Revelations of His Runaway Bride

‘There are no happily-ever-afters here,’ he said, lifting the papers he’d been looking through and tapping them on the desktop till they were straight.

He put them in a folder and slid it across to her.

‘In addition to those settlements I’ve negotiated a ten-million-euro payment from your father. You’ll be a wealthy woman. Free to do whatever you want. The removal company will come tomorrow to pack your things. I’ve taken the liberty of delivering your motorcycle to your new home. I’ll leave all the necessary keys with Anna. The estate agent will show you around.’

She didn’t know this man. The man who stuck a knife in her heart with no remorse. There was nothing left of the husband who’d made love to her till she’d wept from pleasure. This man only caused pain.

‘You’ve been busy.’

He was casting her out. Moving on. Had these past months meant nothing to him?

‘You’ve kept me from the business I have to attend to. You wanted a life. I want my life back.’

The thought of him taking back his life made her ill. Living without her, seeing other women... She swallowed down the saliva flooding her mouth. Swallowed past the tight, choking feeling that crept into her throat, as if the world was trying to throttle her. He’d planned this all along, using her in the process. Well, she wouldn’t let him see her humiliation.

‘The wedding and engagement rings are yours to keep,’ he said.

She looked at the still twinkling gems on her finger. Funny how she’d forgotten they were even there, and yet they were mocking her now. She wrenched them from her hand and tossed them on the leather desktop. Christo watched their trajectory as they bounced and fell in front of him.

‘Since I’m not married any more I don’t want them,’ she hissed. ‘Give them to your next bride of convenience.’

He shrugged, then stood and walked out from behind the desk. ‘Your father has retracted his complaint against Alexis. He says it was an accounting error. The charges are in the process of being dropped. When that’s happened, Raul will give you Alexis’s new number.’

She slumped in the chair. At least some good had come from this disaster.

Christo stopped as he reached her. Sliding his hand into his pocket, he placed something carefully on the desktop. Thea saw the gleaming gold of her mother’s necklace. She picked it up. The metal was warm from his hand. Tears pricked her eyes, burned her nose as she blinked hard.

She didn’t look back as Christo walked away from her, as the door of his office clicked open. She felt his hesitation, heard the scuff of leather soles on carpet.

‘Goodbye, Thea.’

The door closed behind him and he was gone from her life for ever.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THEA TOYED WITH her lunch, chasing a rogue olive around the plate. Another meal. Another hour passing in this, the eighty-seventh day since she’d walked from Christo’s home with everything and nothing.

Not that she’d been counting since that moment. Not at all. Not since those awful minutes when she’d left his office and a distraught Anna had handed her a bunch of keys and an envelope. No, it was done now.

She sipped at a glass of wine, which could have been vinegar for all she cared. Today her mission was to choose a gown for a function at the American Embassy in a few days’ time. She was having fun. It was what she’d always wanted. It should have been perfect. No, it was perfect. It was...

‘Are you missing Alexis?’ Elena sat opposite, her lunch long devoured. She peered at Thea over a pair of oversized sunglasses.

A week earlier Alexis had left for Australia to visit his father. And, yes, she missed him. Their reunion had been full of joy and hugs and tears, and it hadn’t been long enough after everything that had happened. Now he was spending six months travelling the world, and when he returned to Greece he was taking up a role in Raul’s security company. She suspected that was Christo’s doing too...

‘Paidi mou. You’re not happy.’

Wasn’t she happy? She had everything she’d ever desired. A house. Wealth. Freedom. And what she didn’t want—her father’s money—she’d put to good use in funding a refuge for women who were escaping family violence. Achieving something worthwhile.

She had a wide circle of acquaintances. Her life was hers to control. All the freedom she’d ever wanted and yet those old fears returned late at night. Of being trapped in a cage. Rattling the bars till cold sweat prickled down her neck. The same fear which once had her clenching her fists till her nails bit into her palms.

Now those fears took her out early, riding her motorcycle in the predawn air. Riding till the sun rose. Pretending she could fly. Always pretending...

Elena reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘What happened, Thea?’

Why did she feel so rooted to the ground when she could do anything she wanted?

Thea stared into her empty glass.