He’d anticipated a relationship with no passion. A performance of duty for them both. But a lack of passion was not something he could imagine now. This new Thea intrigued him. His heart throbbed with a curious rhythm, as if charged with a fresh energy.
What he’d been promised by Tito Lambros, when Christo had realised the position his father had forced him into, was a sweet, obedient, chaste girl. He didn’t hold much value in chastity. Better a woman who knew what she was doing, in his opinion. So he’d steeled himself for a wedding night of tutelage. The sweet and obedient type didn’t thrill him either, but she would make a trouble-free sort of wife.
The woman in front of him was another creature altogether. One he didn’t recognise from the quiet investigations he’d asked Raul to conduct, to ensure there was at least a modicum of truth behind her father’s words.
He needed to check the work Raul had been asked to do.
‘This can’t be a real marriage. It’ll never be consummated.’
Christo reached for a phone in the corner of the room and called the kitchens. ‘Cognac. Two glasses, please.’
He shrugged off his jacket, cast it onto the chair next to him and tugged at his bow tie, letting it hang loose.
Thea hadn’t moved, still standing in the doorway.
He undid the shirt button at his throat. Her gaze lowered, watching the flick of his fingers.
He undid the next. And the next. Then he stopped.
Her eyes hesitated at the open shirt showing part of his chest. As they burned on him with that strange heat, a crackling tension tightened in his gut.
‘Come in. Close the door. Sit.’
A small flush whispered across Thea’s cheeks and was gone. She looked away.
His stomach clenched at the loss of her eyes on his body. It was too much like disappointment. He ignored the sensation, removing his phone from his trouser pocket and tossing it on a table before sprawling on a plump couch.
His bedroom was more of a suite—the size of a small apartment and the one place in his home where he was rarely disturbed. They were safe here, for whatever histrionics were about to come.
He motioned to an armchair on the opposite side of an occasional table.
‘I’m not your lap dog.’
‘No, a lap dog would be less trouble. And it would at least jump all over me and be happy when I came home.’
She perched on the edge of the chair and glared at him as if she had murder on her mind.
A quiet knock at the door disturbed the uneasy silence. A young woman in a crisp black uniform entered, carrying a silver tray.
‘Thank you, Anna,’ Christo said. ‘Please leave the bottle.’
He suspected at least one of them might need fortifying for the negotiations to come.
The young woman placed the drinks on the table between them. ‘Congratulations again, Mr and Mrs Callas. It’s a happy day for you both.’
He tried to appear as pleased as his staff were. ‘You have no idea...’
‘Will that be all?’
Christo nodded.
Anna smiled at Thea and left the room.
He picked up one of the brandy balloons and swirled the glass in the light. Amber liquid coated the glass in a slick film of gold.
‘A toast,’ he said.
‘What is it?’
Thea took a glass and sniffed it, wrinkling her nose. There was an unexpected cuteness about her when she did so. He smiled.
‘Cognac.’ Christo took a sip. Enjoyed the burn. The same type of burn as Thea’s gaze upon him now. ‘The colour of your eyes.’
She stopped and cocked her head. There was something so cool and unreachable about her. Yet her ferocity shone through. Those eyes of hers, spitting golden fire. The need to witness more of it, to experience her and the wildness she hid, grabbed him in a breath-stealing grip.
He hadn’t expected to feel this way. The natural desire from contemplating a night with a beautiful woman, yes. Not this consuming sensation which thrummed through his every nerve, making him heavy and tight with lust for a woman he couldn’t touch.
Thea placed the glass on the table without tasting it and slid it towards him. ‘I’ve nothing to toast.’
‘Shame... It’s twenty-five years old. Obviously more mature than you.’
‘I’m not the one being childish. I’m not the one playing games.’
She still refused to accept her part in the position where they now found themselves. ‘Yes, Thea. You are. You’ve been playing games with me since the beginning and now I want answers.’
She leaned back into the armchair, feigning disinterest. But he could see by the tense set of her shoulders and the way her bottom lip puckered as she chewed at the inside that she was deeply concerned about what was happening here.
He reached over to his jacket, slung on the chair, and pulled out the white envelope. It might well have been a glass of water for someone parched in the desert the way Thea watched it, with a desperate craving stare.
Christo slid his thumbnail to unseal it. Made a show of inspecting the contents. Two thousand US dollars. Not so much. Certainly not enough for an escape. A passport. Nothing unusual there.
He unfolded a white piece of paper with account numbers written on it.
‘Who taught you to ride a motorcycle?’ he asked.
Her eyes widened a fraction. She hadn’t been expecting that question, he was sure of it. Which had been his intention all along.
Thea licked her lips. They shone moist and pink. ‘M-my brother... Demetri.’
Her brother was a dissolute, soft, rich boy, who only knew how to drive so he could show off his newest supercar. The thought that he could ride a motorcycle was absurd.
He let her lie sit unanswered, for now, and returned his attention to the paper in his hands.
‘What bank is this?’
Thea crossed her arms.
‘How much money is in the account?’
The silence stretched till it was thin and fragile. He waited.
When the
