- -
- 100%
- +
Chloe had no clear idea of how long it would take to get to Athens. She knew they were passing over other islands by the glitter of lights far below them, but she could see nothing on the horizon remotely resembling the mainland of Greece itself.
When the helicopter suddenly started to lose height she was taken off guard, looking instinctively downward expecting to see the lights of Athens International Airport, but instead all she could see was one single solitary searchlight casting a blinding glare up into the purple-black night sky.
This was not Athens, she thought seconds later as the helicopter bumped down to earth. It couldn’t possibly be. She glanced instinctively at the pilot, but he was already opening his door, turning away from her and into the darkness. A soft breeze blew in through the half open door, carrying with it the faint scent of thyme. In the distance Chloe could hear male voices speaking in Greek. Panic filled her and she pushed open her door, stepping blindly out into the darkness, and would have stumbled if a calloused male hand had not not grasped her arm.
‘The kyria will come this way.’
The voice was curt but not unkind. Chloe opened her mouth to question where she was, and then closed it as she was propelled inexorably along a narrow path which seemed to lead upwards from the small plateau where the pilot had put the helicopter down. There was a moment when Chloe was able to pull back and turn round, but the powerful rotor blades of the machine were already turning faster and faster as the pilot prepared for take-off.
‘Just what’s going on?’ she demanded huskily, trying not to let her fear show in her voice, but the man who was holding her arm made no response, merely reinforcing his grip and urging her more determinedly along the narrow path.
It ended abruptly on a patio illuminated by the lights blazing from the expanse of plate glass windows overlooking the gardens and the swimming pool beyond it. Despite the vivid illumination the house seemed deserted, and fear trickled down Chloe’s spine like drops of iced water. Not normally given to febrile imaginings, all at once she felt her normal good sense deserting her completely, leaving her prey to clamouring fear.
‘Where am I? Why have you brought me here?’ she demanded through lips almost too stiff to frame the words.
The house facing her was plainly not that of a poor man—long and low, what she could see of it, and the patio and the enormous swimming pool running alongside it spoke of luxury and wealth.
Someone moved against the brilliant backdrop of the illuminated rooms beyond the patio, a man’s shadow, tall, broad-shouldered, moving with a menacing stealth gradually obliterated the light as he descended the small flight of steps set into the patio and walked towards them.
Chloe knew that her captor had relaxed his hold of her arm, but she couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to. The light from the house which masked the features of the man walking away from it revealed her own in stark detail, fear and dread written clearly in her eyes as he answered her questions in the cool drawl she remembered from what seemed like a lifetime ago when, unbelievably, merely to hear this man speak had sent her dizzy with nervous excitement.
‘You’re on Eos,’ she was told calmly. ‘Island of the Dawn. As to why—I think you know the answer to that, Chloe.’
He must have made some gesture she had missed, because her gaoler melted away, leaving them alone at the edge of the patio. As always Leon had made sure he had the advantage, Chloe thought bitterly, and not merely in bringing her here like this. Even the way he stood, with his back to the light, several inches above her, when he was already fully six inches taller than she, spoke of his determination to overwhelm her. But she was not the silly, gullible young fool who had married him any more. She was a woman, aware of so much that had been hidden from her then. She moved slightly so that Leon also was forced to move, the light from the house falling sharply on features which had not changed, but merely set harder as though hewn from a marble impervious to the elements. He had always been good-looking, but now, without the blinds of innocence which had hidden so much from her, Chloe saw the aggressive sexuality of his features; the bone structure which was entirely male; the high, taut cheekbones and the sensually curved mouth. He was wearing his hair longer than she remembered, and her fingers clenched involuntarily against the memory of its thick silky texture beneath her fingers. Only his eyelashes betrayed a hint of vulnerability—deceptively, as Chloe knew to her cost—for they were long and dark, almost theatrically so against the silvery grey eyes that were an inheritance from a distant ancestress—an Englishwoman said to have travelled to Greece seeking Lord Byron, but who instead had found Leon’s ancestor and remained to bear his children.
‘I know the answer?’ Chloe’s delicate eyebrows arched. She was drawing heavily on the experience she had gained since she left Leon; the ability to mask her true feelings which she now always wore like an invisible protective layer of clothing. She had no idea what Leon wanted, but there was simply no way she was going to let him see how his unexpected appearance had unnerved her. Nothing he could say or do could possibly affect her now, she reminded herself. The love she had once felt for him had been a girl’s adolescent crush on a handsome, sexually experienced male, that was all. The man she had thought him to be; the man she had loved had never actually existed. Her lips twisted a little as she remembered how he had broken down all her barriers, turned her from a shy gauche child into a passionate woman, drawing from her a response she had never dreamed herself capable of giving. But it had all been a chimera, a selfishly and cold-bloodedly planned deception.
‘You want a divorce?’ She heard herself ask the question as calmly as though they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. She made herself pivot carelessly on one heel as though about to walk off in the opposite direction. ‘My dear Leon, you can have one, and there was no need for this ridiculous charade.’
‘I agree.’ The soft voice had grown unexpectedly harsh, the faintly menacing quality of his body causing anxious tremors to flutter upwards along Chloe’s tense nerves.
‘But then I haven’t gone to all this trouble because I want a divorce, Chloe.’
She moistened her lips, suddenly desperately afraid. Up until now events had possessed a vaguely dreamlike quality which had prevented her from fully experiencing the panic which was now sweeping through her, telling her that she must put as great a distance between this man and herself as she possibly could, but like Pandora she felt herself unable to stop herself from framing the question she knew Leon was silently willing her to ask.
‘Then what do you want?’
‘I want you, Chloe.’ He said it so softly, she thought she must have misunderstood, but there was no misunderstanding his next words. ‘I want you, because you are my wife. No Greek allows his wife’s desertion of him to go unpunished, and your greatest punishment, I think, will be to be forced to return to the role you abandoned so precipitately—and publicly.’
Chloe blenched, turning desperately aside, but it was too late. Fingers like steel trapped her wrist, hauling her up against a chest which she could now see was rising and falling with the force of the rage pent up inside it.
‘You little bitch, you really know where to hit where it hurts, don’t you? But you’re going to pay, Chloe. You should have remembered when you left me that I’m Greek, and Greeks never forget an insult—or forgive it.’
‘I won’t come back to you,’ Chloe managed to get out. ‘I won’t!’
Leon’s dark features seemed to swim above her in a dark mist, his lips contorted into a savagely bitter facsimile of a smile.
‘Oh yes, you will,’ he told her menacingly. ‘And not only that, you’ll give me a son to replace the one you destroyed.’
From a great distance Chloe heard a high-pitched, terrified protest as a great chasm of blackness opened up and engulfed her, and she fell down and down as though she were falling into the deepest pits of Hell itself.
CHAPTER TWO
‘MADAME is tired and must be left to sleep.’
It was several seconds before Chloe could place the faintly accented voice. At first she thought she was in Paris—Paris, where she had lived as a young girl and grown used to hearing her native tongue spoken with a faint French inflection, but then the hazy clouds of sleep parted and she remembered exactly where she was and why.
She sat bolt upright in a double bed which, huge though it was, made scarcely any impression at all in a room so large that it could easily have accommodated her tiny London flat twice over.
It was decorated in softest greens and silver. Mermaid colours. She blenched as she realised where she had remembered those words from. It had been on her honeymoon: Leon had used them to describe a gown he had bought her in St Tropez. Leon. She closed her eyes, willing herself to stay calm, and when she opened them again a small plump woman was hovering anxiously at the side of the bed.
‘The master said to let the kyria sleep. Gina,’ she scolded the small girl standing behind her, holding a breakfast tray, ‘you have disturbed Madame with all your noise!’
The girl looked ready to burst into tears, and Chloe shook her head, forcing a smile.
‘No… no, it’s quite all right. Just leave the tray.’
The events of the previous evening were beginning to flood back, and she shuddered as she remembered the look on Leon’s face as he told her that he meant to be revenged on her for publicly shaming him by leaving him, and not just that. She was glad that there was no one in the room to witness the way her hand trembled as she recalled the ferocity in Leon’s voice when he told her that she would bear him a son—to replace the life she had destroyed, he had said. She pushed her tray aside, swinging her legs out of bed, stumbling across to the large curtained window. The life she had destroyed. Hysteria bubbled up inside her. Did he still think he could deceive her? And why the change of heart?
‘Chloe?’
She whirled round, gasping with shock. She hadn’t heard him enter her room. She would have given anything not to have to face him like this, disadvantaged by the flimsy nightdress she was wearing and the evidence of her fear written plainly in her eyes. He, in direct contrast, was wearing an immaculate business suit, his dark hair damp as though he had recently stepped out of the shower. A shuddering sensation of weakness swamped over her, her body traitorously reminding her of other occasions—occasions when she had shared his shower with him, taking sensual pleasure in the act. Panic flared suddenly and she turned round, her eyes darkening to misty purple as she pleaded with him.
‘Let me go, Leon. You can’t keep me here indefinitely—it isn’t possible. Why are you doing this? I can’t see any purpose in it.’
‘Can’t you? Then you must be incredibly thick-skulled. I thought I made my meaning more than plain last night.’ He followed the flickering glance of her eyes to the large bed, and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Last night was simply a respite. And besides, when I take you in my arms I want you to be very sure of what’s happening to you, Chloe. You won’t be allowed to escape me by fainting like some Victorian heroine.’
‘You mean you expect me… you….’ Suddenly she couldn’t speak for the huge lump in her throat. Oh, she knew that last night Leon had told her exactly why he had brought her to this island—an island which apparently was only inhabited by himself and his staff—but somehow she had never expected him to go through with it.
‘You can’t do this!’ she protested wildly when he continued to look at her. ‘You simply can’t do it. It’s against the law.’
‘For a man to take possession of his wife?’ he asked with deceptive suaveness. ‘Not against Greek law, Chloe. In fact, many of my countrymen would think I have been decidedly forbearing. You run off and leave me; humiliate me in front of all my friends, encourage them to question how I can maintain control of a huge business empire if I cannot control one small woman, and then you tell me what I can and can’t do? On Eos my word is law, Chloe, and by going to Thos you played straight into my hands. I had been wondering how to coax you back to Greece for some time—that you should choose to do so of your own free will was an unexpected bonus.’
A dreadful suspicion was beginning to take root in Chloe’s mind. She stared across the room.
‘You mean you….’
‘I arranged for your “friend” to desert you?’ He laughed, the sound mirthless. ‘You always were a poor judge of character, weren’t you? His “friendship” proved surprisingly inexpensive. But don’t worry, you won’t miss him. Was he your only lover?’
It was on the tip of Chloe’s tongue to tell him the truth, but she bit back the words, unwilling for Leon to know that since the break-up of their marriage there had been no one else. Even now she could scarcely take it in that Leon had actually planned for her to come to Eos, for Derek to desert her and for her to be brought here to this tiny island.
‘I could have simply had you kidnapped in England, of course,’ he drawled, accurately reading her mind. ‘But this way is far less… complicated. You see, Chloe, when you left me, you did far more than simply break up our marriage. In Greece we take such things seriously, and for a woman to leave her husband casts a slur upon him that is not easily removed.’
‘So what am I supposed to do? Tell everyone that I didn’t mean it and that you’re really Mr Wonderful?’ Her lip curled. ‘You’ve overreached yourself, Leon. The moment you let me leave this island I’ll leave you again, and if you keep me incarcerated here no one is going to believe the fallacy that we’re reunited.’ She lifted her head and stared proudly at him. ‘The only way I would conceive your child would be if you forced yourself upon me—I’m talking about rape, Leon, because that is what it would be. I don’t want you, and I don’t want your child!’
‘Why, you….’
For a moment Chloe thought he was going to hit her, but the hand he had raised dropped to his side, only the muscle working in his jaw betraying the savagery of the emotions she had aroused. Chloe wanted to look away, but something prevented her. Sickness clawed at her stomach, all that she had fought to suppress for so long rising to the surface, making her shudder with remembered revulsion.
Leon came towards her, his fingers bruising the tender flesh of her arms as he wrenched her round into the light, his glance travelling slowly over her body, stripping from it the brief protection of her nightgown.
‘Last night my servants undressed you and put you to bed. They know nothing of our relationship except that we have been separated and are now together. Tonight and for as many nights as it takes until you carry my child we will share this room and this bed. I have your passport, Chloe, and without that you are virtually my prisoner whether we remain on this island or live in the middle of Athens.’
It was true, so true that Chloe sobbed out bitterly, ‘And Marisa—where does she fit into all this? Does she have no say in the matter? About your plans to become a father? Or have you forgotten that she destroyed our first child?’
This time he did hit her. Shock rather than pain made her reel, her eyes widening. Above her Leon’s face was nearly as pale as her own, the bones standing out sharply.
‘You will never say that again,’ he said thickly. ‘Do you understand me? Never! Marisa….’
He never finished what he was going to say, for the door swung open and a young Greek girl burst impetuously in, her eyes hardening as she saw Chloe.
‘What’s she doing here?’ she spat viciously. ‘Leon, you….’
Her long fingernails were painted dark red to match the glossy lipstick emphasising the sullen pout of a mouth curved with sensual promise.
Three years ago, when Leon had mentioned to her his half-sister for whom he was responsible, Chloe had visualised a shy, gawky teenager—a girl with whom she could be friends; a girl who might perhaps need her guidance and affection, but Marisa needed nothing from her brother’s wife, unless it was the protection of her presence to deceive the world as Chloe herself had once been deceived. Her hands went to her stomach in unthinking protection long before she remembered that there was now no vulnerable life there for her to protect.
Marisa’s eyes followed the gesture, narrowing with bitter fury as she rounded on Leon.
‘What is she doing here? Why….’
The arm he had slid round Chloe’s waist felt like a steel hawser. She tried to pull away. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her hair, but she deliberately turned away from it, sickened by the falsity of the tableau. It was plain that Marisa knew nothing about her own presence here on Eos, and Chloe could only surmise that Leon was insisting on the resumption of their marriage to protect the younger girl. Not that Marisa herself cared the slightest about public opinion. She would have lived openly with Leon. She had told Chloe as much. It was Leon who had insisted that they must observe the conventions. Leon who had decided to find himself a quiet, biddable wife, too naïve to see what was happening under her eyes. And she had been that wife. Until Marisa, in a fit of jealousy had opened her eyes to the truth.
‘Why? Because it is necessary.’
When Leon spoke in that tone even Marisa did not dare to argue. Chloe could see the baffled rage in her eyes and wondered if perhaps Leon was subtly punishing the Greek girl. Her suspicions were reinforced when Leon’s free hand cupped her jáw, forcing her head round in a grip that looked casual, but which in actual fact was anything but. Her bones ached from the pressure of his hold. ‘Isn’t it, Chloe?’
He whispered the question a hair’s breadth from her lips in a gesture deliberately sensual. She tried not to succumb to it, but it was there in her eyes and the sudden tensing of her muscles, betraying her far more effectively than any words, and she knew from the sudden alert gleam in Leon’s eyes that he knew she was aware of him. It seemed to Chloe, her senses heightened by the emotional violence in the air of the room, that he was holding her more closely that he had been doing; that he was deliberately moulding her body to his in a way he hadn’t been doing before, so that she was intimately aware of him. It had been like this the first time they met. Leon had come to a viewing. She had been modelling an evening gown, had looked up and seen him, and it had been as though he had reached out and touched her. In the years they had been apart she had convinced herself that now she was immune to that sort of deliberate sexual arousal, but now, with his fingers tracing her spine, his body making her aware of the fact that physically she still aroused him, Chloe knew that she was still desperately vulnerable.
She closed her eyes, swallowing painfully, and when she opened them again Leon was watching her like a cat at a mousehole. For a second she thought he was going to kiss her, and moistened her lips instinctively, trembling convulsively as his free hand pushed her hair behind her ears. Was he remembering, as she was, how he had woken her in the mornings of their honeymoon with teasing kisses placed in the soft hollows behind her ears, tracing a path along the vulnerable line of her throat, down to her breasts when, inevitably, her fingers would curl into the thick darkness of his hair, urging him against the flesh he had aroused so thoroughly?
God, she mustn’t think about that! About how she had felt; how she had ached for his possession. She must remember afterwards, when she had learned about Marisa.
The slamming of her bedroom door brought her back to earth. Marisa had gone and they were alone. Leon released her coolly, his glance mockingly aware of the response he had drawn from her.
‘You are still my wife, Chloe,’ he reminded her. ‘And in Greece a man’s wife is still his possession, to do with as he wishes.’
‘And we both know what you wish to do with me,’ Chloe said bitterly. ‘Impregnate me with your child. Why, Leon?’
He shrugged. ‘All men want sons, do they not? It is a law of nature. I am a rich man and must have heirs of my body to follow after me. You are my wife….’
‘Oh, for God’s sake stop saying that! We both know why I’m your wife; why you married me….’
Before Leon could reply, the same man who had escorted her from the helicopter the previous evening knocked on the door, which Leon had started to open. Leon moved immediately, shielding Chloe with the bulk of his body, as the other man, who was apparently his personal assistant, explained that there was a call from New York.
‘Don’t try to leave,’ Leon warned Chloe before he left, ‘because you can’t. Even if you managed to leave this island—which you could only do by swimming — I still have your passport.’
What on earth the staff must make of the situation she dared not think, Chloe reflected ten minutes later, standing under the needle-sharp spray of the shower in the bathroom which led off her bedroom. Decorated in the same colours as the bedroom, it had a huge round bath, sunk into the floor and surrounded by soft green marble tiles. As Chloe reached for one of the soft silver-grey towels she caught sight of her naked body in the mirror-lined wall. Already faint bruises were beginning to form where Leon had gripped her. Even now she could not believe that she was actually here on Eos, Leon’s prisoner. Her eyes went instinctively to the open bathroom door and the bed beyond it. Leon had talked about them sharing it as matter-of-factly as though they were two strangers contemplating sharing a taxi. A frisson of awareness shivered through her as she remembered how she had felt in his arms. By rights she ought to feel indifference if not outright hatred, but while her mind might reject and be repulsed by Leon’s cynical attitude her body could still be physically aroused by him.
A woman never forgot her first lover. Chloe shivered as she remembered reading that somewhere. It was true; almost as though Leon’s touch was a secret code to which her body would always respond.
Dressed in the change of clothes she had expected to be wearing in Athens, Chloe tried to reason with herself. She was not a mindless machine. There was such a thing as free will. Surely her mind was capable of overcoming her body’s weakness? Of course it was. Hadn’t she proved that during these last two years? Abstinence was easy without temptation, a tiny inner voice warned her, but Chloe refused to heed it. The love she had once thought she felt for Leon had died, and the emotions she was now experiencing were merely reaction to his sudden eruption into her life.
Unbidden, the memory of Leon’s expression when he told her that he wanted from her the child she had previously denied him surfaced, and she shivered despite the heat. How could Leon have accused her of that? Her mouth twisted. Perhaps it was just another example of his warped way of thinking. A man who was capable of seducing his young half-sister and then marrying someone else purely to provide a cover for their affair was surely capable of anything. And yet Chloe could have sworn that for a moment there had been actual pain in his voice when he spoke of the child she was to have borne; the child Marisa had destroyed in a fit of jealous rage, but then Leon had always refused to believe that Marisa had been responsible for her fall. During the early months of their marriage—before she learned the truth—Chloe had never been able to understand how a man as intelligent as Leon could so readily accept Marisa’s lies; and there had been many of them. Not important on the surface perhaps, but hurtful and barbed, intentionally aimed at putting Chloe in a bad light. But then of course she had not realised that Marisa viewed her not in the light of an older sister-in-law but with all the intense jealousy of a rival for the attentions of the man she loved. And of course Marisa had the advantage of having a double claim on Leon—as his half-sister and as his mistress.