Alexis was on the run, and she couldn’t help from this beautiful, blazing city. This place her mother had always wanted her to see.
Thea had once had childish dreams of coming here with someone she loved. Those dreams had died the day her mother had. Now she wanted none of it. The risk of losing her heart, and with it her freedom, was too high a price to pay.
Anyhow, Christo despised her. After that exchange in his office, the interminable silence on his plane, she had been left only with businesslike interactions before each function. Information so she knew who was coming, what to say.
It was preferable, all this sullen formality. Except when they were on show as a couple. Then he epitomised the perfect husband. Pretending to be interested, pretending to care. All those affectionate meaningless touches and still her treacherous body sang to every single one.
Those thoughts chased her. So Thea ran. Ran till the air burned in her lungs and she couldn’t suck another breath. Ran till her heart thrashed in her chest as if to escape. She stopped at a tree, one hand gripping the rough bark. Retching from the exertion. And still she hadn’t run far enough. From the people. The crowds. From herself. The feelings.
She folded at the waist, gasping for air. Her free hand was on her thigh, fingernails cutting into the screaming muscle. The cruel bite of pain helped. She’d focus on that. Wait till her heart stopped slamming like a battering ram at her ribs.
Still the air wouldn’t come quickly enough, her lungs heaving. The clutch of panic grabbed tighter. Her vision blurred at the edges. She’d faint. She’d die. Here, in front of everyone.
Heavy footsteps thudded behind her. An arm under hers gave support. An urgent voice pierced the fog.
‘Mrs Callas!’
Sergei.
She found her breath. Steadied it.
In for four. Hold. Out for eight. Repeat.
She moved to a seat somehow. Sat with her elbows on her knees. Head buzzing.
There was a water bottle. The murmur of words. Strange. Distant.
‘Are you all right...? Do you need a doctor...? I’ve called Mr Callas.’
She sat up with a sharp intake of breath, hands trembling as her upside-down world righted itself.
‘No!’
Sergei stepped back. He’d hardly broken sweat, whereas her skin was slick with it, stinging her eyes. Thea wiped at the hair sticking to her face. When was the last time she’d had an attack this bad?
She stood, legs on fire and shaking like a newborn lamb. ‘I don’t need Mr Callas. I’m going back to the apartment.’ She tried to sound strong, but her voice cracked.
Soft rain fell as she walked, sprinkling over her skin. At the doors of the building she was welcomed by the ever-friendly doorman. Dripped water all over the marble floor of the lift to the penthouse, where Christo’s apartment took up the whole level.
Sergei hovered close. ‘Are you sure you’re well?’
Panic, her old enemy, always followed her. Taunting from the shadows. She wouldn’t let it win.
‘I pushed myself a little hard.’
An ambush like today was a concern, because it normally heralded more attacks. But she’d fight back. Regain control.
‘It was more than that,’ Sergei said as the lift stopped at the top floor and they exited. He punched the key code to enter the apartment.
‘Worried I’ll die on your watch?’
‘You might feel like you’re dying, but I won’t let that happen,’ he said as he held the door open for her. ‘I’ll carry paper bags for next time.’
Thea shot a look over her shoulder. ‘That won’t be necessary.’
He shrugged and exchanged a concerned look with Anna, who’d rushed towards them. Sergei must have texted her.
‘I’m fine. Really,’ Thea said, as Anna opened her mouth to speak. ‘I just need a shower and coffee.’
‘I’ll bring breakfast. You haven’t been eating enough,’ Anna chided.
Thea smiled. It felt stiff, unfamiliar, but if she faked it for long enough her smile might become reality. One day.
‘In my room. Thank you.’
She went into her en suite bathroom. Discarded her sodden clothes and stood under the steaming shower as water pounded her skin, washing away the dark hand of fear threatening to strangle her.
She had to get help to Alexis. How dared her father accuse him of stealing the money she’d negotiated as part of her agreement to marry Christo?
But her father had lied and now her marriage was pointless.
Christo might help.
She silenced the inner voice. That would require trust she didn’t have for another man who was using her for his own ends.
Thea turned off the water. Dried her now wrinkled skin and wrapped a robe tight around her body.
The food Anna had left held as much temptation as cardboard. So she lay on her side in the huge bed. Stared out at the drizzly view of New York sprawling below her. The place her mother would never see.
And, as much as she’d tried to outrun the feelings, now she let them overwhelm her. For Alexis. For this marriage. For that awful afternoon when she’d waited in the kitchen, clutching only her favourite doll and wearing her St Christopher medal for a safe journey. Waited for her mother to come through the small wooden side door and steal her away. Waited as the day had darkened and daylight had faded.
But the person she’d loved most in the world had never come. And the waiting had ended when her father found her and delivered the words which had changed her life for ever. ‘Your mother’s dead...’
Thea curled tighter into a ball on her side, arms wrapped round her waist.
A shadowed reflection loomed in the window ahead of her. The prickle of awareness skittering along her spine announced that there was only one person it could be.
‘Sergei says you were ill on your run.’
The voice was tight with concern. But Christo didn’t care. He only wanted to ensure he inherited from his father. She was just a casualty along the way.
‘I overexerted myself.’
‘Sergei doesn’t believe
