Bond of Hatred(10)
'I am innocent of such prejudice!' he slashed back at her. 'And to use an infant as a weapon of revenge is the true obscenity!'
'Do you know what real revenge would be?' Harshly she laughed, acknowledging that he was unhappily out of her reach. 'It would be making you suffer for what you did to Callie. It's your fault that Nicky is illegitimate, nobody else's,' she spelt out. 'Your filthy family pride came before honour and decency. When you said I was not of good character, I should have laughed in your face!'#p#分页标题#e#
'Cristos...' With the charged and splintering aura of a wild animal at bay, Alex Terzakis shot a guttural stream of Greek at her, spreading both hands wide in a raking arc of dark, smouldering rage.
'You daring to say that to me,' Sarah continued, pressing on with the fearlessness of outrage. 'You with your women you have to pay to have sex with you! You with your ignorant, chauvinist double standards andsickening hypocrisy! Lay one finger on me, Mr Terzakis, and I will see you in prison with pleasure!'
'Some day... some incredibly lucky man will beat you stupid and teach you respect!' Alex Terzakis swore with two clenched fists.
Sarah was on a high of quite extraordinary energy. The sight of him standing there, seethingly frustrated by a desire to kill her just to shut her up, boosted her adrenalin with amazing efficiency. 'Do you want to know what you really deserve?' she asked with saccharine sweetness, venom dripping from every syllable. 'A wife who would make your life a living hell—a real bitch!'
'like you?' He vented a cruelly amused laugh, raking her with merciless derision.
'I wouldn't touch you with a barge-pole!' Sarah's face was hectically flushed. 'You are the most utterly repellent man I have ever met,' she said with impressive conviction. 'I may not rejoice in much in the way of
physical beauty-----' she flung her head high as she made
the admission in a small, tight voice '—but my standards are very high, unlike yours.'
He couldn't take his eyes off her. Still as the Greek statue Gina had fancifully compared him to, Alex Terzakis was studying her with almost compulsive intensity. 'No woman has ever found me... repellent.' He could hardly get the word past his compressed lips, he was so outraged by the label.
'Money obviously talks.' Sarah cast wide the lounge door in an open invitation for his departure. For a split-second, she really thought he was going to take a fighting chance at landing himself in a prison cell. He was possessed by the force of his own fury. He smouldered, he vibrated, he emanated violent rage into an atmosphere that positively sizzled, ready to burst into open flames And all in silence. She discovered that she couldn't take. her eyes off him either. Involuntarily she was mes-merised by the sheer passion of so volatile a temperament.
Unexpectedly, he strode past her. And then she realised why. Gina was sitting on the bottom step of the stairs, eyes out on stalks, too shaken by what she had heard even to pretend not to have been eavesdropping.
'You will hear from our lawyers.' The announcement was hissed over one broad, set shoulder halfway out of the front door.
'One visit, one attempt at intimidation, one even mildly threatening letter and I'll sing like a canary for the Press,' Sarah slung before she slammed the door in his wake.
Gina was gaping at her with a dropped jaw. The silence seemed to go on forever.
'I doubt if he will bother us again,' Sarah finally muttered stiffly, wondering just how much the older woman had contrived to overhear.
Slowly Gina shook her head, still staring. 'I just can't believe what I've been listening to... that that was you baiting him, taunting him...'
'I handed him a few home truths. That's all. And Mr Ice-cool he's not,' Sarah could not resist savouring. 'I bet every woman he meets fawns on him, feeds his ego...'
'Is that why you felt you had to tell him that he was repellent,' Gina enquired not quite steadily, 'and that he had to pay for sex?'
'I wanted to hit him where it hurt.' But Sarah couldn't meet Gina's gaze. In retrospect, she was ashamed that she had revealed her knowledge of his sex-life but she was not remotely ashamed that she had accidentally stumbled on the brand of attack he found hardest to tolerate.
'I don't believe he has to pay for sex... he's breath-takingly handsome... and you're saying that he consorts with hookers?' Gina probed with rampant curiosity.'He keeps two mistresses. If he keeps them, he's paying for his pleasure-----'
"That's not the same thing at all!'
'Why are you defending him?'
Gina groaned. 'Sarah, he is not responsible for Callie's death. Nobody is responsible for that. You're becoming! obsessed. You're hurting, yes,' she conceded, 'but you are taking this all too personally-----'
'Losing Callie w-was very personal.' A shuddering sob suddenly trembled through Sarah's slight frame