Part 16 (1/2)

'My Thea,' he said again.

She opened her eyes. Opened her eyes to see his, the truth pouring into her.

'Is it true?' Her voice was a whisper, her fingers clutching at his lapel.

He gave a smile. Crooked, unsure. Unsure of her.

'True that I love you? Oh, yes ...' He took a ragged breath, his eyes questioning. Fearful of her answer lest it destroy him. 'I loved you the night I made love to you-you whom I had desired for so long, who had become more to me, though I scarcely realised it, than any woman I had known. I loved you as I made love to you-though I did not have the words for it, only the emotion, though it was unrecognisable to me, having never felt it before. I only knew that I wanted to keep you with me from then on, never part with you.'

His voice changed, grew haunted. 'But in the morning you were gone-and when I realised, saw the evidence of what I had done to you-taken your virginity, all unknowing-then I knew why you had fled from me, knew I had to find you. And when I did ...' Again his voice changed, tearing at his throat. 'When I did-you risked death rather than letting me save you ...' He gave a shuddering breath. 'So I know I can ask nothing from you.'

'You have it, all the same,' she said. Her voice was rich-rich with promise, with revelation. Her fingers tightened on his lapel as she gazed up at him. How could this be? she wondered. Moments ago she had stood accepting the devastation of the truth of what she felt, the revelation of her own heart, and thought only that it must mock her all her life. And now- 'I love you,' she told him. It was all she had to say-all he needed to hear.

He crushed her to him, holding her so close against him that she could scarcely breathe, but joy blazed through her. She loved him-and was loved.

'How can that be?' she whispered.

He kissed her softly, tenderly. With all his heart. 'Can you forgive me what I did to you?'

Again the note of doubt, of disbelief was there.

'You didn't know, and I didn't tell you why I wanted that job so desperately. And Angelos-' She laid a finger on his mouth. As he would have spoken, her eyes troubled. 'I did steal from you. I can't deny that. And whether my fear and desperation were enough to justify it, I can't answer-I daren't answer!'

'You've been through so much-all your life.' His voice was ragged. 'Faced so much, overcome so much, achieved so much. As Kat, as Thea-your courage, your determination, your integrity, s.h.i.+ne from you! Dear G.o.d, how much I love you!' He kissed her again hungrily, urgently, possessively.

And beneath his lips hers opened to him, desire lighting in her like a flame, kindling and quickening as she wound her hands around his neck, clung to his lean, strong body.

He swept her up, striding across the room, carrying her into the bedroom, lowering her down upon the bed's wide, waiting surface.

'Are you sure? Are you truly sure this is what you want?'

He had asked her the question before, but this time his fate hung upon it.

She gazed up at him. In her eyes a smile gleamed. Warming his heart.

'Oh, yes,' she breathed. 'Oh, yes-my own, adored Angelos.' She opened her arms wide to him and as he came down beside her she clung to him, whispered in his ear. 'And not a single drop of any intoxicant but one.' Her eyes softened, and she hugged him tight against her. 'Love,' she said. 'Pure and potent love ...'

He gave a low, soft laugh-and then there was no more need for words.

Only love, made whole, and pure, and everlasting.

Thea lay warm and nestled against Angelos. Happiness, as unbelievable as it was radiant, enwrapped her as closely as his strong arms wound about her. She gazed into his eyes as they returned her gaze, love light in them both.

She lifted a hand to touch his face.

'How can this be?' she asked wonderingly. 'How can such happiness be?'

He smiled down at her. Tenderness and love filled his gaze. 'I only know I don't deserve it-not after all I did to you.

She laid a finger across his mouth. 'No-it's over now, all that bitter past between us. I won't let it haunt you.'

'I'll spend my life making you happy, trying to undo what I did.'

'It's gone, Angelos-truly, it's gone. And now we have this ...' The note of wonder was back in her voice.

It was in her heart, too, alongside the radiance of her happiness. How strange life was, she thought, that out of all the anger and bitterness love should have flowered.

When had it started to blossom? she wondered. Oh, she had long felt the power Angelos had over her-not the malign power he had wielded, but that overwhelming male power that drew her eye endlessly to him, that made her quiver with awareness of his presence, awakening her nascent female instincts-but it had taken the lonely beauty of the mountains they had shared, those firelit evenings together for her to start to see him as a person other than the forbidding, distant stranger who had so persecuted her.

And then, in the ecstasy of his arms, it had blazed to life, possessing her even as he had possessed her body and she had given herself to him.

A shadow pa.s.sed over her eyes.

'If I hadn't run from your bed that morning-'

His arms tightened around her as he heard the distress in her voice. 'If I had given you reason to trust me, you would not have fled,' he told her. He kissed her gently, soothing her. 'My beloved Thea,' he murmured.

The shadow in her eyes glinted into a smile. 'So I am Thea now, finally?'

His eyes smiled in return, but his voice as he answered was sombre. 'But you are Kat, too-Kat who overcame what she had been born to, who had more courage and guts in her little finger than I have in my whole body and made something of herself from the nothing she was born with. And then made herself Thea after all I did to her ...'

Her eyes glinted again, seeking to draw him away from dark memories that were not needed now, nor ever would be again now that all had been healed by love.

'Kat was very lippy, though,' she murmured.