Penniless and Purchased

‘Did you really think I would bail out Granton on your account? That I would save your father’s company just for a taste of your body? That offering up your virginity would get me to marry you and I would then rescue your father and keep you a rich man’s daughter?’

He stood looking down at her, and everything he felt about her—knew about her—was in the obliterating knifing of his eyes. His voice, when he spoke, cut like a whip. Harsh. Condemning. Contemptuous.

‘You had it all planned, didn’t you? All along.’ He paused. ‘What a contemptible little piece of work you are.’

Then he turned and walked out of her bedroom. Every muscle in his body had to be forced.

He had scarcely gained the top of the stairs when she came hurtling after him.

‘Nikos! No, please! Please!’ She was clinging to him, naked, her voice terrified, sobbing. He put her from him, hands clamping around her bare upper arms like vices.

‘Enough! The game is over, Sophie. Over.’ He let go of her, and went on down the stairs. Right on down to the ground floor. The last he heard of her was her broken, hysterical sobbing. The crying of his name.

CHAPTER TEN

THE car drove on through the traffic, heading back into central London. Sophie had seemed to acquiesce, and was sitting on the far side of the seat still, but no longer protesting or vocal. Her eyes were closed, her face was shuttered, shutting him out. Tension and exhaustion were in every line of her body. Nikos let her be. This was not the place for what had to be done. Silently he resumed reading the document he’d been attempting to study while he’d waited for her to come out of the clinic. But the words were meaningless. Only one thing had meaning now, and that must wait until their journey’s end.

It seemed to take for ever until his car finally pulled in under the portico of his Park Lane hotel and his driver was opening the door on Sophie’s side. She got out, and Nikos was there instantly, lest she try and bolt. But she stood listless, immobile, as he cupped her elbow and steered her inside the hotel lobby. She remained silent until he had escorted her up in the elevator to his suite, and then, as he closed the door, she turned.

‘We have nothing to say to each other, Nikos. Nothing!’

Her voice was neither hostile nor encouraging. It was indifferent. As if she had switched off somewhere along the journey.

‘Sit down,’ he instructed her, and with the same dumb acquiescence she lowered herself down onto the sofa.

He followed suit, but sat himself at the far end. He could see her tensing, but ignored it. He had his own tension to cope with. He had to stay in control of this conversation, and he needed all his self-control to do so.

‘I want to know,’ he spelt out, ‘exactly what has happened since I walked out on you, Sophie, four years ago.’

She eyed him blankly. Her face was closed. ‘Why?’ The indifference was there still, but there was hostility beneath the surface now. He could tell.

He ignored the challenge. ‘Just tell me.’ He paused. ‘You’re going nowhere till we’ve had this conversation, so you’d better get on with it. What happened after I walked out on you four years ago?’

Her face was blank. Jaw set. OK, he would start jabbing. ‘When did your father have his first heart attack?’

He’d got to her, he could see. She hadn’t expected that. ‘Who told you he’d had one?’ she countered instantly, voice bristling.

‘The nurse at the clinic. He had two before his stroke. So when was the first one?’

He could see the cords of her neck tauten. Then her head twisted back to him. ‘It’s not your damn business!’

Nikos ignored her outburst. ‘When did he have his first heart attack, Sophie?’

‘You want to know? OK, I’ll tell you!’ Her eyes were full of venom. ‘He had his first heart attack the morning he flew back from Edinburgh, without a rescue package, when his PA told him you’d phoned to say there was no possibility of a Kazandros deal, either, and you’d flown back to Athens already.’

Nikos stilled. ‘That morning?’

‘You want to see his hospital records?’ she jibed sarcastically.

But Nikos’s mind was racing. Thee mou, the very next day after he’d thrown her from him like a soiled rag!

‘How—how bad was he?’

‘He pulled through,’ she said tightly. ‘The doctors warned me he might not, that he might have another attack, but he didn’t. He was in hospital for months, and had to have surgery. That’s why I dropped out of music college—to look after him. By then Granton had folded, and I was worried about university costing too much. The house in Holland Park had to go, too, and we moved to a much cheaper apartment.’

‘I’m—sorry,’ said Nikos. It seemed an inadequate thing to say.

She gave a half-shrug. ‘Why? It wasn’t anything to do with you. Not really. You weren’t responsible—why should you have been?’