As if through a mist she saw her father get to his feet, come around the desk. For a moment, a wild, last frantic flare of the pitiful emotion that had been filling her ever since Alexandros Lakaris had made that astounding announcement leapt within her as for the briefest space of time she thought he was coming to her now, to embrace her in a crushing, paternal, loving embrace...
Her father, after all these long, empty years...
But he simply reached out to take her elbow and steer her bodily towards a pair of ornate chairs a little way from the desk.
‘Sit,’ he instructed, and lowered himself heavily on to the other chair.
Like a dummy, she did so, her legs suddenly weak.
He nodded. ‘Now that you have divested yourself of whatever sentimental rubbish was in your head, you can listen to me.’
His eyes rested on her like heavy weights. They were puffy eyes, she found herself registering abstractedly, irrelevantly, and there were deep lines scored around his mouth, which was thin and tightly set.
‘You need not think that you won’t come out of this a great deal better off than you have been all your life,’ he continued, and there was less harshness in his voice now, as if he were adapting it to what he was saying. ‘On the contrary. This is your lucky day indeed, I promise you! You will be able to live up to the clothes you have so eagerly rushed out to acquire! You’ll be able to buy ten times that number! Live a life of idle luxury! Buy anything you want! Have anything you want!’
His voice altered again, the expression in his eyes changing, and Rosalie sat there numbed, yet with her mind filled with knives, her lungs choked.
‘Tell me,’ she heard him say, as if from far, far away, as if she weren’t really sitting there, unable to move, filled with horror and disbelief at the ugly truth of the dream she had so stupidly woven in her head, ‘what did you make of our handsome Alexandros, eh?’
She stared...swallowed. ‘Alexandros Lakaris?’ she echoed, as if she had not heard aright. Why was this man who was her father but not her father—no, never her father—saying the name of the man he had sent to bring her here?
‘Yes, the handsome and oh, so well-born Alexandros Lakaris! So eager to go and find you and bring you to Athens!’
There was a twist in his voice, and Rosalie could hear amusement—a cruel amusement.
‘So eager to do what is necessary to achieve what he wants. Tell me,’ he said again, and the thin mouth twisted, and there was a glint in the grey-green eyes as if he took pleasure in what he was saying, ‘just how disappointed was he when he found you? My daughter—charring for a living! Hah! How that must have galled him!’
His thin mouth set. ‘So, was it he who had you cleaned up and dressed to come here?’ A harsh laugh broke from him and his hands clenched the arms of his chair. ‘Not that it would have mattered a jot to him! It’s just a bonus that you’ve turned out to be a looker, despite your origins, if enough money is spent on you! He can thank his lucky stars for that—and so can you! You’ll enjoy your luxury lifestyle and Alexandros Lakaris as well! Every woman in Athens will envy you!’
The grey-green eyes sparked again, with gratified relish.
‘And I will get exactly what I want, as I always do! A lordly Lakaris for a son-in-law!’
Rosalie stared at him, as if from a long, long way away.
‘Son-in-law?’ The syllables dropped from her mouth uncomprehendingly.
She saw the man who was her father and yet would never, never be her father lift his hand in a swift, impatient gesture.
‘Of course my son-in-law! Why else do you imagine I have had you brought here? To marry Alexandros Lakaris, of course!’
She heard him say it, and yet did not hear him. Her mind was reeling, as if she were in a car crash that was going on and on and on, and she could not get out of it, could not escape it...
‘You’re mad...’
The blunt words were hollow as she spoke them. And she saw the face of the man who’d just told her the most impossible, insane thing in the world—the man who had only moments earlier smashed to pieces the idiocy she’d conjured up in her stupid, stupid brain—twist with anger at her retort.
‘Do not try my patience! It is all arranged—all agreed. Alexandros Lakaris wants to merge his business with mine, and it is an excellent financial prospect for both of us. But I will only let him do so for a price. The price is you. Thee mou, what is there for you to look like that for? You’ve seen the man! I tell you again, every woman in Athens will envy you!’
‘You’re mad...’ She said the words again, but this time, finding some last vestige of strength in her boneless limbs, she forced herself to her feet. She was in a nightmare—a living nightmare.
She turned away, wanting only to get out of there—get out of the room, get out...
Her father’s harsh, ugly voice slashed through the air.
‘Walk away from me now and you walk away completely! You can go back to the slums of London! Back to the gutter! You will get nothing—nothing from me!’
She turned. Her face was like stone. ‘Go to hell!’ she said.