From Dirt to Diamonds

Panic choked her throat, and she fought it down, regaining control of herself. Keeping that control rigidly for the remainder of the flight, a

nd then for the business of deplaning and travelling into the centre of Geneva. She was considerably better travelled now than she had been when she’d been Kat, but Geneva was new to her, and she gazed about her as a car drove them along the edge of Lac Lemain, past the famous iconic fountain jetting out of the water, and turned into the older part of town. The hotel was discreetly expensive, and Kat felt panic bite again as they were shown into Angelos’s suite. It subsided again as the bellboy took her bag into a separate bedroom. Surely if Angelos intended to try and get her into bed he would not have allowed her a bedroom of her own?

But if that was not his intent—then what was? The question ran round the inside of her skull, finding no answer, only tormenting her.

Her tension still sky-high, she heard Angelos’s voice from the doorway.

‘I have engagements this afternoon. Do whatever you want, but be ready to go to dinner at eight.’

She looked at him stiffly, stifling her anxieties, making herself think only of trivial, practical things. ‘What dress code?’

‘Cocktail,’ he said briefly. ‘And, Kat, this is Switzerland. They’re a sober people. Dress accordingly.’

The outfit she’d chosen, out of the variety she had brought with her must have been what he had in mind, for he made no comment on the knee-length olive-green dress. Her nerves were stretched like wire. She had spent the afternoon desultorily watching television and reading, and somehow she would get through the evening. She was relieved to find they were not à deux, as she had dreaded, but instead at a dinner function held in a private dining room at an expensive restaurant. She had gone into the kind of automatic social chitchat she was used to with Giles, and had it not been for Angelos Petrakos’s brooding presence would have found the experience perfectly pleasant.

She did her best to ignore Angelos, but his was not an easy presence to ignore. She was conscious all the time of his deep voice, his harsh, handsome features, and the dominating impact he made at the table, drawing the eyes, she knew, of all the other women present. At one point towards the end of the evening, to her shock, she heard him laugh—a sound she had never heard before. Her head whipped round, and she could only blink as she saw how the planes of his face had altered completely, with deep lines indenting around his mouth. She felt a jolt go through her, and for one fatal moment his line of sight intercepted hers. The jolt came again, like an electric shock, then, draggingly, she tore her eyes away.

It had shaken her—and as she got back into the limo she knew her tension was sky-high again. Yet Angelos did not speak to her until, back in the suite, he turned to her. She was standing, not sure what to do, in the middle of the room.

‘It’s really quite remarkable,’ he said. His eyes rested on her. ‘If I didn’t know the truth about you I would be as fooled as anyone. You’re unrecognisable from five years ago.’

He flicked his dark gaze up and down her, as she stood, immobile, making her face expressionless. Then he turned away, and she felt her muscles sag in reaction.

‘I’ve work to do,’ he said dismissively. ‘Tomorrow you can do what you wish, but we need to leave for the concert hall by seven. Dress code is black tie.’

She took her dismissal, and escaped to the refuge of her bedroom.

Against all her expectations, Thea slept well. Maybe she was just compensating for the previous sleepless night. When she woke it was already ten o’clock. Tentatively she ventured from her room. There was no sign of Angelos, and no sound from his room. After a while she relaxed, knowing he was not there. Nevertheless, she dressed swiftly and left the hotel. It was a dull morning, threatening rain, and she took coffee and a roll for breakfast in a café. Her mood was strange. She seemed remote, dissociated from herself and the rest of the world—dissociated, too, from memories of Giles, the man she had thought she was going to marry but who now seemed as unreal as if she had dreamt him.

She spent the rest of the day exploring Geneva, walking along the lake’s edge. A slight wind was ruffling the surface of the dark water. Finding an unoccupied bench, she sat down, looking out over the lake, at the clouds scudding overhead.

This is an interlude in my life. Nothing more. It’s a question of getting through the days, reaching the end. I don’t know when the end will be, but it will come. At some point he will let me go. Until then—I must wait. Just wait.

For a moment longer she looked out, unblinking, out across the lake. Then, with an intake of breath, as if to mark a decision to think no more for now, she opened her bag and got out her book to read—a pocket history of the city.

She got back to the hotel in good time, bathed and dressed herself. Then emerged from her room a few minutes before seven. Angelos was already there.

Her eyes went to him immediately, as they always did. But now, as she looked at him, she felt her breath catch—hate herself though she did for it. She had never seen him in evening dress before. It made any man look good, she knew. But on a man like Angelos Petrakos it was—breathtaking. The stark formality of the tuxedo, the dazzling white of the shirt sheathing his powerful frame, contrasting with the black bow tie, was devastating in its impact. She felt it jolting through her, rendering her incapable of doing anything but staring at him, taking him in. Feeling his power …

He’d been talking on his mobile, but he finished his call, turning to inspect her. She held herself rigidly steady, refusing to react to him.

‘Another elegant outfit,’ he murmured, eyes flickering over the black silk evening trousers topped with a long-waisted, long-sleeved silk jacket faintly threaded with silver. Tonight she was not wearing pearls, but a filigree silver necklace that fitted into the narrow vee between the revers of her jacket, and long, graceful silver earrings. Her hair, as ever, was in its customary chignon.

‘Models get discounts,’ she said carelessly, stepping into the elevator.

He made no reply, and they travelled down in silence, but Thea was aware of his gaze on her. Aware, too, of his presence at her side, of the faint tang of aftershave and, deeper than that, of a shivering sense of his raw, ruthless masculinity.

It persisted, to her growing discomfort, through the evening ahead. All through the concert as she sat beside him—too close, far, far too close!—she could feel his presence there. Feel the heat of his body, the long line of his leg so close to hers, feel his shoulder almost graze hers. She kept her hands doggedly in her lap, not using the armrest at all lest her arm brush against the smooth, svelte sleeve of his dinner jacket.

But though she was not touching him he was there all the same. Far too close. Far too real. Doggedly, she determined to concentrate only on the music. To appreciate the opportunity to listen to a world-famous orchestra, see a world-famous conductor and soloist, in acoustically the best seats in the house.

She wished, though, it had not been Rachmaninov. The lush, lavish tones of the second symphony poured over her, disturbing her senses, arousing her emotions. She felt its power dissolving her rigidly imposed control. The music seemed to strip it away, making her feel things she did not want to feel. Arousing emotions she did not want aroused. She sought to hold herself immobile in her seat, spine straight, hands still, but the music swayed through her, crescendo after crescendo. And always the perpetual consciousness of the dark, disturbing presence of Angelos Petrakos at her side.

The second half of the concert was Shostakovich, and all the lushness of Rachmaninov was swept away in stormy discordance. She was glad of that, too. But when the concert finally ended it appeared their evening was not yet over. Angelos made his way with her up to a spacious private function VIP salon, where there was some kind of reception going on. Just as he had the night before, Angelos introduced her to whoever he talked to, and Thea found herself in the same kind of social situation. She performed her allotted role perforce, discussing the concert or any other subject that came up, sipping sparkling mineral water and orange juice, allowing herself a little of the delicious-looking buffet.

But if the polyglot social-chitchat was easy enough, coping with Angelos’s constant presence at her side was not.

It seemed to be getting worse, her consciousness of him.