From Dirt To Diamonds Part 7

'You haven't answered my question.' Angelos's voice was implacable. 'What does your fiance-' he made the word mocking '-think about Kat Jones?'

Her silence was tangible. That and the whitening along her cheekbones revealed everything to him he needed to know. His eyes glittered darkly.

'You haven't told him.'

It was not a question.

For an endless moment his eyes simply hooked hers in their talons. She tried to tear them away, but could not-could only stand there while he eviscerated her with his eyes. With his words.

'You deceitful, manipulative little liar,' he said softly. 'You were going to marry him, weren't you? Knowing he was getting a mirage, a fake? Weren't you?'

The fury was naked in his voice, icing through her. She couldn't move-couldn't speak. Dread filled her.

And something more than dread. Something worse.

She could feel the adrenaline leap in her body and tried to crush it down. Not because it fed her anger-she didn't care about her anger, she welcomed it, needed it-but because it fed a quite different emotion. One that was deadly to her. Lethal. One she could not, could not, allow herself to feel.

She straightened her spine. 'Get out,' she said again. She could feel the pulse in her throat throb. It was loathing-that was all. Loathing that it was signalling. Nothing else. She wouldn't allow it to be anything else.

He didn't move. Stayed right where he was, occupying her sofa. Invading her s.p.a.ce. Her life. Forcing her nightmare past into the present she had made for herself-into the future she so desperately wanted with Giles.

Then he spoke. 'You have a choice.' His words cut like a knife through flesh. Her flesh. 'I will not allow you to inflict your deceit upon that hapless fool you've got in your toils. Either you tell him about Kat-or I will.'

'No!' The word broke from her-instinctive, urgent. Kat Jones was gone-gone for ever! She would never allow her back-never!

He smiled. The smile of a predator who had seen his prey trip and fall.

'Oh, yes, Kat. You'll tell him. Or I will do it for you. Do you really think-' his dark eyes rested on her with implacable condemnation '-I won't?'

No. She didn't think that. She knew exactly what Angelos Petrakos would do. He always did what he promised he would do-she knew that ... Oh, how she knew that!

Dread and rage surged in her. But there was something else as well-something that forced its way to the fore, cutting through both those turgidly swirling emotions.

She could never tell Giles what Angelos was demanding. Never! Because she knew that for Giles it would make no difference. Hollowness emptied her. Giles would abide by the code of his cla.s.s, and nothing on earth would make him abandon it! Whatever she told him, he would say that he had asked her to marry him and no power could make him retract that! He would stand by her even knowing what she had told him, despite all that ...

And she couldn't do it to him! She couldn't!

'Which is it to be, Kat?' Angelos's voice pierced her. 'You or I to tell that deluded English lordling of yours that you're a thief, a liar and a wh.o.r.e?'

'I never offered myself to you! Never! And you got your watch back!' she gritted. 'You got it back!'

A harsh rasp escaped him. Black rage showed in his face. 'You claimed it as payment. Painted me as a man who pays for s.e.x. You stole from me, Kat, and you lied about me. And you thought you could get away with it!'

Her hands were clenched. Heart hammering in her chest.

'You destroyed me! You took everything-everything from me! You took my livelihood, my career, even the lousy flea-pit I lived in! You took everything! You told me you'd finish me, and you did!'

Long lashes dipped down over his eyes. His voice was edged like a sharpened blade. 'But you didn't stay finished, did you, Kat? You've crawled back. And you're more ambitious than ever! But I won't permit you to make a fool of that poor, hapless sap of yours! He deserves the truth about you!'

'No.' Her rejection was absolute. She could not do it to Giles-could not condemn him to marry a woman like Kat, knowing her to be Kat, knowing what she was, where she came from, what she had done ...

And even though she would-must!-refuse to marry him, she could not bear to see the expression in his eyes when he realised how she had deceived him.

'No,' she said again, her voice tight as wire, garroting her.

Heaviness crushed her. Truth, insistent and brutal, forced itself upon her. Like blows on her head. Reality slammed into her and hatred burned in her eyes for Angelos Petrakos. Hatred not just for him, but for what he was forcing on her-making her accept, bitterly, reluctantly. She could not deceive poor Giles, could not use him the way she had-for what else could it ever have been to let him marry a woman not knowing what she once had been?

The garrote tightened around her neck, choking her.

Angelos could see her expression, see her horror, her fury. Something s.h.i.+fted in his eyes again, curved the thinned line of his mouth.

'Or you can have one more choice, Kat,' he said. His eyes glittered darkly with black fire. 'I'll let you keep the fiction you've created about yourself, but if you haven't the guts to tell him that you're really Kat Jones then you can release him from your toils another way.' The malevolent glitter of his eyes speared her. 'Tell him you've changed your mind about marrying him.'

'Why would he believe me?' She forced the words from her narrowed throat.

He smiled, his mouth mocking, obsidian eyes alight with an unholy light. 'Why? Because, Kat, the love of your life has just walked back into it ...'

She could only stare. 'You're insane,' she breathed.

'An effective fiction-and it will serve the purpose I intend. To convince him, Kat, and to remove yourself from his vicinity after you've told him that-alas-you can no longer marry him, you'll come to me. Spend the night at my hotel.'

'I will never do that-never!' Her face and her voice were stark.

'You prefer the alternative? For him to know who you really are? Not that sanitised, whitewashed fairy tale you've concocted about yourself?' He got to his feet, walked to the door, and as he twisted the handle he turned. 'Be grateful that I make you this offer. This way the Honourable Giles need never know about Kat Jones. And once he's free from you, you can keep your s.h.i.+ny new image, your lucrative new career.' He paused, letting his gaze rest on her one more time, his eyes like granite.

'The choice is yours, Kat. And you have twenty-four hours in which to make it. If you're not at my hotel tomorrow evening at nine I shall know what you've chosen-and act accordingly.'

Then he was gone.

Alone, Thea stood quite, quite still. Then slowly, very slowly, she wrapped her arms about her body. Very, very tight. In front of her the pit stood gaping. And she had no choice, no choice at all, but to step into it.

She could feel herself falling, feel the air being sucked from her lungs as she plummeted down into the pit that Angelos Petrakos had opened beneath her feet. Her guts were hollowed out, muscles in her legs seizing up. She was in some kind of shock, she knew. In disbelieving, aghast denial-desperately trying not to believe what had just happened and yet knowing with every particle of her being that it was true.

Angelos Petrakos had destroyed her-again.

Her arms clutched around her body. Her eyes were bleached with stricken emotion.

She might not love Giles-what was love? She'd never known it in her life-but she cared for him, and she would never, never hurt him by telling him how she had deceived him. She had no choice-she must let him go. Let go her dream-the one that she had yearned for, striven for, and so very, very nearly achieved.

Anguish at what she was losing twisted in her. Then, in its wake, came anger-blind and hot, seeking a target. She heard Angelos Petrakos's caustic voice- 'You didn't stay finished, did you?'

No, she hadn't! Despite everything-everything he'd done to her-she'd got out of the pit he'd thrown her into! Made a new life for herself!

Her eyes hardened and she loosed her protective cradling of her body, her hands instead forming fists, tensed at her sides. She lifted her chin, unseeing as her gaze burned with the bright, intense light of pure will, pure determination. Resolution seared through her.

I've survived Angelos Petrakos before, and I will do it again!

For a long, timeless moment she went on standing there, hands clenched, face like stone, as emotion burned in her. Then, as if with a slow exhalation of breath, she let it go. With a strange, preternatural calmness in her breast she went to put away her library books and resume her interrupted evening. Tomorrow, everything would change, but this last night she would spend as she had planned-a quiet supper, a Mozart CD, and a good book to read.

Enough to gather her strength for the ordeal ahead. The ordeal she would survive. The ordeal she must survive.

But for all her resolution, telling Giles when he returned to London the next morning that she could not marry him was a slow agony. The pain in his eyes crucified her. But she had to inflict it. There was no other way. She could not-could not-tell him the truth. Yet to stop him wanting to honour his offer of marriage, as she knew he would, she had to hurt him with another lie-and such a monstrous one. Of all the people in the world, it was the one she loathed with all her being whom she now had to lie about! The lie mocked her with whips-and so did Giles' response.

'You're still in love with him, aren't you?' said Giles.

Thea couldn't speak, could only nod. 'I'm so sorry,' she whispered. 'So terribly, terribly sorry. I lied to you in that restaurant, denying I knew him, because I desperately wanted it all to be over between him and me. But ... he came to me last night and-' She couldn't go on. The vileness of the lie she had to tell was too great for that.

'I'm just so sorry,' she whispered again.

He patted her hand. A jerky movement. His face was not showing much. He never let emotions show. Not deep ones. But she knew he felt them. He was a good, kind man. A decent, honourable man. A man she would have striven with every fibre of her being to be a good wife to.

And now- It was over. The dream she had dreamt was over before it began. Despair racked her. And anger and shame, and a regret for what could never now be so powerful that it crushed her.

'I can only wish you every happiness,' said Giles.

She gazed at him with stricken eyes. 'I'm so sorry,' she said again. 'And I hope and pray with all my heart that you find a woman more worthy of you.'

He would never know just what she meant by that. But she would know, and the knowledge incised deep into her. Only the certain knowledge of her own misery could a.s.suage the pain she was inflicting.

Sadly, guiltily, she kissed his cheek and left him.

Back in her flat, depression hit her like a huge wave. She let it break over her, knowing there was nothing she could do-nothing. The future she had thought to have was gone. It could never return. Giles was gone-driven back up to Yorks.h.i.+re to tell his parents she had called it off. She kept busy, cleaning her flat like one possessed. She had no appointments that day, which was just as well, as she could face no one-not even her booker.

She was signed with a different agency from the one where she had started her career as Kat Jones. This one had branches all over the world-all over the U.K. Even in Manchester.

That was where she had gone when Angelos Petrakos had destroyed her the first time around. She had gone there with Katya, both of them making a new life for themselves. They'd worked as cleaners-menial work to pay the rent, to eat, to survive. More than that had been beyond her. All she'd been able to bring herself to do was just keep going-nothing more than that. Then Katya had met a fellow Pole, Marek, to whom Katya was not just scar tissue, and who had said only one thing when Kat had told him how Mike had met his end-'He got lucky.'

Kat had seen the murderous look in Marek's eyes and known that Katya was safe now. She'd been happy for Katya-but when she'd gone she'd sat alone in their bedsit and stared at the walls.

They had started to move in on her. Slowly, inexorably, crus.h.i.+ng the air out of the room, the breath out of her lungs, the life out of her veins. Shabby walls in a grimy flat on a grim street in a rundown part of the city where she spent her days as an office char, cleaning up other people's dirt.

Well, what do you expect? Two generations of losers, and you're the third. You tried to get out-and you lost. Accept it. You're not going anywhere any more. You're in the pit-so make yourself at home. It's where you belong, Kat Jones.

Then, out of the depths, the thought had come.

But I don't have to be Kat Jones ...

She'd sat very still as the thought had formed in her head. Formed and shaped and grown.

I can be someone else. I can be anyone I choose. Anyone.

But it wasn't just a name she'd needed. If all she'd taken was a new name Kat Jones would still have been underneath. She'd needed to be a new person. Someone a million miles away from Kat Jones-raised in care, daughter and granddaughter of prost.i.tutes, alcoholics and junkies. In her mind's eye she'd seen the sleek, glossy models who had been chosen by Angelos Petrakos. Not like her-with her Estuary English and her abrasive style and her pig-ignorance. But well-bred, well-spoken, well-behaved, well-educated.

Cla.s.sy.

There had been a strange light in her eye. A burning light.

It was one that had lit her way through the years ahead.

Could that light still burn now, even through the dark, dark shadow of Angelos Petrakos? She knew there was only one answer she must give.

Yes. Yes. She could survive what he was doing to her-overcome it! She wasn't the raw, ignorant, penniless wannabe she'd been five years ago. She was Thea Dauntry, who owned a flat in Covent Garden, who had savings in the bank and a solid, well-paid career, who knew how to behave in the affluent, comfortable places of the world. Her rough London accent was smooth now, and cultured-as cultured as her mind had become through self-education, finally catching up on the years she had neglected at school.

Whatever Angelos Petrakos tried to do to her, he could not take that away. She was Thea Dauntry-and Kat Jones was gone for ever!

Yet, for all her resolution, it was hard-hideously hard-to pack an overnight case, lock her flat, and make her way, as she had been ordered, to his hotel. The same one, with vicious mockery, he had been staying at five long years ago-the same suite always reserved for him whenever he wanted to be in London.

Heart as heavy as lead, her mind studiedly, deliberately blank, she stepped inside the hotel, inside the revolving doors where, five long years ago, she had first set eyes on Angelos Petrakos. The man she hated with all her being and always would ...

Angelos stared at the screen of his laptop. He wasn't reading what was on it-his thoughts were elsewhere. Doing something they rarely did. Questioning himself. A frown creased his brow. Why was he doing this? Why should he care whether some unknown man ended up married to the likes of Kat Jones? He'd finished with her five years ago ...

There was no need to do what he was doing.

No need to bring her here again.

His expression s.h.i.+fted minutely. Need was not the only driver for his decision, he knew. Something else was impelling him.

It was anger, that was all, he told himself. Anger that she was set on deceiving an innocent, trusting man who did not deserve it. Anger that she had dared to do so and saw nothing wrong in doing so. That was the only reason he was doing this.

He would allow it to be for no other reason.

Not because of her luminous beauty that drew the eye disturbingly ... evocatively ...

The soft tones of the house phone sounded. He glanced at his watch. The watch she had once stolen from him. Two minutes to nine. He picked up the phone. It was Reception. Kat Jones was right on time.

Thea was calm. She would not allow herself to be anything else. She was in lockdown. It was essential. Essential in order to be able to walk into the suite, to see Angelos Petrakos again. She stood quite still, like a statue, staring ahead while the bellboy set down her case and then left. Angelos was looking at her, she could see. She would not look at him. But she could feel his presence like a dark pressure all around her.

'So ...' his voice incised into the silence, deep and accented '... have you given your lordling his release?'

'Yes.' Her voice was dead. Unemotional.

'Good. Well, by tomorrow morning he will be permanently safe from you-even if you reneged on your rejection of him and went after him again he would have no wish to take my mistress for his wife, would he?'

'No.' The same deadness was in her voice.

He paused. Then in measured tones he spoke again. 'I am glad, Kat, that you understand that. There is no going back for you. Your ambitions in that direction are over. Permanently.'

He walked away from her, and from her eyeline she could see him cross to a drinks cabinet on the far side of the lavishly appointed suite. A terrifying surge of deja vu suddenly swept over her, as if time had collapsed and she was once more standing here in that nightmare confrontation five years ago.

No! The lockdown on her mind tightened. No memories. None.

She made her eyes rest on him as he reached for a bottle and unstoppered it. She made herself look at him. Tall, powerful-brutal. Incised features, hard body, dark tanned skin, the darker hue of his black hair, the blacker shade of his handmade business suit-all created the aura he was projecting. Not a man to mess with, not a man to defy-not a man to cross.

A man she could only ... survive.

'What would you like to drink?'

The casual enquiry seemed at odds with the reality of the situation. As if there was anything sociable, anything normal in what she was doing here. Not like the grim, harsh truth of the situation.