'Inez!'
The rapier-sharp call of her name doused her with ice-cold water. She wrenched herself from Theo's hold … or at least she tried to.
The hands that had dropped from her breasts to her waist at the sound of Pietro's return stayed her desperate flight.
'What the hell do you think you're doing?' Pietro growled, no longer looking as drunk as he'd been half an hour ago.
'If you need it explained to you, da Costa, then I'm wondering who the hell I'm getting into business with.'
Her brother flushed in anger. 'I wasn't talking to you, Pantelides. But maybe I should ask you what you're doing, pawing my sister like some mad animal.'
Inez desperately tried to pull her dress down. But Theo stood firmly between her thighs, making the task impossible. Her sound of distress drew his attention from Pietro. He stared down at her for a second before he adjusted his stance. But although he allowed her to close her legs and pull her dress down, his hands didn't drop from her waist. If anything, they tightened, their hold so possessive she fought to breathe.
'Inez was going to tell you tomorrow. But I guess tonight's as good a time as any.'
Pietro's gaze shifted from Theo's face to hers. 'Tell me what?'
'Do you want to do the honours, anjo? Or shall I?' he queried softly.
Her heartbeat accelerated but not with the arousal pounding through her bloodstream. She heard the clear warning in Theo's tone. Anything short of what he'd demanded of her would see her family ruined completely.
She opened her mouth. Closed it again and swallowed hard.
A trace of fear washed over Pietro's face. Despite their strained relationship, there'd been times in the past when they'd been close. She knew how much a political career of his own some day meant to him. How much he was pinning his hopes on what her father's campaign would mean to him personally.
She tried again to speak the words Theo demanded she speak. But her vocal cords wouldn't work.
'Would someone hurry up and tell me what's going on?'
Fierce hazel eyes drifted over her face in a look that spelled possession so potent her breath caught.
Theo curled his arm over her shoulders and pulled her into the heat of his body. He drifted his mouth over her temple in an adoring move so utterly convincing she reeled at his skilful deception.
She was grappling with that, and with just how much of the kiss they'd shared had been an exercise in pure ruthless seduction on his part, when he spoke.
'Your sister and I have become … enamoured with each other. We only met last night but already I cannot bear to be without her.' His voice held none of the mockery from before, sparking another stunned realisation of his skill. He stared down at her and she caught the implacable determination in his eyes.
When his gaze reconnected with Pietro's she stared, mesmerised, at his profile then shivered at the iron-hard set to his jaw.
'Tomorrow she will be moving out of your home. And into mine.'
CHAPTER SIX
'LIKE HELL YOU ARE,' Pietro repeated for the hundredth time as their chauffeur-driven car stopped outside the opulent Ipanema mansion she'd grown up in.
She quickly threw open the door and hurried up the steps leading to the double oak front doors although she knew escape wouldn't be easy. Pietro was hard on her heels.
'Did you hear what I said?' he demanded.
'I heard you loud and clear. But you fail to realise I'm no longer a child. I'm twenty-four years old-well over the age when I can do whatever the heck I want.'
He slid a hand through his hair. 'Look, I know I may have pushed you into playing a greater part in Pai's fund-raising campaign. But … I don't think getting involved with Pantelides is a good idea,' he said abruptly.
Inez's heart lurched at his concern but she couldn't reassure him because she herself didn't know what the future held. 'Thank you for your concern but like I said, I'm a grown up.'
He swivelled on his heel in the vast entrance hall of the villa. 'Are you really that into him? I know what I saw on his deck tells its own story but you only met him last night!'
'I hadn't met Alfonso Delgado before last night either and yet you expected me to charm him.'
'Charm him, not move in with him!'
'There's no point arguing with me. My mind is made up.'
Pietro's face darkened. 'Is this some sort of rebellion?'
Inez sighed. 'Of course not. But I'd planned to move out anyway, once you and Pai started on the campaign trail.'
'Move out and go where? This is your home, Inez,' he replied.
She shook her head. 'My world doesn't begin and end in this house, Pietro. I intend to rent an apartment, get a job.'
'Then don't start by ruining yourself with Pantelides.'
Her throat clogged. 'My reputation is already in shreds after Constantine. I really have nothing left to lose.'
She turned to head up the grand staircase that led to the twin wings of their villa. Behind her, she could still hear Pietro pacing the hallway.
'This doesn't make any sense, Inez. Perhaps a good night's sleep will bring you to your senses.'
She didn't answer. Because she didn't want to waste her time telling him the decision had already been made for her.
For Theo to have gone to the effort of staging that kiss and paving the way for the lies she had to perpetuate, she knew without a shadow of a doubt that his demands were real.
He'd gone to a lot of trouble to set up tonight's meeting. She would be a fool to bait him to see if he would carry out his threat.
Her heart hammered as she undressed and stepped beneath the shower. Slowly soaping her body, she found her mind drifting back to their kiss. The incandescent delirium of it was unlike anything she'd felt before.
Her fingers touched her lips, and they tingled in remembrance.
Tomorrow she was inviting herself into the lion's den to be devoured whole for the sake of her family.
A hysterical laugh became lost in the sound of the running water.
Pietro was finally showing signs of being the brother she remembered before their mother died. Shame that she'd had to sacrifice herself on the altar of their family's prosperity before he'd come round. As for her father … sadness engulfed her at the thought that even if he knew of her sacrifice, he probably wouldn't lift a finger to shield her from it.
* * *
Theo's gaze strayed to his phone for the umpteenth time in under twenty minutes and he cursed under his breath.
He'd called Inez this morning and they'd agreed a time of eleven o'clock, two hours before he was due to sign the documents at her father's office.
It was now eleven twenty-five and there was no sign of her. No big deal. She was probably stuck in traffic. Or she hadn't left her home on time, especially if she was packing for a three-month stay.
Besides, women are always late.
Even as a child he'd known this. His mother had never been on time for a single event in her life.
His mother …
Memory rained down vicious blows that had him catching his breath. His mother, the woman who'd been nowhere in sight, either before or after he was kidnapped and held for ransom by Benedicto da Costa's vicious thugs.
For weeks after he'd been rescued and returned home, broken and devastated by his ordeal, he'd asked for his mother. Ari had made several excuses for her absence. But Theo had been unable to reconcile the fact that the mother who'd once treated him as if he'd been the centre of her world suddenly couldn't even be bothered to pick up the phone and enquire about her mentally and physically traumatised child.
No. She'd been too preoccupied with wallowing in her misery following her husband's betrayal to bother with her own children.
Ari had been the one to hold them together after their family was shattered by the press uncovering their father's many shady dealings and philandering ways.
For a very long time he'd laboured under the misconception that out of the three brothers he was the most special in their father's eyes. That just because he was the miracle baby his parents had never thought they'd have, he was their favourite. His kidnapping and what he'd uncovered since had mercilessly ripped that indulgent blindfold away.
Finding out that his father had known about Benedicto da Costa's escalating threats and that he'd done nothing to warn or protect him had forced the cruellest reality on him.
And his mother's response to all that had been to abandon him, together with her other two children, and go into hiding.
Hearing of his father's eventual death had made him even angrier at being robbed of the chance to look his father in the eye and see the monster for himself.