of his hawk-like nose over his right eye and disappeared into the thick hair at his temple, black hair going grey over his ears. Green eyes looked at her contemptuously, with nothing to show that the scar and its internal injuries had rendered this man blind in his right eye, temporarily completely blind but now having regained the sight of his left eye. The firm mouth was bared in a smile of taunting humour, his teeth very white against his naturally dark skin.
Regan had never met this man before, and yet she knew so much about him. A Greek to his fingertips, he had been a rakish hell-raiser when the accident that had blinded him had taken place, an accident on the racing track that her father had also been involved in. It was after this accident that her father had lived openly with this man's estranged wife.
‘My—my name is Thomas now,’ she told him tonelessly. ‘My aunt and uncle adopted me.’
He nodded. ‘To save you the pain of your father's sins,’ he grated. ‘But a simple change of name cannot save you from me.’
If anything she went even greyer; this man's expression frightened her. ‘Save me …?’
‘Yes,’ Andreas Vatis rasped. ‘I am a Greek, Regan Matthews, and a Greek never forgets an insult or wrong done to him. It may take years to attain retribution for that wrong, but you can be sure we will always be avenged on our sworn enemies.’
Regan backed away from the glittering dislike in those green eyes, still finding it difficult to believe he was half blind. He didn't appear to be a man who would have patience with any imperfection, although his harsh good looks would never be forgotten by man or woman. How had her father dared to take this man's wife from him? By seeing him rendered blind first, that was how.
God, it still sickened her after all these years. Her aunt and uncle had tried to keep the truth from her, but they couldn't hide the fact that her father had taken this man's wife from him when he was in no position to stop him. Regan had learnt of her father's behaviour by listening to her aunt and uncle talking when they weren't aware she could hear.
A racing car driver, like Andreas Vatis, her father had seen Andreas Vatis’ wife and wanted her for himself. Of course Gina Vatis must have been a very shallow woman to have turned to the other man when it appeared her husband was going to be blind for life, but as far as Regan was concerned her father had been the biggest offender against the man. And now it appeared that Andreas Vatis wanted revenge in some way.
She gulped. ‘I—I have nothing, no money, nothing,’ she told him desperately, although what this man would want with more money when he must be a millionaire time and time again she had no idea.
The Vatis family, of which Andreas was now the head, had always been in shipping, although Andreas had chosen to enjoy himself racing cars until the accident had made that impossible. In time he had taken over the family business, and according to Clive Western, they had now expanded into hotels and holiday accommodation.
Andreas Vatis threw back his head in a harsh laugh, the column of his thickly corded throat deeply brown, the cream silk shirt and cream trousers he wore emphasising the slenderness of his waist and hips and the breadth of his muscular shoulders. He was a man in the peak of physical condition, much fitter than men half his thirty-five years. ‘I do not want money, Regan,’ he told her with a hard smile. ‘But you are right, I do want something. I want that which is mine by right.’
She frowned. ‘But I don't have anything.’ She shook her head in puzzlement, feeling as if one of her nightmares were becoming a reality.
‘On the contrary,’ he drawled. ‘You have everything that I want,’ he said softly, his gaze running over her appraisingly, almost insolent in its intensity. ‘I want only that which your father took from me.’
She swallowed hard. ‘And that is?’
‘A wife, Regan.’ His hard face was unyielding. ‘I am going to take you for my wife.’
‘NO!’ she gasped. ‘You can't mean that!’ She searched that cold hard face for some sign of mockery, but all she could see was his hatred and contempt of her.
‘But I do mean it,’ he told her calmly. ‘I have waited almost eleven years for this moment. I cannot tell you how much it pleases me.’
‘But I——What does it all mean?’ she demanded.
‘It means that I have brought you here to become my wife, the wife your father chose to deprive me of.’ Andreas Vatis’ voice tautened grimly. ‘I have never been particularly attracted to redheads,’ he added insultingly. ‘But then I will not be able to distinguish the colour of your hair in the dark.’
Regan gulped. ‘In the dark?’ she echoed.
He nodded his arrogant head. ‘When I take you to my bed. Only the sense of touch is important at such times, and you look as if your body might be quite—pleasant to touch.’
She blushed under his assessing gaze, feeling as if he stripped the clothes from her at a glance, saw each delectable curve beneath. ‘You're mad!’ her voice quivered in her fear. ‘I'm not going to marry you, and you certainly aren't going to touch me, in the dark or at any other time.’
‘Are you sure of that?’ He seemed unperturbed by her outburst, his calmness making Regan feel even more uneasy.
‘Very sure,’ but her voice quivered uncertainly.
‘Then I will keep you here until you change your mind. Of course I will visit your bed every night until you agree to marry me, which should not be long—Helena was born exactly nine months after the consummation of my first marriage,’ he added with grim humour.
‘You mean——’
‘I mean that unless you agree to marry me now you could find yourself in the even more unwelcome position, in your opinion, of being my mistress.’
‘But why?’ she cried. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ Her anguish was obvious, her blue eyes shadowed.
‘I have already explained it to you,’ he told her haughtily. ‘I want from your father the wife he stole from me, and as both he and Gina are dead I intend taking his daughter instead. You will provide me with the sons I need to inherit the Vatis empire, the sons Gina would have given me if not enticed away by James Matthews, your father.’
‘But I——You got me here under false pretences, didn't you?’ she accused. ‘You knew I would never have come here if I'd known I was to be employed by Andreas Vatis. I'm only too aware of how you must hate me, and I wouldn't willingly come within a hundred miles of you. What I don't understand is how you arranged it all.’
He shrugged his broad shoulders, walking over to study the perfumes she had so admired earlier. ‘It was all too easy, Regan. I have always known of your existence, of your adoption by your uncle and aunt, but as a child you were no good to me. Now you are a woman, a very beautiful one——’
‘Except for the red hair,’ she cut in bitterly.
He looked at the waving tresses. ‘Perhaps I will come to like it in time. But as I said, it is not important that I do.’
‘Because you won't see it in the dark,’ she said dully, a terrible feeling of inevitability washing over her. It was as if she had known for the past ten years that something like this was going to happen, that she wasn't really surprised by anything Andreas Vatis was saying to her.
‘Exactly,’ he agreed cruelly. ‘But to get back to how I arranged this meeting.’ He picked up one of the bottles of perfume, smelling its fragrance. He grimaced, and replaced it to pick up one of the others. ‘I have known of your every move since you were nine years old. I knew of your school friends, of your chosen career, of the friends you have made in London.’
‘What if I'd become serious