Free Alien Vengeance by Sara Craven

merely turning and almost stumbling in her haste to get downstairs.
    By the time he joined her on the terrace, she had almost regained what rags of composure were left to her.
    His eyes flicked over her, travelling frowningly from her aloof expression to the empty plate in front of her.
    He said, ‘The bread is good, Gemma. Take some.’
    ‘I’m not hungry,’ she informed him defiantly.
    ‘Nevertheless, you must eat, or you will make yourself ill.’ There was a steely note in his voice.
    Gemma raised her eyebrows. ‘Yet only twenty-four hours ago you were threatening to let me starve.’
    ‘It still seems to have much to recommend it,’ he said grimly. ‘However, I have allowed humanitarian counsels to prevail. Besides,’ he added with a shrug, ‘a girl weak from hunger is unlikely to prove very stimulating as a companion in bed.’
    Gemma’s lips tightened. She was incredibly hungry—the sun, the air, the appealing fragrance of the bread all putting an extra edge on to her normally healthy appetite. Now, she was damned if she would eat as much as a crumb in front of him.
    She said glacially, ‘But then providing you with that kind of entertainment is the last thing I have in mind.’
    ‘So—what is the first?’ He sounded politely interested, no more.
    ‘Getting out of here,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And putting you in jail where you belong.’
    ‘An ambitious scheme.’ He didn’t sound particularly perturbed. He spread jam on to a slice of bread and ate it with every appearance of enjoyment.
    ‘But not an impossible one.’ She hesitated. ‘After all, you can’t hope to get away with this. I’m not completely alone in the world. I have a return flight to take—a job at home in England— my family. If I don’t return when I’m supposed to, then enquiries will be made. You must see that.’
    He shrugged, ‘And when these enquiries are made, Gemma mou , what will be discovered? That you were here with me. That we were lovers. It is a story as old as time, and will surprise no one— except, perhaps, your family, and it is my intention that they should suffer through your dishonour anyway.’
    Her voice thickened. ‘They don’t deserve that.’
    ‘Nor did Stavros and his wife,’ he said coldly. ‘It is something this brother of yours should have considered before he seduced Maria.’
    She lifted her chin. ‘So—what would satisfy them? If Mike married her?’
    ‘Do you think that is likely?’
    Gemma bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said honestly after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s still a student. He can’t afford to get married to anyone for several years yet. Although I suppose he’ll have to contribute something to the baby’s support,’ she added frowning. She was silent for a few moments, staring down at the empty plate in front of her, tracing its pattern with her forefinger. Then she said, her voice unsteady, ‘If you’re determined to punish Mike through me, can’t you leave it at that?’
    ‘I’m not sure I understand you.’ He drank some coffee.
    The colour deepened painfully in her face. ‘If I—agree to—to let you do what you want to me, will you let me go afterwards—when it’s over?’
    His mouth twisted wryly. ‘I have had more beguiling invitations, matia mou . Why should I agree to any such thing?’
    ‘I’ve told you—I have a life in England to return to—a career. I want to get back to them,’ she said fiercely.
    ‘And a man too, perhaps?’
    The words of denial were already quivering on her lips, when Gemma scented danger in the apparently idle question.
    She said, ‘That’s none of your concern.’
    ‘You think not? Yet I am naturally interested to know whether you will come to me a virgin, or some other’s willing pupil.’
    She tried for nonchalance. ‘Of course there have been men.’ She shrugged. ‘As you’ve implied yourself, things are different in England. We—we don’t lead the same sheltered lives as your