‘That’s none of your business.’
‘You’re my wife. Everything about you is my business. We can treat this...’ he waved the paper about ‘...as your dowry.’
‘No!’
He didn’t need her money. The gift her father had granted him, halting the foreclosure, was greater than any paltry amount she no doubt held. But this was a battle he’d win. Her antics wouldn’t put Atlas Shipping at risk. Not in the company’s seventy-fifth year. It was a year for celebration, not failure. He’d never allow it. Never.
‘One call to my personal banker and I’ll have not only the name of your bank, but the balance of your account transferred into mine and secure.’
Thea twisted her small, delicate hands in her lap. ‘You can’t...’
‘He was at the wedding,’ Christo said, picking up his phone. ‘All I need to say is that you’ve forgotten the details and want me to take care of it. Would you like me to get him now? No matter the time, he’ll take my call.’
She looked at him. Eyes narrow, lips thin. Hatred evident. Once, long ago, he might have cared. Tonight, he didn’t.
‘Four million.’
He put down the sheet of paper. Leaned forward. He couldn’t have heard properly.
‘How much?’
‘Four million US dollars or thereabouts.’
She lounged back in the chair looking like the fox who’d stolen a prized chicken. How had she accumulated that kind of money? Tito Lambros was known for being stingy. A banker who made money through frugality and questionable practices.
‘Your father gave it to you?’
She snorted, before catching herself. There was his answer. Tito Lambros would never have given his daughter those sorts of funds. She must have stolen it, somehow.
‘I’m thrifty.’
‘Or a criminal. Should I ask your father to check his accounts? Perform an audit to look for a missing four million “or thereabouts”?’
When she spoke it was with pure derision. ‘I’m no thief.’
‘So what is my beautiful new wife? Not thrifty... Your clothes and shoes are exclusive designer.’ He should know—he’d spent enough on former lovers to understand that much. ‘Unless you’ve acquired a goose capable of laying golden eggs or the touch of Midas?’
The twitch of a smile played at the corner of her mouth. She was dying to tell him how she’d done it, so he let the statement linger. He needed to know how she’d acquired her money. It would inform what he did next, because he was beginning to watch Thea very closely.
Thea crossed her legs, wrapped her hands around her knee and studied him. He could see the thoughts behind her golden, intelligent eyes. She was calculating. Weighing up her options.
‘My clothes and shoes were all given to me by Elena when she’d finished with them.’
‘Then where—’
‘In exchange for letting you know, I want something in return. To discuss our short and unfriendly future together.’
Negotiation was something he understood all too well. His parents had never offered him anything out of affection, but out of anticipation that they’d receive something in return. Him—a convenient tool in their hostilities. His inevitable conclusion? They didn’t love him. They used him.
He’d become an expert on navigating that kind of emotional quicksand. And, with Thea, he’d get his own way. Still, he was prepared to allow her to think she might win.
‘We’ll discuss our options after you answer my question.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s meant to be my incentive? You’ll have to give me something more than a promise.’
Thea sat straight-backed in the chair, seemingly impenetrable in leather and denim. She wanted more?
His imagination meandered down paths she surely wouldn’t have intended. Visions of cracking through that tough veneer with his questing lips on her body. Peeling away those layers till he had her in her corset and boots. Laying her out on the bed. Fingers stroking her honeyed skin. Burying themselves in her hair...
No.
He wasn’t like his father, succumbing to a beautiful face and living with the consequences.
Christo swallowed. Shut down his errant thoughts.
He’d give her something, since before the night was over she’d need to trust him—if only a little. Christo reached for his jacket again, put his hand into a front pocket and retrieved her phone. He slid it across the table towards her.
Thea picked it up, checked the screen and frowned. Her eyes were tight with concern.
‘Now, call for help and try to get someone to believe I’m holding you prisoner here on your wedding night...’ He nodded to the mobile clasped in her hands. ‘Or tell me how you got that money.’
She hesitated a short while, then her expression changed as if she’d dismissed whatever had been troubling her. A soft, knowing smile played on her lips. She was making him wait.
It had the desired effect. Christo savoured the warm lick of anticipation curling on its seductive journey through him. He might have smiled too, but he didn’t want to show her he was enjoying this far more than he should.
‘My father thought paid work beneath any daughter of his. But he always expected me to dress impeccably so people wouldn’t talk,’ she sneered. ‘He paid me an occasional allowance, which Elena banked in that account. So I wouldn’t be discovered, she gave me her clothes once she’d worn them a few times. Her father was a generous man, so he never noticed her constantly needing new things.’
A clever scheme—as far as it went. ‘Well, it seems you’re more frugal than I imagined. Lucky me. But that still doesn’t explain how you accumulated so much.’
‘I’ve been planning from the moment I turned eighteen and received my first “pay” for being a compliant daughter. Five years of saving. But that was never going to be enough. So I learned the stock market, investing... Turns out I was quite successful.’
Thea sat forward, talking with her eyes and body and hands. Bristling with an uncommon fire and passion. Dangerously sparking his. This woman—his wife... He now questioned whether he should have married her, or employed
