieved by sweat, hard work, and dogged willpower was gone.
He’d left her with nothing.
Nothing but her will.
And the memory of what he had done to her.
And now, five long years later, the memory burned with a livid, coruscating flame in her head, giving her the strength she needed now to defy him. Because defiance was all she would ever feel towards him! She had refused to stay beaten—refused to go back down into the pit. Though he’d ripped her life to shreds she’d climbed back up, hand over hand, out of the pit.
And when she’d emerged she had no longer been Kat Jones. She would never be Kat Jones again …
Whatever Angelos Petrakos threatened her with.
Her eyes were steely, meeting his head-on, unflinching.
‘Get out of my flat,’ she said. Her voice was level, even if below the surface she was fracturing into tiny pieces.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’ Angelos’s voice was implacable. ‘What does your fiancé—’ he made the word mocking ‘—think about Kat Jones?’
Her silence was tangible. That and the whitening along her cheekbones revealed everything to him he needed to know. His eyes glittered darkly.
‘You haven’t told him.’
It was not a question.
For an endless moment his eyes simply hooked hers in their talons. She tried to tear them away, but could not—could only stand there while he eviscerated her with his eyes. With his words.
‘You deceitful, manipulative little liar,’ he said softly. ‘You were going to marry him, weren’t you? Knowing he was getting a mirage, a fake? Weren’t you?’
The fury was naked in his voice, icing through her. She couldn’t move—couldn’t speak. Dread filled her.
And something more than dread. Something worse.
She could feel the adrenaline leap in her body and tried to crush it down. Not because it fed her anger—she didn’t care about her anger, she welcomed it, needed it—but because it fed a quite different emotion. One that was deadly to her. Lethal. One she could not, could not, allow herself to feel.
She straightened her spine. ‘Get out,’ she said again. She could feel the pulse in her throat throb. It was loathing—that was all. Loathing that it was signalling. Nothing else. She wouldn’t allow it to be anything else.
He didn’t move. Stayed right where he was, occupying her sofa. Invading her space. Her life. Forcing her nightmare past into the present she had made for herself—into the future she so desperately wanted with Giles.
Then he spoke. ‘You have a choice.’ His words cut like a knife through flesh. Her flesh. ‘I will not allow you to inflict your deceit upon that hapless fool you’ve got in your toils. Either you tell him about Kat—or I will.’
‘No!’ The word broke from her—instinctive, urgent. Kat Jones was gone—gone for ever! She would never allow her back—never!
He smiled. The smile of a predator who had seen his prey trip and fall.
‘Oh, yes, Kat. You’ll tell him. Or I will do it for you. Do you really think—’ his dark eyes rested on her with implacable condemnation ‘—I won’t?’
No. She didn’t think that. She knew exactly what Angelos Petrakos would do. He always did what he promised he would do—she knew that … Oh, how she knew that!
Dread and rage surged in her. But there was something else as well—something that forced its way to the fore, cutting through both those turgidly swirling emotions.
She could never tell Giles what Angelos was demanding. Never! Because she knew that for Giles it would make no difference. Hollowness emptied her. Giles would abide by the code of his class, and nothing on earth would make him abandon it! Whatever she told him, he would say that he had asked her to marry him and no power could make him retract that! He would stand by her even knowing what she had told him, despite all that …
And she couldn’t do it to him! She couldn’t!