SOPHIE fumbled with the capsule contained in its silver foil, and managed to extract it. Then with shaking hands, she got it into her mouth and rinsed it down with water from a cracked mug. She wanted the painkiller to work instantly, but knew she would have to wait before the tight, hot pounding in her head would ease and bring relief. If only it could bring a cessation of memory! If only it could erase everything from the night before—everything!
Her face contorted. Dear God, how could last night have happened? What vicious twist of fate had heaped that upon her? Four years—four years—since her life had been destroyed, and now Nikos Kazandros had reappeared, like some hideous, malign demon, to mock and taunt her in her very hour of desperate self-abasement!
God almighty, did he think she’d wanted to take that hideous job? Dressing up like a tart and meeting a complete stranger for the evening? She’d had to force herself to do it! Force herself to let everyone see her in that vulgar, exposing dress, to smile, and make fatuous, feeble conversation to a man who made her flesh crawl, made her feel even dirtier than she felt already.
Hasn’t life done enough to me?
The cry came from the depths—the depths where she lived now, to which she had sunk remorselessly, pitilessly.
She stared around her. The tiny, shabby bedsit was hardly big enough for a bed, let alone an alcove with a sink, and a cracked dresser with a hot ring and kettle on it. But it was all she could afford—all she dared afford. She bowed her head, crushed beneath a weight she could not bear.
But she must.
On top of the narrow chest of drawers was the latest letter. Beneath the polite phrase was the harsh, brutal truth.
We regret to inform you that unless the fees are paid in full, in advance, by the end of the month, we shall have no option but to insist that you make immediate alternative arrangements—
She sheered her mind away, as she always did. Had to. Because to do anything else was unbearable.
I have to get the money! I have to!
It didn’t matter how—it couldn’t matter. She had to pay that bill—just had to!
Fear gnawed at her as she stared at the letter, at the stark, pitiless words in it.
As stark and pitiless as the world. She knew that now. The world was a vile place, without mercy or kindness or goodness in it. Hadn’t she learnt that? Hadn’t the last four punishing, terrifying years taught her that?
Into her eyes a hardness came, glazing them over. What use were feelings, sensibilities, moral revulsion? Where did they get you? Nowhere. The end of the road.
But for her the road stretched on. Endlessly. And, whatever anyone thought of her, whatever she thought of herself, the money had to be found. Had to be!
In her head she heard the scornful, condemning words of Nikos Kazandros pouring over her, cruel and vicious, like acid into an unstanched wound.
‘Take a good hard look at yourself when you get home—a good hard look, Sophie—and think about whether you like what you see. Ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing.’
Anger filled her. What did he know?
Well, she knew! She knew, all right! She could hate it all she liked, but nothing would let her off the hook—nothing could spare her.
Ahead of her another day loomed, another struggle.
And no end in sight.
And Nikos Kazandros, and all her memories of him, could take their sneers and contempt and drain away, back into the poisoned, bitter past where they belonged. And go to hell!
Nikos sat motionless in the leather chair at the head of an oval table around which half a dozen men were seated. They were discussing a forthcoming property deal, but Nikos wasn’t paying attention. He had two people of his own in the discussion, whose judgement he trusted, and his presence was only as a figurehead for Kazandros Corp. Since his father had retired, two years previously, Nikos now had the entire running of the company to himself. After leaving London four years ago, he’d immersed himself without pause in learning every string there was to the business, cutting more and more deals on his own account until he’d earned his father’s complete trust. He’d come a long way in four years….
And he’d never looked back. Not once. He had not permitted himself to do so. He had pushed Sophie Granton out of his head, never to return.
But return she had.
Damn her!
In the darkness of the night he’d been determined to push her back out of his head again. But this morning, with the bright sunshine streaming into the meeting room of his UK lawyers, she had come invading again.
He kept seeing her everywhere, all the time.
But not the way she’d been, draped on Cosmo Dimistris’s arm. And not the way he’d known her four bitter years ago. Neither of those images burned in his skull.
It was the last image of her, when she’d sat hunched in the taxi, shivering, bedraggled, sodden.
Something moved in him—something he did not want to feel. He resented it. Why should he feel it? Sophie Granton was nothing to him! He knew what she was—what she was prepared to do to get what she wanted. If she’d got herself into a mess, it was none of his making! If she’d thought the world owed her an easy living and was now finding it did not, that was not his problem! It hadn’t been four years ago, and it damn well wasn’t now!
Deliberately, he pushed the image out of his head again. Pulled another one into its place. The one of her in the tarty evening gown, selling her company to Cosmo.
And who else…?
His eyes darkened suddenly. She’d got a scare last night, and he hadn’t minced his words in laying it on the line for her just exactly what she was doing, but did that mean she was going to mend her ways? Or did she still think that she could get away with it? Getting men to pay for her company and nothing more?
And what if they didn’t like her saying no to them…? What if next time she wasn’t able to get out and get away? A man like Cosmo Dimistris wouldn’t have any qualms about helping himself, and there were plenty of slimeballs in the world with the same views about women! She’d got lucky last night because Cosmo had simply helped himself to one of the other, more willing girls at the party. But another time she might not be so lucky. Another time she might find herself in serious danger….
Beneath his breath, an expletive formed. Damn the girl! Damn her!
Abruptly, he straightened in his seat. He got to his feet.
‘Gentlemen, my apologies. Please conclude without me.’ He nodded at his team, then turned and walked out of the room.
He needed to make a phone call.
‘I’ll just go and check if we have that in your size, madam,’ Sophie said, keeping her voice rigorously polite, even though the woman she was serving had not thought it necessary to speak to her with even the minimum of courtesy. But difficult and demanding customers were something Sophie had had to learn how to handle, however obnoxious they were. Or however tired or dispirited she was.
Or desperate.
Because desperate was what she was. Eating like acid into her brain, the words of the letter kept going round and round in her head…
Unless the fees are paid in full…
She wanted to laugh hysterically. Scream. Dig her nails into her palms until they drew blood. Fighting down her panic, she found the shoe box and hefted it down. Then, surreptitiously looking around her, because the shop manageress was draconian about personal calls for staff, she slipped her mobile out of her pocket and checked for messages.
Yes! There was one! Fumblingly, she clicked it open and read, and as she did so her stomach plunged in a churning mix of emotions. It was another booking from the agency. The escort agency.
That’s what it is—to me! I won’t let it be anything else, I won’t! It’s just an escort agency….
She felt a spurt of anger. Nikos had mocked her for calling it an introduction service—but that was exactly what it called itself, she argued defensively. Its upmarket website proclaimed ‘elite introductions for elite businessmen seeking elite companions’. She’d taken that at face value—but was she being pathetically naïve, blinding herself deliberately to what was beneath the respectable veneer? Well, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d been fooled by a respectable-sounding organisation….
The familiar flush of shame and bitterness flared through her. Dear God, where did naïvety end and criminal stupidity begin?
The hollow inside her hardened, and she lifted her chin. Tough. Tough. No point whatsoever in repining the past and the appalling, criminally stupid mistakes she’d made! Because it was too late—she’d made them. And now she had to take the consequences. And the consequences were that she had no choice—no choice but to do what she was doing now.
Whatever it takes, however sordid the job, I have to do it. I have to make whatever money I can, however I can—I just have to.
And if that meant doing what was loathsome to her, if that meant reading this text message from the agency and being grateful—dear God, grateful!—for the fact that she was being booked again for tonight, then that was what she had to be. Inside her head, a nugget of fear reared its head. What if the man she was to meet tonight was just the same as Cosmo Dimistris? What if he thought he was booking a lot more than a companion for the evening? With an effort that cost her, she forced down the fear, the incipient panic. Well, she would just have to deal with it if it happened. Just as she’d had to deal with everything that had happened since her world had fallen apart….
‘Your customer’s getting shirty—better hurry up.’
The voice of one of the other sales assistants roused Sophie from her troubled thoughts. Hastily, she grabbed the requisite shoe box and hurried out. She could feel her stomach rumble, but ignored it. She never ate lunch any more, it was a waste of money. Every penny she could save went to a far, far better cause than herself. She never spent money on anything other than the barest minimum. She ate as little as possible, as cheaply as possible, endured a freezing cold bedsit to avoid heating costs, walked everywhere she possibly could.
As for clothes—apart from the repellent outfit she’d had to buy for her escort work, which she’d got in a charity shop anyway, she’d bought nothing for longer than she could remember.
For a moment—brief, poignant—a memory flashed in her head, vivid and piercing.
The evening dress I wore to the Covent Garden gala that first, magical night with Nikos! That beautiful, beautiful dress…
Her mouth thinned. Well, that was gone—along with every other designer dress she’d owned.
Along with everything else. Including the life she had once lived.
She swallowed. Sentiment was pointless. Worse than pointless. Unaffordable.
‘You took your time!’ The petulant tones of her customer penetrated.
‘I’m so sorry…’
Forcing an apologetic smile to her lips, Sophie got on with her job.
Nikos sat at a table in the bar of the West End hotel, one he never frequented himself. His expression was grim. It had been ever since he’d phoned the escort agency Cosmo had booked Sophie through. Getting the number had meant an unpleasant phone conversation with Cosmo, who had not missed the opportunity both to complain about Sophie running out on him and to jibe at Nikos’s sudden interest in girls of her kind.
But his expression had got even grimmer after he’d phoned the agency, and now, as he glanced at his watch impatiently, it was black. His eyes flicked to the hotel entrance again. She should be here any minute.
And then she was there, walking into the bar, her gait stiff, her posture tense. Nikos felt emotion kick in him, intense, hard.
It should have been anger. Anger that despite all his dire warnings to her about the true nature of what she was doing she had clearly ignored him. But, though anger was there, it was not the predominant emotion.
What emotion it was precisely he didn’t know, didn’t care. Knew only that it came with a leap in his veins that was like a tongue of scorching wind on a forest fire. Her presence instantly, immediately filled the space—filled his consciousness.
She was wearing the same outfit she’d worn the evening before, advertising her wares to the whole world. Yet she seemed oblivious to the fact. She was walking blindly, tautly, across the empty space from the hotel foyer into the bar. He watched her walking, waiting for the moment when she realised just who she was walking towards.
He saw when it happened. Saw her eyes widen abruptly, starkly, her face bleach, her stride falter. Saw the blankness in her face shatter like broken glass. As if she herself were shattering…
Then it was gone. The blankness was back. A rigid, frozen mask immobilising her face. He got up from his chair, confronting her. Her eyes darted sideways, searching past him. Nikos’s mouth pulled into a caustic line. She was looking urgently for someone else. Anyone else. Just not him.
‘Wrong call, Sophie,’ he told her, and there was an edge in his voice like a blade. Her eyes whipped back to him, stared. Disbelieving. And somewhere deep in her eyes he saw something that he could not fail to recognise.
Panic. Dismay.
But beneath them was something else. Something that made the emotion slicing through him quicken, though he fought against it.
She was staring at him. The shock—disbelief—flaring in her eyes. No, this couldn’t be. No. Not him. Not him. Not Nikos…
The denial was flighting through her, urgent, vehement. Oh, God, how could this be? How could it be? She fought for coherence, comprehension.
This can’t be happening. It can’t, it can’t!
She couldn’t be seeing Nikos again, not after it had taken all her strength to cope with what had happened the night before. How could she endure seeing him again? Denial screamed in her mind, but it was like a bird smashing itself against an iron cage. It was Nikos—there, waiting for her. Taunting her. Mocking her.
She summoned the only weapon she could, crushing down every other emotion. Her face hardened. ‘What’s this farce all about, Nikos?’ she demanded, every muscle in her body like steel under impossible tension. Her voice was as hard as her expression.
So was his. ‘Sit down.’ He pulled out a facing chair, holding it for her.
He saw her balking, and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. ‘I said, sit down, Sophie. I’ve engaged your services this evening, so start earning your money.’
Sophie sat, her legs suddenly soggy. Numbly, she watched Nikos fold his long, lean body, clad in a superb hand-made suit, into the opposite chair, every centimetre of him assured, sleek, powerful.
Devastating.
She felt the hollow gape in her stomach, felt emotions rush into the space, churning and convulsing. Overpowering.
Nikos, so close she could see every line and plane of his face! So close she could reach out and touch him!
No! Desperately she fought against the rush of blood as her gaze clung to the man opposite her. No! That was all—the only word she must keep in her head. No! No to everything that made her want to go to him, that made the pulse quicken in her veins, the breath tighten in her lungs.
She opened her mouth to speak, to voice her protest at what was happening, but he was there before her.
‘I’ve booked you for tonight, Sophie, for one reason and one reason only,’ he said, and his voice was steely.
His face was shuttered, jaw set. His eyes bored into her, pinioning her. She could not move, could only endure—frozen, immobile.
‘Didn’t I tell you last night what a dangerous game you were playing?’ he iced out. ‘You’re standing at the gutter’s edge, Sophie, and it will take only a single step to be in it! You can think yourself unsullied because you call it escorting, but that’s not what others will think, believe me!’
His hard eyes excoriated her. ‘I thought I’d got the message home to you last night, but I haven’t, have I? You’re still on the agency’s books, and your presence here right now is proof you haven’t wised up yet. Or won’t!’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You got lucky last night, Sophie! That jerk Cosmo had other girls to help himself to, so he didn’t turn nasty on you! That won’t happen every time! And a man like that, who thinks he’s paying for a woman for the night, won’t take kindly to being told, sorry, but you’ll go home to your virtuous single bed at midnight!’
Her face was closed, shutting him out, rejecting what he was saying. ‘I can handle myself,’ she retorted, quelling the churning inside her. She wanted to leap to her feet, run, but she couldn’t move, could hardly get words out while he laid into her.
‘Like hell!’ he shot back dismissively. ‘Last night you saw the kind of scene that the men who’ll hire you like to enjoy! All it will take is a spiked drink, or worse, and a little exercise of masculine strength. And you don’t think anyone at a place like that is going to believe your protests, do you? Do you want to end up drugged and raped?’
Her face was white under the make-up. ‘It won’t happen! I’ll be careful! I’ll stick to public places, like this.’
Nikos’s voice was scathing. ‘And then what, Sophie? Have you thought that through? Because I have, believe me! And it’s the reason you’re sitting here right now. Let me spell it out for you.’ He took another scissored breath. ‘You may not give a cent for your reputation, you may not care if the whole world knows your line of work, but spare a thought, if you please—’ his voice was edged with scathing sarcasm ‘—for others. Whether you get into serious trouble with a demanding client or not, you’ll cause trouble for others. Think of your father, Sophie. Whatever his business problems, he wasn’t responsible for the way you behaved four years ago. His fault was in indulging you, making you think you could have everything you wanted, the easy way. But he wouldn’t want this for you now, what you’re doing—what father would?’
A steel band had started to tighten around her skull, digging into her skin. ‘He won’t know.’ It was all she could get out and it cost her, even to say that.
Nikos’s eyes hardened. ‘You think? By swanning around in public places people will see you—people who know you. After all…’ he paused ‘…I did.’ He paused again, his eyes boring into her like drills. ‘And I won’t be the only one to make the conclusion I did about you last night. Do you think anyone is actually going to believe your claim that you only sell your company—not your body?’ His voice was harsh, pitiless. ‘They’ll call you a hooker, a whore, a call-girl—whether you like it or not!’
The unbearable lecture went on, and she wanted to scream and yell, but she couldn’t—she couldn’t. She had to sit there and take it, endure it.
‘And then, Sophie, what about when the tabloids cotton on to what you’re doing? Someone will spot you and tip them off. And it doesn’t matter that Granton plc is no more, they’ll dredge it back up and they’ll have a field day exposing how a millionaire’s daughter has ended up on the game now Daddy’s run out of his millions. They’ll revel in it, Sophie! You can protest your innocence all you like, but they’ll still put “escort agency” in quotes, and everyone will know it’s just a euphemism, whether you like it or not. Then some kindly soul will put the tabloid rag in front of your father, with a sympathetic look on their face, and your father will know just how far his precious darling daughter has fallen….’
The band was red-hot now—red-hot against her forehead. If only he would stop, just stop…
She could feel her nails almost piercing her palms, feel the pain spiking up her arms. And still he went on, hectoring and lecturing.
‘It’s a sleazy, sordid world you’re moving in, and you can give it all the prettied-up anodyne names you like, dress it up however you please, but that doesn’t hide the truth of it! So face up to it.’
She wanted to laugh—harsh, bitter—in his damn face. Face up to it? Dear God, wasn’t that what she was doing? What she had no choice but to do? Facing up to the fact that she had to find money—any amount, by any means—because to fail…to fail…
No—failure wasn’t an option. She had to find the money. And if that meant looking at herself in the mirror and hating what she saw, being repulsed by what she saw, then so be it She could not afford pride, self-respect or self-loathing to get in her way.
She took a cold, icy breath, freezing her lungs, her voice. ‘Don’t lecture me, Nikos! I told you, I am not doing this from choice! I need the money!’
‘How much?’
She stared.
He gave a rasp of irritation. ‘I said, how much?’
Her chin lifted. ‘What’s it to you?’
Anger, controlled but visible, flashed in his eyes. ‘Just answer me.’
He wanted to know? She told him, nails digging into her palms. ‘Five thousand pounds.’
That was what she had to have—enough to see her clear, at least for the next couple of months. After that—well, time enough to worry then…
As it always did when she had to think about the endless requirement for money, her mind cut out. To do anything else was far, far too frightening.
‘Five thousand?’ Nikos echoed the amount in a harsh voice. ‘And you think you can clear that kind of money just by working as a no-sex escort? A little light evening work, just smiling and chatting and looking sexy?’ He didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. ‘Why do you need the money, anyway?’
Her nails dug deeper. Tension netted around her. ‘I owe it.’
‘Paying off credit cards that have stopped funding you, is that it? So why not just go to Daddy and get him to bail you out—or has he finally stopped indulging you?’
The band around her head was tightening more. ‘He doesn’t know I owe the money.’ She spoke tersely. It was all she could manage.
Nikos looked at her. So she was hiding not just her lifestyle from her father but her debts, as well. For a moment he considered tracking down Edward Granton and putting him in the picture. Then he disposed of the thought. The man did not deserve to know the unsavoury truth about his daughter now, much as he hadn’t needed to know what she had tried four years ago. However, Sophie had to be stopped, right now, from the course she was so rashly taking. Time to cut to the chase. It galled him to do it, but it was necessary—that was all.
‘Very well. I will settle your debts for you. I will give you the five thousand pounds.’
She heard the words, heard them but could not take them in. He was offering her the money she so desperately needed? For a moment emotion knifed in her like a sword. Then a word formed on her lips.
‘Why?’
‘Because, Sophie, it’s in my interests.’
Emotion knifed again. She wanted to lash out at him, tell him he could take his money and go to hell! She would never, never take a penny from him! Never!
His eyes were like steel hooks, holding hers. ‘Once the tabloids pick up on you, they will dig into your background—and what will they find, Sophie? Who will they find?’ His voice was edged, like a razorblade. ‘They’ll find me. They’ll find that I once—dated—you.’ He said the word as if it were poison. ‘And then they’ll drag me into the mud that you’re wading into. The Greek tabloids will pick up the story, linking a Kazandros to a hooker—because that’s what they’ll call you, however coyly—and then my parents will hear of it. I won’t have that, Sophie. I really won’t.’ His voice was hard, icy. ‘So I’m prepared to hand over the five thousand pounds you say you owe. But—’ he held up a peremptory hand ‘—not only do you ditch the escort agency and never go near it again, you also clear out of London.’
Her answer was automatic. ‘I can’t. I can’t leave London.’
‘You want my money—you leave London.’
‘I live here.’ She kept her answers short. It was all she could manage.
She saw him give a shrug. ‘You can come back. But not till Cosmo Dimistris is out of the country, you’ve rusticated long enough, and I’m out of the UK, as well.’
Her emotions were churning. Aggression, resentment, and so much more—all in a concrete mixer, heaving around inside her. Mixing with the voice inside her.
Don’t listen to him! You can’t take his money—you can’t!
But hope, desperation, seared like hot steel through her brain.
Oh, God, he could hand me the money. It means nothing to him, just loose change, but to me…to me…
She tried to cut her mind off. Tried not to let the words form in her head, the pleading, the hope, flaring like a thin, impossible flame.
I can’t! I can’t take his money! It’s impossible! Impossible! Anyone but him…anyone! Not him—not him!
Not Nikos Kazandros. Not the man who had once been everything to her. A dream come true, a dream of bliss—until the dream had turned into a nightmare. A nightmare that had never left her. A nightmare she had to cope with day in, day out. That and the desperate need for money—so desperate that she’d been prepared to take on the vile work that Nikos was lecturing her about. Standing at the gutter’s edge, the way he’d said. And if she was prepared to do that, then why be squeamish about taking money from Nikos?
It’s money—that’s all that matters. Money you need, money you’ve got to have—because if you don’t have it then you know what’s going to happen. And who cares where it comes from? You were ready enough to earn it by draping yourself over any man who paid you! So who the hell do you think you are to be so damn delicate now, saying you can’t touch Nikos Kazandros’s money because he once ripped every stupid, pathetic illusion from you!
The voice stabbed brutally at her, merciless and harsh, telling her what she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to face. But she had to face it. Had learnt in the bitter years since her world had crashed around her that running away was not an option. That facing the brutal realities of life, of the life that she had been plunged into, forced into, was all she could do.
Her lesson had been hard. Bitterly hard.
But she had learnt it.
Her lips pressed together tightly; her hands clenched. If Nikos Kazandros was offering her five thousand pounds she would take it. Grab it. Seize it. What did her pride matter? Her heart? Her feelings?
They had stopped mattering four years ago, when everything had crashed around her.
Her eyes were like stone, her voice short and sharp as she addressed him. ‘How long will that be?’ she demanded aggressively.
‘How long?’ He echoed her demand. ‘A couple of weeks? Then you can do what the hell you want.’
Sophie’s mind raced. Homing in on the essentials.
‘I need the money before then.’ She spoke tersely, grittily.
‘You can have a cheque when you’re out of London.’
She had seen his eyes flash, flare with brief anger at the way she was speaking to him. She didn’t care.
‘Where do I have to go? I can’t leave the country.’ She spelt that out up-front. She could be out of London for two weeks, just about, but she couldn’t be out of the country. She needed to know she was only a train ride from London, not risk being stranded abroad, unable to afford the fare home.
Nikos’s mouth thinned. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie, I’m not whisking you off to some romantic hideaway.’ The sarcasm bit at her, but she ignored that too. She would ignore everything about Nikos Kazandros—everything except the money he was offering her. The lifeline…
Emotion stabbed inside her again, despite her attempt to crush it back. Dear God—money and Nikos Kazandros…
Nikos Kazandros, offering a lifeline…
The lifeline he had refused to offer before.
The irony of it twisted in her consciousness.
But the lifeline I wanted then wasn’t a paltry five thousand pounds…
No. The thought seared like a burning brand in her head. It was a lot more. Far, far more than money…
She sheered her mind away. No point treading that bitter path again. The path paved with broken dreams. She made herself meet his gaze, made herself look at those dark, cold eyes. Eyes that had once melted her in their heat.
But never would again.
For a second, a fraction of a second so brief she hardly registered it, she felt emotion so powerful, so agonising, that she felt faint with it. Then it was gone. Only the expressionless, indifferent gaze on her was left.
‘So where—?’ she began, her voice demanding again.
This time he cut her short. He got to his feet. ‘I’ll send a car,’ he told her. ‘Be ready at eight tomorrow morning.’
‘That’s too early,’ she said immediately. It would give her no time to go into the shop, explain what was happening, hope they would let her disappear for two weeks without sacking her. But even if they did sack her, she would have to accept it and then just try and get another job swiftly when she was allowed back to London again.
‘Tough.’ His reply was unsympathetic.
She glared at him, but said nothing. She had no choice but to take what was handed out to her. Just the way she had for four hideous years. Taking everything thrown at her. Swallowing it. Enduring it.
And she would endure this too. Because the lifeline he was tossing at her was one she could not afford to throw back in his face.
He waited, pointedly, as she moved around the table.
‘I’ll have my driver take you home now,’ he told her, pulling out his mobile to summon his car. ‘Give you time to pack.’
She said nothing. She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except let him steer her out of the hotel on to the pavement. A sleek saloon was there already, and the driver got out, opening the rear passenger door for her. How many times had she shared Nikos’s chauffeured car, been out with him in the evening? Been escorted home by him, her heart singing with bliss…?
She pulled her gaze away. Away from his tall, commanding figure that could make her heart skip a beat just looking at it.
But not any more.
Never again.
As she plunged inside the car, scooping her long, clinging skirt out of the way as she did so, she twisted her head away, staring out of the far window at the traffic coursing heedlessly by. Refusing to look back at Nikos.
The driver spoke to her on his intercom, and she gave him her address then hunkered further back into the corner of her seat, still not looking out at Nikos, not knowing if he were even still there or not as the car pulled out into the traffic.
On the pavement, heedless of passers-by, Nikos stood stock still, staring after the disappearing car. His face was expressionless. But inside, virulently, he was calling himself every kind of fool for having allowed himself to see her again, to do this face to face instead of setting one of his staff to sort it, keeping himself well away from her. Too late now, though—it was done. Sophie was dealt with, and also the danger she threatened his family with. Silencing his castigations, he reached out his hand to flag down a passing taxi.
Heading the other way.
The way that did not have Sophie Granton in its path.