Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge(19)

Anderson rubbed a hand over his chin. ‘They’re wrong to compare the two of you. There’s too many differences for it to make sense.’

Colour flashed in Marnie’s cheeks. ‘Thanks,’ she said, with a hint of sarcasm.

‘I wasn’t being offensive,’ he clarified quickly. ‘Libby used to laugh and say that you and she were chalk and cheese. But that you were her favourite of all the cheeses in the world.’

Marnie’s smile was nostalgic. ‘I used to tell her that she was cheese and I was chalk. Doesn’t that make more sense? She was sweet and more-ish and fair, and I’m a little...thin and brittle.’ Her laugh covered a lifetime of insecurity.

‘Don’t do that,’ Anderson said with frustration. ‘She wouldn’t want you to do that. She wasn’t vain and she wasn’t self-interested and she adored you. I know Arthur and Anne have always made you feel wanting, but that’s not a true reflection. You owe it to Libby not to perpetuate that silliness.’

Marnie bit back the comments that were filling her mind. It was all too easy to justify her sense of inferiority, but with Anderson she didn’t want to argue. ‘I’m glad to see you,’ she said finally.

‘And I’m thrilled you and Nikos worked everything out. I know he never got over you.’

Marnie’s eyes flew to Anderson’s, confusion obvious in her features. Was it possible that even Anderson didn’t know the true reason for their hasty wedding?

‘Don’t look so surprised,’ Anderson said, sipping his drink. ‘He might have played the part of bachelor to perfection but it was always you, Marnie. You’re why he did all this.’

She shook her head in silent rejection of the idea, but Anderson continued unchecked. ‘One night, not long after you guys broke up, he had far too much of my father’s Scotch and told me that he’d earn his fortune and then win you back.’

‘I can’t imagine Nikos saying that.’ But her heart was soaking in the words, buoying itself up with the hope that perhaps he did love her; that he had missed her.

‘Oh, he talked about you all night. How you would only ever be serious about a guy like me. A guy with land and a title. He was determined to prove himself to you before he came back and won you over.’ He laughed. ‘If you ask me, he went a little far. I mean...a million would have done, right?’

Her smile was lacking warmth. She focussed her gaze on the gentle undulations of the water beneath the boat, her mind absorbing this information. ‘It was never about money,’ she said gently.

‘Oh, I know that. I told him that a thousand times. But he didn’t get it.’ Anderson drained his champagne. ‘Until you see first-hand the uniquely messed-up way Arthur and Anne made you girls feel you can’t really understand a thing about you. Right?’

Startled, she spun to face him. Her breath was burning in her lungs and she wasn’t sure what to say.

‘You think you’re the only one who had them in your head? Libby almost didn’t agree to marry me because she knew how happy it would make them. She was so sick of living up to their expectations that she said she wanted desperately to do the wrong thing—just once.’

‘I can’t believe it,’ Marnie whispered, squeezing her eyes shut as she thought of Libby. ‘She was the golden girl, and I never thought that bothered her.’

‘It was a big mantle to wear,’ he said simply.

Marnie expelled a soft breath and looked away. The breeze drifted some of her hair loose and she absentmindedly reached for it, tucking it back in place. ‘I miss her so much,’ she said finally.

Anderson was quiet for so long that Marnie wasn’t sure he’d even heard her, or that she’d said the words aloud. Then, finally, he nodded and his voice cracked. ‘Me, too.’

She wrapped her arms around him spontaneously, knowing that he understood her grief. That even years after losing Libby he stood before her a man as bereft now as he had been then.

* * *

From a distance they looked like a couple, he thought. The perfect blue-blooded pair. She with her couture gown and her swan-like neck angled towards Anderson’s cheek. Her manicured hand resting on his hip, her flawless arm around his back.

His wife was beautiful, but in this environment, surrounded by Europe’s financial elite, she was showcased to perfection—because she was at home. She was completely comfortable, whereas he felt the prestige like a knife in his side.

‘If I did not trust you with my life I would be jealous of this little scene.’

Nikos’s accented voice sent shivers of sensual awareness down Marnie’s spine. She lifted away from Anderson, her eyes suspiciously moist. It caught Nikos’s attention instantly. He looked from his wife to his friend, a frown on his face and a chasm in his chest.

‘You are upset?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘No. This is my happy face.’

He sent her a warning look that was somewhat softened when he reached into his pocket and removed a cloth handkerchief. She took it with genuine surprise at the sweetness of the gesture, dabbing at the corners of her eyes so as not to ruin her eye make-up.

‘We were just reminiscing,’ Anderson said simply.

Though he was subdued, he appeared to have largely regained control of his emotions.

‘Your father was asking for you,’ Nikos said to his friend.

‘Bertram is here?’ Marnie asked, a smile shifting her lips as she thought of the elder statesman. It transformed her face in an expression of such delicate beauty that Nikos had to stifle a sharp intake of breath.

‘Yeah.’ Anderson extended a hand and shook Nikos’s. ‘But I suspect your groom just doesn’t want me monopolising you any longer.’

He winked at Marnie, obviously intending to make a swift departure.

She put a hand on his forearm to forestall him. ‘Are you in Greece much longer? Will you come for dinner?’

‘I’d love that,’ Anderson said honestly. ‘But we fly out tomorrow.’

Marnie’s smile was wistful. ‘Another time?’

‘Sure.’ He leaned forward and kissed her cheek, then winked at Nikos.

Alone with her husband, and the hundreds of other partygoers, Marnie felt her air of relaxation disappear. She reached for the railing, gripping it until her knuckles turned white. ‘Are you having a good time?’ she asked stiffly, her eyes seeking a fixed point on which to focus.

‘It is good business for me to be here,’ he said, lifting his broad shoulders carelessly.

‘I wouldn’t have thought your business required this sort of schmoozing.’

‘That is true,’ he said simply. ‘But I do not intend to grow complacent in light of my success.’

She nodded, adding that little soundbite to the dossier of information she’d been building on him: Nikos: V 2.0.

This Nikos was determined to prove himself to the world—or was Anderson right? Was it that he wanted to prove himself to her? To prove that he deserved her?

No, that couldn’t be it.

Had it not been for Arthur’s financial ruin, Nikos would never have reappeared in her life.

‘He might have played the part of a bachelor to perfection...’ Anderson had said, and it had been an enormous understatement. Nikos had dedicated himself to the single life with aplomb. She’d lost count of the number of women he’d been reputed to be dating. And even ‘dating’ was over-egging it somewhat.

The women never lasted long, but that didn’t matter. Each of those women had shared a part of Nikos that Marnie had been denied—a part that she’d denied herself.

Her eyes narrowed as she turned to study her husband. He’d followed her gaze and his eyes were trained on the mainland, giving her a moment to drink in his autocratic profile, the swarthy complexion and beautiful cheekbones that might well have been slashed from stone.

‘Do you see that light over there?’

She followed the direction he was pointing in, squinting into the distance. There was a small glow visible in the cliffs near the sea. ‘The hut?’ she asked.

‘Yes. It is a hut.’ His sneer was not aimed at her; it showed agreement. He pinned her with his gaze; it was hard like gravel. ‘That is where I spent the first eight years of my life.’

‘Oh!’ She resettled her attention on him, curiosity swelling in her chest, for Nikos had never opened up about his childhood even when they’d been madly in love. ‘Is it?’ She strained to pick out any details, but it was too far away. ‘What’s it like? Is it part of a town?’

‘A town? No. There were four huts when I was growing up.’ He gripped the railing tight. ‘Two rooms only.’

She didn’t want to say anything that might cause him to stop speaking. ‘Did you like it?’

‘Like it?’ He lifted his lips in a humourless smile. ‘It was a very free childhood.’

‘Oh?’

‘My father had a trawler. He came out here every day.’

‘Squid?’

He nodded. ‘Scampi, too.’

‘You said you lived there until you were eight. What happened?’

He tilted his head to face her, his expression derisive. ‘There was a storm. He died.’

‘Nikos!’ Sympathy softened her expression, but she saw immediately how unwelcome it was.