Part 7 (2/2)

But for all her resolution, telling Giles when he returned to London the next morning that she could not marry him was a slow agony. The pain in his eyes crucified her. But she had to inflict it. There was no other way. She could not-could not-tell him the truth. Yet to stop him wanting to honour his offer of marriage, as she knew he would, she had to hurt him with another lie-and such a monstrous one. Of all the people in the world, it was the one she loathed with all her being whom she now had to lie about! The lie mocked her with whips-and so did Giles' response.

'You're still in love with him, aren't you?' said Giles.

Thea couldn't speak, could only nod. 'I'm so sorry,' she whispered. 'So terribly, terribly sorry. I lied to you in that restaurant, denying I knew him, because I desperately wanted it all to be over between him and me. But ... he came to me last night and-' She couldn't go on. The vileness of the lie she had to tell was too great for that.

'I'm just so sorry,' she whispered again.

He patted her hand. A jerky movement. His face was not showing much. He never let emotions show. Not deep ones. But she knew he felt them. He was a good, kind man. A decent, honourable man. A man she would have striven with every fibre of her being to be a good wife to.

And now- It was over. The dream she had dreamt was over before it began. Despair racked her. And anger and shame, and a regret for what could never now be so powerful that it crushed her.

'I can only wish you every happiness,' said Giles.

She gazed at him with stricken eyes. 'I'm so sorry,' she said again. 'And I hope and pray with all my heart that you find a woman more worthy of you.'

He would never know just what she meant by that. But she would know, and the knowledge incised deep into her. Only the certain knowledge of her own misery could a.s.suage the pain she was inflicting.

Sadly, guiltily, she kissed his cheek and left him.

Back in her flat, depression hit her like a huge wave. She let it break over her, knowing there was nothing she could do-nothing. The future she had thought to have was gone. It could never return. Giles was gone-driven back up to Yorks.h.i.+re to tell his parents she had called it off. She kept busy, cleaning her flat like one possessed. She had no appointments that day, which was just as well, as she could face no one-not even her booker.

She was signed with a different agency from the one where she had started her career as Kat Jones. This one had branches all over the world-all over the U.K. Even in Manchester.

That was where she had gone when Angelos Petrakos had destroyed her the first time around. She had gone there with Katya, both of them making a new life for themselves. They'd worked as cleaners-menial work to pay the rent, to eat, to survive. More than that had been beyond her. All she'd been able to bring herself to do was just keep going-nothing more than that. Then Katya had met a fellow Pole, Marek, to whom Katya was not just scar tissue, and who had said only one thing when Kat had told him how Mike had met his end-'He got lucky.'

Kat had seen the murderous look in Marek's eyes and known that Katya was safe now. She'd been happy for Katya-but when she'd gone she'd sat alone in their bedsit and stared at the walls.

They had started to move in on her. Slowly, inexorably, crus.h.i.+ng the air out of the room, the breath out of her lungs, the life out of her veins. Shabby walls in a grimy flat on a grim street in a rundown part of the city where she spent her days as an office char, cleaning up other people's dirt.

Well, what do you expect? Two generations of losers, and you're the third. You tried to get out-and you lost. Accept it. You're not going anywhere any more. You're in the pit-so make yourself at home. It's where you belong, Kat Jones.

Then, out of the depths, the thought had come.

But I don't have to be Kat Jones ...

She'd sat very still as the thought had formed in her head. Formed and shaped and grown.

I can be someone else. I can be anyone I choose. Anyone.

But it wasn't just a name she'd needed. If all she'd taken was a new name Kat Jones would still have been underneath. She'd needed to be a new person. Someone a million miles away from Kat Jones-raised in care, daughter and granddaughter of prost.i.tutes, alcoholics and junkies. In her mind's eye she'd seen the sleek, glossy models who had been chosen by Angelos Petrakos. Not like her-with her Estuary English and her abrasive style and her pig-ignorance. But well-bred, well-spoken, well-behaved, well-educated.

Cla.s.sy.

There had been a strange light in her eye. A burning light.

It was one that had lit her way through the years ahead.

Could that light still burn now, even through the dark, dark shadow of Angelos Petrakos? She knew there was only one answer she must give.

Yes. Yes. She could survive what he was doing to her-overcome it! She wasn't the raw, ignorant, penniless wannabe she'd been five years ago. She was Thea Dauntry, who owned a flat in Covent Garden, who had savings in the bank and a solid, well-paid career, who knew how to behave in the affluent, comfortable places of the world. Her rough London accent was smooth now, and cultured-as cultured as her mind had become through self-education, finally catching up on the years she had neglected at school.

Whatever Angelos Petrakos tried to do to her, he could not take that away. She was Thea Dauntry-and Kat Jones was gone for ever!

Yet, for all her resolution, it was hard-hideously hard-to pack an overnight case, lock her flat, and make her way, as she had been ordered, to his hotel. The same one, with vicious mockery, he had been staying at five long years ago-the same suite always reserved for him whenever he wanted to be in London.

Heart as heavy as lead, her mind studiedly, deliberately blank, she stepped inside the hotel, inside the revolving doors where, five long years ago, she had first set eyes on Angelos Petrakos. The man she hated with all her being and always would ...

Angelos stared at the screen of his laptop. He wasn't reading what was on it-his thoughts were elsewhere. Doing something they rarely did. Questioning himself. A frown creased his brow. Why was he doing this? Why should he care whether some unknown man ended up married to the likes of Kat Jones? He'd finished with her five years ago ...

There was no need to do what he was doing.

No need to bring her here again.

His expression s.h.i.+fted minutely. Need was not the only driver for his decision, he knew. Something else was impelling him.

It was anger, that was all, he told himself. Anger that she was set on deceiving an innocent, trusting man who did not deserve it. Anger that she had dared to do so and saw nothing wrong in doing so. That was the only reason he was doing this.

He would allow it to be for no other reason.

Not because of her luminous beauty that drew the eye disturbingly ... evocatively ...

The soft tones of the house phone sounded. He glanced at his watch. The watch she had once stolen from him. Two minutes to nine. He picked up the phone. It was Reception. Kat Jones was right on time.

Thea was calm. She would not allow herself to be anything else. She was in lockdown. It was essential. Essential in order to be able to walk into the suite, to see Angelos Petrakos again. She stood quite still, like a statue, staring ahead while the bellboy set down her case and then left. Angelos was looking at her, she could see. She would not look at him. But she could feel his presence like a dark pressure all around her.

'So ...' his voice incised into the silence, deep and accented '... have you given your lordling his release?'

'Yes.' Her voice was dead. Unemotional.

'Good. Well, by tomorrow morning he will be permanently safe from you-even if you reneged on your rejection of him and went after him again he would have no wish to take my mistress for his wife, would he?'

'No.' The same deadness was in her voice.

He paused. Then in measured tones he spoke again. 'I am glad, Kat, that you understand that. There is no going back for you. Your ambitions in that direction are over. Permanently.'

He walked away from her, and from her eyeline she could see him cross to a drinks cabinet on the far side of the lavishly appointed suite. A terrifying surge of deja vu suddenly swept over her, as if time had collapsed and she was once more standing here in that nightmare confrontation five years ago.

No! The lockdown on her mind tightened. No memories. None.

She made her eyes rest on him as he reached for a bottle and unstoppered it. She made herself look at him. Tall, powerful-brutal. Incised features, hard body, dark tanned skin, the darker hue of his black hair, the blacker shade of his handmade business suit-all created the aura he was projecting. Not a man to mess with, not a man to defy-not a man to cross.

A man she could only ... survive.

'What would you like to drink?'

The casual enquiry seemed at odds with the reality of the situation. As if there was anything sociable, anything normal in what she was doing here. Not like the grim, harsh truth of the situation.

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