Free The Highest Stakes of All by Sara Craven Page B

winced but did not release his grip. ‘Leave me alone, damn you. You can’t do this.’
    ‘Kyrios Gordanis’ order were quite clear, thespinis. Fighting will not help you. I advise calm.’
    She said between her teeth, ‘To hell with calm.’
    As the lift stopped and the doors opened, Joanna opened her mouth in the hope of attracting attention. But before she could make a sound …
    ‘I regret this necessity.’ Stavros sounded almost gloomy. ‘But you have brought it upon yourself.’
    The next instant he’d hoisted her over his shoulder as if she was a roll of carpet and was carrying her, squirming but helpless, down the passage towards the metal door at the end.
    She was crying with rage and frustration, but suddenly, absurdly, she was thankful, too, that her indecently minimal attire was at least covered by the trench coat.
    Her kidnapper had thought of everything, she stormed inwardly. Stayed one jump ahead of her all the time, as if they’d known each other for years and he could read her mind.
    They were outside now, following some narrow path which, she guessed despairingly, must lead down to one of the side gates. So any remaining hope she might have had that their progress might be challenged was fading fast.
    Being carried along like this with her head dangling was increasing her feeling of nausea, so it was a genuine relief to be set on her feet again.
    Stavros walked to the rear passenger door of a dark saloon car and opened it. ‘Conduct yourself quietly, thespinis, and all will be well. We have no wish to shame you.’
    Was he being ironic? Joanna wondered wildly. Or did he have no idea of the real shame awaiting her on Pellas?
    For a long moment she hesitated defiantly, then, with a reluctant nod, got into the car, shrinking into the corner as Stavros joined her.
    As the vehicle moved off, she allowed herself a last, brief assessment of her chances if she were to jump out, but decided they were not worth considering. Even if the doors were unlocked, she would simply be retrieved and they would drive on.
    No, she thought. Her best chance was to get away from Pellas itself before its master returned.
    Not everyone in the world would be falling over themselves to do his bidding. Anyone as arrogant, autocratic and ruthless was bound to have enemies, even on his private island.
    All she had to do was find one of those enemies and promise a reward for her successful escape. Her father would not be able to pay, but Uncle Martin surely would, although the prospect of telling him and Aunt Sylvie about the turn her life had taken since leaving England made her shrink inside.
    But it was still better than the alternative, she reminded herself grimly.
    Anything was better than that.
    She sat, her hands folded in her lap, staring out at the darkness, as she tried again to rationalise what had happened. To work out why Vassos Gordanis had singled her out from the rest of female humanity and was hell-bent on wrecking her life in this hideous way.
    And it wasn’t enough to tell herself that he’d simply made a terrible, disastrous mistake.
    Another score to settle …
    That was what he’d said.
    Or did you think you had got away with it?
    And he’d said something else—in Greek, although she’d only picked up on the word petros which, she remembered from her RE lessons, meant ‘rock', as well as being a man’s name. A play on words, she thought. That was it.
    ‘Thou art Peter and on this rock …’
    And she stopped right there, with a sudden painful lurch of the heart. For Petros, she thought, substitute Peter.
    She closed her eyes, shivering. Because she’d only known one Peter. The boy she’d met so briefly and disastrously in Australia last year. Not all that tall, she thought, with hair verging on sandy and dark brown eyes. Quite good-looking, and much too aware of it. Full of himself in other ways as well, constantly boasting about contacts, deals, and all the money he was carrying to make