Part 11 (1/2)

She felt tired-tired in all her muscles-and yet a sense of well-being held her. She didn't know why. It should be impossible. But it was so, all the same. For quite some time she stood there, arms resting on the wooden balcony, just looking out and feeling the improbable peace of the evening.

Everything seemed very far away. Very distant.

She tried to conjure Giles's face to mind, but it would not come. Only a handful of days ago she had thought her future lay with him, that she had achieved her heart's desire. But it had been ripped from her. Ripped to pieces.

Once before her life had been ripped to pieces. But she had remade it-better.

And I will do so again. As often as it takes.

She stared out over the darkening valley at the mountain peaks, high and pristine, untouchable. She didn't see the tall figure emerge at the far end of the balcony, his head turned towards her, standing as still as she, watching her.

Nor the questioning frown between his eyes as he did so.

Thea knew that dinner that night would not be easy, and when she went down, summoned by Trudi, the young maid, her tension levels were high again. She had dressed for comfort, wearing a pair of leggings and a long, soft sweater in teal-blue lambswool. She'd tied her hair up, and wore no make-up. Yet even dressed so casually she still felt Angelos's eyes on her as she walked into the lounge. He too was dressed casually, wearing another cashmere sweater-navy-with loose khaki chinos. He'd ruched back the sleeves of the sweater, and Thea moved her gaze away from his strong, tanned forearms. But looking at his face was no better. No better at all. His hair was damp, feathering at his nape and brow, and he was freshly shaved. She dragged her eyes away, looking instead at the wood fire crackling in the stone hearth. The whole room was ridiculously cosy, softly lit from old-fas.h.i.+oned lamps, with a huge rug in front of the hearth and sofas you could sink into.

Angelos was drinking a lager, and Franz, the older of the two manservants, dutifully asked what the fraulein might like to drink. Thea asked for fruit juice, and received a gla.s.s as tall as Angelos's, with similar pale gold contents, but the liquid was slightly fizzing apple juice.

'Apfelsaft,' Angelos enlightened. 'Sussmost, as the Swiss call it. It's non-alcoholic.'

She sipped it cautiously and found it very refres.h.i.+ng.

'How are your feet?'

'OK,' she said cautiously.

He nodded. 'Tomorrow we'll rest. You don't want to overdo it when you're inexperienced at mountain walking.'

She said nothing. What should she say? That she didn't want to be here in the first place? That she wanted to go home, to try and pick up what was left of her life now? Instead, she just followed Angelos through into the dining room-another comfortable room, with a large pine table, another open fire, and heavy dark green curtains on metal rings. There were thick candles on the table, already lit, although wall lamps gave the room light as well. She took the chair Franz held for her at the foot of the table, sitting down in the wide-based armed chair, padded with cus.h.i.+ons. The whole effect was, she thought as she looked around, like a luxurious Alpine farmhouse. But it was warm and welcoming and homely. It was an odd description for a place owned by a man like Angelos Petrakos.

As Franz and the younger manservant, Johann, started to serve dinner, Thea realised, as she had at lunch, that she was hungry. The food was hearty and delicious. A rough pate, followed by breaded escalopes with fried potatoes and a root salad. It was probably about a million calories, but right now she didn't care. She tucked in.

Angelos watched her. 'It's the mountain air,' he observed. 'It gives an appet.i.te. And the exercise, of course.'

She looked up.

'You're eating properly.' He explained his comment. 'I was beginning to wonder if you could.'

'You get used to chronic malnutrition as a model,' she responded dryly.

'You really don't like the profession, do you?' he returned, his voice even drier. Then his tone changed. 'Was that one of Giles Brooke's attractions-he'd be taking you away from modelling? Apart, of course, from his t.i.tle and his money,' he finished jibingly.

She was very still for a moment. Then she spoke. 'No.'

'Do you claim you were ”in love” with him?' The jibe was still there.

'No. But I cared for him, and I would have made him the best wife I could.'

'Even though your marriage would have been based on a lie?'

She swallowed, looking away. She would not seek to placate him by saying she had accepted she had been wrong to deceive Giles. Why should she care what Angelos Petrakos thought of her? He was nothing to her-nothing! Except the man she hated ...

From across the table Angelos's gaze rested on her. This evening she had made no effort to dress as she had in London and Geneva. Yet the casual attire did nothing to play down her beauty. The leggings highlighted the length of her legs, the long soft top skimmed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and slender hips, the undressed hair, cinched at her nape, flowed down her back like a pale waterfall. Her face needed no make-up, no deepening of the eyes or reddening of the mouth. Her beauty was her own, whatever name she gave herself. Once again he felt the emotion he would not name flow through him.

She was so still ... unmoving. She sat there making no reply, as if he had not spoken. Another emotion p.r.i.c.ked within him-a familiar one. She was closing him out as if he had no effect on her. It angered him, as it had before. His fingers tightened on his knife and fork as he cut into his meat. He did not want her closing him out. He did not want her sitting there so still, as if he had no effect on her.

He knew better. She had stood there, motionless, while he had touched her, caressed her-kissed her. And he had known with every instinct, every certainty, that though she had come to him with nothing more than a venal motive she had, for all that, dissolved at his touch ...

For a timeless moment it was vivid in his mind, that indelible memory. She had stood in front of him and he had explored the fineness of her skin, the contours of her face, tasted the softness of her mouth, silenced from its provocative insolence at last.

Memory-vivid, real-fused over his vision as his eyes rested on her now. He felt that unnamed emotion flow within him again. Compelling, ineluctable.

He picked up his gla.s.s, breaking the flow of that unnamed emotion. As he drank, he saw her start to eat again.

'So,' he began, setting down his gla.s.s, deliberately putting aside the thoughts that swirled inside his head, 'did you enjoy the walk this afternoon?'

Thea took a forkful of food. 'Yes.' She would be honest-why shouldn't she be if he wanted, for whatever inexplicable reason, to make polite conversation with her? But why he was doing so, why she was here at all, was beyond her comprehension. And certainly beyond her caring. She had no choice but to be here.

'You looked as though you did,' he said slowly. In his mind's eye he saw her again, sitting in the shelter of the rocks, gazing out over the vista, watching the eagles soaring. Quiet. Contemplative. Still.

As if she were at home there.

He put the thought aside, moved on from it.

'Next time we'll try a longer walk. But tomorrow you'd better take it easy. We'll drive down to the village and take the cable car up to the restaurant at the top of the ski slopes. It stays open for the summer season. There's a glacier nearby that makes summer skiing possible.

She looked up. 'I've never seen a glacier.'

There was a note of interest in her voice. Spontaneous, unguarded.

'They're an extraordinary phenomenon of nature,' said Angelos. 'Rivers of ice moving so slowly, but so powerfully. Though in geological time they are rus.h.i.+ng rapids compared with the growth and erosion of the mountains. Yet the Alps themselves are striplings-one of the youngest mountain ranges in the world.'

Thea listened, realising that Angelos seemed to have a real interest in what he was telling her. He went on, explaining about tectonic plates, volcanic activity and mountain-building, and at a pause found herself saying, 'You know a great deal about it.'

His expression changed. 'I once wanted to be a geologist,' he said.

She stared. A geologist? Angelos Petrakos? Who could do anything he wanted?

'So why didn't you?'

'It wasn't possible,' he said flatly. 'Someone had to run the company my father had spent his life creating. It was my inheritance, and it was also my responsibility. I employ a lot of people whose livelihoods are in my hands. I can't jaunt off to do what I want. Only sometimes-like now-I come here, to the mountains. On my own.'

He frowned, as if he'd just realised what he'd said. Because he wasn't here on his own.

He didn't bring women here. It was a place he kept solely for his own use. The place he came when he could let go-briefly-the multiple complex threads of Petrakos International to be here on his own, among the mountains.

And no woman that he knew would want to be here. Those he chose for his liaisons would never have been content to spend their time in this deserted place-spend their days walking the ridges and peaks and cols all day. Nor could he envisage a single one of them discussing tectonic plates with him.