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‘Seven years.’
He nodded, but did not comment further on what she’d told him.
Katie wasn’t quite sure why she had told him. Peter wasn’t a subject she discussed with anyone, though sometimes the weight of her secret made her long to share the burden with someone.
‘I know my presence disturbs you, Katerina…’
And then some! ‘Are you surprised? I wasn’t expecting Tom’s billionaire friend to turn out to be the penniless man I married seven years ago?’
If Nikos heard the unspoken question in her resentful observation he chose to ignore it. Katie was starting to get the idea he did that a lot.
‘If you put aside your animosity…’
Katie was unable to restrain her incredulous laughter; as if he were the soul of impartial reason! ‘I don’t think I’m the only person with an animosity issue here, mate.’
‘If you stop spitting and snarling for a minute you might recognise that we have things to talk about.’ His brows lifted to a quizzical angle. ‘Don’t you agree?’
Katie opened her mouth and then closed it again; she could hardly deny it. You couldn’t really meet up with a man you’d just requested a divorce from and not talk.
‘Now seems an excellent opportunity,’ he continued, his eyes observing the inner struggle very clearly revealed on her expressive face.
Katie swallowed and, without looking directly at him, nodded her consent.
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR someone who’d wanted to talk, Nikos showed precious little inclination to do so once they were in his car—predictably a low-slung luxurious sports car. In Katie’s present mood she’d have criticised his driving had the opportunity arisen, but it didn’t. He proved to be competent but not dangerously erratic as many men were when placed behind the wheel of a powerful car.
Other than ask directions as they’d left the hotel he had said nothing at all.
She cleared her dry throat, and swallowed; it seemed it was up to her to break the ice. She wondered what to say.
‘Why are you here?’
It wasn’t exactly slick, but you had to start somewhere.
‘When we spoke on the phone Tom could not stop talking about the woman of his dreams. I was naturally curious to see this paragon.’
Sarcastic beast. She eyed him with dislike. ‘And that was it?’ She gave a sceptical snort. ‘I don’t believe in coincidences.’
‘Neither did I until I opened my mail immediately after speaking to Tom. When I read Harvey’s letter relaying your request for a speedy dissolution of our union I realised why the name Katie Forsythe seemed so familiar. Katie…Katerina…I thought I’d check it out. I dropped in on Harvey on my way here and tried to get your address. Being an exemplary example of the legal profession and impervious to bribery, he refused…’
‘You didn’t try and bribe Harvey!’ Katie exclaimed in a scandalised tone.
Nikos spared her a fleeting glance that made her feel ridiculously gauche before he returned his attention to the narrow, ill-lit road. ‘It was much simpler and more rewarding to take a look at his laptop when he was called from the office.’
This offhand attitude to such sneaky actions confirmed Katie’s first impressions of his character—the man was totally without scruples. Something she would do well to keep in mind in her dealings with him.
‘It might interest you to know that Harvey told me he’d personally guarantee your integrity,’ she choked, regarding his perfect profile with disgust mingled with unwilling appreciation. There was a lot to appreciate: his jaw was firm without being chunky and, even though it was probably due to generations of inbreeding amongst the ruling classes, a lot of men might have sacrificed a sense of humour—you couldn’t count warped—for strong features of such staggeringly perfect dimensions.
If that doesn’t shame him, nothing will.
It seemed he was shameless.
‘That would explain why he didn’t take the most elementary security measures.’ Katie looked at him blankly. ‘He left the thing turned on when he left the room.’
‘God knows where Harvey got the idea that you were some sort of paragon of virtue.’
‘I think he received his information on my exemplary character from a prejudiced source.’
‘And that would be?’
Nikos’s mobile lips twitched at the corners. ‘Caitlin.’
A woman, that figured, Katie thought darkly. ‘What exactly did you find out when you illegally accessed Harvey’s computer?’ she interrupted uneasily.
The idea of Nikos Lakis knowing chapter and verse the intimate details of her history was not a comfortable thought.
Harvey was the only one other than herself who knew the entire story of Peter’s death; the rest of the world thought, as she had until the letter written in that familiar hand had dropped on her doormat the day after his funeral, that her twin’s death had been a tragic accident—a young man fond of speed who took a bend too fast on his motor cycle.
For a long time she’d just held the letter, afraid to open it and read words that seemed to come from the grave.
‘Sorry, Katie,’ she’d read, ‘but I just can’t bear the guilt.’
Katie had read on in denial, unable to think of her brother so young, so filled with life, being in such despair that he had taken his own life. It’s not possible…I would have known…I should have known…!
‘I thought I’d killed the guy, I should have stopped but I panicked and rode away. The guy lived but he’s going to be paralysed for life.’
Katie had cried; she’d cried for a long time. She’d cried for her brother and she’d cried for the man whose life his recklessness had ruined.
‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ she’d yelled at the happy, laughing face beside her own in the framed photo. ‘You always come to me!’ It was true the twins had always turned to one another for support in times of crisis; they’d always presented a united front against the world.
Very much later Katie had discreetly gone about finding out what she could about the man Peter had left for dead at the roadside. She’d discovered Ian Graham had been a thirty-year-old electrician. He had married his childhood sweetheart and they’d had a ten-month-old baby.
Listening in to conversations at the corner shop in the village where they’d lived had told her he had not come to terms with his disability and his young wife had been at her wits’ end. Financially, the gossips had said, they’d been in a bad way; rumours had abounded that they wouldn’t be able to keep up with mortgage repayments for much longer.
Katie had vowed that she’d do something to help them, even if it took her the rest of her life, which sounded very grand but the Grahams needed help now, not in twenty years’ time.
It was only when she’d remembered the legacies she and Peter had been left by their Greek grandfather on condition they marry that she’d seen a way out. The shocked twins had concluded that this generosity from a grandfather they’d never even received a Christmas card from was the old man’s way of controlling the grandchildren he didn’t know. She and Peter had joked that they would never marry just to spite the man who through their childhood had always featured as the current villain in their games.
It was amazing really that such a strange series of circumstances had led her to exchange solemn vows with the man beside her.
‘Relax, your secrets are safe, there was just your address, which revealed you shared a postcode with Tom. It therefore seemed safe to assume that my wife and Tom’s angel were one and the same person.’
Katie released a gusty sigh of relief; he might be scarily perceptive but he wasn’t clairvoyant. Fortunately his ability to read her thoughts—or was it her body language?—had its limitations.
‘But it didn’t occur to you to let me know you were coming.’
‘Only momentarily,’ he admitted frankly. ‘But I quickly realised that your reactions might be less guarded if you had no warning.’
In other words he wanted to see me squirm and I obliged. ‘Tell me,’ she choked, ‘did you deprive many flies of their wings when you were a little boy?’
He seemed unmoved by her withering contempt. ‘Tom is my friend; I would not like to see him make an unwise marriage.’
‘And marriage to me would be unwise?’ Her voice rose a couple of outraged octaves, which made Nikos wince. ‘You didn’t seem to think so once!’
‘I arrived here with an open mind.’
Katie let out a mocking howl. ‘Like hell you did! What is it with you? Can’t you stand to see people happy?’
‘It’s only natural that you would be concerned, I am going to be uncooperative about the divorce.’
Katie’s eyes widened in alarm as she took an abrupt tumble from her moral high ground. ‘You’re not, are you?’
He didn’t reply to her dismayed whisper, but his enigmatic smile seemed calculated to keep her worried. There was no point demanding a straight answer, she decided; the man seemed determined to make her squirm. He had a sadistic streak a mile wide!
‘Actually when I read Harvey’s letter it seemed fortuitous timing. I’ve been thinking of marriage myself.’
Relief flooded through Katie, who slumped back in her seat. ‘That’s marvellous,’ she breathed happily. She supposed with his looks and money there must be any number of women out there willing and eager to overlook his overbearing and egotistical character. ‘Who’s the lucky girl?’
‘You wouldn’t know her.’
In other words, we don’t move in the same circles…what a prize snob he is, she thought contemptuously.
‘Why didn’t you tell Tom that you were married?’
Now that was something Katie had asked herself quite a lot recently. None of the answers she’d come up with showed her in a very favourable light. ‘It slipped my mind,’ she responded flippantly.
He threw her a wry look.
She sighed and lifted her slender shoulders in a gesture of defeat. ‘Well, I didn’t feel married,’ she told him crossly. ‘And if you must know it’s not an incident in my life I feel particularly proud of.’
And if she had told him, she’d have had to tell him why she’d done it, and would do again, and that wasn’t an option. Nobody but Harvey knew the truth and she intended for Peter’s sake it would stay that way. Her brother had paid the ultimate price for his mistake—with his life.
‘I needed that money. It was a means to an end, no more, no less,’ she told him coldly. ‘And I had hoped that Harvey could organise things so that Tom would never have to know.’
‘So your marriage is to be based on lies…excellent foundation.’
Katie flushed angrily at his sarcasm. ‘I never lied to Tom. If he had asked me if I was married I would have told him.’
‘So, a marriage based on half truths…I congratulate you, a massive improvement!’
Katie inhaled sharply. ‘God, you’re so sharp I’m amazed you don’t cut yourself.’ I should be so lucky, she thought viciously. ‘I take it your girlfriend knows you’re already married?’ she added innocently.
Katie had the pleasure of seeing what appeared in the subdued light to be a faint flush highlight his high cheekbones as his jaw tightened with annoyance.
She folded her arms and smiled. ‘I’ll take that as a no, shall I?’
‘It isn’t the same thing at all.’
‘Gosh!’ she gasped, widening her eyes. ‘That’s so spooky. I must be psychic—I had the strangest feeling you were going to say that.’
His long, lean fingers tightened on the steering wheel. ‘Theos!’ he thundered…the flush of anger was no longer in doubt. ‘You will not speak to me in this fashion.’
‘Do people always do as you say?’ Katie wondered, crossing one ankle elegantly over the other.
‘Yes!’ he bit back.
‘That must be boring.’
‘Why are you marrying Tom?’
‘For the usual reasons people get married.’
‘You mean you’re pregnant?’ He shrugged as Katie gave an outraged gasp. ‘So you’re not pregnant.’
‘Even if I was there is no shame in having a baby outside marriage.’
‘My father might not agree with you there,’ Nikos inserted drily as he imagined the uproar that would occur if he produced an heir but no wife. ‘And,’ he continued, his brows drawing together over the bridge of his nose, ‘you’re not in love with him. That leaves—’
‘Who says I’m not in love with Tom?’
His low-pitched, mocking laugh made her prickle with antagonism.
‘I can only conclude,’ he added, with the air of someone who had cut through the crap and was adding two and two, ‘that your nest egg has run out? Mind you, if you have many designer outfits like that one, it’s hardly surprising,’ he observed, allowing his eyes to briefly skim the silky blue dress and the pleasing contours it covered. ‘It is a CJ Malone, isn’t it?’ Caitlin, he reflected, would have appreciated seeing one of her creations worn by someone who possessed the sort of unlikely proportions designers had in mind when they created outfits.
‘Probably.’ Katie, who wouldn’t have recognised a CJ Malone if she fell over it, replied vaguely. She wasn’t about to admit to him that she was wearing a hand-me-down.
‘I know a lot of women with expensive tastes, but none of them who wouldn’t know if they were wearing a CJ Malone.’
She shrugged. ‘I’m bad on names.’
‘But good at signing cheques. I suppose once you’ve married for money once it’s easier the second time?’ he mused, slowing at an unsigned crossroads.
‘Left,’ she replied tersely. ‘You’re pretty handy with the lofty disdain for someone who married for money himself, but then I suppose arranged marriages are in your blood.’
Katie was pleased to see his taut jaw tighten, presumably with anger—she hoped with anger. She wasn’t quite sure why she wanted to make him angry and, anyway, it was hard to be sure from this angle if she’d succeeded, because his eyes were screened by the sweep of his luxuriant lashes, which cast a shadow across the high plane of his cheekbones. He had the sort of face that was aesthetically pleasing from any angle.
She arranged her own features in an expression of mock sympathy. ‘What’s wrong, Nikos? Did the idea of getting your hands dirty like the rest of us seem too sordid when Daddy withdrew his support?’
He slid her a look of smouldering dislike before taking the road she had indicated. ‘I’m not about to explain myself to you.’
‘Ditto,’ she added nastily. Of all the men in the world for Harvey to produce for her to marry, why, oh, why had it been this one? Sometimes fate had a very poor sense of humour.
‘Theos!’ he ejaculated raggedly. ‘You are the most poisonous female I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter!’ he gritted. ‘It will be well worth the inconvenience to myself to prevent you ruining my friend’s life.’
Katie stiffened as an icy shiver slid up her spine. ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I think you know exactly what I mean.’
