Savage Destiny

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THE following morning, Alix dressed with more than her usual care. This meeting with Pierce was going to be a battle of wills, and it would be in her own best interests to project a confident image. Which was why she chose an extremely businesslike black suit, enlivening it by pinning the diamond brooch she had inherited from her grandmother on the lapel, completing the ensemble by adding diamond studs in her ears and a simple gold rope at her throat.

Stepping in front of the mirror, she took stock of the view he would receive. Her make-up had been applied with polished efficiency which made it seem almost non-existent, and altogether she knew she looked good. A businesswoman, in complete control of her life. It was an image she had worked hard to build, earning the respect she now received, and she wasn’t going to give it up without a fight.

The drive to the office was as stressful as ever, but today she was aware of an added edge. The very last thing Alix wanted was to arrive late, because she knew how hard it was to make up lost time. Keeping Pierce waiting wasn’t part of her plan. She wanted him to see that she could be cool and efficient under pressure. Fortunately, the gods seemed to be on her side, and she was soon taking the lift from the underground car park where she left her car, rising swiftly to her office on the top floor.

Her secretary was already hard at work, and Alix halted by her desk. ‘Good morning, Ruth.’

The middle-aged woman looked up with a smile. ‘Good morning, Alix. How’s your father?’

‘Improving, thankfully. Listen, you’d better leave the post for now. I’ve someone coming at ten o’clock, so I need you to clear the morning for me,’ Alix responded, pink-tinted nails tapping out a tattoo on the polished surface of the desk.

Ruth reached for her diary. ‘There was only Mr Johnson from the union pencilled in before lunch.’

Alix pulled a face. The union had been a headache for days now, and she had been fobbing them off until she had some definite news. ‘Well, he won’t like it, but it can’t be helped. Try and squeeze him in this afternoon, but if not, tell him...tell him we’ve rescheduled because there might be light at the end of the tunnel.’

Ruth, as anxious about her job as anyone else, pricked up her ears. ‘And is there?’

Alix chewed at her lips. ‘That all depends on this meeting with Pierce Martineau,’ she declared shortly.

‘Are we talking the same Martineau as in the shipping line?’ her secretary queried, visibly brightening.

Unfortunately the reference was not a welcome one to Alix. ‘We are.’

Ruth was almost jigging in her seat. ‘You know, for the first time I really do believe we might turn about. After all, he did wonders for that fleet, didn’t he, turning a loss into a profit quicker than you could say it?’

‘Yes, well, that’s as maybe, but I’d rather you didn’t spread any rumours until we know just what the deal is. Pierce Martineau never does anything for nothing,’ Alix muttered broodingly.

‘You sound as if you know him,’ Ruth put in curiously, and Alix swiftly pulled herself together.

‘Our paths have crossed before,’ was all she cared to admit. ‘I’ll be in my father’s office if you need me.’

Walking into her own office, she deposited her briefcase on the desk before letting herself into her father’s spacious room via the connecting door. It seemed lifeless without his vital presence in the driving seat. Somehow she just couldn’t imagine him not coming back here. Yet, if the doctors were right, then Stephen Petrakos would have to undergo a rapid change in lifestyle if he wanted to live much longer.

Crossing to the desk, she ran her hands over the soft leather of the chair, then slowly sank into its cushioned depth. She had the distinct impression of being swallowed up. It was too big for her. It needed another Stephen Petrakos to fill it. The realisation made her feel tired. She had stepped into her father’s shoes because everyone had expected it of her, including herself. Now they expected miracles, and all she had done was singularly fail to put together a rescue package these last few weeks.

She swivelled round until she could see out of the window. She knew she was good at what she did, but that was on the publishing side of the business. Management was something outside her scope. She had done her best, but she doubted if anyone else knew the full extent of their financial problem. It was hard to believe the debts her father had mounted up. It had shown to her a man with a cavalier streak that she hadn’t known existed. Although, from the meetings she had had with other managers, not everybody had been as blinkered as she. The company was drastically over-extended, and the size of the interest payments to be made on hefty bank loans arranged to start up new projects had made her feel sick. Money seemed to be flooding out, not in, and it was a nightmare. No wonder her father had had a heart attack. What the company needed was a large injection of cash and a firm hand at the wheel.

She groaned out loud. It was a bitter irony that the only person who possessed both of her requirements was her ex-husband. She didn’t want to do business with him, because she knew in her bones that the price would be high. Last time it had been her grandfather who had suffered. It might not have been worth much, but the Petrakos shipping line had been his pride. Losing it had killed him, not directly, but in the long run.

Though her gaze still remained on the world outside, it was another scene she was visualising on the projection screen of her mind. The Petrakos shipping line. Five years ago she hadn’t even known of its existence, but it was something she could never forget—as she would never forget that day when she had first heard it from the lips of Pierce Martineau...

* * *

The sound of the apartment door opening and closing, followed by the muffled but recognisable tones of her husband, brought Alix’s head up from her knees. She turned startled eyes on the clock, amazed to see that it was after seven in the evening. The time had passed her by as she sat curled up in a chair by the window, locked in a limbo where her senses were blessedly numb. She had been waiting for Pierce to come home. She hadn’t left, as her pride had told her to, because she knew she had to face him one more time. He had killed her love for him. He had used her without thought for her feelings, and she needed to know why. If she deserved nothing else, she at least deserved to be told the truth, however painful it might be.

Alix rose stiffly to her feet. Her body felt as if it was one big ache, and although earlier she had put on jeans and a Guernsey sweater she still felt cold. She knew it was reaction; she only hoped that nothing showed when she saw Pierce. He knew he had hurt her, for he had deliberately set out to do so, but she’d be damned if she’d let him see just how much. Facing him again now wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps it was the hardest thing she had ever done. Only anger could give her the strength she needed.

The apartment was large, and all she knew of its layout was the dining-room and the bedroom. She had looked forward to exploring, but somehow this morning she just hadn’t felt like it! The wry humour lodged in her throat and, standing in the hallway, she quickly looked around. To her left a door stood ajar and light spilled from it. If Pierce was anywhere, then she might as well start her search there.

Alix found herself in a spacious modern lounge. Velvet curtains covered most of one wall, which meant it was probably all window. Elegant couches and armchairs made seating areas around low coffee-tables, the carpet muffled even the heaviest footstep, and the paintings on the walls were originals. At any other time she would have found it a charming room, but she was far too tense for anything so facile. There was a fireplace opposite, and although nothing burned there she crossed to it, soft-footed, as if by association her icy fingers would warm.

The chink of ice on glass brought her head shooting round. Pierce was standing by a drinks trolley watching her through hooded eyes.

‘Would you like a drink before dinner?’

The matter-of-fact question was like a slap in the face. How could he be so calm after what had happened this morning? It was almost as if nothing had happened! Her anger grew. ‘No, thank you,’ she ground out through her teeth, watching him walk towards her with the economical stride which was part of his animal magnetism, and which had once made her shiver in anticipation.

There was a mocking twist to his lips as he came into the circle of light thrown out by the lamp on the sofa table. ‘You’ve gone into mourning, I see.’

Alix glanced down at her clothes, realising for the first time that they were black. It hadn’t been intentional, merely the first things that came to hand. Yet it was bitingly apt. She worked at her throat, saying thickly, ‘Something died today, Pierce, and I still don’t know why.’

Pierce came closer, resting one arm along the mantelpiece. ‘Mrs Ransome tells me you spent the day in our bedroom.’

Alix found his closeness almost intolerable, yet she forced herself to make no move away from him, lest he believe he had her on the run. ‘I’m asking you to tell me why you’ve done this. What you meant about my grandfather.’

For a moment he merely stared down at her, as if gauging whether her ignorance was real or not. Then he shrugged carelessly. ‘You and I have Greek blood in our veins, my dear Alix. An oath is not to be taken lightly, and I’m keeping a promise I made,’ he enlightened her smoothly. ‘As for where Yannis Petrakos comes into the picture, I’ll be only too happy to tell you, in my own good time.’

His arrogance sickened her, and the only way to keep her hands from his handsome face was to ball them into fists at her sides. ‘I want to know now,’ she insisted angrily.

Blue eyes ran over her stiff figure with lazy insolence. ‘After dinner.’

How easily he made her feel like the pawn he thought her to be. ‘Oh, God, I hate you!’ The words were almost a sob, and she pressed her lips together tightly so as not to let another escape.

However, she could have screamed and he would only have looked amused, just as he did now. ‘Do you? Only yesterday you loved me.’

Gasping at that studied cruelty, she stared into his eyes and murder was in her heart. ‘Why didn’t you challenge me when we met if this oath of yours was so important?’

‘Haven’t you worked that out for yourself? You’ve had all day. Because I needed you to be my wife. Without that, you could have walked away scot-free.’

Her heart felt as if it was being squeezed in a vice. He was shredding her, leaving her with nothing. Nothing except a fierce pride, which lifted her chin a fraction. ‘I can still do that now. Or are you saying I’m your prisoner?’

A small chilling smile curved his lips. ‘You can go any time you want to. I don’t need you as a hostage,’ he confirmed easily. ‘All I needed was you as my wife. And you are that, aren’t you, Alix? In name and in the flesh.’

Alix felt what little colour she had drain away. ‘Are you telling me you slept with me just to consummate the marriage?’

One eyebrow lifted disdainfully. ‘Could you be foolish enough to imagine I’d leave any loopholes? Fulfilling the oath depended on it.’

Nearly choking on an upsurge of nausea, she shook her head in appalled disbelief. ‘How could I have been foolish enough to think I loved you?’

Lids lowered over blue eyes as Pierce reached out to run the knuckles of his hand down her cheek. ‘Can you be so sure that you don’t now?’

There was something in his touch that seemed to tug at her heart, and, hating herself for it, Alix curled her lip in contempt. ‘There’s no love left for you, only hate.’

His lips parted on a short bark of mocking laughter. ‘Maybe not love, but what about desire? Shall we put that to the test?’

His callousness took her breath away. He had just told her he had made love to her because he had to, not because he wanted to, and now he wanted to prove that she was still his any time he wanted her. ‘Don’t you dare touch me!’

Suddenly there was the strangest look in his eyes. ‘Never dare me, Alix, that’s the worst thing you could do,’ he declared huskily, and caught her as she turned to flee, pulling her back, struggling, against his chest, pinning her arms with his and forcing her head still with a hand clamped in her hair. There was a moment when their eyes locked, hers spitting loathing and his carrying that odd expression she couldn’t interpret, then his head dropped and Alix prepared herself for the assault.

Only it didn’t turn out like that. His lips were gentle and warm, dropping kisses now here, now there, until she couldn’t bear it. Her heart was wrenched apart as she suffered an embrace that seemed to encompass a world of loving, and yet was a mockery of the very word. Sobbing, she tried to pull away, but all he did was deepen the kiss, using tongue and lips to seduce her. He knew her so well. He knew the precise moment when she would stop fighting and start kissing him back, and there was nothing she could do about it.

Her response stripped her bare, and when Pierce released her at last her eyes loomed huge in her ashen face. His own were glittering so brightly that they dazzled.

‘It’s not that easy, is it?’

If he wanted to make her feel cheap, then he couldn’t have chosen a better way. ‘I never thought I could despise any human being as much as I do you. What have you proved? That you can still turn me on? Maybe you can, and maybe it would amuse you to have me in your bed again. But you’d take me knowing that I’d hate every touch of your hands. My response has nothing to do with how I feel, and I feel only hatred for someone who could do what you have done to me today!’ Her voice was thick with that hate, and a bitter self-loathing that she could not, even now, resist him. She turned away abruptly, but only got two steps on shaky legs before his voice halted her.

‘Where are you going?’

She shot him a look full of revulsion. ‘Back to my room until you’re ready to talk to me.’ She couldn’t bear to be near him.

The tension emanating from him was awesome, and his voice correspondingly terse. ‘If you want to know the facts, then you’ll join me for dinner. I insist,’ he added the last as she made to protest.

Balked, Alix turned back, knowing that although she never wanted to see him again she had to know everything. Taking a seat on the couch furthest away from him, she forced herself to look him in the face. ‘Very well, if it amuses you. I’ll have that drink now.’ She needed it quite badly.

‘I wouldn’t say it amuses me,’ Pierce said shortly, as he went to pour her a drink, returning with her usual martini.

Alix avoided his eyes, taking the glass, using extreme care to make sure their fingers didn’t touch. Silence fell, and she had no intention of attempting to make polite conversation. This was no longer a honeymoon, and she the blushing bride. This was attrition, and she would not pretend otherwise. So it was a relief when there came a tap on the door and Mrs Ransome announced dinner. However, the mere thought of food was nauseating, and Alix called upon all her reserves of composure to enable her to take her seat at the table. But having got that far she made no attempt to eat what was placed before her, nor even to pretend that she had. Pierce regarded her from across the table, unamused by her still, silent figure.

‘This is really very good, you should try it,’ he encouraged after a moment, indicating the soup.

Her eyes battled with his. ‘Is that an order?’ she asked insolently, and his jaw tensed.

‘Do you intend to starve yourself?’

‘Because of you? Never!’

He smiled grimly at that. ‘Then have some soup, Alix. According to Mrs Ransome you’ve eaten nothing all day.’ There was steel in Pierce’s voice, mixed up with, of all things, an impatient concern. ‘Must I come round there and make you?’

Alix resorted to sarcasm. ‘What’s the matter? Afraid it wouldn’t reflect well on you if I faded away?’

Sitting back in his chair, Pierce eyed her grimly. ‘I’m afraid of nothing. I’m merely doing what has to be done. It has never been my intention to make you ill.’

Her jaw became set. ‘Then you’d better either get out of my sight or let me go, because just seeing you sickens me!’ she snapped back, not caring if it sounded childish or not.

He smiled but it failed to reach his eyes. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve no wish to prolong our acquaintance. Once I have what I came for, you need never see me again.’

Alix could feel the muscles in her face tighten up at that. ‘I wish I’d never seen you!’ she cried, just as the housekeeper bustled back into the room. His reply had to wait until Mrs Ransome had removed the soup dishes and replaced them with the main course.

Alone again, Pierce shrugged powerful shoulders. ‘We would always have met, Alix. Some things are meant to be.’

She almost laughed. Now he wanted her to believe that the gods had something to do with it! ‘I don’t believe in such superstitious mumbo-jumbo. You planned everything down to the smallest detail, leaving nothing to chance. Such arrogance! Tell me, what would you have done if I had been engaged to be married?’