Begging Lukas for the money for Edward’s surgery was now her only chance. Getting caught up in his kisses and forgetting the endgame certainly wasn’t part of her plan.
‘I have to ask you...’ She faltered.
It was crazy how much she wanted to swallow the words down, stuff them away and simply enjoy this one night with Lukas. To let him show her what she’d been saving herself for all these years.
But Edward and his needs were supposed to be the entire reason she had gone through with this charade. With everything that her brother had put up with these past few years, was she really selfish enough to put a few hours of carnal lust ahead of what might save Edward’s life?
Struggling to a more upright position, acutely aware that she was naked from the waist up, Oti kept her arms around Lukas’s neck, as if that could somehow afford her a little dignity.
What if she told him the truth? Maybe she could appeal to his sense of decency. He certainly had some—more than she’d initially given him credit for, and certainly more than her father had ever had.
But what if he used it as leverage against her, just as her own father had done? Could she really trust a man she barely knew, just because he made her body come alive in a way that she hadn’t known it was capable of doing?
‘What is it, Octavia?’ Lukas demanded, and his concern only added to her guilt.
‘I need to ask you a favour,’ she began, flicking out her tongue in a fruitless effort to moisten her suddenly dry lips.
Beneath her, Lukas had grown still, tense, his hooded eyes disguising his reaction from her. But she forced herself to carry on.
‘Like you said, consummation wasn’t part of the deal you made with my father.’
‘The deal?’ Lukas echoed, and she knew she didn’t imagine the mounting fury in his tone.
Still, she pressed on. For Edward.
‘Yes, the deal. You got my brother’s company, my father got money and he got to wash his hands of me. But now it’s my turn.’
‘Your turn?’
There was no doubting his expression of disgust. Unlinking her hands from around him, he thrust her away and onto the couch, hardly able to get away from her any faster.
‘I want to come out of this with something too.’
‘Is that what this was all about?’ he spat out. ‘Money?’
‘No,’ she cried instinctively, before realising her mistake. ‘Yes, but...for a good reason.’
Misery racked her.
‘Save it, Octavia.’ His voice was harsh, and it seemed to claw at her from the inside out. ‘You really are your father’s daughter now. Save the excuses, however. I don’t want to hear them. How much?’
‘Lukas...please...’
‘How much?’ he repeated, and she didn’t dare argue again.
She named a sum that she knew would cover the cost of the operation, not a penny more, and couldn’t stop herself from lamenting the fact that if her father had shared the pot he’d extorted from Lukas she wouldn’t have to be asking for this now.
‘You will have your money...’
‘Lukas, please know that...’
‘The money will be there,’ he bit out. ‘You don’t need to whore yourself out for it.’
And then, before she could say anything else—even if she’d had a clue what to say—he had stalked across the room and into his own suite, the unmistakable sound of the key turning in the lock making it clear that he was rejecting her.
She could hardly blame him. But it didn’t stop her from throwing herself onto the huge marshmallow pillows of her bed and sobbing herself to sleep.
Yet what choice did she have?