His Penniless Beauty

One thing she’d known for certain. Reaction had set in with a vengeance. As she’d lain sleepless, stomach churning, in her narrow, lumpy bed, trying not to hear the thump of music coming through the thin walls from the next bedsit, she had realised that the only thing that had got her through the shock of seeing Nikos again had been nothing more than bravado.

How did I even manage to face him? How did I stop myself bolting the moment I laid eyes on him in that hotel bar?

It was what she should have done, she knew. And yet it had happened so fast, so out of the blue, when her nerves had already been at stretching point, and she had been unable to act rationally.

And then, even more out of the blue, for him actually to dangle that lifeline over her…

Five thousand pounds—just to stay out of London for two weeks!

She had known she shouldn’t take the money. Shouldn’t touch it. But it had been impossible not to. Impossible not to grab at it with both hands, to snatch it, even from a man who should have been the very last man to be indebted to.

But when the car’s driver had handed her an envelope with her name on it, and she had seen the cheque within, her last resolve had evaporated. The numbers had danced in front of her eyes and she had felt a relief so profound go through her that it had made her realise just how frightened she had been about the punishing need to get hold of the money somehow, anyhow…

It hadn’t been until the driver had stopped, at her request, at a branch of her bank, and she’d raced in to deposit the cheque, simultaneously writing out one of her own with an accompanying note and then posting it in the nearest postbox, that she had felt herself truly believe in the reprieve that she had had. But back in the car she had felt her anxiety levels start to mount again.

Nothing came free in life—she knew that know, knew it bitterly and harshly. So what was Nikos going to expect of her in repayment for the loan? Just where, exactly, was she to be taken?

Now, as the sun’s heat burned down on her, Sophie’s wry expression deepened. Of all the possible destinations she’d guessed Nikos had had in mind for her as a way of keeping her out of London for a fortnight, this had never been one of them. This was a world away from anything she had envisaged.

Four days ago the car had deposited her here. Just where ‘here’ was, she still did not exactly know! But she didn’t care. It was enough just to be there. Somewhere heading west out of London, in the depths of the English countryside, in what she could only assume was one of Kazandros Corp’s latest UK property acquisitions.

A beautiful but semi-derelict, utterly deserted country house.

Not that she was in the main house itself. The small wing she was inhabiting had clearly once been something like the quarters for a housekeeper, or thereabouts, judging by the modest and old-fashioned décor and furnishings, the small rooms and out-of-the-way position. Just how long ago a housekeeper had inhabited these quarters Sophie could not tell, except that it was not recently.

Her first task had been to give the place a thorough clean, removing layers of dust and neglect. She had welcomed the work, though, finding pleasure in the effort required not least because it gave her something to do. It was the same in the small walled garden that she was now so diligently weeding. The place was a sun-trap, and Sophie needed nothing more to wear than a T-shirt and cotton trousers as the summer’s heat baked down on her in the enclosed space.

It had taken her a while to realise that she had the entire place to herself. Not only had there been no one in evidence when she had arrived, no one had put in an appearance since. For a while she’d wondered at it, then simply accepted it. She had not been completely abandoned, however, for she had discovered upon her arrival that the fridge in the old-fashioned kitchen was working, and had been filled with food—basic, but adequate for about a week. The larder had an equally adequate complement of groceries. She had initially wondered if someone was going to turn up the next day, but no one did, nor had since. Nor was there any sign of life in the main house.

She had explored that the afternoon of her arrival, and as she’d wandered through the huge, deserted, dusty rooms, with their shutters closed, and bereft of furniture and hangings, she had been struck both by the melancholy of the place and its striking beauty. Restored, the house would be breathtakingly beautiful! Even as she’d gazed around, though, she’d known it would take a fortune to restore it. Floorboards were sagging, moulding was coming off the ceilings, and there was a smell of mildew everywhere. Cobwebs festooned the cornices, and she could hear the tell-tale scuttlings of mice in the wainscoting. She had not dared venture upstairs, for the graceful curving banisters were precarious, and who knew how rotten the floorboards might be? It was not a place to explore on her own.