Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge(3)

He didn’t challenge her; there was no need.

‘And that is just to start,’ he confirmed with a small nod. ‘But if you want to leave...’ He waved a hand towards the door, as though he didn’t give a damn what she chose to do.

Marnie toyed with the ring again, her eyes studying its gentle golden crenulations before shifting their focus back to his face. ‘So? What’s your interest in my father’s business?’

‘His business?’ Nikos’s laugh was short and sharp. ‘I have no interest in that.’

Marnie’s eyes knitted together, confusion obvious on her features. Even her hair looked uptight, knotted into that style. Her hands, her nails, her perfectly made-up face: she was the picture of stylish grace, just as her parents had always intended her to be.

‘I presume you called me here because you have a plan.’ She pinned him with her golden-brown eyes until the sensation overpowered her. ‘I wish you’d stop prevaricating and just tell me.’

His smile was not one of happiness. ‘You are hardly in a position to issue commands to me.’

Marnie’s face lifted to his in surprise. ‘That’s not what I was doing.’ She shook her head timidly from side to side. ‘I didn’t mean to, anyway. It’s just...please. Tell me everything.’

He shrugged. ‘Bad decisions. Bad investments. Bad business.’ He pressed back further in his chair, the intensity of his fierce gaze sending sharp arrows of awareness and emotion through her blood. ‘The why of it doesn’t matter.’

‘It matters to me.’

He spoke on as though she hadn’t. His eyes bored into hers. ‘I believe there are not ten people in the world who would find themselves in a financial position to help your father. Even fewer who would have any motivation to do so.’

Marnie bit down on her lower lip, trying desperately to think of anyone who might have enough liquidity to inject some cash into her father’s crumbling empire.

Only one man came to mind, and he was staring at her in a way that was turning her mind to mush.

Unable to sit still for a moment longer, Marnie scraped her chair back and stalked to the window. London vibrated beneath them: a collection of cars and souls all going about their own lives, threading together into one enormous carpet of activity. She felt as if she’d been plucked out of the fibres and placed here instead, in a madhouse.

‘Dad’s never been your favourite person,’ she said softly. ‘How do I know you’re not making this up for some cruel reason of your own?’

‘Your father’s demise is not a well-kept secret, matakia mou. Anderson told me.’

‘Anderson?’ The name was like a knife in her gut. She thought of Libby’s fiancé with the shock of grief that always accompanied anything to do with her sister. With Before.

‘We’re still in touch,’ he said with a shrug, as if that wasn’t important.

‘He knows about this?’ She thought of Anderson Holt’s family, the fortune they possessed. Maybe they could help? She dismissed the thought instantly. A hundred million pounds—cash—was beyond most people’s capabilities. Besides, Arthur Kenington would never let himself be bailed out.

‘It is no secret,’ Nikos said, misunderstanding her question. ‘I imagine the whole city knows the truth of your father’s position.’

Her spine stiffened and sorrow for the man who had raised her pushed all thoughts of her late sister’s fiancé from her mind. She blinked quickly, denying the sting of tears that was threatening. She was not willing to show such weakness in front of anyone, let alone Nikos.

‘He has seemed stressed lately,’ she conceded awkwardly, keeping her vision focussed on the buzz of activity at street level.

‘I can well imagine. The idea of losing his life’s work and the legacy of his forebears will be weighing heavily on his conscience. Not to mention his monumental ego.’

She let the barb go by. Her mind was completely absorbed with trying to make sense of this information. ‘I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have said anything.’

‘Don’t you?’ His eyes flashed with anger and resentment as his last conversation with Lord Arthur Kenington came to mind. ‘The man prides himself on shielding you from the world. He would do anything to spare you the pain of actually inhabiting reality with the rest of us.’

‘You call this reality?’ she quipped, flicking a disapproving glance around the cavernous glass office decorated with modern art masterpieces and furniture that would have looked at home in a gallery.

A muscle jerked in his cheek and Marnie wished she could pull those words back. Who was she to sit in judgement of his success? She didn’t know the details, but she knew enough of his childhood to realise that if anyone on earth understood poverty it was Nikos.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, lifting a finger to her temple and rubbing at it. ‘None of this is your fault.’

A pang of something a lot like sympathy squeezed in Nikos’s gut. Recognising that she could still evoke those emotions in him, he consciously pushed aside any softening towards her.

‘No.’ He rubbed a hand across his stubbled jaw. ‘He stands to lose it all, Marnie. His investments. His reputation. Kenington Hall. He will be a cautionary tale at best, a laughing stock more likely.’

‘Don’t...’ She shivered, thinking of what her parents had already suffered and lost in life. The thought of them enduring yet another tragedy weighed so heavily on her chest she could hardly breathe.

‘I would be lying if I said I’m not a little tempted to leave him to his fate. A fate that, as it turns out, is not at all dissimilar to what he predicted for me.’

A shiver ran down her spine. ‘You’re still angry about that?’

His eyes flashed. ‘Angry? No. Disgusted? Yes.’ He dragged a hand through his hair, as though mentally shaking himself. ‘He would spend a lifetime repaying his creditors.’

Nikos was conscious that he was driving a proverbial knife into her. He didn’t stop.

‘Some of his decisions might even be seen as criminally negligent.’

‘Oh, my God, Nikos, don’t.’ She spun to face him; it was like being hit with a sledgehammer.

He ground his teeth, refusing to feel sympathy for her even when her world was shattering. ‘It is the truth. Would you prefer I’d said nothing?’

When she spoke her voice was hoarse, momentarily weakened by the strength of her feelings. ‘Does this bring you pleasure? Did you bring me here to gloat?’

‘To gloat?’ His smile was like a wolf’s. ‘No.’

‘Well? Then what do you want? Why are you telling me any of this?’

A muscle jerked in his cheek. ‘I could alleviate all of your father’s problems, you know.’

Hope, a fragile bird, fluttered in her gut. ‘Yes?’

‘It would not be difficult for me to fix this,’ he said with a shrug.

Marnie’s head spun at the ease of his declaration. ‘Even a hundred million pounds?’

‘I am a wealthy man. Do you not read the papers?’

‘God, Nikos.’ Relief was so palpable that she didn’t even acknowledge the insult. Hope loomed. ‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘Delay your gratitude until you have considered the terms.’

‘The terms?’ Her brows drew together in confusion.

‘I have the means to help your father, but not yet the inducement.’

Aware she was parroting, she murmured, ‘What inducement?’

The breath burned in her lungs. Her heart was hammering so hard in her chest that she thought it might break free and make a bid for freedom. Tension was a rope, twisting around them. She waited on tenterhooks that seemed to have sharp gnashing teeth.

‘You, Marnie.’ His dark voice was at its arrogant best. ‘As my wife. Marry me and I will help him.’





CHAPTER TWO

SHE’D NEVER UNDERSTOOD how silence could vibrate until that moment. The very air they breathed seemed as if it was alive, crackling and humming around them. His words were little daggers, floating through the atmosphere, jabbing at her heart, her soul, her brain, her mind.

‘Marry me and I will help him.’

Only the sound of her heavy breathing perforated the air. For support, she pressed back against the glass window. It was warmed by the sun.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said finally, squeezing her eyes shut. Every fibre of her being instantly rejected the idea.

Or did it?

Briefly, childish fantasies bubbled inside her, spreading the kind of pleasure she’d once revelled in freely.

When she blinked a moment later, Nikos was holding a glass of water just in front of her. She took it and drank gratefully, her throat parched.

‘It is not a difficult equation. Marriage to me in exchange for a sum of money that will answer your father’s debts.’

‘That makes no sense,’ she contradicted flatly.

‘No?’

‘No!’

It seemed like the right reaction. It was an absurd proposal, after all. Wasn’t it? She should have felt panicked by the very idea. And perhaps a part of her did. This was the man who had disappeared from her life but never fully from her heart.

But panic and wariness were only tiny components of her emotional tangle. Hope and an intense flare of passionate resonance also filled her.