Kate flushed. She felt as if Nikos was nailing down her coffin with one brutally timed blow after another.
‘No.’ The wretched flush deepened. ‘I’m here to save Kandy Kate, as you well know. But not because of the money. I’m doing it for my father. Because Kandy Kate is all I have left of him.’
‘Yeah...’ Nikos folded his arms across his chest. ‘So you keep saying.’
‘Because it’s true.’ Kate’s voice quavered, but a sudden need to make Nikos see she wasn’t some mercenary, cold-hearted shrew drove her on. ‘Far from condemning your lack of wealth, I was envious of the life you had when we first met. The freedom you had...the chance to build your own future from scratch.’
Nikos scoffed. ‘But that envy soon wore off, didn’t it, Kate? By the time I got to New York my so-called “freedom” looked dangerously close to poverty. And as for building my own life from scratch—why would you choose to do that when you were already at the top? I’m sure the gutter looked a long, long way down from the top of KK Towers.’
‘You were never in the gutter, Nikos!’
‘You and your mother treated me as if I was.’
‘Don’t exaggerate.’ Kate frantically summoned all her fight to try and counter his onslaught. ‘I admit I could have handled the situation better...forewarned my mother about who you were...’
‘Forewarned?’ Nikos threw the word back at her in disgust, his breath hot on her face, his eyes glittering with temper. ‘That says it all, doesn’t it? The fact that you had to forewarn your mother about me. Have you any idea how insulting that is?’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
Kate looked down at the ground. She was making everything worse.
With a silent apology to her mother, she drew in a quick breath. ‘There are things about my mother I have never told you, Nikos. She’s vulnerable. Very vulnerable. That’s why I had to try so hard to keep the peace.’
‘Save it, Kate. This isn’t about your mother.’
Kate felt her uncomfortable confession tossed to one side as if nothing.
‘This is about you and me. When I arrived in New York I thought we were equals, lovers—destined to share our lives together. I soon found out how wrong I was.’
‘No, you weren’t wrong. I thought the same.’
Kate reached out to him, her eyes beseeching, but Nikos caught hold of her hand and brought it down to his side.
‘Well, you had a funny way of showing it.’ Anger and heat pulsed in his voice before he collected himself. ‘But what’s done is done. And maybe you were right. Maybe I didn’t have anything to offer you back then. I admit that I come from a humble background and, yes, my childhood was chaotic. When your mother walks out on you and your father can’t cope life gets tough. There was no money, no stability, and sometimes no food—let alone a table to eat it off. But despite that I survived. Not only survived, but triumphed. I have succeeded where others have failed. Become richer and more successful than most people could even dream about. Now I can hold my head high, mix with A-list celebrities, royalty—the highest in the land. Now, thanks to you, Kate, no one will ever look down on me again.’
His throat moved as he swallowed hard, but when Kate looked away he put his hands on her shoulders, turning her so there was no escape from the burn of his eyes.
‘Perhaps you should take a bow.’
‘And perhaps you should take a long, hard look at who you have become.’
‘Ha!’ Nikos took away his hands but stayed intimately close, glaring down at her from his towering height. ‘That’s rich, coming from you. Have you forgotten where I found you, agape mou? Dressed like a hooker and sprawled across the lap of a sweaty banker.’
‘Have you forgotten how sometimes you have to do something you’d rather not do just to pay the bills?’ Kate desperately tried to beat back his merciless assault.
‘No, I’ve not forgotten.’ Nikos’s brows met in a scowl. ‘How could I forget when you’ve just confirmed that the only reason you are here is to save your precious business. You are still doing something you would rather not do, aren’t you, Kate? You can dress it up however you like—present it as an homage to your father if it makes you feel better—but you are still using my money for your own gain. You are effectively still just paying the bills.’