She lifted her hand to her mouth, which still tingled.
Even if she could grab the envelope at the perfect moment, what then? She shook her head. A few grains of rice clattered from her hair onto the leather seats. The element of surprise was gone, so she couldn’t try that approach. There must be something else.
Christo turned to peer at her. One eye was shadowed in darkness. The blue light from his phone turning the other inhumanly green. The effect made him look something like a pirate.
There was no way she was going to let him plunder her treasures. Her fresh plans started now.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Home.’
‘No honeymoon? Christo Callas—ever the romantic,’ she said, placing a hand to her heart. ‘I’m so lucky.’
‘You want romance?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re the one who pronounced our marriage a sham. Had you not, we’d have been on our way to a week of wedded bliss on my island.’
An island? Typical. Though, come to think of it, not even her father had one of those. ‘You had to cancel? How inconvenient.’
‘For my staff, perhaps. Though I admit standing down the jet was an irritation.’
Something about being the cause of one of his irritations irked her. ‘So...what? If I’d been a good girl, in exchange for my freedom I’d have been rewarded with a joy-ride and some time at the beach? Lucky me. Would you have supplied chocolate mints on my pillow too?’
He wasn’t looking at her now. Instead he studied the dull glow of the city, which washed his imposing form with gold light. The breath caught in her throat. For a moment she forgot who he was, transfixed by the beauty of the picture.
‘An island in the Echinades, a home in the mountains, a yacht berthed in...’ he opened the calendar on his phone and checked something ‘...Monaco and an apartment in New York—any of which you could have flown to in my jet. And that’s amongst other things. The rewards are many and varied for a good girl, as you put it.’
Thea had come from wealth—though nothing like this. She and Elena had discussed it when her father had made terrifyingly clear she had to marry to prevent Alexis rotting in a jail cell. They’d talked about Thea enjoying the considerable fruits of Christo’s fortune.
Could she do it now? Christo would spend his days in the city, working. She could go anywhere. New York? That was where her mother had promised to take her all those years ago. Before she’d died, when life had held some hope. She’d like New York, she supposed.
And then came the reality of the price she’d have to pay. Because there was always a price. Her body was the currency of this union.
Never.
‘I’m not prostituting myself for a chance to dip my toes in the Aegean or for a ride on your boat!’
‘Yacht. Crewed by forty. And that’s what marriage is about. Fair exchange for services rendered.’
Yes, marriage was a cruel snare. She’d seen it imprison her mother, and other women too. The wives of her father’s friends. Locked in gilded cages where they fawned and simpered for attention from callous men. She’d planned never to be fooled by that trap, no matter how cunningly laid. The lure of money or circumstance...or love would never bind her to another...
‘So cynical,’ said Christo. ‘On your wedding day too. You could have refused the offer at any time until we were pronounced man and wife. Yet here we are.’
‘Offer? You never asked me to marry. I was an afterthought. You and my father negotiated the terms of my servitude. One day I woke up engaged and was thrown a ring in a box. Stop trying to turn this into some grand sacrifice on your part.’
‘Don’t presume to know anything about my sacrifices!’
Christo’s words snapped like a whip-crack. Thea couldn’t see his face, shrouded in darkness as they were. But the cut of his voice carved right to her soul.
‘I was informed that you were satisfied with the arrangement. So you wanted a man on bended knee, professing love and adoration? If I’d done that what would your answer have been?’
Thea dropped her head, toying with the wedding and engagement rings which itched and burned her finger. She’d refused her father’s demands to marry at first, and so he’d cut off any meagre freedoms she’d still had.
Demetri’s methods of persuasion had been more brutal. The twin threats of social seclusion and physical force usually ensured her compliance, but she’d become braver since Alexis had entered her home. That day he’d stepped in to protect her had changed everything.
Her father then realised his importance to Thea. Not only as her bodyguard, but her half-brother. He knew she’d do anything to save him—the love child her mother had been forced to give up before entering a loveless marriage.
She wrapped her arms round her waist. Closed her eyes.
‘As I thought,’ Christo said. ‘You’re having a tantrum because I didn’t play Prince Charming.’
‘You can think what you like.’
‘I invariably do.’
She turned to look out at a world which had always passed her by. ‘I don’t care. Your good opinion of me doesn’t matter.’
Self-recrimination ran riot through her head. She should have run earlier. But when Alexis had confessed who he was, everything had changed. He’d told her of the promises he’d made to protect Thea if their mother couldn’t and each day had become a little more tolerable. So she’d stayed. Worked to ensure her future so she would be able to do more than eke out an impoverished existence like her mother had.
Yet when it had almost been time to leave, fate intervened. With Alexis paying the price for her cowardice.
She slumped in the seat.
‘Perhaps
