His Penniless Beauty

Her eyes were shining with joy, and emotion kicked through him again just to see it.

‘Oh, Nikos! Darling, darling Nikos! I’m so, so happy—so blissfully, blissfully happy! I can’t believe it really happened—I can’t believe that it’s all right. It’s just like a fairy tale!’

She kissed him, her eyes like jewels.

‘We can be married now, can’t we? And everything’s going to be so wonderful! You and me together! For ever and ever! Bliss, bliss, bliss! And Daddy will be all right too, because I know you’ll save his company and everything will be fine again.’

He stilled. He could feel it happening.

‘What did you just say?’

She gazed at him, eyes veiling suddenly. ‘I’m sorry! Oh, I’m sorry, Nikos! I shouldn’t have said that, I know. But I’ve been worried about him, and now I’m just so relieved I don’t have to worry about him after all, and—’

He did not let her finish. Sharply he pulled away. Out of her clinging embrace. He threw back the bedcovers and stood up. Looked down at her. Looked down at the beautiful, pale, slender body he had just possessed.

And knew the price he was expected to pay for it.

‘Nikos?’ Her voice was uncertain again, and he could hear the note of anxiety in it. Well, she was right to be anxious. Her prey was about to escape her. Coolly, methodically, he started to get dressed. But inside he felt a hot, raging maelstrom of emotion boiling in him.

‘Nikos?’ Her tremulous query came. ‘Where—where are you going?’

‘Where?’ His riposte was cool. As cool as the manner in which he was swiftly doing up his dress shirt, fastening his cuffs. ‘Back to my hotel, of course.’ His eyes were veiled in the dim light, but he could see her body in all its beauty, all its lost innocence, in a soft pool of lamplight. Emotion boiled in him again, but he would not let it show. He reached for his dinner jacket, abandoned on a chair in their haste to undress each other only a short while ago, shrugging it on across his broad shoulders.

‘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.