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She was just contemplating that disturbing possibility when she saw his mouth tighten.
How did he manage to look businesslike and intimidating, wearing just a towel?
‘Speak to me,’ he demanded, and his sharp tone finally roused her from her semi-conscious state.
‘It was amazing,’ she said faintly. ‘You’re very good.’
Shock flared in his dark eyes and he muttered something in Greek under his breath. ‘That is not what I was asking you,’ he breathed, faint colour highlighting the perfection of his bone structure. ‘Let’s do this another way. I’ll ask the questions. You answer. Obviously you’re not Isabelle Ducat.’
Realising that she’d just embarrassed herself, Chantal coloured deeply and shrank deeper inside the towel.
She’d just assumed that he’d wanted to talk about the sex because, for her, no other issues existed. What they’d just shared had driven everything else from her head. But obviously he wasn’t similarly afflicted. For him there were issues much, much more important than talking about the sex. Like her identity.
Buying herself a little more time, she cleared her throat and tried avoidance tactics. ‘What makes you think I’m not Isabelle Ducat?’
‘Because the list of Isabelle’s previous lovers reads like a telephone directory,’ Angelos informed her helpfully. ‘Whereas I now know that your list contains only one name. Mine.’
His blunt reminder of the intimacy they’d just shared caused the colour in her cheeks to deepen still further. Wriggling like a fish on a hook, she breathed deeply and told herself that he couldn’t absolutely know. Could he? ‘I don’t see how you—’
‘Don’t even go there,’ he warned in a soft voice. ‘Unless you want me to treble your blushes by describing in meticulous detail exactly how I know.’
She breathed in and out and concentrated on a point between his feet and his knees. ‘Oh.’
‘Look at me,’ he demanded, and she shrank slightly lower in her seat.
She couldn’t look at him. It was just too, too embarrassing.
He sighed heavily. ‘Please will you look at me?’ This time his voice was slightly less autocratic, as if he knew that he wasn’t going to achieve his objective by sheer force alone.
Reluctantly, she looked. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Start with who you really are.’
Who was she?
She wasn’t sure she knew any more. She certainly didn’t feel anything like the person she’d been half an hour previously.
Would her body ever feel the same again? ‘I’m not Isabelle.’
‘I know that.’ His wide, sensuous mouth compressed as he struggled to contain his volatile nature. ‘What I don’t know is who you are and why you took her identity.’
‘I didn’t take her identity. Not really. You were the one who thought I was Isabelle.’
‘You were in possession of her ticket.’
‘Which just goes to show that external appearances can be deceptive.’
‘The only deception around here was yours.’
Sensing a dangerous tension in him, Chantal felt her heart bump against her chest. ‘It’s true that I used the ticket, but I didn’t pose as her. I didn’t once use her name, and you weren’t supposed to see the ticket.’
‘This conversation is going round in circles and you are making no sense. How did you obtain the ticket in the first place?’
It was like being on the witness stand, being cross-examined by a very unsympathetic prosecutor.
What would he say, she wondered, when he discovered that the truth was even worse than the lie? ‘It’s a long story.’
‘Give me the short version,’ he ordered in a tense voice. ‘I’m a guy who likes to get straight to the point, and we’ve already taken the long route. Let’s try it from a different direction. How do you know Isabelle?’
‘I don’t know her. I met her in the hotel where she was staying.’ Unable to look at him, Chantal examined each strand of the soft fluffy towel that now enveloped her. ‘I was—’ oh hell ‘—I was cleaning her room.’
There.
She’d said it.
Bracing herself for his reaction to her shocking confession, she sat there waiting, her fingers coiled in the damp folds of the towel.
Angelos said nothing.
Clearly he was so appalled that he’d flown a cleaner out to his island on his private jet that he couldn’t even find the words to express his disgust. She gave a tiny shrug and tried to ignore the pain that tore at her insides.
‘It’s all right.’ She tried to sound dismissive. Casual. ‘Go ahead and say what’s on your mind.’ After all, she was used to it. Used to being judged and instantly dismissed. Struggling to close her armour around her. She lifted her eyes to his and she found him watching her from beneath thick dark lashes that concealed his expression.
‘I’m still waiting for you to explain how you came to have the ticket.’ He spoke with exaggerated patience. ‘I’m assuming that if I wait long enough you will get to the point in the end.’
‘I’ve reached the point.’
He rubbed his fingers over his forehead, as if to ease the tension. ‘Chantal—that is your name, isn’t it?’ He spoke slowly and softly, as if he were hanging onto control by a thread. ‘I’m not a very patient man. If a member of my staff had taken as long to tell me something as you have, I would have fired them by now.’
She stiffened defensively. ‘I just told you I was working as a cleaner.’
‘I heard you. At the moment I’m not interested in your career choice. What I’m still waiting to hear is how you came by the ticket.’
‘But—’
‘I’m not good with long, involved stories,’ he informed her, his tone exasperated. ‘Get to the point, please, before we both age any further.’
Chantal opened her mouth to say that she’d thought that the fact she was actually a cleaner was the point, but the burning impatience in his eyes made her think twice. Obviously he wanted more. ‘I was cleaning her room. She was having a complete tantrum about what she should wear—flinging clothes all over the place and expecting me to pick them up. I thought she needed help, so I told her which dress I thought suited her best, and she just exploded in a rage. What did someone like me know about how to dress for an event like that? What did I know about attracting a rich man? I suffered fifteen minutes of verbal abuse, and then she decided that she wasn’t going at all. So she flung her ticket in the bin and checked out of the hotel. I think she left Paris that same afternoon.’
‘So you took the ticket out of her bin?’ He condensed her lengthy confession into a few very blunt words.
‘It sounds bad, I know. But—’
‘—But you wanted to prove her wrong about not being able to attract a rich man?’
Affronted, Chantal glared at him. ‘Of course not! It was nothing to do with attracting a rich man. It was a confidence thing.’ She subsided in her seat. ‘She made me feel so small—as if I were a completely different species to her.’ She could have told him the rest of her story, of course, but there was no way she was doing that, when she’d already told him far, far too much about herself. As far as she was concerned she’d given him everything he was having. The rest was staying locked inside. She straightened her shoulders. ‘And that’s why I took the ticket. It wasn’t about meeting men. I needed to prove to myself that she was wrong about me. Just for one night I wanted to dress up and be in her world.’
‘You borrowed one of her dresses?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I would never have fitted into one of her dresses—and anyway, I wouldn’t have done something like that. I made my own dress.’
‘In the space of a few hours?’
Stung by his disbelieving tone, Chantal frowned at him. ‘I’m good at sewing.’ She’d had to be. It was the only way she could afford to dress the way she wanted to dress.
‘So you turned up at the ball, like Cinderella, just to prove to her that she was wrong?’
‘It wasn’t about her at all. It was about me. I was proving it to myself. She made me feel—’ The confession sat like a leaden lump in her mouth. ‘She made me feel worthless. Less than her. I wanted to prove to myself that the people at the ball were just people. That I could mix and mingle in that world.’ It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was all he was getting from her.
‘So that explains the bizarre conversation we had on the night of the ball when you wouldn’t tell me who you were,’ he muttered. ‘Finally I understand all that rambling about stereotypes and people not judging other people.’
‘That’s what they do,’ Chantal said simply. ‘People judge all the time, based on a number of superficial factors and their judgements are almost always wrong.’
‘I don’t suppose it occurred to you to tell me the truth?’
‘You’re joking! Of course not. You would have had me thrown out. And anyway, you were furious when you saw I’d been talking to your father.’
‘Not because you were talking to him, but because you gave him the impression that we were seriously in love. The fact that you are here today is purely a result of the lies you told that night.’
She stared at him numbly. The warmth and passion they’d shared only moments ago had gone. ‘I sat next to your father because he was the only friendly face in the place. I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t know who you were. And then he and I started to talk and—’
‘And?’
She was silent for a moment, unwilling to confess that her imagination had run away with her. She didn’t want him to know the impact he’d had on her at their first meeting. ‘It was just a misunderstanding,’ she said lamely, and he muttered something in Greek under his breath.
‘You let me carry on believing that you were Isabelle, despite having had ample opportunity to tell me the truth. And I suppose the reason for that is all too obvious.’ His tone was suddenly cool. ‘I was offering you an all-expenses-paid holiday on a Greek Island. No wonder you stayed silent.’
It was the worst thing he could have said to her.
‘You think I came here for a free holiday? That’s not what happened!’ Deeply offended by his interpretation, she leaped out of her chair, clutching the towel like a shield. ‘You were the one who insisted that I came.’
‘And you didn’t resist.’
Her heart was pounding. ‘I came because you led me to believe that it would make a difference to your father, and I care about him. He was very kind to me.’
‘So you made this enormous sacrifice for a guy you’d met once?’ He lifted an eyebrow. ‘You were doing me a favour by agreeing to fly by private jet to a secluded island for a few weeks of relaxation?’ He was tying her in knots and he knew it.
‘I don’t care what you believe. It’s the truth. But you’re obviously so cynical and suspicious of women’s motives that you think there’s only one possible interpretation. Maybe you should give all your money away. Then you’d know, wouldn’t you?’ Still smarting with indignation, she blinked rapidly to clear the tears that had sprung into her eyes. He wasn’t worth crying over. No man was worth that. All she could do now was pick up the pieces and start again. And learn from her mistakes.
But first she needed to get out of here.
After what they’d just done she could no longer stay as his guest. It wasn’t possible.
Before she could move, Maria appeared on the terrace, an apologetic look on her face. She said something in Greek to Angelos and he gave a low growl, almost vibrating with impatience at the interruption.
‘Theos mou, not now—’ He raked his fingers through his glossy hair and then cast a look at Chantal. ‘I have been waiting for this phone call—the timing isn’t good, but I have to take it. We’ll finish this conversation later.’
Not if she had anything to do with it.
Still bruised by his total lack of sensitivity, she didn’t respond.
What was there to finish?
He’d made his feelings perfectly clear, and she really didn’t want to listen to any more.
He thought she was some sort of cold-blooded gold-digger.
Wrung out with the emotion of it all, Chantal watched in silence as he strode across the terrace. He was as cool and in control as ever. There was no evidence to suggest that he was a man caught up in the middle of an emotional crisis. Which was yet another fundamental difference between them, she thought numbly, her eyes clinging hungrily to his broad, muscular shoulders until they disappeared from view along with the rest of him.
She still wasn’t sure how the whole thing had happened, or why it had happened. All she knew was that she felt like a balloon that had been popped before the party started.
Apart from acknowledging her utter lack of experience, Angelos apparently hadn’t given a second thought to what had happened in the pool.
And yet she’d been unable to think of anything else. Every time he’d fired a question at her, she’d just wanted to say, ‘But what about the sex?’
It had been the most shocking, exhilarating, explosive experience of her life, and having suddenly discovered the depth of her sexuality she could now barely focus on anything else. The memory of their encounter was so clear that it dominated her mind in full, glorious Technicolor and her body ached in a way that was deliciously unfamiliar.
All the way through their conversation she’d just wanted him to stop talking, take her in his arms and do it all over again. Because she’d truly believed that what they’d shared had been unique and infinitely special.
And that was why she’d done it, of course. Because it had felt absolutely right. For the first time in her life she hadn’t even stopped to question what she was doing.
But it hadn’t been special for him, had it?
It hadn’t even been worthy of comment. To him it had just been sex. And not just sex, but sex that obviously wasn’t even worth remarking on. Disappointing sex. In fact, judging from his reaction, the whole episode had obviously been an entirely forgettable experience—nothing more than an exercise session for him—while the verbal exchange that had followed had possessed all the warmth and intimacy of a business meeting.
She cringed as she forced herself to face the truth.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of the pool fast enough, had he?
She’d been ready to wind her arms round his neck and start it all again, but he’d lifted her out and plonked her on the side, clearly not sharing her desire for a repeat performance.
Obviously, as a woman, you couldn’t win, she thought gloomily. Too much experience, like Isabelle, made you a slut. Too little made you boring.
Alone on the terrace, she released her death grip on the towel and allowed it to slide to the floor. Her costume had almost dried in the heat, and she ran a finger over her thigh, wondering if her body felt different on the outside—because it certainly felt different on the inside.
For the first time in her life she’d discovered what it was like to completely lose control, and the feeling was exciting and terrifying at the same time.
Uncomfortable thoughts from her childhood drifted into her head but she pushed them away again instantly, just not able to go there at this moment.
One thing she did know was that the sex had changed everything. She’d agreed to accept his hospitality only because he’d convinced her that his father’s recovery depended on her presence. She’d been comfortable with it because there had been nothing personal in the invitation.
But now everything had changed.
And it was perfectly obvious what she had to do.
CHAPTER SIX (#u76146323-4af4-565b-81f8-c255ca4dcd7f)
SERIOUSLY distracted, Angelos took his business call, snapped the head off the person on the other end of the phone and then instructed his PA in Athens not to put through any more calls.
