Part 8 (1/2)

'Mineral water,' she answered. Her voice was clipped. It sounded unreal, even to her, and she knew that she could still feel the shades of her once-rough accents haunting her. But that was Kat-and she was no longer Kat. She was Thea, and Thea spoke with pure Queen's English. No one looked down on her socially any more.

'Still or sparkling?'

'I couldn't care less,' she replied indifferently.

He finished pouring and then came back towards her, a tumbler of malt whisky in one hand, a tall gla.s.s of mineral water in the other. She set her handbag down on the coffee table and took the gla.s.s he proffered. She still didn't want to look at him, but she forced herself. She must not let him see she did not want to look at him. That would give him a satisfaction she must deny him. He would get nothing from her-no reaction at all.

Angelos Petrakos raised his tumbler.

'To our time together,' he said, and took a mouthful of the whisky. His eyes washed over her.

Thea's mouth suddenly felt dry as bone. She wanted to drink, wanted to drop her eyes away from him. But she forced herself to do neither-forced herself to let him look. She was used to being looked at-it was her profession, hate it though she did.

Did he see it in her eyes? He must have. Suddenly his eyes narrowed, as if she had done something to surprise him. Or remind him.

'You still don't like it, do you?' he observed. 'You don't like being looked at.' He took another, ruminative mouthful of his whisky. 'It was what I noticed about you when you auditioned for the Monte Carlo campaign. That you don't like being looked at.' His expression changed minutely, and it seemed to Thea that his stance eased. 'Curious,' he said.

His eyes rested again on her face. She schooled her expression to be immobile, feeling the muscles in her body tighten. Stop looking at me! she wanted to scream at him.

He could see her tension, snapping from her like static. Felt himself respond to it. Immediately he clamped it down. If there was one thing he must not do it was respond to her! Yet memory crowded him, vivid and searing. She had stood just there, in that very spot.

Offering me her body. Letting me touch her, caress her ... kiss her.

Like a guillotine falling, he cut the memory. With a jerking movement, he tossed the last of the whisky down, then replaced the tumbler on the tray.

'Let's go.'

She stared.

'Dinner,' he elaborated. 'To show the world you are keeping me company. That is, after all, your purpose here.'

She made no rejoinder to his sardonic remark, merely setting down her untouched gla.s.s and picking up her handbag. Stiffly she followed him from the room. She had dressed neutrally, in an aubergine-coloured dress that would do in most situations. Her hair was in its customary chignon, her make-up subdued.

Deja vu was. .h.i.tting her over and over again. Following Angelos Petrakos down to the hotel dining room was what she had done five years ago, but this time she was not fazed by her surroundings. She took them in her stride, along with the attentiveness of the waiters, murmuring her thanks and picking up her menu. She glanced down it with confidence-these days to her French menus were not incomprehensible and daunting. She glanced around. The decor was the same. Angelos Petrakos was the same. But she-she was different. Kat Jones had been ignorant-fatally ignorant. Oh, not of wine waiters and French menus. But of something that had proved her total undoing.

A strange look came into Thea's eye.

What if I'd just slapped him when he came on to me that nightmare night? Somehow dragged myself out of that zombie state he reduced me to when he kissed me and slapped him so hard that even he, in his colossal arrogance, would have got the message. That I wasn't, wasn't, wasn't 'leading him on'?

Would it have saved her? she wondered.

No-his monstrous ego would have taken offence at that, as well. He would never have given me that job back. I'd have been thrown out all the same, whatever I'd done.

Whatever I hadn't done ...

Bitterness was like gall in her throat.

The waiter was hovering, and she made her selection. 'The grilled sole, please, with a green salad.'

'Is that all you intend to eat?' Angelos Petrakos's harsh tones cut across the table.

'Yes,' she replied. She said nothing more as he gave his own order, followed by a discussion with the sommelier. Then his eyes came back to her. She endured his surveillance.

'You're not as thin,' he remarked.

'These days I can afford food,' she said.

'Looking for sympathy, Kat?' he drawled.

'From you?' she returned scathingly.

'Still the mouth,' he observed. 'Do you really never learn, Kat?'

'Only the important things. But then, I had a good teacher,' she said. Her eyes were like poison darts.

'But then,' he echoed deliberately, 'you were in urgent need of a lesson ...'

She felt her anger rise, felt it heat her veins-and then, with absolute control, she forced it down. She reached for her water.

'Still no wine?'

'No.'

His eyes rested on her. 'Still the appearance of virtue. Did it help you reel in your captive lordling? How did you meet him?' he asked conversationally.

'It's none of your business and I won't discuss him with you.'

Angelos stilled. 'Your nerve is breathtaking.'

Thea set down her water with a jolt. 'You don't really imagine,' she bit out, 'that I care a fig about what I say to you, do you? I won't discuss Giles with you, period. He's a good, decent man, and because of you I've had to hurt him badly!'

His eyes darkened. 'Better that than marrying you!'

Emotion bit. She could feel it in her throat. It should be anger-anger at yet another insult. But it wasn't anger.

'I'd have made him a good wife,' she said tightly. Too tightly-as if her throat had suddenly narrowed. She felt a sudden ludicrous sting in the back of her eyes at his naked contempt. Even as it happened she fought it. She wouldn't, wouldn't feel what she did-she wouldn't feel, dear G.o.d, of all things, hurt.

She fought it back-fought it down. Recovered herself in the way she always had. By refusing to let anyone put her down. Refusing to acknowledge the hit.

Her imperviousness seemed only to rile him more.

'All that cla.s.sy gloss, Kat,' he said softly, a taunt in his eyes, 'and it's all just fake. A cultivated act. A veneer. You'd never have carried it off-you'd have given yourself away, reverted to type.'

His eyes were resting on her, speculative, a.s.sessing. And suddenly, through the tightness in her throat, Thea could see what he was doing. He wanted to see her do just that-'revert to type'. And in that instant she knew exactly how she would retaliate from now on.

By not retaliating. By being Thea, not Kat-never Kat. She felt a surge of venomous satisfaction go through her.

'Nothing to say, Kat?'

She made no answer. Just tightened her lips and stared back at him. His eyes held hers-dark, penetrating. They narrowed very slightly even as he held her gaze.