Page 53 of Vows of Revenge

There was no trace of her.

Over the following days there was no trace of her at her workplace either—and Dr Michaelis had been reserved in the extreme when Damos had finally badgered someone sufficiently to get him to speak to him directly. He had informed him, stiltedly, that Kassia had taken indefinite leave.

Damos’s next attempt had been at her mother’s house. The housekeeper there had been equally reserved. No, her employer’s daughter was not there. She had no knowledge of her whereabouts, and she could not give out any information on where her mother was at the moment. She believed she was no longer in Spain, but would not take it upon herself to say when she might be returning to the UK.

Frustration bit through Damos.

More than frustration. Worse.

Desperation.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

KASSIALAYONthe yacht’s sun deck under an awning. Her eyes were shut, but she was not sleeping. Thoughts, bitter and toxic, were circling in her head.

I deserve what my father threw at me—I deserve it!

She had been as cretinously stupid as he’d said.

Thinking it was me Damos was interested in.

There had been only one thing he’d wanted—and it wasn’t her.

Acid tears seeped beneath her eyelids. To think she had thought it mere chance, a coincidence, that she had bumped into Damos like that in Oxford...

Oh, fool to think that!

He planned it from the start—planned it all. Right from visiting the excavation. All that stuff about wanting to sponsor it...wanting me to tell him more over dinner on his yacht... Then ‘accidentally’ bumping into me at the Ashmolean, taking me for tea, visiting Blenheim together. And then that college dinner, where he ‘just happened’ to need a plus one—and needed another oh-so-convenient plus one at that Art Deco dinner-dance at the Viscari in London, dressing me up so that I was a fitting partner for him...someone a man like him would want to be seen with. And then—

Pain like a knife thrust into her.

Then taking me to bed...

For one reason only. The reason that had been slammed into her face that nightmare evening in Athens.

To get at my father...ruin his plans.

The pain of the knowledge forced upon her by her father was unbearable.

But I deserve it—I deserve it.

She deserved every last bit of the agony inside her.

‘Darling?’

Her mother’s voice came from the lower deck. It was full of concern. Concern that had been there since Kassia had thrown herself into her arms, swamping her petite frame, and burst into unstoppable tears. Despite her diminutive height, her mother had hugged her tightly. And now, days after she’d landed in Malaga from Amsterdam, following her desperate plea, her usually insouciant mother had gone into full maternal support role.

Kassia was abjectly grateful. She had never envisaged her butterfly mother being so full of feeling for her daughter’s misery.

Kassia heard her footsteps coming up the stairs. ‘Oh, darling...’ she said again, pity in her voice.

Her mother, supple from all the Pilates classes Kassia knew she did to keep her figure trim, limbered down beside her onto a cushion. She helped herself to one of her daughter’s hands, chafing it comfortingly.

‘It will pass,’ she said. ‘I promise you, it will pass.’ She drew back a little. ‘Come and have some lunch,’ she said. ‘John’s gone off in the launch—he and the first mate are after catching something big and inedible. It will probably take them all day. Goodness knows what the appeal of fishing is!’

Memory seared in Kassia... Damos learning how to fly-fish from Duncan MacFadyen, her sitting on the rug on the bank, watching him...

Loving him...

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