Constantine's Revenge

The look he turned on her burned with cynical disbelief. Only an idiot would have had the stupidity to ask that question, his lofty disdain declared. And if there was one thing that Constantine Kiriazis was quite unprepared to tolerate then it was the presence of any sort of a fool.

‘I was invited,’ he declared, his voice as curt as his movements as he belatedly became aware of the way that he was still holding her, long, tanned hands on her arms, the immaculately manicured fingers incongruous against the shabby, well-worn leather of her jacket.

With a fastidious gesture that communicated only too clearly the feeling that simply to touch her had somehow contaminated him, he abruptly let her go and stepped away from her side. The move spoke eloquently of a mental distance that was far, far greater than the few centimetres that actually separated them.

‘This is where the party’s being held?’

With a brusque nod of her head Grace dismissed the unnecessary question. The sheer volume of noise behind her, the music and laughter, the loud buzz of fifty or more different conversations made a nonsense of the fact that he had even asked it.

‘But Ivan wouldn’t have invited you!’

The cynical lift of one black, straight brow mocked at her vehemence, shaking the certainty of her conviction without a single word.

‘Tell me, my sweet Grace, do you really believe that I would appear here, dressed like this…?’ An arrogant sweep of his hand swept down the powerful length of his body, drawing her clouded grey eyes unwillingly after it. ‘Without the excuse of your crazy friend’s theme party to justify it?’

Silently Grace cursed herself for being every sort of a fool. She hadn’t wanted even to look at him. But with that single haughty gesture he had forced her to do just that. And, having looked, she found herself incapable of turning away again.

She didn’t want to be reminded of the lean power and strength of Constantine’s body. Didn’t want to recall the honed muscle and hard bone that she had once known so intimately. It hurt just to remember how it had felt to be held in those arms, to be crushed close to the wall of that chest, feel that sensual mouth on her own.

‘I don’t think you’ve exactly understood the theme of tonight.’

Furious control gave her words a biting coldness, and her clear grey eyes were like shards of silvery ice as she let her gaze run back up the length of his tall frame in an expression of disdain that matched his own of only moments earlier. Matched and outstripped it as she let her full mouth curl derisively.

‘The idea is that this is a Turn Back the Clock party. Ivan’s painfully aware of the fact that at midnight he’ll be thirty, that he’ll have left his twenties behind for ever. Everyone is to dress in the sort of clothes they would have worn ten years ago, so that just for tonight he can pretend…’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Constantine snapped, his accent deepening as anger marked his voice. ‘I do not need you to explain what I already understand perfectly. And if I had any doubts then the distressingly unflattering outfit you are wearing would erase them once and for all.’

‘At least I entered into the spirit of things!’ Grace flashed back at him, her chin lifting in angry defiance.

She didn’t need to be reminded that what she was wearing was so very different from the way he was used to seeing her. The way anyone was used to seeing her. Ten years ago she had been a mere fourteen, and then the skin-tight denim jeans worn with a white sleeveless tee shirt and a leather biker jacket over the top had been her ideal of relaxed weekend clothing.

Dressing to come to the party tonight, she had actually thought her chosen costume was quite fun. That the uncharacteristic way she had done her hair, tousling the blonde sleekness into wild disarray, together with the use of much more make-up than usual, particularly around her wide grey eyes, made her look younger and more relaxed. She had smiled to see herself looking totally unlike the elegant, controlled Grace Vernon her workmates at the advertising agency would have recognised.

But now, faced with Constantine’s obvious censure, she felt the bubble of euphoria that had buoyed her up burst painfully sharply, leaving her limp and miserably deflated. What had seemed light-hearted and fun now seemed gauche and unsophisticated in the extreme, making her shift uncomfortably from one foot to another as once more Constantine’s jet-black gaze seared over her in a way that brought a burning rush of colour to her pale cheeks. How she longed for the protection of her usual refined way of dressing.

If she had known he would be here tonight she would have worn something that oozed sophistication and would have knocked him dead. Something that would have shown him just what he was missing. What he had discarded so brutally when he had tossed her aside, declaring that she wasn’t fit to be his wife.

If she had known he would be here…!

Who was she kidding? If she had even so much as suspected that Constantine Kiriazis was in England, let alone in the capital, where she and Ivan lived, she would have turned and run, putting as much distance as was possible between herself and the man she had once loved so desperately.

‘I bothered to dress up, while you…’

‘And what, precisely, is wrong with what I’m wearing?’ Constantine enquired with a silky menace that sent a sneaking shiver down her spine.

‘It’s hardly fun, is it? I mean, it’s so…’

Words failed her. The only ones that sprang to mind were such that she clamped her mouth tight shut on them, refusing to let them out.

The truth was that his outfit was pure Constantine, somehow displaying outwardly the very essence of the man.

The long black cashmere overcoat he wore against the unexpectedly bitter winds of the last evening in March had to have been handmade and superbly tailored into its perfect fit on his athletic form. It spoke of wealth, more wealth than the average person could even begin to dream of, but an affluence that was very definitely old money. Riches that had been in the family for so long that they no longer even registered on their owner’s mind. And they certainly needed no show or ostentation to draw attention to their existence.

Constantine Kiriazis had never flaunted the trappings of the fortune she knew he possessed, both from having grown up as the son of a very rich man and from having earned a second, equally huge amount in his own right. His clothes, like the rest of the man, were always exquisite but severely restrained, the heavy, square-faced gold watch he wore on his wrist the only ornament he ever indulged in.

Underneath the luxurious overcoat he wore equally stark black and white: a pristine shirt, bow tie, close-fitting black trousers and, unexpectedly, a tailored waistcoat, but no jacket. In contrast to the weird and colourful assortment of clothing worn by the other guests in response to Ivan’s choice of the theme for his party, he looked polished, sophisticated, totally disciplined, not at all in the mood for a party.

‘So…?’ Constantine echoed, a dangerous edge to his voice.

‘So—controlled, so…’

She was only too well aware of the way that her own complicated feelings were setting her nerves on edge, making her take exception over what was in fact very far from her real preoccupation. She wanted—needed—to drag her thoughts away from their wanton fixation on the very masculine body beneath the fine clothes, the devastatingly sexual male animal that she knew Constantine to be.

‘You look like nothing so much as a waiter.’

Something violent flared in the depths of those stunning eyes at her tone, and she actually heard his strong white teeth snap together, as if he had bitten back the furious outburst he had been about to make. She knew her remark had caught him on the raw, stinging the fierce pride that was so much a part of his character.

‘It runs in the genes,’ he had told her once. ‘The ancient Greeks were cursed with it—the hubris that so often brought about their downfall. These days we call it perifania, but the feeling is exactly the same.’

‘It might interest you to know, my sweet Grace,’ he said now, ‘that that is exactly how I am supposed to look.’

His tone was surprisingly soft, but laced through with a thread of darkness that revealed only too clearly the ruthlessness with which he had reined in his volatile temper.

‘Ten years ago, when I was twenty-one and fresh out of university, my grandfather insisted that I learn about every aspect of his business empire—from the bottom up. I spent my first six months working as a waiter in one of the hotels owned by the Kiriazis Corporation.’

‘Oh…’

It was all she could manage. Her lips were suddenly painfully dry and she moistened them nervously with her tongue. The movement froze as she saw those intent black eyes drop to fix on the small action that betrayed the chaotic state of her thoughts, and at the same moment the significance of what he had said came home to her on a rush of shock.

‘Then—then Ivan did invite you?’

‘Ivan invited me,’ he acceded, moving at last into the small hallway and kicking the door shut behind him. The thud it made slamming home into its frame had such a sound of finality that Grace shuddered on a feeling of irrational dread. ‘You didn’t know that?’

Grace shook her head, sending her blonde hair flying.

‘I didn’t know.’

How could he? How could Ivan have done such a thing and not told her? He must have known how Constantine’s appearance would affect her, the pain it would inflict. Ivan of all people would know how far from being fully healed were the scars of the past, and yet he had behaved in a way that was the emotional equivalent of ripping open the old wounds.

‘But believe me, if I had known—if I’d had so much as the faintest suspicion that you might be here—then I wouldn’t have come. I would have gone anywhere rather than here—anywhere at all. After the way you behaved, I never wanted to see you again…’

Constantine’s beautifully carved mouth twisted in an expression of scorn that was heightened by the flare of fury in the inky depths of his eyes.

‘After the way you behaved…’ he returned silkily ‘…the feeling is entirely mutual. The question is, where do we go from here?’

‘You could turn round and walk out.’ Grace made the suggestion with little hope that it would be taken up, her fears confirmed as she saw the uncompromising shake of his dark head. Constantine Kiriazis would have known she must be here, and would have had his strategy worked out well in advance. He had never backed down before anyone. She had never really expected that he was going to start now.

‘Then…’