From Dirt to Diamonds

In his head shrilled her voice, loathing and fear in it— ’Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me! I couldn’t bear it!’

His face twisted, new emotion working in him.

She hates you for what you did to her. It dominates her response to you, obliterating everything else.

Slowly, he walked into his bedroom, his mind still full. He had done what he had to her five long years ago because there had been no other way to impose justice upon her—because she had outwitted the law with her lies and slander. He felt no remorse for what he had done—why should he? She had stolen from him, slandered him—and got away with it in the eyes of the law.

But she had not got away with it in his eyes—he knew the truth of what she had done—and so he had exacted his own justice upon her. Just as, now, he’d refused to allow her to continue to deceive her hapless fiancé about her past.

But she’s paid the price for both …

Did he need to feel only anger towards her any more? Or was he now free to indulge that other, equally powerful emotion he felt about her? The one that was even more powerful now, five years on, in the face of her new, mature, cultured beauty.

He didn’t know. Not clearly yet. Knew only, as his hand went with automatic gestures to loosen his tie as he proceeded to head for his solitary bed, in the acute consciousness of her presence so short a distance away, that he wanted to find out—and that to do so would require continuing to keep her with him.

But not here. His thoughts resolved themselves, gelling to a point of decision that focused within him with sudden clarity. He did not want to be here with her, in this suite, with the memory of how she had behaved five years ago all around him, dragging him back into the past. No—if he was to allow himself to feel any emotion for her other than anger, as that revelatory moment in the elevator had forced him to admit he did, then he must take her somewhere he could discover the truth of her character, whatever she called herself now.

And he knew exactly the place.

Decision made, he started to ready himself for bed. From tomorrow he would start to discover the truth he was seeking. And whether he could have what he wanted.

CHAPTER SIX

Someone was knocking softly. Thea heard the sound of a door opening, then a female voice spoke.

‘Madam, breakfast is served.’

Blearily, Thea raised her head from the pillow. She had scarcely slept—not until dawn had been fingering across the city sky. Her head had been filled with memories—memories she had fought for five years.

I let him—I let him kiss me. I did not fight, I did not yell, or pull away, or hit at him, or anything—anything at all. I just stood there and let him do that to me …

But now, at last, the day had come—her release. She was free, she thought blankly, to go home, take up her empty life again.

Swiftly, she made a basic toilette, desperate to be gone. But as she walked out of her bedroom her eyes immediately fell on him, fully dressed in a business suit, seated at the breakfast table. There was no sign of the maid who had roused her. His head turned as she came into the room. For a moment their eyes met, then she blanked hers and said, her tone brisk, ‘I’m going now.’

His expression did not change. ‘You’re going nowhere. Come here, Kat, and sit down. I may not keep my mistresses long, but I keep them longer than one night. You’re coming with me to Geneva—we leave at noon.’

Her dismay was open. ‘I can’t just leave London. I have appointments.’ It was all she could think to say through the tide of rejection sweeping through her at his words.

‘Cancel them,’ he said indifferently. ‘Your agency can phone my office if there are any problems. I’ll compensate for any contractual objections arising from your absence.’

She stood, fulminating with fury—and something more than fury that was not fear, never fear, but still made her want to rush from the room. But if she did his threat to expose her to Giles would hang over her head still …

She set her face. She could not let Angelos see either her fury or her dismay. ‘You said noon, I believe?’ she said carelessly.

He nodded.

‘Very well.’ She didn’t bother to ask what she should pack. Didn’t bother to do anything except head for the door and leave.

At the table, Angelos watched her go. Was he deranged? Deranged to do this? Yet one glimpse of her standing there, bristling and defiant, her face bare of make-up yet still startlingly beautiful, had told him that his decision was the right one. Definitely the right one. Whatever he wasn’t sure about, one thing was for sure—he was not about to let Kat Jones go.

The executive jet skimmed the cloud surface. Sunlight poured in through Thea’s porthole. How could the world be so bright when inside her head was only darkness? Across the aisle Angelos sat, ensconced in paperwork. Her mask of studied indifference had hardly been needed. He had ignored her presence throughout the journey to the airfield and so far throughout the flight. His attention had been reserved only for his work—and the smiling stewardess who had fawned over him. Thea would have laughed at her efforts had she not had a stone in her chest. She stared, unseeing, down at her book, taking in nothing.

How was she to get through what was to come?

And what was to come? The stone in her chest hardened.

If he tries it—if he lays a finger on me …