Page 46 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
“I do know him,” Saskia retorted. She took a deep breath. Then another. “And more to the point, Thanasis, I…remember.”
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t let that word make sense. He couldn’t take it in.
Saskia gulped in more air. “I remember,” she said again, even more deliberately this time. “I remember the stories you told about him back in the day. And so I remember how he treated you, now. And I know how he treated me, so you need to believeme when I tell you that you are not in the least bit like him. Not at all.”
“You remember?” Thanasis concentrated on the only part that mattered. “You remember…before?”
He was staring down at her with an expression on his face that he couldfeel, and was certain he had never worn before. He feltoutsidehimself, and something like dizzy, and he could not have looked away from her if his life depended on it.
He didn’t try.
“I knew exactly who I was when I came back to London,” Saskia told him, her gaze still wide and glued to his. And on the one hand, the confession was a relief. Thanasis hadn’t been going mad, after all. He had seen that recognition all over her and he’d been right, she had known him.She had known him.
And those moments in New York that could only have occurred between two people who’d loved each other for years were real. He hadn’t made that up, either.
He stared at her, and neither one of them had clothes on, but that didn’t seem to make a difference. He didn’t even realize he was stalking toward her until she made a small noise of surprise when her back hit the bed.
“You knew,” he said. “When you came back to London.”
Her eyes widened even more, but she didn’t look away. “Yes.”
“And might I be given some explanation as to why it is you felt the need to lie to me?” he asked her.
With a frigid courtesy that felt a lot like a weapon. When she winced, he imagined she felt it that way too.
And the Saskia he knew had always charged face-first into any confrontation, but she didn’t this time. She shook her head, a kind of anguish in her gaze. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I really don’t. I can’t defend it. I just… I felt that I had no choice but to do it.”
“Maybe you do remember, after all,” he suggested darkly, so close to her now but not touching her. Not again. Not even though she was his once again, the Saskia he had mourned and grieved, lost and found. “Maybe the monster is in the blood of the Zacharias family and that’s always been obvious to you. Maybe you knew better than to throw yourself from the frying pan into the fire this time.”
That anguish in her eyes faded, replaced by a spark he recognized.
It was her temper, kicking in the way it always had before, and he didn’t know whether to celebrate that or mourn it, too.
“Do you want to know why I remember anything?” she demanded, her voice hot. “I’ll tell you. I found your father and his massage therapist. I think I told you that, though to be honest, it’s a blur. And I’m not even sure that I would have cared about that as much as I should have, if there had been any repentance. If he had promised me that I’d never see it again.”
She made a face, and he had to wonder what was on his. Or maybe he had simply frozen solid at these details he certainly didn’t want to know. He hadn’t liked it when his father had regaled his mother with the squalid details of his trysts at the dinner table.
He certainly didn’t like imagininghis Saskiasubject to a similar fate.
It made him want to fly directly to that godforsaken villa and burn it down with a match from his own hand.
Saskia squared her shoulders and kept her gaze direct. “If you want to know the truth, I didn’twantto sleep with him myself. I don’t know that I would have minded that much if he’d decided that other arrangements had to be made.” She sighed. “I can’t really access the part of me that was Selwen. But I know that all she wanted was a home. And safety. A place where shecould simply rest. He made it sound like he would provide those things for her. He promised her that he would.”
Thanasis had to unclench his jaw. “There is absolutely nothing safe about my father.”
“Oh, he was making that clear,” Saskia said, ruefully. “He certainly wanted me to see him in the act, or didn’t much care if I did, anyway. It would have been easy enough for him to lock the door. He didn’t.” She eased herself back on the bed, hoisted herself up, and then shifted around so she was kneeling there before him. “What he did do was come in and say a lot of vaguely threatening things to me while I was packing to leave. Then he kissed me, not very nicely—I think so I would know he meant it.”
Everything inside Thanasis simply…shattered.
As if he had been made of glass all along. And now he was smashed into dust.
That shattering, and smashing, went on and on—but it didn’t hurt. Distantly, he thought perhaps it drew blood, but he didn’t mind.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, and he could hear his voice as if it came from far, far away, and barely sounded like his at all. “What did you just say?”
“He kissed me,” Saskia said again, and her eyes widened with concern, but she still didn’t look away from him. “And I didn’t like it. Do you know what I thought?”
“I can only imagine.” Once again, Thanasis thought that his voice sounded so far away that he could barely credit that it was his own. He no longer recognized it. Or himself. “Particularly if your thoughts in any way mirror mine.”
