Penniless and Purchased (8 page)

‘So where—?’ she began, her voice demanding again.

This time he cut her short. He got to his feet. ‘I’ll send a car,’ he told her. ‘Be ready at eight tomorrow morning.’

‘That’s too early,’ she said immediately. It would give her no time to go into the shop, explain what was happening, hope they would let her disappear for two weeks without sacking her. But even if they did sack her, she would have to accept it and then just try and get another job swiftly when she was allowed back to London again.

‘Tough.’ His reply was unsympathetic.

She glared at him, but said nothing. She had no choice but to take what was handed out to her. Just the way she had for four hideous years. Taking everything thrown at her. Swallowing it. Enduring it.

And she would endure this too. Because the lifeline he was tossing at her was one she could not afford to throw back in his face.

He waited, pointedly, as she moved around the table.

‘I’ll have my driver take you home now,’ he told her, pulling out his mobile to summon his car. ‘Give you time to pack.’

She said nothing. She couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything except let him steer her out of the hotel on to the pavement. A sleek saloon was there already, and the driver got out, opening the rear passenger door for her. How many times had she shared Nikos’s chauffeured car, been out with him in the evening? Been escorted home by him, her heart singing with bliss…?

She pulled her gaze away. Away from his tall, commanding figure that could make her heart skip a beat just looking at it.

But not any more.

Never again.

As she plunged inside the car, scooping her long, clinging skirt out of the way as she did so, she twisted her head away, staring out of the far window at the traffic coursing heedlessly by. Refusing to look back at Nikos.

The driver spoke to her on his intercom, and she gave him her address then hunkered further back into the corner of her seat, still not looking out at Nikos, not knowing if he were even still there or not as the car pulled out into the traffic.

On the pavement, heedless of passers-by, Nikos stood stock still, staring after the disappearing car. His face was expressionless. But inside, virulently, he was calling himself every kind of fool for having allowed himself to see her again, to do this face to face instead of setting one of his staff to sort it, keeping himself well away from her. Too late now, though—it was done. Sophie was dealt with, and also the danger she threatened his family with. Silencing his castigations, he reached out his hand to flag down a passing taxi.

Heading the other way.

The way that did not have Sophie Granton in its path.

N
IKOS
gazed abstractedly out across the expanse of his London office, filled with late morning light, and wondered what Sophie Granton was making of her new accommodation. It would be quite a shock for her, that was for certain. He gave a thin, humourless smile. A luxury venue it was not.

What had she been expecting? he wondered to himself. That he would keep her in the comfort she was so used to? His smile narrowed to a tight, whipped line. After all, that had always been his main purpose in her life, as far as she was concerned…

That was what he must make himself remember about Sophie Granton. Nothing else.

Nothing about the way she’d used to smile at him, the way they would talk, endlessly, about anything and everything. The way she’d gaze at him, her eyes sparkling like diamonds, when he complimented her. Or the way they’d laughed together, danced together, walked hand in hand together…

He snapped his mind away. What the hell was the point in thinking back to a past he never wanted to remember again? What, indeed, was the point of thinking about Sophie Granton at all?

None, he told himself resolutely. He had done what was
necessary to minimise the risk to his family from her sordid lifestyle and that was enough. Anything else was irrelevant.

Irrelevant to think about her now, to think about where she was now, wondering what she was doing, what she made of where he had stashed her to keep her away from London, from Cosmo—from himself.

Because that was why he’d sent her out of town, he knew. To keep her far, far away from him.

Far away was the safest place for Sophie Granton to be.

So he would be safe from her and all that she had once meant to him—and never could again.

With a short, sharp, decisive intake of breath, he reached for his keyboard and got on with his work.

Hot sunlight was baking down, and Sophie could feel sweat trickling down into the small of her back beneath her already damp T-shirt. She rolled her shoulders a moment, stretching her neck, the movement shifting the crouching position she was in and making her rebalance her muscles as she lifted her gaze. A brief, wry expression formed in her eyes as a glance reaffirmed her surroundings.

Was it really only four days since she had been deposited here? It seemed a lot longer. A lot longer since she had climbed, tensely, into the sleek chauffeured car that had been parked so incongruously at the kerb of the bleak, blighted street where she had to live now. Her stomach had been tied into knots, and the mental hardness she’d relied on the previous night to get through the ordeal of seeing Nikos again had dissolved into a morass of viscous, glutinous, conflicting emotions that she’d scarcely been able to give a name to.

One thing she’d known for certain. Reaction had set in with a vengeance. As she’d lain sleepless, stomach churning, in her
narrow, lumpy bed, trying not to hear the thump of music coming through the thin walls from the next bedsit, she had realised that the only thing that had got her through the shock of seeing Nikos again had been nothing more than bravado.

How did I even manage to face him? How did I stop myself bolting the moment I laid eyes on him in that hotel bar?

It was what she should have done, she knew. And yet it had happened so fast, so out of the blue, when her nerves had already been at stretching point, and she had been unable to act rationally.

And then, even more out of the blue, for him actually to dangle that lifeline over her…

Five thousand pounds—just to stay out of London for two weeks!

She had known she shouldn’t take the money. Shouldn’t touch it. But it had been impossible not to. Impossible not to grab at it with both hands, to snatch it, even from a man who should have been the very last man to be indebted to.

But when the car’s driver had handed her an envelope with her name on it, and she had seen the cheque within, her last resolve had evaporated. The numbers had danced in front of her eyes and she had felt a relief so profound go through her that it had made her realise just how frightened she had been about the punishing need to get hold of the money somehow, anyhow…

It hadn’t been until the driver had stopped, at her request, at a branch of her bank, and she’d raced in to deposit the cheque, simultaneously writing out one of her own with an accompanying note and then posting it in the nearest postbox, that she had felt herself truly believe in the reprieve that she had had. But back in the car she had felt her anxiety levels start to mount again.

Nothing came free in life—she knew that know, knew it
bitterly and harshly. So what was Nikos going to expect of her in repayment for the loan? Just where, exactly, was she to be taken?

Now, as the sun’s heat burned down on her, Sophie’s wry expression deepened. Of all the possible destinations she’d guessed Nikos had had in mind for her as a way of keeping her out of London for a fortnight, this had never been one of them. This was a world away from anything she had envisaged.

Four days ago the car had deposited her here. Just where ‘here’ was, she still did not exactly know! But she didn’t care. It was enough just to be there. Somewhere heading west out of London, in the depths of the English countryside, in what she could only assume was one of Kazandros Corp’s latest UK property acquisitions.

A beautiful but semi-derelict, utterly deserted country house.

Not that she was in the main house itself. The small wing she was inhabiting had clearly once been something like the quarters for a housekeeper, or thereabouts, judging by the modest and old-fashioned décor and furnishings, the small rooms and out-of-the-way position. Just how long ago a housekeeper had inhabited these quarters Sophie could not tell, except that it was not recently.

Her first task had been to give the place a thorough clean, removing layers of dust and neglect. She had welcomed the work, though, finding pleasure in the effort required not least because it gave her something to do. It was the same in the small walled garden that she was now so diligently weeding. The place was a sun-trap, and Sophie needed nothing more to wear than a T-shirt and cotton trousers as the summer’s heat baked down on her in the enclosed space.

It had taken her a while to realise that she had the entire place to herself. Not only had there been no one in evidence
when she had arrived, no one had put in an appearance since. For a while she’d wondered at it, then simply accepted it. She had not been completely abandoned, however, for she had discovered upon her arrival that the fridge in the old-fashioned kitchen was working, and had been filled with food—basic, but adequate for about a week. The larder had an equally adequate complement of groceries. She had initially wondered if someone was going to turn up the next day, but no one did, nor had since. Nor was there any sign of life in the main house.

She had explored that the afternoon of her arrival, and as she’d wandered through the huge, deserted, dusty rooms, with their shutters closed, and bereft of furniture and hangings, she had been struck both by the melancholy of the place and its striking beauty. Restored, the house would be breathtakingly beautiful! Even as she’d gazed around, though, she’d known it would take a fortune to restore it. Floorboards were sagging, moulding was coming off the ceilings, and there was a smell of mildew everywhere. Cobwebs festooned the cornices, and she could hear the tell-tale scuttlings of mice in the wainscoting. She had not dared venture upstairs, for the graceful curving banisters were precarious, and who knew how rotten the floorboards might be? It was not a place to explore on her own.

What was Nikos intending to do with the place? she’d wondered. Turn it into another prestige country hotel? A conference centre or other business use? Or restore it and sell it as residence for a millionaire? Her eyes had worked around the elegant proportions of the rooms, mentally envisaging it restored as a private house once more.

How beautiful to live here!

Out of nowhere, like a poisoned dart, the thought had struck her.

We could have lived here—Nikos and I…

Instantly she’d scourged the words from her mind, but it had been too late. Imagination, vivid and painful, had flared through her.

Nikos and me—living here—in my dream of bliss and happy ever after…

For brief, piercing moments she had been able to see it, so real, so
real
!

What if my dream had come true? What if now, four years later, we were here, together?

She had felt the ache in her heart. Four years had not diminished one iota Nikos’s impact on her! He must be thirty-two now, and his blazing masculinity had only matured. In her mind’s eye she saw his imprint—the familiar twist of his beautiful mouth, the achingly lush sweep of his eyelashes, the drowning darkness of his eyes. Nothing had been lost from all that she had been so fascinated by! He was still the most devastating man she had ever set eyes on—could ever set eyes on—setting her pulse beating like a bird in flight…

Danger had flickered like a hot flame.

Making her start back.

No! To think of Nikos again was madness—and to let herself imagine herself here with him nothing less than insanity!

Furiously, she had roused herself from her memory and opened at random another pair of double doors, hating herself for having allowed such thoughts entrance to her head. But the moment she’d stepped into the next room she had wished she had not. Her eyes had gone instantly to the grand piano in the centre of the room. Without conscious volition, she had found herself walking towards it, lifting up the heavy, dusty folds of the cover. The dark, gleaming wood beneath had brought a stab to her chest. How long had it been since she
had last played? Abruptly she had dropped the cover, stepped back and turned on her heel out of the room, refusing to look back at the instrument.

She didn’t like to see pianos any more. They only rammed home to her the total ruination of her life—a life she had once taken utterly for granted.

That was now gone for ever.

Angrily, she had marched back through the padded baize door into the servants’ quarters, which led, meanderingly, to the housekeeper’s wing. Her anger had been directed at herself, for having even for the briefest moment entertained such pointless, fatuous fantasy.

Her and Nikos, living happily ever after…

The sharpened blade had slid into her all over again, and she’d wrenched it out viciously. Oh, God, why,
why
had he walked back into her life? Hadn’t she enough to cope with without this fresh torment?

Blindly, she had plunged out into the little walled garden, and now, after four days, she had made it her sole focus.

Her refuge.

It had drawn her from the moment she’d arrived. An old-fashioned walled kitchen garden, long smothered by weeds.

What had made her so determined to clear away what she could she didn’t know—only that the mindless, repetitive work gave her occupation and brought her solace. Armed with some rusting tools she’d found in an outhouse, she’d set to, ripping out weeds and digging through the packed earth. Already she had found hidden treasures—a bed of ripening strawberries which, once cleared of choking weeks, was yielding ruby fruits day on day.

The hours passed soothingly. Hot and sunny in the sheltered domain, with the scents of summer all around her, the vegetation
verdant and lush. The quietness was interrupted only by birdsong, the somnolent buzz of bees and insects, and the air wafted by the breeze soughing in the trees beyond the walls. Sophie considered that an aching back and broken fingernails were a small price to pay for what she was getting in return—a blessed break from the grinding, bleak drudgery of her existence. A blessed break, too, even if only short-lived, from the constant anxiety and dread that now consumed her life.

Only one thing flawed her peace—an image she could not expunge from her mind. An image that burned with fresh pain, fresh bitterness, and that was as vivid, as indelible as it had ever been throughout the last four punishing, nightmare years: Nikos Kazandros, who had once been her foolish, puerile fantasy of happy ever after, and who was now only her torment.

Vehemently, she attacked the obdurate, deep-rooted weeds running riot in the soil as if she were digging out a far, far more invasive intruder into her memory, her thoughts…her very being.

All the way down the motorway, as the low-slung, powerful car cruised through the miles at a constant high speed, over-taking everything else on the road, Nikos knew he was in two minds. Two minds that weren’t going to come together. Could never come together.

One mind told him very, very clearly that he really, adamantly,
definitely
shouldn’t be doing this.

The other mind told him that there was nothing untoward whatsoever in doing it. It was a simple, rational, ordinary decision. Nothing to have doubts about.

After all, why should it be? His secretary had informed him that the particular historical architectural consultant he wanted, one of the country’s leading experts on the period in
question, would at short notice, owing to a cancellation, be able to meet him and go over the property with him. There was no absolute necessity for him to meet the man—he could, if he wished, simply hand the project over to one of his managers. But still, the architect in question was prestigious—knighted by the Queen, no less—and a recognised expert whose priority was restoration, not profit. Nikos did not want to come across as nothing more than a foreign businessman to whom the commercial aspects of the acquisition took precedence over the imperative of cultural preservation. Besides, no commercial gain could be realised if the restoration was not carried out perfectly, and by using this particular expert it would lend considerable cachet to the enterprise as a whole.

So Nikos’s foot pressed down on the accelerator, and the powerful car scythed forward. It made sound, hard-headed business sense to meet the man today and expedite the restoration project thereby. And hard-headed business decisions were what Nikos always made. Unswayed by any other considerations.