Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge(24)

‘We’re meeting after lunch.’

Marnie stopped walking, reaching for Nikos’s hand. Her fingers curled around his as though they belonged. Familiarity and comfort knotted through her, momentarily putting aside the nausea and anxiety that had besieged her since they’d arrived in London.

‘What is it, agape?’

A husky question. A promise, too, laced with so many emotions she couldn’t translate.

‘You know how stubborn he is?’

Nikos’s lips curled. ‘Yes.’

‘I just don’t know if he’ll let you help. And I’m... I’m scared.’

His eyes held hers, probing her, trying to read her soul. ‘Tell me something, Marnie. Why do you care?’

She started, scanning his face. But Nikos wasn’t backing off. In fact, he moved closer, welding his body to hers, linking his arms behind her back. His nearness was seductive and distracting.

‘Besides the fact he’s my father?’

‘Blood isn’t everything. Your parents don’t seem too concerned with your happiness. You’re not close to them.’

‘Of course I am,’ she said with a shake of her head.

He laughed, dismissing her assertion easily. ‘You don’t speak to them. You don’t speak of them—except with a sense of obligation and guilt because you survived and Libby died.’

She was startled at his perceptiveness.

‘You married a man who saw you only as a means of revenge in order to stave off the financial fate that they deserve.’

‘They’re my parents,’ she mumbled, her eyes flicking closed. The pain of his words was washing through her. ‘And I’m very grateful to you.’

‘Grateful?’ He stepped backwards, shaking his head. ‘Thee mou. You offer me gratitude? I tell you I see you as a means of revenge and you say thank you?’

She frowned. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘No, I don’t. You have been pushed around by your parents, and by me, and yet you seem to treat us all with civility and thankfulness. I cannot comprehend this.’

She swallowed. ‘Do you need to?’

He shook his head. ‘No.’ He lifted a hand to her cheek and stroked it. ‘And I suppose the same could be said for you.’

She pressed a hand to his chest, perhaps intending to put some distance between them, but the warmth of him, the beating of his heart, was mesmerising.

‘Do you really believe our marriage comes down to revenge and sex?’

‘Our marriage—’ He began to speak, the words thick with meaning. He stared into her eyes; he was drowning in them. They were the depths to her soul; the truth to her questions. They mirrored his past, his heart and all his hopes.

They were beautiful eyes. How could people mistake her for being cold-hearted? In her eyes there was always a twisting of emotion and thought, of kindness and concern. Yet he had missed it. He had believed her unfeeling and incapable of true emotion at one point. He’d clung to that; he’d enjoyed believing it of her.

‘Yes?’

It was a husk. An invitation for him to say something that would smooth away the pain of their predicament. A contradiction of the fact that he had bought her out of a need to avenge past wrongs.

But they were wrongs he’d carried with him for a long time. Was he willing to let them go? And, if so, what did that mean?

‘Marnie?’

The voice was shrill and imperious, cutting across the lawn and breaking through the growing understanding that had been forming between them. He was unwilling to close their conversation, but a cloud instantly seemed to spread across Marnie and she stepped back.

The woman who had pulled a sweet apple from a frothy tree and crunched into it hungrily was gone. Lady Heiress was his companion now—only her eyes showed that Marnie was still in there.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quietly, shifting her gaze to the manor house in the background. ‘I’m glad you’re going to help him. Only be gentle, Nikos. And...’ She turned to face him, hurrying now as Anne Kenington approached them. ‘I know you said you would decide if you wanted to tell him the truth about our arrangement but...’

It seemed like an age ago that they’d had that conversation, but it had only been a month! Something strange lodged in her mind—a recollection she couldn’t quite grab so she pushed it aside.

‘But could you not? Not this weekend? I know you hate him, and that it’s tempting to throw it in his face. But not now. Please?’

He stared at her without speaking and Marnie continued anxiously.

‘I don’t think I could forgive that. It would be... It really would be the end of what we used to mean to one another.’

Nikos was perplexed—and something else. Something he couldn’t analyse or comprehend. So he spoke honestly. ‘I have no intention of telling your father you married me to clear his debts.’

‘Don’t say that!’

She was visibly stricken, but Anne was almost upon them. Like a consummate professional Marnie blinked and slid her mask into place.

It annoyed him, and he wanted to prise it off again—just for a moment. He was sick and tired of masks and pretence.

‘It’s the truth,’ he replied softly, clinging to that fact for her sake as much as his own.

Did he want her to contradict him? Did he want her to redefine their marriage? How could he expect that of her? A challenge? A gauntlet? One he knew she’d never answer.

‘Isn’t it?’

* * *

Their conversation had left Nikos in a foul mood. The lack of resolution, the constant chasing one another in circles, had given him the feeling that as soon as he began to comprehend a facet of his wife she morphed into something else and slipped out of his grip and downstream from him completely.

Worse was the sense that he was losing his own convictions in the face of hers. To lose one’s sister would be hard enough, but to have your parents threaten to cut you completely from their life and support... Even Marnie, who had always seemed to have certainty and strength to her, must have been terrified of what that would mean.

How dared they? How had they dared to speak to their own child with such cold disregard?

It was not the ideal mind-set to bring to his meeting with Arthur Kenington. Nor was it the ideal backdrop. This study of Arthur’s was familiar, yet different. Since they’d stood here six years earlier many changes had taken place—not least between the two men.

The walls were filled with a collection of books, impressive volumes that had never been thumbed—perhaps carefully selected by an interior designer who had chosen the titles because they would add gravitas to a man who was otherwise lacking in it—there was an elegant liquor tray that looked to be well-used, and a family photograph that was framed above Arthur’s desk.

Arthur and Anne had barely aged, though Libby and Marnie looked much younger, so the picture must have been taken at least a decade earlier.

Arthur caught Nikos’s gaze and grimaced. ‘Our last family photo. We used to get them done every year until...we lost her.’ He coughed, his slight paunch wobbling a little with the involuntary spasm. ‘It didn’t make much sense after that.’

Nikos didn’t respond. Marnie and Libby stood at the foreground of the photo, Libby’s arm wrapped around her sister’s shoulders. There was an air of genuine affection between the girls: a sign of true camaraderie. Perhaps it had developed as a result of this environment?

‘She was such an angel,’ Arthur continued, perhaps misunderstanding Nikos’s interest. ‘Not a girl in the world like her.’

Nikos felt a possessive protective instinct flash in his gut. Yes, Libby had been lovely. And beautiful in a way that was ordinary and common. Unlike Marnie, with her steely, watchful gaze and determined little chin. Her reserve that made it difficult for her to speak to people unless she really, truly admired them.

‘We need to discuss your business,’ Nikos said sharply, not wishing to wander down Arthur’s Libby-paved Memory Lane a moment longer. ‘My information on your situation has me...concerned.’

‘And what information is that?’

Nikos leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. ‘It is no secret. You are out of immediate danger, but that is only temporary.’

‘I don’t believe that.’

‘Then you are a fool.’ Nikos spoke sharply.

Six years had passed since their last private conversation, and in that time Nikos had become used to having the world obey him. Deference generally met his commands—not dithering indecision.

‘Do you want to lose it all, Arthur?’

‘Of course I don’t. But it won’t come to that. Mark my words, there’ll be—’

‘Nothing.’ Nikos eased back in his chair. ‘You are overcommitted. There are no more assets left to shore your interests up and the market continues to fluctuate wildly. I am your only chance.’

The silence sparked between them. It was electrified by resentment.

‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’

Nikos didn’t pretend to misunderstand; his smile was thin and unknowingly filled with disparagement. ‘How I feel isn’t relevant,’ he said finally.

Strangely, he wasn’t enjoying it. He had spent a long time imagining a situation like this. How good it would feel to throw his own success in Arthur Kenington’s face. A man who had told him he would never amount to anything! He’d fantasised about it, and he’d done everything he could—even sacrificing his conscience—to achieve this moment.