Theron also stood. “Where are you going, brother?”
“I’m going to find out if what I suspect is true,” he said in a dangerously low voice.
“Chrysander, wait.”
Chrysander paused and stared back at his brother.
“You should call the authorities. If you confront her and gain a confession, it won’t do any good. Only you will know.”
Chrysander clenched his fists in frustration, but he knew his brother was right. He didn’t want Roslyn to get away with what she’d done. He could make her life miserable, but she would still be free. He wanted justice.
Chrysander paced the confines of his New York office as he waited for Roslyn to arrive. He didn’t want to be here. He wanted to be with Marley. Theron had stayed with her, and Chrysander simmered with impatience. Her condition hadn’t changed. Even when she’d awakened, she’d been distant, unfocused, there but not there. It was as if she’d gone to a place where he couldn’t hurt her anymore.
He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the task at hand. When he heard Roslyn enter, he stiffened. It was all he could do not to rage at her, not to break her skinny neck. It took everything he had to smile and act as though nothing was wrong, as though he didn’t loathe the very ground she walked on.
“You wanted to see me?” Roslyn said breathlessly.
“I did,” Chrysander murmured. He let his gaze run suggestively over her body even as his flesh crawled.
Her eyes brightened, and her stance immediately became suggestive.
“I’ve only just become aware of the lengths to which you went to try and get my attention,” he said with a chuckle. “Men can be thick, so you women say, but I think maybe I was thicker than most.”
Confusion rippled across her face, and she struggled to retain a look of innocence. She couldn’t be sure what he was talking about yet, but it would soon be clear. He watched her body language, her eyes, the windows into the soulless bitch that she was.
“Why did you not just say you wanted me?” he purred. “It would have saved us a lot of trouble. Instead, I was trapped in a relationship I didn’t want, though I appreciate the efforts you made to rid me of that problem.”
Roslyn relaxed, and a cold smile flashed across her face. It was strange, but Chrysander had never realized just how ugly she was.
“How did you arrange it?” he asked silkily.
He listened in horror as she outlined what she’d done to make it appear as though Marley had stolen the plans. The kidnapping had been an added bonus, but when she’d received the ransom demand at his office, she’d seen her opportunity to be rid of Marley once and for all.
So anxious was she to prove her devotion to Chrysander, that she didn’t realize she’d admitted to selling his plans to his competitor.
“So you stole the plans and gave them to Marcelli.” His voice was like ice, and she flinched at his tone. Her face whitened as she realized just what she’d confessed to.
“You then framed Marley, thinking not only would you have the proceeds from selling me out to my competitor, but then you would have Marley out of the way so you could move into her place.”
Her mouth opened and closed, and he could see the realization settle in that he’d duped her and was furious.
“And then when the ransom demands were delivered to my office, you destroyed them, hoping what, Roslyn, that they would kill her? Permanently remove her from the picture?”
He was shaking he was so angry. She simmered before him in a red haze. All he could see was Marley alone and frightened. Pregnant with his child and vulnerable. Thinking that not only did he hate her but that he’d simply left her to her fate. He wanted to weep.
Roslyn seemed to recover her composure, and she looked scornfully at him. “You’ll never prove it.”
“I don’t have to,” he said softly. He pressed the small intercom button on his desk. “You may come in now, Detective.”
Roslyn swayed as three policemen entered the room, their expressions grim.
“You can’t do this!” she shrieked. “I love you, Chrysander. I would have done anything for you.”
He shook his head and turned away from her rantings as she was escorted away in handcuffs. He had no desire to listen to her. He wanted to return to Marley.
“Forgive me,agape mou,” he whispered.
Marley was dimly aware that she was being carried yet again. It wasn’t Chrysander. She was intimately familiar with his touch. For a moment she panicked, and then she heard comforting words being spoken in Greek and then in English.
