Chapter 2
For a second, Anna said nothing. She couldn't, not with the boulder that suddenly seemed to be choking her from the inside out, squeezing the life out of her shocked body that had suddenly gone numb.
She didn't notice anything around her but the sharp green eyes of the man standing in front of her, looking at her with the eyes of a lover, yet his hard mouth tightened like that of a cold predator.
"Kardoula mou... my sweet one, it seems you're not happy to see me," he challenged her, with those words and a smile that seemed to burn a big, wide hole through Anna's already broken heart. 'Oh! Why the hell does he do this to me?' she cried inwardly.
"What did you expect, Mr. Kozakis? That after... after..." Her words faltered for a second. "What you did to me, I would open my arms to welcome you?" She completed the sentence in a tight voice, trying and failing to keep her tumultuous emotions under control.
"I am seeing my wife after almost a year. Is a hug and a kiss too much to ask for?" He was goading her again, and she knew it, but a surge of anger overwhelmed her anyway!
"I am not your wife anymore, Mr. Kozakis, so please refrain from making such personal comments!" She spoke sharply, completely unaware of the fact that she was causing a scene right in the middle of her office building's lounge.
All eyes in the vicinity, including those of the receptionist, were now glued to the ongoing drama, their ears straining to catch every little whisper and sound.
"I see... even after a year apart, your ice barricades haven't melted yet, Kardoula mou..." He looked at her with a faint hint of aversion.
It was like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull. She felt enraged. 'How arrogant can a man be? A year ago, she had barely escaped the cell where he had locked her away - in his ancestral castle in Greece... after marrying her, then discarding her like a used toy that no longer interested him.
And as if that hadn't been enough... he had then committed the most despicable act ever, by taking another lover to his bed and keeping that woman as his mistress in his city apartment. Spending night after night with that woman, while SHE – his wife – remained in his home, waiting for him in the empty castle, like a lost soul!
"I don’t ever—" But she was cut off mid-sentence as Eros Kozakis interjected in a very patronizing tone. "Do you really wish to air our dirty laundry in the middle of the street, Gynaika mou?"
"Stop calling me that!" she fired back, now painfully aware that they were indeed standing in a very public place, her workplace no less, and all these people casting odd glances their way were also her colleagues.
"I don’t know why you're here, but I never want to see you again. Understand that, Mr. Kozakis, and please leave!" She snapped in a tight, controlled voice that betrayed none of the boiling hatred and bitterness coursing through her veins for him.
She was ready to turn around and run. Run as if her life depended on it because she couldn't fathom him coming here, wasting his time just to see her.
He was here with an agenda! She was certain of that, just as certain as she was that it wouldn't bode well for her.
She had barely turned around when the elevator doors opened once again, and Nancy, along with the coordinators and a few others who had been present during the rehearsals, stepped out.
'This is it!' Anna thought. 'Her best chance to escape this man!'
"Anna!" For the first time in all this while, he called her by her name instead of using those hollow Greek endearments. Words of affection that once melted her heart now only grated against her skin. Because she knew they were all lies!
"Take another step forward, and I'll ensure you never see your little brother again!"
She shivered, a sense of foreboding settling in the pit of her stomach like a coiled cobra, its fangs bared, ready to strike.
As much as she wanted to dismiss his horrible words, she knew without a doubt that Eros Kozakis didn't make empty threats. He was capable of anything! And if he was threatening her with her brother's life, then certainly—he knew something. Something he could hold over her little brother Daniel!
"What are you talking about?" She had intended to say it with an air of indifference, to show him once and for all that she didn't care one way or the other. But her attempt failed spectacularly, as her voice emerged in a squeak that betrayed her uncertainty and fear.
And like a man-eating shark smells blood, Eros Kozakis had smelled that fear too, coming out of her in spades. She was afraid for her brother but didn’t realize that she should be more afraid for herself than for that little jerk.
Because this time, he was determined to have Anna Miller for himself.
He would whisk her back into his bed where she belonged, her lithe body thrumming with uncontrollable passion beneath him, as he surged inside her over and over again, to satiate the unquenchable fire that burned between them.
He would keep her barefoot and pregnant for the next few years, until she gave him a few children and until the idea of ever leaving him was completely and utterly eroded out of her mind!
She was now looking at him, with those dark, pool-like eyes, wide like a deer's in headlights, and he felt the familiar stirring in his loins and the instant hardening between his legs that made him want to drag her away into his hotel room, downtown, and quench the thirst she had denied him for the last twelve months.
'But this was not the time,' he told himself. He would have to wait a few more hours before making love to his wife. Plus, patience in such circumstances only made the result all the more satisfactory in bed.
'Come now, my sweet...' he murmured with a smile. 'We need to talk...'