Alien Vengeance by Sara Craven Page B

sound of the shower from his room, and the silence when it ceased. Later, she’d heard the door of his room open, and his footsteps and in spite of herself, she’d shrunk back on the bed, staring at the door, anticipating its opening. But he’d walked past, without even the slightest hesitation, and gone downstairs.
    That had been nearly twenty minutes ago, and now the delicious aroma of grilling meat was floating up to her, reminding her with potent cruelty just how long ago it was since she’d eaten that sandwich.
    Gemma licked her lips. There was little point in remaining where she was, cowering in a corner until he chose to come for her, especially when she had no means of keeping him away. She’d even tried to shift the chest of drawers to block the door, but it had been too heavy for her, and she hadn’t been able to budge it by as much as an inch.
    All she could do was go downstairs and hope somehow to find a way to persuade him to give her some further respite. She bit her lip nervously. Probably it hadn’t been very wise to make him angry, to have thrown an expensive gift literally back in his face, but she couldn’t honestly say she regretted it, she thought fiercely, her hands curling into claws. And anyway, it was safer to be on hostile terms with him. She could fight his anger with her own. It was when his voice gentled— when he came close to her—touched her—that he was most dangerous.
    She shuddered, remembering the moment when he’d picked her up from the bathroom floor, his hands momentarily grazing her breasts as he did so. He hadn’t even intended a caress, yet the shock of it had shaken her as if the earth had moved under her feet.
    If she kept him angry, perhaps she could also keep him at arm’s length, she thought.
    The door to his room was ajar, and he’d left the lamp burning on the chest of drawers. Gemma paused, wondering whether she should extinguish it, and then she saw the bunch of keys lying next to it. Car keys, she thought incredulously. The keys to the jeep, there for the taking. She was already stretching out her hand, when she remembered she had no pockets to hide them in. Besides, if she took them now, and hid them in her own room, he might miss them. Whereas, if she left them where they were for the time being, and took them while he was asleep as she’d planned originally, then the first he’d know about it was when he awoke the next day, and found her gone and the jeep too.
    But she was sorely tempted to grab the whole bunch and make a dash for it here and now. The main problem was still Cerberus. She hadn’t heard a yelp out of him since Andreas had returned, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t lurking about downstairs, just waiting for her to make one false move.
    And when she got downstairs, and realised that Andreas himself was on the terrace, cooking steaks on a charcoal grill, she was more than ever thankful that she’d decided to wait.
    He had his back turned to her, seemingly intent on his task, but as she got to the doorway, he said coolly, ‘ Kalispera .’
    Gemma swallowed. ‘Good evening,’ she returned with an assumption of calmness.
    ‘The food is nearly ready.’ He gestured towards the table where a salad and a bottle of red wine were already waiting.
    ‘So I see.’ She paused. ‘I gather I’ve been demoted from chef.’
    He gave her an enigmatic look. ‘Some of your recipes are a little too ingenious, matia mou . Who knows? You might have gone wandering in the hills today and found some hemlock.’
    ‘With the Hound of the Baskervilles to keep me company?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Even I’m not that ingenious, kyrie . And where is Cerberus, by the way?’
    ‘He has gone back to his master,’ he said, ‘who lives in the village, not the Underworld. You miss the dog perhaps? You would like to have him as a pet while you are here?’
    ‘I can think of only a few things I would like less,’ Gemma said, still sweetly.
    ‘And I’m sure I