looked taken aback, finally giving a husky laugh, ‘I will never understand the workings of a woman's mind—her body, yes, but never her mind. One minute we are talking of sharing a bed, the next you are talking of food.’
Because her mind was racing on to her escape, to gaining the most time before it was discovered she had gone, and she needed to know whether a maid would be coming up here in the next hour or so. ‘They're both appetites,’ she dismissed. ‘At the moment I happen to consider the latter of more importance. And you probably don't understand a woman's mind because that has never been the part of a woman you're interested in.’ She knew he kept a low profile on his affairs, but she also knew there had to have been several, the experience of his hands hadn't been carried forward ten years from his wife. Besides, he emitted a sexual aura that in any other circumstances she might have been drawn to. But never through force, or under duress!
‘You are probably right,’ he didn't rise to her taunt. ‘And yes, your lunch will be sent up here. I dare not risk you seeing Clive and trying to convince him to take you back to London with him. He is loyal to me, but he also has a strong sense of what is wrong and what is right.’
‘And he would know this is wrong!’
‘I'm afraid so,’ he nodded.
Regan was more and more convinced her plan was going to work. Once she had climbed down the drainpipe she could stow away in the back of Clive's car. There was a blanket on the back seat she could cover herself with, and he had said he would be leaving shortly after lunch. If she timed this right she shouldn't have to be cramped on the back seat for long. Once away from here she was sure she could convince Clive of Andreas Vatis’ ruthless plan to slake his revenge on her.
‘Then you admit it,’ she accused.
‘I admit that to an Englishman what I am doing would not be thought—gentlemanly,’ he sneered the word. ‘But I do not consider it gentlemanly of one man to try to kill another either. Oh yes,’ he said grimly as she made to protest, ‘your father did not intend to blind or even maim me when he forced me off the race circuit, he intended to kill.’
Regan was once again deathly pale. ‘I don't believe you,’ she shook her head in denial of his words. ‘My father——’
‘Was a very dangerous man. He thought that by killing me he would be free to marry Gina. But we Vatises do not die so easily. I was very badly injured——’
‘I know,’ she put in quietly. ‘I—I saw a report of the crash.’
‘So,’ he nodded. ‘Both my legs and one arm were broken, several ribs also, one of which punctured a lung. But none of these things mattered to me in comparison with the taking of my sight. That I could never forgive.’ His mouth twisted bitterly. ‘Gina could take none of it, and I admit I was not a sight to please the eyes of a woman, not even the woman who had sworn before God to love me for all time. Gina went on a visit to her parents and she did not come back. Your father had arranged to meet her there, deciding that it would have to be a divorce after all. There was only one thing he did not take into account, and that was that I would still not divorce Gina. I do not believe in it.’
‘My father loved your wife. He—he wanted to marry her. I don't believe he would harm anyone to get what he wanted.’
‘Considering he was no father to you I am surprised you still feel it necessary to defend him,’ Andreas Vatis scorned.
‘I'm not defending him, I'm saying you're wrong about him. My father would never deliberately hurt anyone, let alone try to kill them.’
‘But I have witnesses, Regan.’
She had gone very pale. ‘W-witnesses?’
‘Of course,’ he nodded haughtily. ‘You are not listening to the ramblings, of a demented man,’ he snapped. ‘Shortly before the race in which I was injured your father and I had an argument. He wanted me to divorce Gina, when I refused he threatened to kill me.’
‘The words of any angry man.’ Regan remembered her father's explosive temper well, his nature as fiery as the red lights in his hair.
‘I do not think so. And neither did the other five drivers who heard him say it. While I lay unconscious in my hospital bed an enquiry into the accident was taking place, privately, of course. It would not do to cast aspersions on a man's character until they were sure. If I had not been unconscious I could have told them that your father deliberately swerved in front of me.’ His harsh features were frightening in their anger.
‘And the—the enquiry?’ she hardly dared to ask.
His dark gaze levelled on her. ‘It was dropped.’
‘There you are, then,’ she said triumphantly. ‘You must be mistaken.’
‘I am not mistaken. Strange, is it not, that your father retired from racing after that race? A few months later he was dead.’
‘And you've been planning this revenge all those years.’
‘Oh yes. I told you, it may take a long time, but a Greek never forgives or forgets.’
‘So it seems,’ she said dully, putting a hand up to her aching temple. ‘I—I would like to lie down. I'm not feeling well.’
‘Poor Regan,’ he taunted. ‘What a shock for you!’
‘Sh-shock?’ she queried.
‘To come here thinking you are simply starting a new job when in fact you are to become my wife. A dutiful one, I hope.’
‘Never!’ Her eyes flashed at him. ‘I don't intend being meek, in bed or out of it.’
His green eyes sparkled with interest. ‘I will like that. Yes, I will like that. But you must understand that your position as my wife will not be the ordinary one.’
‘I already know that,’ she scoffed. ‘You've made your feelings very clear.’
‘I do not think so,’ he shook his head. ‘In Greece a wife is revered above all other women, respected as the mother of our children. We have our—friends, that is accepted, but the wife always comes first. Gina had that place in my life and she abused my trust of her. You will not be given the same consideration.’
‘Oh, I see, your friend will come first.’
‘I believe I said friends, and that is exactly what I meant. You, will provide me with my sons and I will get my pleasure elsewhere.’
‘My God, you are inhuman!’ she gasped.
‘I think you will find I am human,’ he corrected. ‘If you learn to please me you may even find I can be very human. I may even forget my friends and stay in my wife's bed if I find you pleasing enough.’
‘You can go to hell for all I care!’
He smiled mockingly. ‘Isn't that where the devil belongs?’
‘Go away,’ Regan choked. ‘Go away and leave me alone!’
‘I intend to. But I will lock the door, so that you will not be—tempted to try and escape.’
She heard the key turn in the lock immediately after he had closed the door. God, he would pay for this! As soon as she was free and far away from here she would tell the police about him. The man had to be insane!
How could she have guessed when she had left London so happily this morning that this man would be behind it all, the man who even ten years ago had frightened her. There had been several photographs of him in the newspapers at the time of the accident, the crash that he claimed her father had deliberately caused. And just a photograph of his harsh features had been enough to frighten her; in the flesh he was even more daunting, and his intention of becoming her husband, in every sense, terrified the life out of her.
Could he be right about her father's involvement in his accident? Could he really have meant