‘Nevertheless,’ he said stiffly. Emotion had started to slice inside him again, but he had to keep pushing. ‘And the second attack?’
‘A year later. That one was worse. He was a lot weaker. There was a lot more stress.’
‘Stress?’ Nikos pounced on the word.
She looked away again. ‘Money things. He’d tried to start up Granton again. It stressed him. And then…’ She paused a moment, then continued, in the same tight, terse manner. ‘It was a drain on him financially, losing him even more money, and he had to pull the plug. That’s what triggered the second heart attack.’
He nodded slowly. There was another question he had to ask to make the ugly, bleak jigsaw come together. ‘You told me he’d got caught by a boiler-room scam. When did that happen?’
Had Edward Granton been so weakened by illness that he’d actually been stupid enough to fall for such a well-known fraud?
Sophie’s eyes flared with emotion. He could not tell which one, but he knew it was one that caused pain. ‘While he was back in hospital. I—I had power of attorney—he wasn’t expected to pull through a second time—and I…I wanted to give Dad some good news, because he’d been so worried about money. So I…So I…’
Nikos felt icy cold go through him as realisation hollowed out in him.
‘They targeted you, not your father.’
His mind reeled at the very thought of it. Sophie—sheltered by her father from every financial reality in life, insulated from all necessity, focussing only on her music, her studies, her carefree, happy life—lured into the bloodsucking grip of leeches in a boiler room. It would have been like throwing a puppy to wolves.
To be torn to pieces.
Rage speared in him. Rage that anyone should have done that to her!
She was sitting very still, her hands knotted together in her lap. She looked at Nikos. Her skin was stretched across her cheekbones. Her eyes empty now.
‘I invested nearly everything he had left. It wasn’t much by then—only a couple of hundred thousand out of everything he’d once had. I was desperate to recoup his losses, so I could go to him and tell him everything was all right again! Instead—’ She fell silent again, but guilt and self-condemnation lacerated her face. ‘I lost him everything—everything he’d managed to salvage when his company went bust,’ she whispered. ‘Everything. I was so incredibly, incredibly stupid. Gullible. I tried to hide it from Dad, but when he finally came out of hospital he found out and…and…’ She took a razored breath. ‘That’s when he had his stroke.’
She started to lace and unlace her fingers. ‘He was lucky. Not just that he survived, but that he was able to go to that clinic. It’s one of the best in the country. And even luckier that his health insurance was still running.’ She swallowed, and then went on, staring blindly down at the carpet, the skin stretched across her cheekbones. ‘But it’s run out now. He’s used up all his allowance, what with all the hospitalisation and surgery and so on, as well as the stroke clinic. I was putting aside all the money I could, spending as little as possible on anything else, but I couldn’t keep up with the payments. So…so…when they said he would have to leave I knew I had to do whatever it took to earn enough money.’
She lifted her head suddenly, staring right at Nikos. Her expression was hard, and he saw the same look in her eyes as she’d had in the taxi, when he’d hauled her out of the gutter.
‘And if that meant working as an escort, then so what? I had to have the money! I had to! Keeping Dad in the clinic is all that matters! And after all—’ her voice twisted ‘—it’s not as if he’d know how I was earning the money!’ Her eyes were like knives, slicing into Nikos. ‘So that’s why I did it! And that’s why I grabbed your money, too! So now you know! And why the hell you want to I haven’t the faintest idea! It’s nothing to you, Nikos—nothing!’
For a moment, as she fell silent, her chest heaving with emotion, he said nothing. But then he spoke.
‘You’re wrong,’ he said, and his voice was different but he didn’t know how. ‘It’s everything to me.’
His eyes held hers—held them as if he were reaching for them from a very, very long way away. Across a divide that engulfed them like a bottomless chasm.
Emotion was huge inside him, overwhelming him in its enormity. But there were questions still to ask. Questions upon which his whole being depended.
‘Why did you make love with me, Sophie? At Belledon?’ His voice was low.
Her eyes flickered, as if she were seeking refuge.
‘Why, Sophie?’ he asked again, in the same low, intense voice.
Her face worked, but she would not answer. Her eyes slid away, unable to meet his.
‘We found ecstasy together.’ His voice was lower still. ‘You cannot deny it—nor I. Ecstasy, Sophie, that night at Belledon.’ He paused, and a world was in that pause. ‘Then you left. Why, Sophie?’
Slowly, as if every word were dragged from her, as if she was forcing herself to speak, she answered him.
‘I had to. I couldn’t…I couldn’t endure it all over again. Having you despise me.’ Her face contorted. ‘Hate me, just as you did four years ago! I couldn’t face it—not again!’ She shuddered. ‘Not when this time I was innocent!’ She looked at him, eyes stricken. ‘But you wouldn’t have believed me—and why should you have, after what I’d done to you? I swear to you, Nikos, I was innocent! But you already knew I was desperate for money, and if you’d found out about what had happened to my father you would simply have thought that I was as guilty now as I was four years ago!’
Her face contorted again, anguish and self-loathing in her eyes. ‘Because four years ago I was guilty! Guilty of every word you threw at me! I’d just found out that day about my father’s financial troubles—I saw an article in the business section of a newspaper someone was reading on the bus as I came back from college, headlined “Granton counts on Kazandros lifeline”! I was horrified! Appalled! Terrified for my father! And I felt so totally ashamed! I’d spent all that time tunnel-visioned on you. I’d never even realised what was going on for my father!’
She gave a hollow, biting laugh, quickly cut off in her throat. ‘Until I read in that article that that was why my father had invited you in the first place! Because he wanted you to be his white knight, to save him from going under! I felt so guilty that my father was in such trouble and I hadn’t even noticed! But then I realized…’ She swallowed. ‘I realised that of course you must be intending to invest in Grantons, or merge, or whatever was going to be necessary, because you would never have been going out with me if you hadn’t! I knew you would never have had a relationship with me if you weren’t intending to save Granton. You would have thought it dishonourable, because your going out with me would have led my father to assume he could count on you. So, because you were still going out with me, I knew I didn’t have to worry about my father after all. And then that evening—’