Island of the Dawn
Penny Jordan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

SHE would have to go back to the hotel and face Derek sooner or later, Chloe acknowledged grimacing slightly. At this early hour she had the beach to herself, but soon it would start to fill up with other holidaymakers. They had chosen this particular island deliberately because it was so small. There they would find the time and tranquillity to develop their relationship, Derek had told her, but she hadn’t realised then that the developments he had in mind entailed her sharing his bed. Oh, she wasn’t naïUve; their friendship couldn’t have remained platonic for ever, but she had never given Derek the slightest indication that by coming on holiday with him she was willing for them to be lovers. It only went to show how little one really knew about people one saw every day, Chloe reflected. She and Derek had worked together for eighteen months, and she had been drawn to him by his air of solid dependability, his conversation’s lack of sexual innuendo. Their friendship had developed slowly over the months they had known one another, and Chloe had felt no qualms or inner warnings at all when Derek had suggested they spend their summer holiday together. A mistake, as she now acknowledged. She had been a little concerned when he suggested Greece, but had stifled her fear by reminding herself that she couldn’t go on refusing to visit such a beautiful part of the world simply because of something which was over and done with for good.

She lifted her head, unaware of the attractive picture she made in her brief white shorts and thin cotton top. Her skin was already faintly tanned, the warm colour emphasising the silver fairness of hair which reached well below her shoulders in a heavy cascade. She lifted one slender arm to push her hair out of her eyes, unconscious grace in the simple movement. Normally for the office she wore her hair up. Perhaps she was to blame for Derek’s behaviour after all, she reflected with a touch of wry humour. Wasn’t there something in the Bible about the dangerous enticement of unbound hair? Just another example of the male sex’s ability to blame women for their own failings!

One or two people stopped to greet her as she walked leisurely back towards the hotel complex. Although she and Derek had only arrived the previous day, Chloe’s graceful carriage and strikingly attractive features made her instantly recognisable—something she had become accustomed to during the days she had worked as a model for a Paris fashion house. Not that Monsieur René would employ her now, she thought ruefully. It was true that her legs and waist were still as slender as ever, but maturity had brought a seductive swell to the breasts and hips which at eighteen had been almost unnoticeable.

In the hotel foyer overhead fans reminiscent of a turn-of-the-century film setting cooled the air. The hotel was one of the most luxurious Chloe had ever stayed in. Derek had chosen it, and although for herself she would have preferred something a little simpler she had made no demur, agreeing with him that for privacy one had to pay, and Thos island certainly guaranteed that. The hotel was the only one on the small Aegean island, and since, by modern standards, it was not a huge, soulless mass of sprawling concrete, but a tastefully designed and carefully laid out complex containing everything the discerning holidaymaker could want for his comfort, it was obviously proving very popular. A lucrative venture for whoever had financed it, Chloe reflected absently as she asked for her key, and debated the advisability of telephoning Derek from her own room, or going straight to his to see if he was up. By nature she was inclined to say what she thought and act accordingly and was inclined to expect others to do the same—an error she had fallen into too often. She ought to have made it abundantly clear to Derek before they came away that holidaying together, while it might further their friendship and enable them to get to know one another better, was not an invitation to him to share her bed.

Last night had been an eye-opener in more ways than one. He had sulked like a small child when she told him that they weren’t going to become lovers. Her soft mouth compressed in a firm, straight line as she remembered some of his remarks.

‘It isn’t as if you were a virgin!’ he had thrown furiously at her—as though that fact in itself by some unwritten law conferred a right on every man she met to sleep with her as and when the fancy took him. The young Greek boy behind the reception desk watched her in covert admiration. Her hair was the colour of the fine pale grains of sand on the beach, and her eyes as deeply amethyst as the sea just before sunset. Chloe glanced up and saw the way his eyes lingered on her breasts before he looked away, and her mouth compressed a little more. Damn Derek! Damn all men, especially…. Like a well trained animal her mind veered away seeking other channels. For her the old adage ‘What can’t be cured must be endured’ held a wealth of meaning, and when she had found it impossible to endure she had simply built a wall and locked away behind it the uncurable and the unendurable.

She would ring Derek from reception, she decided, reaching for the courtesy telephone. She was in no mood to endure another lengthy tirade, to hear him last night anyone would have thought that she was reneging on a bargain. She should have listened to Hilary, her flatmate, she acknowledged grimly. Hilary had warned her that there was more to Derek’s suggestion than met the eye, but Chloe had blithely ignored her. Because she hadn’t wanted to believe her, she admitted now. She had wanted this holiday, wanted and needed it. Her job in the public relations firm where Derek was an accountant was an arduous one and she had been reluctant to go away alone. As she had learned from bitter experience, a woman alone was like game in the open season where some men were concerned—men who simply refused to believe that a woman would go away alone simply to be alone. The simple truth was that she had agreed to go with Derek because he represented protection, ignoring Hilary when she pointed out that she might find that Derek might have ideas of his own. They were just good friends, she had stressed, ignoring Hilary’s unkind hoot of laughter. If Hilary hadn’t been planning her wedding the two of them might have been able to go away together. At twenty-three Chloe was beginning to find that the majority of her girlfriends were no longer single, while she herself….

Her fingers trembled as she dialled Derek’s room number. Oh God, what was happening to her? She mustn’t think of that now. She had put it all behind her and that was where it was going to stay. Where it had to stay for the sake of her sanity.

There was no reply from Derek’s room. Puzzled, Chloe hung up. Perhaps he had already come down for breakfast? They had arrived at the hotel only the previous afternoon by boat from Piraeus and Derek had suggested that they have an early night. That had been when the quarrel started as Chloe remembered it.

‘The kyria is worried? Something is wrong?’ the young Greek asked her hesitantly.

He was good-looking as only young Greek boys can be, small and slim with liquid dark eyes and white teeth in a healthily tanned face.

‘Mr Simpson doesn’t seem to be in his room,’ Chloe told him. ‘I expect he’s gone into breakfast without me. I’ll go and look for him.’

To her surprise the boy frowned, shaking his head from side to side vehemently, which she already knew in Greece signified a negative response.

‘The kyrios has left,’ he informed an astounded Chloe. ‘He went this morning. I have here his key.’ As though challenging her to disbelieve him he produced a key from the cubbyholes behind him. It was Derek’s, but Chloe felt sure the boy must have made a mistake. Derek had probably just gone out for a walk as she had done herself.

‘He can’t have left,’ she insisted calmly. ‘We only arrived yesterday. Perhaps you misunderstood.’

‘No misunderstand,’ the boy insisted stubbornly. ‘He come down this morning early and ask for the documents he place in safe keeping. I give them to him and he asks what time the boat goes to Piraeus. I tell him, and he say to have his bags collected from his room.’

A cold, sinking feeling had taken possession of Chloe’s stomach. Surely Derek would never go to such lengths simply because of their quarrel? He was not like that. Or was he? Did she really know him at all? A man who coolly expected a girl to sleep with him simply because they were on holiday together—and Chloe had paid for her own holiday—and then spent the entire evening sulking because she refused. But to forfeit his own holiday….

Stop panicking, Chloe told herself. There was a simple explanation for all of this. There had to be. Derek simply could not leave—for one thing, her passport had been in that envelope in safe keeping, and her travellers’ cheques. She started to shake as the consequences of Derek’s actions began to reach her. The young Greek boy, alarmed by her pale face and bemused expression, retreated to an office off the reception and returned accompanied by a plump middle-aged man.

‘Kyria, I am the manager. Stephanos tells me that you are concerned that your friend has left….’

‘You mean that he has left?’ Chloe demanded, only half aware that she was being dexterously escorted through the busy foyer to a small private room, luxuriously furnished as an office with cool floor tiles and heavy masculine furniture. For some reason the office filled her with a sense of atavistic dread, but she pushed the sensation aside. She must get to the bottom of Derek’s outrageous behaviour.

‘I regret that this is so,’ the manager told her, eyeing her curiously. ‘Please sit down, kyria. Would you like something to drink? Our sun can have ill effects on those not used to it. Have you had breakfast?’

‘Did he leave anything for me? A package? A note?’ Chloe asked, without any real hope of an affirmative answer. She knew already by some extra sense that Derek, in the same mood of spiteful bitterness which had prompted him to leave, had taken with him her passport and travellers’ cheques.

‘If you will excuse me I shall check,’ the manager said formally.

He was gone just long enough for Chloe to study her surroundings a little more closely. They were both elegant and expensive, and there was no reason for her to experience this fear that in some way they threatened her, and yet she did.

She knew the moment the manager opened the door that Derek had left her nothing, and the full enormity of her situation dawned. She had no money to speak of, and far more important, no passport. Oh why, oh why had she so blithely agreed to Derek’s suggestion that they simply share the envelope to be placed in safe keeping? Why had she allowed him to persuade her into handing over her passport at all? Why hadn’t she kept it? Because she had simply not thought. Derek had suggested that placing it in safe keeping was the sensible thing to do, and she had agreed.

She glanced down at her hands folded loosely together, right over left, the fingers of her right hand holding her ring finger. It was a defensive pose she remembered well from those first bleak months when the pain in her heart was as raw as the tender skin where her wedding ring had once been. Now the defensive movement was a symbolic one only, for there was no band of pale skin to betray the fact that she had once worn a man’s ring on that finger. A band of gold linking together two hearts and two bodies, or so she had romantically thought on the day it was placed there. She should have learned her lesson then. No man was to be trusted. Not a single, solitary one. Well, she was well served by her own stupidity now—trapped on a tiny Greek island with something like ten pounds in her bag and no passport. What did one do in such circumstances? Vague thoughts of approaching the British Consul flitted through her mind, only to be instantly dismissed as she acknowledged that somewhere as tiny as Thos which didn’t even run to a tourist information office was hardly likely to possess anything as grand as a British Consul. It wasn’t even as though she were on the type of package holiday where one could appeal to the representative of the tour operators; Thos and the hotel were too small for that kind of thing. What on earth was she to do?

The first and most sensible course of action seemed to be to confide in the manager, which Chloe did, skirting lightly round the reason for Derek’s sudden departure with her passport and travellers’ cheques, but she suspected from the sudden gleam in his eyes that he knew there was more to the story than she was telling him.

‘The kyrios was not affianced to you?’ he asked smoothly when Chloe had finished. ‘There was no….’

‘He was a friend—nothing more,’ Chloe retorted more sharply than she had intended. ‘And a very poor friend, as it now turns out!’

‘A bad friend is more dangerous than a thousand enemies,’ the hotel manager remarked sapiently. ‘Although it might be possible for you to leave Thos without your passport the authorities in Athens would not let you leave the country. I shall speak to my head office in Athens, to see what is to be done, and meanwhile I suggest you fill in a form I will give you—for the authorities, you understand.’

The form was long and detailed and the manager explained that it was one normally used if tourists lost any item of luggage or other personal belongings. The amount of detail seemed incredible to Chloe, but knowing how sensitive Greeks could be to criticism she refrained from saying anything, hesitating only when it come to ‘Married Status’ before writing quickly with a grimace of distaste ‘Separated’ and then hurriedly folding the paper.

When he returned the manager suggested that she might care to go and have a belated breakfast, but Chloe had no appetite for food. Instead she returned to the beach, avoiding the convivial crowds already gathering round the huge, Olympic-sized swimming pool.

Only when she had reached the far end of the curving bay, almost out of sight of the hotel, did she stop, sitting with her knees drawn up under her chin as she stared out to sea, memories which had been pursuing her for two years suddenly breaking past the barriers she had erected against them to come flooding into her mind with their bitter legacy of pain and anguish. She should never have come back to Greece, she acknowledged. It acted as too powerful a stimulant on her mind. True, Thos was not Rhodes, and Derek not Leon, but when Derek had tried to kiss her last night, forcing the unpleasant moistness of his mouth on hers, it had triggered off the memories, especially of that last awful quarrel when Leon had practically tried to rape her and then accused her…. She shivered suddenly despite the heat of the sun.

She had been twenty when she had met Leon Stephanides, and a very young twenty at that. Although she had been working in Paris for three years as a model, her life had been almost as cloistered as that of a young novice. She lived with a family known to her employer—a family who guarded her as strictly as they might have done one of their own daughters—and after the exhaustion of a ten-hour day of modelling she had wanted to do nothing more in the evening that simply kick off her shoes and relax. Until Leon came into her life. Everything had changed then. She had responded to him like a tender young plant to the sun, expanding and unfurling in the warmth of his presence. How fatally easy she had made it all for him!

She had been delirious with joy when he proposed to her. Her parents had flown to Paris for the wedding—a huge affair, for Leon was the head of a Greek shipping empire. Her mother had suggested then that they might be rushing things, but Chloe had pushed her gentle warning aside. She loved Leon and he loved her. What a gullible fool she had been! Why on earth hadn’t she stopped to think? Why hadn’t she questioned why Leon, a wealthy, handsome Greek should look outside his own nationality for a wife? Why hadn’t she asked why there had been no customary arranged marriage for him?

Because she had been besotted with love, that was why. That Leon, thirty, worldly, and experienced, to her naïve twenty-one, should actually love her had seemed so close to a miracle that she had not been able to question anything, least of all this lordly, almost god-like man whose cool lips teased her own into heated submission, whose lean fingers against her breast aroused such a turmoil of emotions that she was almost sick with wanting him. She who had never known passion was suddenly caught in its turbulent maelstrom.

Their honeymoon had been all she had dreamed of and more. Leon had taken her to the heights, had taught her unskilled body to recognise a deeply sensual core she had never known it possessed. The very texture of his skin beneath her fingers had been sufficient to turn her bones to water, her senses to mindless, feverish pleasure. Never once in the month they spent together on the Riviera had she doubted Leon’s love. Never once had she questioned that as his wife hers was the most important place in his life. And how bitterly she had paid for those mistakes!

‘Kyria!’ Chloe was jolted out of the past by the breathless voice of one of the waiters who had obviously come looking for her. ‘If you will please return to the hotel, the manager would speak with you,’ the boy began respectfully as Chloe uncurled her slender limbs and got to her feet. Although her features were not regular enough for perfect classical beauty the fragility of her bone structure combined with the deep amethyst colour of her eyes and the pale fairness of her hair made people stop and take notice of her, and nowhere more so than in Greece, where her fair colouring drew constant glances of admiration from the Greek men.

‘A sea nymph’, was how Leon had once described her, with skin as translucent as the most perfect pearl and hair the colour of moonwashed sand, and she, like the gullible fool that she was, had been taken in by his meaningless flattery, never dreaming that it was all merely a façade to blind her to the truth—a truth so ugly that even now she could not bear to face up to it. Not even her parents knew the real reason she had left Leon. No one did. It was a bitter secret which would remain locked away in her heart until the day she died.

As she followed the waiter back to the hotel she tried to push aside her preoccupation with the past and concentrate instead on the situation she now found herself in. The manager greeted her with a smile which did much to banish the worst of her fears, and once again she was ushered into the luxurious office and invited to sit down.

‘By the greatest of good fortune one of our most influential directors was at the Athens office when I telephoned there this morning,’ he told Chloe. ‘I explained to him the unfortunate circumstances you find yourself in and he has promised to do all he can to put matters right.’

Smiling gratefully, Chloe stood up. She could only hope that the manager’s faith in his superior was not ill founded.

‘For now you must just enjoy your holiday. As soon as I have more news you will be informed of it,’ the manager told her with another smile.

Which was comforting, but in actual fact told her very little, Chloe reflected a little later alone in her room. Her hotel expenses had been paid before she left England, fortunately, and Thos was not large enough to merit the need for large amounts of ‘spending money’. Still, it was an uncomfortable feeling to be alone in a foreign country with nothing more than ten pounds in small change.

She was a little late going down for dinner and found that most of the tables in the elegant dining room were already occupied. A smiling waiter found her a chair at a table with a pleasant middle-aged couple from Surrey who were spending their second holiday on Thos. Neither of them seemed to find anything unusual in the fact that Chloe was apparently alone.

‘Thos isn’t large enough to warrant the hiring of a car,’ Richard Evans told Chloe over coffee, ‘and like most of these small islands it isn’t really geared for them—thank goodness. I sometimes envy these Greek millionaires who buy themselves one of these tiny islands. There’s something about owning one’s own island that’s very dear to the heart of most men—especially Britons. It comes from being an island race, I suppose.’

Chloe agreed with him. She could still remember her own girlhood envy of Enid Blyton’s tomboy heroine with her own small island domain.

One reminiscence led to another, and when the manager suddenly appeared at her elbow Chloe was astonished to realise how quickly the evening had flown. She had been enjoying herself so much that she had actually almost forgotten about her stolen passport and travellers’ cheques.

‘Have you any news for me?’ she asked the manager, hoping against hope that Derek had come to his senses and perhaps left her passport at the airport.

‘You are to go to Athens,’ he told her in reply. ‘Everything is arranged. A helicopter is here to take you, and when you get there you will be met….’

‘Athens?’ Chloe began to protest, remembering the lengthy sea journey from the port of Piraeus to Thos. ‘But….’

‘It is necessary, kyria,’ the manager assured her quickly. ‘The loss of a passport is not to be treated lightly. There are documents to be completed, officials to see….’

He was quite right, Chloe accepted resignedly, and her passport was not simply lost, but stolen. She gnawed at her lip, trying to estimate how long she would be in Athens and what she would need to take with her. Surely one change of clothes would be sufficient?

‘You will spend the night at our sister hotel in Athens,’ she was told, ‘and then in the morning you will be taken to see the officials who deal with such matters.’

They were going to a lot of trouble on her behalf, Chloe thought, starting to thank him for his assistance. It was nothing, she was told with a beaming smile. If she would just pack whatever she needed for the brief stay in Athens, he would escort her to where the helicopter waited.

Chloe had never travelled in such a machine before, and said as much when, fifteen minutes later, she and the manager were walking across the tarmac-enclosed space at the rear of the hotel which she had not realised existed until this moment.

It was an enjoyable method of travelling, she was assured, especially when time was short. ‘The consortium which owns this hotel also owns others, and its executives frequently use company helicopters to travel from hotel to hotel.’

It would certainly save her a good deal of time, Chloe reflected. If she was lucky she could be back on Thos within twenty-four hours with all the tangles of her missing passport satisfactorily sorted out. While she was in Athens it might not be a bad idea to visit the British Embassy there, she decided, just to inform them of the position, although she would have to be careful what she said. She was furious with Derek, but she had no desire to brand him as a criminal.

The pilot of the helicopter gave her a cursory glance as she climbed into the machine. The noise of the rotating blades prevented conversation even if Chloe had wanted to talk, and within seconds they were airborne, rising above the hotel and out across the small bay where fishing boats were preparing to put out to sea, the lights from their mastheads reflected in the water like so many drowned stars.

Chloe had no clear idea of how long it would take to get to Athens. She knew they were passing over other islands by the glitter of lights far below them, but she could see nothing on the horizon remotely resembling the mainland of Greece itself.

When the helicopter suddenly started to lose height she was taken off guard, looking instinctively downward expecting to see the lights of Athens International Airport, but instead all she could see was one single solitary searchlight casting a blinding glare up into the purple-black night sky.

This was not Athens, she thought seconds later as the helicopter bumped down to earth. It couldn’t possibly be. She glanced instinctively at the pilot, but he was already opening his door, turning away from her and into the darkness. A soft breeze blew in through the half open door, carrying with it the faint scent of thyme. In the distance Chloe could hear male voices speaking in Greek. Panic filled her and she pushed open her door, stepping blindly out into the darkness, and would have stumbled if a calloused male hand had not not grasped her arm.

‘The kyria will come this way.’

The voice was curt but not unkind. Chloe opened her mouth to question where she was, and then closed it as she was propelled inexorably along a narrow path which seemed to lead upwards from the small plateau where the pilot had put the helicopter down. There was a moment when Chloe was able to pull back and turn round, but the powerful rotor blades of the machine were already turning faster and faster as the pilot prepared for take-off.

‘Just what’s going on?’ she demanded huskily, trying not to let her fear show in her voice, but the man who was holding her arm made no response, merely reinforcing his grip and urging her more determinedly along the narrow path.

It ended abruptly on a patio illuminated by the lights blazing from the expanse of plate glass windows overlooking the gardens and the swimming pool beyond it. Despite the vivid illumination the house seemed deserted, and fear trickled down Chloe’s spine like drops of iced water. Not normally given to febrile imaginings, all at once she felt her normal good sense deserting her completely, leaving her prey to clamouring fear.

‘Where am I? Why have you brought me here?’ she demanded through lips almost too stiff to frame the words.

The house facing her was plainly not that of a poor man—long and low, what she could see of it, and the patio and the enormous swimming pool running alongside it spoke of luxury and wealth.

Someone moved against the brilliant backdrop of the illuminated rooms beyond the patio, a man’s shadow, tall, broad-shouldered, moving with a menacing stealth gradually obliterated the light as he descended the small flight of steps set into the patio and walked towards them.

Chloe knew that her captor had relaxed his hold of her arm, but she couldn’t have moved even if she had wanted to. The light from the house which masked the features of the man walking away from it revealed her own in stark detail, fear and dread written clearly in her eyes as he answered her questions in the cool drawl she remembered from what seemed like a lifetime ago when, unbelievably, merely to hear this man speak had sent her dizzy with nervous excitement.

‘You’re on Eos,’ she was told calmly. ‘Island of the Dawn. As to why—I think you know the answer to that, Chloe.’

He must have made some gesture she had missed, because her gaoler melted away, leaving them alone at the edge of the patio. As always Leon had made sure he had the advantage, Chloe thought bitterly, and not merely in bringing her here like this. Even the way he stood, with his back to the light, several inches above her, when he was already fully six inches taller than she, spoke of his determination to overwhelm her. But she was not the silly, gullible young fool who had married him any more. She was a woman, aware of so much that had been hidden from her then. She moved slightly so that Leon also was forced to move, the light from the house falling sharply on features which had not changed, but merely set harder as though hewn from a marble impervious to the elements. He had always been good-looking, but now, without the blinds of innocence which had hidden so much from her, Chloe saw the aggressive sexuality of his features; the bone structure which was entirely male; the high, taut cheekbones and the sensually curved mouth. He was wearing his hair longer than she remembered, and her fingers clenched involuntarily against the memory of its thick silky texture beneath her fingers. Only his eyelashes betrayed a hint of vulnerability—deceptively, as Chloe knew to her cost—for they were long and dark, almost theatrically so against the silvery grey eyes that were an inheritance from a distant ancestress—an Englishwoman said to have travelled to Greece seeking Lord Byron, but who instead had found Leon’s ancestor and remained to bear his children.

‘I know the answer?’ Chloe’s delicate eyebrows arched. She was drawing heavily on the experience she had gained since she left Leon; the ability to mask her true feelings which she now always wore like an invisible protective layer of clothing. She had no idea what Leon wanted, but there was simply no way she was going to let him see how his unexpected appearance had unnerved her. Nothing he could say or do could possibly affect her now, she reminded herself. The love she had once felt for him had been a girl’s adolescent crush on a handsome, sexually experienced male, that was all. The man she had thought him to be; the man she had loved had never actually existed. Her lips twisted a little as she remembered how he had broken down all her barriers, turned her from a shy gauche child into a passionate woman, drawing from her a response she had never dreamed herself capable of giving. But it had all been a chimera, a selfishly and cold-bloodedly planned deception.

‘You want a divorce?’ She heard herself ask the question as calmly as though they were discussing nothing more important than the weather. She made herself pivot carelessly on one heel as though about to walk off in the opposite direction. ‘My dear Leon, you can have one, and there was no need for this ridiculous charade.’

‘I agree.’ The soft voice had grown unexpectedly harsh, the faintly menacing quality of his body causing anxious tremors to flutter upwards along Chloe’s tense nerves.

‘But then I haven’t gone to all this trouble because I want a divorce, Chloe.’

She moistened her lips, suddenly desperately afraid. Up until now events had possessed a vaguely dreamlike quality which had prevented her from fully experiencing the panic which was now sweeping through her, telling her that she must put as great a distance between this man and herself as she possibly could, but like Pandora she felt herself unable to stop herself from framing the question she knew Leon was silently willing her to ask.

‘Then what do you want?’

‘I want you, Chloe.’ He said it so softly, she thought she must have misunderstood, but there was no misunderstanding his next words. ‘I want you, because you are my wife. No Greek allows his wife’s desertion of him to go unpunished, and your greatest punishment, I think, will be to be forced to return to the role you abandoned so precipitately—and publicly.’

Chloe blenched, turning desperately aside, but it was too late. Fingers like steel trapped her wrist, hauling her up against a chest which she could now see was rising and falling with the force of the rage pent up inside it.

‘You little bitch, you really know where to hit where it hurts, don’t you? But you’re going to pay, Chloe. You should have remembered when you left me that I’m Greek, and Greeks never forget an insult—or forgive it.’

‘I won’t come back to you,’ Chloe managed to get out. ‘I won’t!’

Leon’s dark features seemed to swim above her in a dark mist, his lips contorted into a savagely bitter facsimile of a smile.

‘Oh yes, you will,’ he told her menacingly. ‘And not only that, you’ll give me a son to replace the one you destroyed.’

From a great distance Chloe heard a high-pitched, terrified protest as a great chasm of blackness opened up and engulfed her, and she fell down and down as though she were falling into the deepest pits of Hell itself.

CHAPTER TWO

‘MADAME is tired and must be left to sleep.’

It was several seconds before Chloe could place the faintly accented voice. At first she thought she was in Paris—Paris, where she had lived as a young girl and grown used to hearing her native tongue spoken with a faint French inflection, but then the hazy clouds of sleep parted and she remembered exactly where she was and why.

She sat bolt upright in a double bed which, huge though it was, made scarcely any impression at all in a room so large that it could easily have accommodated her tiny London flat twice over.

It was decorated in softest greens and silver. Mermaid colours. She blenched as she realised where she had remembered those words from. It had been on her honeymoon: Leon had used them to describe a gown he had bought her in St Tropez. Leon. She closed her eyes, willing herself to stay calm, and when she opened them again a small plump woman was hovering anxiously at the side of the bed.

‘The master said to let the kyria sleep. Gina,’ she scolded the small girl standing behind her, holding a breakfast tray, ‘you have disturbed Madame with all your noise!’

The girl looked ready to burst into tears, and Chloe shook her head, forcing a smile.

‘No… no, it’s quite all right. Just leave the tray.’

The events of the previous evening were beginning to flood back, and she shuddered as she remembered the look on Leon’s face as he told her that he meant to be revenged on her for publicly shaming him by leaving him, and not just that. She was glad that there was no one in the room to witness the way her hand trembled as she recalled the ferocity in Leon’s voice when he told her that she would bear him a son—to replace the life she had destroyed, he had said. She pushed her tray aside, swinging her legs out of bed, stumbling across to the large curtained window. The life she had destroyed. Hysteria bubbled up inside her. Did he still think he could deceive her? And why the change of heart?

‘Chloe?’

She whirled round, gasping with shock. She hadn’t heard him enter her room. She would have given anything not to have to face him like this, disadvantaged by the flimsy nightdress she was wearing and the evidence of her fear written plainly in her eyes. He, in direct contrast, was wearing an immaculate business suit, his dark hair damp as though he had recently stepped out of the shower. A shuddering sensation of weakness swamped over her, her body traitorously reminding her of other occasions—occasions when she had shared his shower with him, taking sensual pleasure in the act. Panic flared suddenly and she turned round, her eyes darkening to misty purple as she pleaded with him.

‘Let me go, Leon. You can’t keep me here indefinitely—it isn’t possible. Why are you doing this? I can’t see any purpose in it.’

‘Can’t you? Then you must be incredibly thick-skulled. I thought I made my meaning more than plain last night.’ He followed the flickering glance of her eyes to the large bed, and laughed mirthlessly. ‘Last night was simply a respite. And besides, when I take you in my arms I want you to be very sure of what’s happening to you, Chloe. You won’t be allowed to escape me by fainting like some Victorian heroine.’

‘You mean you expect me… you….’ Suddenly she couldn’t speak for the huge lump in her throat. Oh, she knew that last night Leon had told her exactly why he had brought her to this island—an island which apparently was only inhabited by himself and his staff—but somehow she had never expected him to go through with it.

‘You can’t do this!’ she protested wildly when he continued to look at her. ‘You simply can’t do it. It’s against the law.’

‘For a man to take possession of his wife?’ he asked with deceptive suaveness. ‘Not against Greek law, Chloe. In fact, many of my countrymen would think I have been decidedly forbearing. You run off and leave me; humiliate me in front of all my friends, encourage them to question how I can maintain control of a huge business empire if I cannot control one small woman, and then you tell me what I can and can’t do? On Eos my word is law, Chloe, and by going to Thos you played straight into my hands. I had been wondering how to coax you back to Greece for some time—that you should choose to do so of your own free will was an unexpected bonus.’

A dreadful suspicion was beginning to take root in Chloe’s mind. She stared across the room.

‘You mean you….’

‘I arranged for your “friend” to desert you?’ He laughed, the sound mirthless. ‘You always were a poor judge of character, weren’t you? His “friendship” proved surprisingly inexpensive. But don’t worry, you won’t miss him. Was he your only lover?’

It was on the tip of Chloe’s tongue to tell him the truth, but she bit back the words, unwilling for Leon to know that since the break-up of their marriage there had been no one else. Even now she could scarcely take it in that Leon had actually planned for her to come to Eos, for Derek to desert her and for her to be brought here to this tiny island.

‘I could have simply had you kidnapped in England, of course,’ he drawled, accurately reading her mind. ‘But this way is far less… complicated. You see, Chloe, when you left me, you did far more than simply break up our marriage. In Greece we take such things seriously, and for a woman to leave her husband casts a slur upon him that is not easily removed.’

‘So what am I supposed to do? Tell everyone that I didn’t mean it and that you’re really Mr Wonderful?’ Her lip curled. ‘You’ve overreached yourself, Leon. The moment you let me leave this island I’ll leave you again, and if you keep me incarcerated here no one is going to believe the fallacy that we’re reunited.’ She lifted her head and stared proudly at him. ‘The only way I would conceive your child would be if you forced yourself upon me—I’m talking about rape, Leon, because that is what it would be. I don’t want you, and I don’t want your child!’

‘Why, you….’

For a moment Chloe thought he was going to hit her, but the hand he had raised dropped to his side, only the muscle working in his jaw betraying the savagery of the emotions she had aroused. Chloe wanted to look away, but something prevented her. Sickness clawed at her stomach, all that she had fought to suppress for so long rising to the surface, making her shudder with remembered revulsion.

Leon came towards her, his fingers bruising the tender flesh of her arms as he wrenched her round into the light, his glance travelling slowly over her body, stripping from it the brief protection of her nightgown.

‘Last night my servants undressed you and put you to bed. They know nothing of our relationship except that we have been separated and are now together. Tonight and for as many nights as it takes until you carry my child we will share this room and this bed. I have your passport, Chloe, and without that you are virtually my prisoner whether we remain on this island or live in the middle of Athens.’

It was true, so true that Chloe sobbed out bitterly, ‘And Marisa—where does she fit into all this? Does she have no say in the matter? About your plans to become a father? Or have you forgotten that she destroyed our first child?’

This time he did hit her. Shock rather than pain made her reel, her eyes widening. Above her Leon’s face was nearly as pale as her own, the bones standing out sharply.

‘You will never say that again,’ he said thickly. ‘Do you understand me? Never! Marisa….’

He never finished what he was going to say, for the door swung open and a young Greek girl burst impetuously in, her eyes hardening as she saw Chloe.

‘What’s she doing here?’ she spat viciously. ‘Leon, you….’

Her long fingernails were painted dark red to match the glossy lipstick emphasising the sullen pout of a mouth curved with sensual promise.

Three years ago, when Leon had mentioned to her his half-sister for whom he was responsible, Chloe had visualised a shy, gawky teenager—a girl with whom she could be friends; a girl who might perhaps need her guidance and affection, but Marisa needed nothing from her brother’s wife, unless it was the protection of her presence to deceive the world as Chloe herself had once been deceived. Her hands went to her stomach in unthinking protection long before she remembered that there was now no vulnerable life there for her to protect.

Marisa’s eyes followed the gesture, narrowing with bitter fury as she rounded on Leon.

‘What is she doing here? Why….’

The arm he had slid round Chloe’s waist felt like a steel hawser. She tried to pull away. She could feel the warmth of his breath against her hair, but she deliberately turned away from it, sickened by the falsity of the tableau. It was plain that Marisa knew nothing about her own presence here on Eos, and Chloe could only surmise that Leon was insisting on the resumption of their marriage to protect the younger girl. Not that Marisa herself cared the slightest about public opinion. She would have lived openly with Leon. She had told Chloe as much. It was Leon who had insisted that they must observe the conventions. Leon who had decided to find himself a quiet, biddable wife, too naïve to see what was happening under her eyes. And she had been that wife. Until Marisa, in a fit of jealousy had opened her eyes to the truth.

‘Why? Because it is necessary.’

When Leon spoke in that tone even Marisa did not dare to argue. Chloe could see the baffled rage in her eyes and wondered if perhaps Leon was subtly punishing the Greek girl. Her suspicions were reinforced when Leon’s free hand cupped her jáw, forcing her head round in a grip that looked casual, but which in actual fact was anything but. Her bones ached from the pressure of his hold. ‘Isn’t it, Chloe?’

He whispered the question a hair’s breadth from her lips in a gesture deliberately sensual. She tried not to succumb to it, but it was there in her eyes and the sudden tensing of her muscles, betraying her far more effectively than any words, and she knew from the sudden alert gleam in Leon’s eyes that he knew she was aware of him. It seemed to Chloe, her senses heightened by the emotional violence in the air of the room, that he was holding her more closely that he had been doing; that he was deliberately moulding her body to his in a way he hadn’t been doing before, so that she was intimately aware of him. It had been like this the first time they met. Leon had come to a viewing. She had been modelling an evening gown, had looked up and seen him, and it had been as though he had reached out and touched her. In the years they had been apart she had convinced herself that now she was immune to that sort of deliberate sexual arousal, but now, with his fingers tracing her spine, his body making her aware of the fact that physically she still aroused him, Chloe knew that she was still desperately vulnerable.

She closed her eyes, swallowing painfully, and when she opened them again Leon was watching her like a cat at a mousehole. For a second she thought he was going to kiss her, and moistened her lips instinctively, trembling convulsively as his free hand pushed her hair behind her ears. Was he remembering, as she was, how he had woken her in the mornings of their honeymoon with teasing kisses placed in the soft hollows behind her ears, tracing a path along the vulnerable line of her throat, down to her breasts when, inevitably, her fingers would curl into the thick darkness of his hair, urging him against the flesh he had aroused so thoroughly?

God, she mustn’t think about that! About how she had felt; how she had ached for his possession. She must remember afterwards, when she had learned about Marisa.

The slamming of her bedroom door brought her back to earth. Marisa had gone and they were alone. Leon released her coolly, his glance mockingly aware of the response he had drawn from her.

‘You are still my wife, Chloe,’ he reminded her. ‘And in Greece a man’s wife is still his possession, to do with as he wishes.’

‘And we both know what you wish to do with me,’ Chloe said bitterly. ‘Impregnate me with your child. Why, Leon?’

He shrugged. ‘All men want sons, do they not? It is a law of nature. I am a rich man and must have heirs of my body to follow after me. You are my wife….’

‘Oh, for God’s sake stop saying that! We both know why I’m your wife; why you married me….’

Before Leon could reply, the same man who had escorted her from the helicopter the previous evening knocked on the door, which Leon had started to open. Leon moved immediately, shielding Chloe with the bulk of his body, as the other man, who was apparently his personal assistant, explained that there was a call from New York.

‘Don’t try to leave,’ Leon warned Chloe before he left, ‘because you can’t. Even if you managed to leave this island—which you could only do by swimming — I still have your passport.’

What on earth the staff must make of the situation she dared not think, Chloe reflected ten minutes later, standing under the needle-sharp spray of the shower in the bathroom which led off her bedroom. Decorated in the same colours as the bedroom, it had a huge round bath, sunk into the floor and surrounded by soft green marble tiles. As Chloe reached for one of the soft silver-grey towels she caught sight of her naked body in the mirror-lined wall. Already faint bruises were beginning to form where Leon had gripped her. Even now she could not believe that she was actually here on Eos, Leon’s prisoner. Her eyes went instinctively to the open bathroom door and the bed beyond it. Leon had talked about them sharing it as matter-of-factly as though they were two strangers contemplating sharing a taxi. A frisson of awareness shivered through her as she remembered how she had felt in his arms. By rights she ought to feel indifference if not outright hatred, but while her mind might reject and be repulsed by Leon’s cynical attitude her body could still be physically aroused by him.

A woman never forgot her first lover. Chloe shivered as she remembered reading that somewhere. It was true; almost as though Leon’s touch was a secret code to which her body would always respond.

Dressed in the change of clothes she had expected to be wearing in Athens, Chloe tried to reason with herself. She was not a mindless machine. There was such a thing as free will. Surely her mind was capable of overcoming her body’s weakness? Of course it was. Hadn’t she proved that during these last two years? Abstinence was easy without temptation, a tiny inner voice warned her, but Chloe refused to heed it. The love she had once thought she felt for Leon had died, and the emotions she was now experiencing were merely reaction to his sudden eruption into her life.

Unbidden, the memory of Leon’s expression when he told her that he wanted from her the child she had previously denied him surfaced, and she shivered despite the heat. How could Leon have accused her of that? Her mouth twisted. Perhaps it was just another example of his warped way of thinking. A man who was capable of seducing his young half-sister and then marrying someone else purely to provide a cover for their affair was surely capable of anything. And yet Chloe could have sworn that for a moment there had been actual pain in his voice when he spoke of the child she was to have borne; the child Marisa had destroyed in a fit of jealous rage, but then Leon had always refused to believe that Marisa had been responsible for her fall. During the early months of their marriage—before she learned the truth—Chloe had never been able to understand how a man as intelligent as Leon could so readily accept Marisa’s lies; and there had been many of them. Not important on the surface perhaps, but hurtful and barbed, intentionally aimed at putting Chloe in a bad light. But then of course she had not realised that Marisa viewed her not in the light of an older sister-in-law but with all the intense jealousy of a rival for the attentions of the man she loved. And of course Marisa had the advantage of having a double claim on Leon—as his half-sister and as his mistress.

Chloe pulled a wry face. Mistress! How old-fashioned it sounded; how full of connotations no longer considered important by sophisticates. But some shibboleths still held as strong a sway on people’s emotions as they had always done, and incest was one of the few remaining taboos. By Greek standards Leon had committed the unforgivable sin. In Greek eyes there was no greater responsibility than that owed by a man to his sisters. By rights Marisa should have been married long before now. She was, after all, twenty-two. But then Marisa would never marry. She had told Chloe that herself, the day she had told her so much, including the fact that she and Leon were lovers and had been for several years.

‘Chloe!’

She hadn’t heard Leon enter the room. In addition to completing his telephone call he had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a thin cotton shirt which clung to the powerful muscles of his shoulders. Pain as sharp as a splinter of ice entering her heart lanced through Chloe. So had he dressed during those all too brief weeks of their honeymoon when she had still believed that she was the one who he loved; when her own fears had been that she, with her innocence and sheltered upbringing, would prove to be an unworthy companion of so sophisticated and experienced a man.

She remembered how, when she had tried to put her doubts into words, Leon had silenced her with drugging kisses. Her innocence only endeared her to him all the more, he had told her in the husky voice that never failed to thrill her. All that she needed to learn she would learn from him. As Marisa had learned!

‘What do you want, Leon?’ The words sounded sharply shrill—defensive, and Chloe regretted them instantly. Anger flared smokily in Leon’s eyes and she knew that she had annoyed him. Even in those early days she had recognised that Leon was a man of strong will. When she had remonstrated with him, saying that they had hardly known one another long enough to talk about marriage, he had simply crushed her objections beneath the warmth of his lips, overriding her fears by arousing her emotions to such a pitch that she could deny him nothing. And he had known it. How he must have laughed at her! Thoughts which she had never allowed herself to examine properly before refused to be banished any longer, and Chloe writhed inwardly in recognition of how easy she had made it for Leon. She hadn’t even had the wit to try and hide from him how she felt. He could have seduced her as easily as he had no doubt seduced Marisa and she wouldn’t have raised the slightest objection. Perhaps it would have better had he done so. An affair was easier to leave behind than a marriage.

‘You know what I want—a son to replace the one you destroyed. And you will give me one, Chloe.’

‘And Marisa—does she know of this sudden compulsive desire? I know how you feel about her, Leon, and how she feels about you. What are you planning to do? Divorce me once I’ve borne this son you want so badly?’

‘I was intending to fly to Athens this morning,’ Leon commented, changing the subject. ‘But my appointment has been cancelled, so I shall show you round the villa instead. My meeting was an important one, but my associate understood that it would not be possible for me to visit his office, having been so recently reunited with my wife.’

The words held a subtle threat, but Chloe refused to acknowledge it, or to look upwards at Leon who she knew was watching her.

‘As my wife you will now have to take up certain responsibilities. We shall be expected to do a certain amount of entertaining, so it is as well that you familiarise yourself with the layout of the villa.’

Entertaining! Now Chloe did look at him. In the tanned harshness of his face, his eyes stood out like sharp pieces of flint.

‘You would take such a risk? I’m not a child to be ordered about any more, Leon—you no longer hold me in thrall. I’ve grown up. You might be able to hold me on this island against my will, but you can’t stop me telling your friends what you’re doing. Once before you used me—you’re not going to do it a second time.’

Chloe could tell by his expression that she had hit home, but the anger she could see burning behind the watchful glitter of his eyes was quickly masked, his voice cool with malice as he drawled softly, ‘Go ahead and tell them—they won’t care. In Greece a man’s wife is his property to do with as he wishes. They will laugh at you, Chloe, if you dare to complain—laugh and praise me for treating you as an errant wife should be treated. Indeed, many of them will think your punishment extremely light. Greek men do not have Western scruples about striking women. Oh, it’s all right,’ he sneered when Chloe flinched back. ‘Physical domination holds no appeal for me.’

His open mockery made Chloe clench her fists at her sides. ‘You dare to say that?’ she stormed bitterly. ‘When not five minutes ago you were telling me that you were going to force your child upon me….’

‘Force?’ His gaze sharpened, narrowing on the betraying rise and fall of her breasts beneath the fine lawn of her blouse. ‘You keep using that word, but I seem to recall that “force” was never necessary between us, Chloe—far from it.’ As he spoke his fingers reached for her wrist, circling it, his thumb lazily stroking the tender inner flesh with sensual expertise. ‘Well?’

Her mouth dry, Chloe tried to find the words to deny his mocking assertion, but Leon was already drawing her close to him, his free hand pulling her cotton blouse from the waistband of the matching patterned skirt she was wearing with it.

Her muscles clenched in protest as his fingers traced the sensitive bones of her spine, reaching upwards to slip under the brief lacy bra she was wearing before she could take evasive action.

‘Leon!’ Her sharp protest was smothered by her own shocked gasp as his hand slid forward to cup the warm fullness of her breast.

‘Is this what you call force, Chloe?’ he demanded softly, his lean, experienced fingers stroking and teasing her nipple until awareness of its burgeoning hardness washed over her body in a heated wave.

‘Stop it. Stop it!’ She lifted her hands to push him away, but all her action did was to lift and tauten her breasts until they were clearly defined beneath the thin cotton—and with them her obvious arousal.

Damn Leon, she thought impotently, not daring to lift her eyes for fear of the open mockery she would see in his. What duplicity men were capable of! Leon loved Marisa, and yet here he was fully intent on and capable of making love to her!

‘I won’t do it, Leon,’ she said in distaste. ‘I won’t be forced into despising myself—into giving you a child to satisfy some primitive paternalistic urge. You might be able to arouse me physically, but….’

‘But you hate yourself for allowing it to happen?’ Leon jeered. ‘What happened to the girl I married, Chloe? The girl who gave herself to me so willingly; who revelled in my possession of her body?’

‘She doesn’t exist any more,’ Chloe said tonelessly, refusing to allow his words to affect her.

‘No?’

She saw the ugly look in his eyes too late to prevent him from ruthlessly plundering her mouth with a force that ground her lips against her teeth, bruising the tender flesh and bringing the taste of blood to her mouth. For the first time in her life Chloe experienced the degradation of a kiss designed to inflict pain instead of pleasure, to enforce and go on enforcing man’s ability to physically dominate woman, and turn what should have been a mutually pleasurable experience into sexual punishment.

‘If it’s force you want then force you shall have,’ Leon ground out as he released her abruptly. ‘Now, shall I show you round the villa, or would you prefer us to remain here—where I can reinforce my intentions of getting from you a replacement for the child you destroyed?’

She destroyed, Chloe thought numbly as she inched past him into the corridor. Was he even now going to go on with that ridiculous charade?

Her lips felt swollen and sore, but she daren’t touch them for fear of drawing Leon’s attention to her. When he reached towards her she flinched away, shrinking beneath the anger she saw blazing in his eyes momentarily before he shrugged with a nonchalance she couldn’t help envying.

‘I’m not about to rape you in the corridor,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘But unless you want the entire household to suspect I’ve just been making love to you, it might be as well if you did something about that.’

Lean fingers flicked disparagingly at the cotton blouse, which she had forgotten was hanging betrayingly over her skirt, as he spoke. Keeping as far away from him as possible, Chloe tucked it back into her waistband, hating the betraying way her fingers trembled, and the knowing gleam in Leon’s eyes as they rested on the soft thrust of her breasts beneath the thin fabric. Overriding every emotion was an intense desire to prove to Leon that she was immune to whatever sexual enticement or harassment he might choose to exert, but at the back of her mind Chloe acknowledged that her feelings mattered little to him. They couldn’t do. If they did he would never have brought her here like this and for such a purpose.

True to his word, Leon insisted on showing her over the villa. It was huge—far larger than she had first imagined, and equipped with every modern appliance and device conceivable, all fuelled by the generator housed away from the main building. An advanced security system protected the island, a necessary precaution in these days, Leon pointed out when she commented on it, especially in view of his known wealth. While acknowledging that he spoke no less than the truth, Chloe couldn’t help feeling that he had a secondary motive in showing her the complex security precautions—it was as though he were subtly reinforcing his earlier claim that there was no way in which she could leave the island without him knowing. Chloe now acknowledged that this was true. Sophisticated technological advances meant that it was possible for an effective guard to be placed over the island while at the same time maintaining its privacy. Electronic eyes could see far more than human ones, and far less obtrusively!

The only form of transport on and off the island was Leon’s own private helicopter, and apart from the occupants of the villa it was completely uninhabited. It was too small to support a population, Leon told her—too small and too barren, but among the rocky cliffs were small sandy beaches which made it a holiday paradise when combined with the heat of the Aegean sun and the silky waters of its sea.

The villa had apparently been built to Leon’s specific design, and as she was shown from room to room Chloe was overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity, and then at last, standing in the huge living room with its elegant Italian furniture, she realised why. It was almost an exact replica of a villa they had visited during their honeymoon. It had belonged to a wealthy recluse and some friends of Leon’s had been renting it. To Chloe it had seemed the epitome of elegance, and although Leon’s villa was larger, she could see now that it was built on very similar lines, even down to the Italian furniture which she had so admired. She touched the pale cream silk settee, stroking the fine fabric, her eyes drawn to the jewel-bright colours of the silk scatter cushions carelessly heaped on to it. Chrome and glass shelving lined one wall, a modern marble fireplace in the same cream as the upholstery dominating another wall. Apart from the brilliant splashes of colour provided by the cushions and several carefully chosen objets d’art the entire room was decorated in the same pale cream as the furniture, the brilliant jades and greens of the cushions now chosen, Chloe realised, to complement the collection of jade housed in one of the chrome wall units.

‘Recognise it?’ Leon mocked. ‘I commissioned the same architect who designed the one in Antibes. It was going to be a present to mark our first anniversary.’

For a moment Chloe felt her defences weakening, but then she remembered how well Leon played his self-appointed role, and she forced herself to raise her eyebrows and say lightly,

‘Really? I’m surprised you kept it. I should have thought it would hold too many unpleasant memories.’

‘You know what they say about revenge,’ Leon said softly. ‘It needs feeding, and living here, always being reminded of why I commissioned it in the first place, helped to feed mine.’

He made it sound as though she were the one at fault; as though she were the one responsible for the break up of their marriage—a marriage which was really no marriage at all.

‘Stop play-acting, Leon,’ she demanded brittlely. ‘There’s no point.’

He turned to make some reply, but before he could speak, Marisa erupted into the room, her eyes blazing in her chalk white face.

‘Leon,’ she demanded, totally ignoring Chloe’s presence, ‘Gina has just told me that you have instructed her to prepare a suite for the Kriticos’. She says they are bringing Nikos with them. I will not have it, do you hear? I will not have him here. I will not be forced into a marriage simply so that you can have an heir. You cannot get rid of me so easily….’ She turned on Chloe. ‘That’s all he wants you for, you know; to provide him with a son, an heir for his business empire. But I will not marry Nikos. I’ll die first!’ She burst into noisy sobs, while Leon looked on impassively.

‘I won’t marry him, Leon,’ she reiterated. ‘I won’t do it. You can’t make me!’

‘You are overwrought. We will discuss this entire matter later—although you already know my views on the subject.’

‘I know that you want to get rid of me so that you can make a baby with her!’ Marisa spat out, glaring at Chloe. ‘Well, I won’t let you! You belong to me, Leon… I won’t let you! I….’

Chloe turned away, filled with sickness and pity, unable to bear to watch Leon scooping the slender body into his arms or to listen to Marisa’s hysterical pleas as he carried her out of the room.

If she had wanted proof of exactly how far Leon was prepared to go in his determination to have a son she had just received it. She knew she ought to feel triumph—now Marisa was experiencing the same pain and despair she had once known—but all she could feel towards the other girl was pity. She knew it was the established rule in Greek households for male relatives to find husbands for their female dependents, especially in the wealthier families where marriage partners had to be chosen with care, but she had never dreamed that Leon would exercise this right over Marisa!

She didn’t wait for him to return to the salon, instead retreating to her bedroom, where once again her eyes were drawn to the enormous double bed. Was Leon really intending to share that bed with her? She looked at the bedroom door, searching in vain for a lock. There had been something implacable in his words which warned her against trying to plead with him, and besides, her pride would not allow her to stoop to such depths. So what was she to do? Endure his lovemaking and hope that she would conceive quickly? Never! There must be some way she could escape from Eos. There had to be!

CHAPTER THREE

CHLOE hadn’t intended going down for dinner, but it struck her that Leon might come looking for her and take her non-appearance as mute acceptance of his wishes. Her skirt and blouse, apart from having been worn all day, were hardly suitable wear for dinner, but they were all she had with her.

She stepped out of the shower and froze as she realised that there was someone in the bedroom beyond, but it was not Leon who appeared in the open doorway. It was the young maid who had brought her breakfast.

‘Which dress does the kyria wish me to lay out for tonight?’ she asked hesitantly.

Chloe sighed, acknowledging that her Greek did not extend to explaining that her wardrobe was restricted to one cotton skirt and blouse and a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt.

‘I have no clothes….’ she began slowly, but the girl dismissed her words with a triumphant flourish, pulling open the mirrored doors of the huge wardrobe running the entire length of one wall.

‘Many, many clothes,’ she protested enthusiastically. ‘The kyrios had them brought from Athens in readiness.’

Chloe blinked and stared disbelievingly at the overflowing cupboards. When Leon planned something he didn’t miss a single detail. She walked slowly across to the wardrobe, absently fingering a misty lilac dress in pure silk, which shrieked couture design, wondering how long Leon had been planning to force her to return to him.

‘I ordered them from René. After all, he made your trousseau.’ Leon had entered the room without her being aware of it. ‘He still has your measurements,’ he added casually.

Which had altered since the days when she had modelled for him, Chloe thought wryly, but she could see that the clothes were the right size someone, either René or Leon himself, had realised that a woman of twenty-two was a different shape from a girl of eighteen, and had different tastes. These gowns were far more sophisticated than anything she had ever worn before! And far more expensive. Each one would have cost her several months’ salary, and yet Leon dismissed them as though they were nothing.

‘Not exactly sackcloth and ashes,’ Leon mocked, watching the way she studied the clothes.

‘They might as well be.’ Chloe shut the wardrobe doors dismissively. ‘You might have brought me to your island, Leon; you might be able to force me to stay here, and even ultimately to bear your child—that is if you don’t mind descending to rape—but you can’t force me to wear those clothes.’

‘You think not?’ He advanced on her with a grim implacability. The young maid had made a discreet disappearance the moment Leon entered the room and, despite its size, Chloe was overcome by a paralysing sense of claustrophobia, engendered chiefly by the powerful bulk of Leon’s body.

Afterwards she was to curse herself for her stupidity, but acting instinctively, she moved backwards, stopping only when her flight was impeded by the bed.

The towel she had wrapped sarong-wise around her slender body offered scant protection against the sensual scrutiny of pale grey eyes as they slid dangerously over smooth, pale shoulders, resting momentarily on the soft swell of her breasts before dropping lower to examine the rest of her body in a manner which brought a furious wave of colour to Chloe’s skin.

‘Stop it, Leon,’ she demanded huskily. They both of them knew that whatever desire he felt towards her was purely a male physical response to a female body any female body, and yet for a second, with his eyes lingering purposefully on the frail barrier of her towel, Chloe had experienced an almost overwhelming surge of desire so strong that if he had opened his arms she could not have prevented herself from running into them.

That knowledge lent determination to her voice and eyes as she reiterated her refusal to wear the clothes Leon had bought for her, her head held high as she tried to ignore the almost magnetic force of Leon’s personality. She could almost feel the air pulsing with the sexual excitement his presence invoked—something she had forgotten in the time they had been apart, or was it simply that then she had been too naïve to recognise the tension between them for what it actually was? She could almost smell it in the air, taste it on her tongue, bitter-sweet and addictive—like Leon’s lovemaking!

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