Vicky felt her stomach hollow.
No, amicable their parting had not been.
Fierceness filled her again.
It’s Theo’s fault—it’s all Theo’s fault! I never asked for any of this—none of it! And I didn’t deserve it! I absolutely did not deserve it. Even if I had—
The phone in the car went.
For a moment she let it ring, feeling her stomach hollow out. Then she picked it up.
‘Hello?’
It was Demetrious again.
‘ Theakis? Theakis has suggested you lunch with him in his apartment here. Would that be convenient for you?’
Mentally, Vicky punched the air.
‘What a lovely idea,’ she trilled. ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. We’re at—’
She cast her eyes around and told Demetrious what street they were on.
It took a little while still to reach the headquarters of Theakis Corp. As the car drew up, Vicky felt the lick of memory. She hadn’t been here very often during her marriage, and she only recalled being in Theo’s private apartment at the top of the building a couple of times. But it was still strange—unnerving, even—to walk into the building.
Just being in Athens again was strange. Unnerving.
She pressed her lips together. Their marriage of convenience had been working out fine—why, why had Theo had to go and ruin everything? Why?
His ego. That was all. His overweening sexual ego that had decided that he might as well have her panting for him, as well…
Memory drenched through her. Not of the time of her brief, wretched marriage, but of last night. And the night before, and the night before that.
She could feel her body react in hot, humid recollection of what it had done a few hours ago, in the darkened tumult of her inflamed desire…
Her nipples were hardening, the pulse at the vee of her legs quickening.
No! God, no! Stop it—just stop it!
With monumental effort she slammed down on her reaction. That wasn’t what she must feel! That was fatal—fatal. Even with her cold, light-of-day reasoning about exactly why she had gone along with Theo’s outrageous demand that she come to his bed, it was fatal to let her mind go back to what she had done.
Never again. That was what she had to remember. Never again would Theo touch her. Never again would his body move over hers. Never again.
I’m safe now—safe from him. That’s all I have to remember. There is nothing more he can do to me. Because I have everything I want from him. Everything.
Except one thing.
She took a breath—a deep one,
What she wanted now from Theo was not something she had to fear. Only be grimly, blackly satisfied by.
I want my own back. I want my own back for what he did to me. And I know exactly how I’m going to get that.
She lifted her chin, picked up her new handbag, and got out of the car.
If it was disturbing to be back in Athens again it was even more disturbing walking into Theo’s HQ. This time around, unlike in London, she was shown up to his office straight away, and as she entered Theo’s executive suite Demetrious came forward to greet her. If he wondered what she was doing there, why she was suddenly dressed not in chainstore clothes but indeed as ‘the former Theo Theakis’, nothing showed in his professionally blank face as he ushered her into Theo’s inner sanctum.
Only then, just as she walked in and heard the double doors click shut behind her, did a sense of déjà-vu suddenly hit her. This was exactly what she’d done the day that her uncle had announced his bolt-from-the-blue idea—that a man she scarcely knew, but who’d had such a disturbing effect on her right from the very first time she’d laid eyes on him, had asked for her hand in marriage.