From Dirt To Diamonds Part 8

'Mineral water,' she answered. Her voice was clipped. It sounded unreal, even to her, and she knew that she could still feel the shades of her once-rough accents haunting her. But that was Kat-and she was no longer Kat. She was Thea, and Thea spoke with pure Queen's English. No one looked down on her socially any more.

'Still or sparkling?'

'I couldn't care less,' she replied indifferently.

He finished pouring and then came back towards her, a tumbler of malt whisky in one hand, a tall gla.s.s of mineral water in the other. She set her handbag down on the coffee table and took the gla.s.s he proffered. She still didn't want to look at him, but she forced herself. She must not let him see she did not want to look at him. That would give him a satisfaction she must deny him. He would get nothing from her-no reaction at all.

Angelos Petrakos raised his tumbler.

'To our time together,' he said, and took a mouthful of the whisky. His eyes washed over her.

Thea's mouth suddenly felt dry as bone. She wanted to drink, wanted to drop her eyes away from him. But she forced herself to do neither-forced herself to let him look. She was used to being looked at-it was her profession, hate it though she did.

Did he see it in her eyes? He must have. Suddenly his eyes narrowed, as if she had done something to surprise him. Or remind him.

'You still don't like it, do you?' he observed. 'You don't like being looked at.' He took another, ruminative mouthful of his whisky. 'It was what I noticed about you when you auditioned for the Monte Carlo campaign. That you don't like being looked at.' His expression changed minutely, and it seemed to Thea that his stance eased. 'Curious,' he said.

His eyes rested again on her face. She schooled her expression to be immobile, feeling the muscles in her body tighten. Stop looking at me! she wanted to scream at him.

He could see her tension, snapping from her like static. Felt himself respond to it. Immediately he clamped it down. If there was one thing he must not do it was respond to her! Yet memory crowded him, vivid and searing. She had stood just there, in that very spot.

Offering me her body. Letting me touch her, caress her ... kiss her.

Like a guillotine falling, he cut the memory. With a jerking movement, he tossed the last of the whisky down, then replaced the tumbler on the tray.

'Let's go.'

She stared.

'Dinner,' he elaborated. 'To show the world you are keeping me company. That is, after all, your purpose here.'

She made no rejoinder to his sardonic remark, merely setting down her untouched gla.s.s and picking up her handbag. Stiffly she followed him from the room. She had dressed neutrally, in an aubergine-coloured dress that would do in most situations. Her hair was in its customary chignon, her make-up subdued.

Deja vu was. .h.i.tting her over and over again. Following Angelos Petrakos down to the hotel dining room was what she had done five years ago, but this time she was not fazed by her surroundings. She took them in her stride, along with the attentiveness of the waiters, murmuring her thanks and picking up her menu. She glanced down it with confidence-these days to her French menus were not incomprehensible and daunting. She glanced around. The decor was the same. Angelos Petrakos was the same. But she-she was different. Kat Jones had been ignorant-fatally ignorant. Oh, not of wine waiters and French menus. But of something that had proved her total undoing.

A strange look came into Thea's eye.

What if I'd just slapped him when he came on to me that nightmare night? Somehow dragged myself out of that zombie state he reduced me to when he kissed me and slapped him so hard that even he, in his colossal arrogance, would have got the message. That I wasn't, wasn't, wasn't 'leading him on'?

Would it have saved her? she wondered.

No-his monstrous ego would have taken offence at that, as well. He would never have given me that job back. I'd have been thrown out all the same, whatever I'd done.

Whatever I hadn't done ...

Bitterness was like gall in her throat.

The waiter was hovering, and she made her selection. 'The grilled sole, please, with a green salad.'

'Is that all you intend to eat?' Angelos Petrakos's harsh tones cut across the table.

'Yes,' she replied. She said nothing more as he gave his own order, followed by a discussion with the sommelier. Then his eyes came back to her. She endured his surveillance.

'You're not as thin,' he remarked.

'These days I can afford food,' she said.

'Looking for sympathy, Kat?' he drawled.

'From you?' she returned scathingly.

'Still the mouth,' he observed. 'Do you really never learn, Kat?'

'Only the important things. But then, I had a good teacher,' she said. Her eyes were like poison darts.

'But then,' he echoed deliberately, 'you were in urgent need of a lesson ...'

She felt her anger rise, felt it heat her veins-and then, with absolute control, she forced it down. She reached for her water.

'Still no wine?'

'No.'

His eyes rested on her. 'Still the appearance of virtue. Did it help you reel in your captive lordling? How did you meet him?' he asked conversationally.

'It's none of your business and I won't discuss him with you.'

Angelos stilled. 'Your nerve is breathtaking.'

Thea set down her water with a jolt. 'You don't really imagine,' she bit out, 'that I care a fig about what I say to you, do you? I won't discuss Giles with you, period. He's a good, decent man, and because of you I've had to hurt him badly!'

His eyes darkened. 'Better that than marrying you!'

Emotion bit. She could feel it in her throat. It should be anger-anger at yet another insult. But it wasn't anger.

'I'd have made him a good wife,' she said tightly. Too tightly-as if her throat had suddenly narrowed. She felt a sudden ludicrous sting in the back of her eyes at his naked contempt. Even as it happened she fought it. She wouldn't, wouldn't feel what she did-she wouldn't feel, dear G.o.d, of all things, hurt.

She fought it back-fought it down. Recovered herself in the way she always had. By refusing to let anyone put her down. Refusing to acknowledge the hit.

Her imperviousness seemed only to rile him more.

'All that cla.s.sy gloss, Kat,' he said softly, a taunt in his eyes, 'and it's all just fake. A cultivated act. A veneer. You'd never have carried it off-you'd have given yourself away, reverted to type.'

His eyes were resting on her, speculative, a.s.sessing. And suddenly, through the tightness in her throat, Thea could see what he was doing. He wanted to see her do just that-'revert to type'. And in that instant she knew exactly how she would retaliate from now on.

By not retaliating. By being Thea, not Kat-never Kat. She felt a surge of venomous satisfaction go through her.

'Nothing to say, Kat?'

She made no answer. Just tightened her lips and stared back at him. His eyes held hers-dark, penetrating. They narrowed very slightly even as he held her gaze.

'You defy me, don't you, Kat?' It was said almost contemplatively, almost curiously, as if she were a species of insect that was behaving anomalously. He took another leisurely mouthful of wine. 'But then,' he continued in that same tone of voice, 'you always did, didn't you? Right from that very first encounter, when you pushed past me at the entrance to this very hotel ...' He set the gla.s.s back down on the linen tablecloth. 'Tell me, is it stupidity that makes you like this?'

Thea's fingers curled around her water gla.s.s. One tightening more and it would surely break. She resisted. She tilted her chin slightly, feeling the pearl drop earrings move slightly-pearls she had bought with her own money, her own efforts, her own relentless determination and hard work to achieve what she had. Climbing up from the nothing she had been born with into the sunlit lands above.

'No,' she answered, her voice deliberately careless. 'It's indifference, that's all. Complete indifference.'

The expression on his face changed. Something flashed in his eyes, then it was gone. She had seen what it was, though-anger. Oh, yes, the almighty Angelos Petrakos, with all his power, didn't like being told that!

He spoke again, his deep voice almost a drawl. A drawl that seemed to drag across her skin. 'Indifference? Oh, no, Kat. It's not indifference you feel towards me. It's anger because you can't manipulate me.'

Her eyes flashed, and Angelos felt a stab of satisfaction. He wanted her angry, lashing out at him. Breaking the surface of the smooth, flawless veneer she had plastered over her true nature.

Because that was what it was-he would allow it to be nothing else. Nothing more ...

Angelos! Darling! I had no idea you were in London!'

The scent of heavy perfume wafted across the table and Thea turned her head to see someone approaching that she recognised. Not that she knew her personally, but because the woman bearing down upon them was a well-known TV actress who specialised in the femme fatale roles for which her dramatic looks were well suited. Thea watched Angelos acknowledge the woman's greeting, but though his expression was impa.s.sive she could see irritation in the back of his eyes.

'Candice,' he said briefly.

The actress's eyes rested on his face avidly for a moment, then gave the briefest glance in Thea's direction. For an instant they were blank-then there was a flash of malice.

'Don't you usually run around with Giles Brooke? Be careful, my dear, or you may find the Viscountess's coronet slipping through your fingers!'

'It was never mine to let slip.' Thea gave a courteous smile, ignoring the jibe.

Arched eyebrows rose. 'No? It looked like you had him wrapped around your finger?'

'I wouldn't really have fitted the bill as his wife, Miss Paule.' Thea's voice was subdued.

The actress breathed out, the malice in her eyes even more p.r.o.nounced. 'So he didn't propose after all? Oh, my dear, I'm so sorry!' Her insincerity was masterly. Her voice became conspiratorial. 'No wonder you've decided to settle for more transient pleasures. Enjoy them-on Angelos's established record they will be so very transient! Now, Angelos darling-' her tone was now cajoling '-I must introduce you to someone I'm here with. He's got the most fascinating project planned. He wants me to play the lead as soon as the finance is sorted. It's going to be a sure-fire hit, and if you came in on it you'd absolutely clean up-'

'TV and film isn't my investment area, Candice,' said Angelos bluntly, cutting across her.

For a moment the actress's expression faltered. 'Oh, but surely since it's me who's involved you'd make an exception-'

'Candice, I made it crystal clear during our time together that our relationship was personal, not professional. I don't mix the two. Ever.'

The over-made-up eyes flashed. 'Better make sure Little Miss Jilted knows that! She'll be a.s.suming she's a dead cert for your next advertising campaign just because she's warming your bed!' she snapped, and flounced off back to her party.

Thea watched her go. Then she became aware that Angelos was watching her.

'That's a lesson you've already learned,' he said softly. Then, abruptly, his expression changed. 'Why didn't you set Candice right about the a.s.sumption she made that Brooke never proposed to you? She'll spill it to the first gossip columnist she sees.'

'I know,' said Thea. 'That's why I told her.'

Angelos's brows drew together. 'What are you plotting?' he demanded.

Thea looked straight at him. 'I've hurt Giles-you gave me no option but to do so-but I don't want to humiliate him. I'd rather it looked like he didn't want to marry me than that I ditched him for you.'

Her mouth twisted, and he felt a stab of something more than anger.

The arrival of their food distracted him, but as they started to eat he found himself watching her. She was filleting the fish, focussing on her task. Blanking him out.

He made himself recall how she had looked that first evening he had brought her here. How gauche she had been, how out of her depth. The woman sitting opposite him now was a million miles from the one she had been those years ago.

She's still Kat Jones-thief, liar, and ready to offer her body for what she wants ...

His mouth tightened. That was all he must remember.

By the time the meal was finally over and they were heading for the elevators Thea's nerves were at breaking point. There were others in the lift when they stepped in, and Thea was grateful. Being alone with Angelos Petrakos, even for the briefest time, was hideous. Sitting at the same table as him-being so physically close to his lean, powerful body, sheathed in its charcoal bespoke suit, seeing that strong-featured face with its short-clipped raven hair, the dark, glinting eyes and the sensual, brutal mouth-had overwhelmed her. Even in the dining room she had felt dangerously isolated with him, despite the presence of other diners.

The elevator doors sliced opened to let some people out and others in. Too many. They hustled her backwards and suddenly, without realising what was about to happen, she felt herself crushed back against Angelos. Shock at his sudden closeness immobilised her. It raked through her as she felt instantly, consummately, the hardness of his chest, the muscle of his thigh.

Behind her, Angelos felt the contours of her body mould against him, slender and rounded. Immediately his hands lifted to her shoulders, steadying her. She tensed instantly. His palms were burning as he felt her straining away from him, pulling against his hands. Automatically, instinctively, his hold tightened, countering her attempt to free herself.

The lift stopped again and she wrenched free, pushing her way out, stalking rapidly to the door of his suite, body rigid. Her spine was like a ramrod. The contact had lasted only moments, but it had ignited her overwrought nerves, exploded the iron control she had held down all evening.

Inside, she rounded on him. Her face was contorted, venom spitting from her eyes. 'Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me!'

Into her head sliced the forbidden memory-the one she never let out! The one that for five long years she had never, ever let herself remember. But here in this place, this very spot where it had happened, here where she was standing, now it flooded through her.

I stood here-here! And he came up to me and ... and ...

Hot, humid memory drenched her. The glide of his fingertips touching her, the deep, deep drowning of his mouth as it moved on hers, sensual, possessing ...

A shudder went through her-through every bone in her body, every cell. 'I couldn't bear it!' she said. She took a ragged, broken breath. 'This is a two-bedroom suite-I checked!' She dived on her small holdall, s.n.a.t.c.hing it up. Then-not looking at him again, not looking anywhere near him-she flung open the nearest door leading off the suite's lounge.

It wasn't his room. Unoccupied, empty. She plunged inside and slammed shut the door, leaning against it while the breath shook in her body.

Outside, Angelos stood immobile. Emotion was raging through his head. Emotion that he'd kept out by strength of will, by masking it with anger. Anger that he'd deliberately, determinedly fuelled since the moment he'd first set eyes on her again at that restaurant with the man she'd been inveigling to marry, slicing back through the years-anger that he'd used deliberately, determinedly, to allow him to do what he had done in summoning her here. Giving him a reason to force her back into his life-a reason to sever her from the man she'd wanted to marry. He'd been telling himself that he was doing so only because he was enraged by her attempt to lie about her past, to fool an innocent, hapless man about what she truly was.

But he'd been deceiving himself.

Anger was not the only driving force behind his determination to stop Kat Jones in her tracks. He'd been denying that truth all through dinner as he'd watched her across the table from him, seeing her graceful, elegant beauty drawing eyes as it always had-and his, too, he knew. Despite everything he felt about her he could not deny that-could not deny that his eyes wanted to rest on her, take in that extraordinary, luminous beauty of hers ...

Then, in the lift, his hands closing over her shoulders, his palms feeling the warmth of her body, catching the scent of her, her body so close to his, it had blazed in him. He had known then, irrefutably, what her power was ... what it had always been ...

A power she herself was trying to deny.

In his head shrilled her voice, loathing and fear in it- 'Don't touch me! Don't ever touch me! I couldn't bear it!'

His face twisted, new emotion working in him.

She hates you for what you did to her. It dominates her response to you, obliterating everything else.

Slowly, he walked into his bedroom, his mind still full. He had done what he had to her five long years ago because there had been no other way to impose justice upon her-because she had outwitted the law with her lies and slander. He felt no remorse for what he had done-why should he? She had stolen from him, slandered him-and got away with it in the eyes of the law.