His Penniless Beauty

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—’