The Greek's Penniless Cinderella

by Julia James

  He was only a handsome stranger who had delivered her here and then driven off again into the night, job done. Disposing of her like an unwanted parcel.

  No one worth dreaming about.

  * * *

  ‘Kyrios Coustakis will see you now.’

  The stately manservant was standing at Rosalie’s open bedroom door. She turned from the window. Strong sunlight was shafting across what the morning light showed to be a manicured garden, with fountains, gravelled paths and close-clipped topiary. A garden that looked impressive from the house.

  But she wasn’t here to think about ornamental gardens. She was here to go downstairs and finally meet the man who, over a quarter of a century ago, had encountered her mother and brought her into existence.

  Emotion knifed in her, but she controlled it. So much was welling up in her, but she dared not let it out. Yet.

  Her heart was thumping as she followed the manservant downstairs. She’d dressed with extreme care, wanting to give her father no cause for disappointment or disapproval. Her smart yellow shift dress was knee-length, with cap sleeves and a round neckline, her hair was drawn back into a neat chignon, and she wore minimal make up. Her heels were low, and they clicked as she went down the sweeping marble stairs and across the imposing entrance hallway.

  The manservant knocked discreetly at a pair of double doors set opposite, and Rosalie heard a voice say sharply in Greek, what she supposed was ‘Enter’ or ‘Come in.’

  The manservant opened the door and Rosalie walked in. Her heart was thumping like a jackhammer with anticipation. With hope.

  The man who must be her father was seated at a desk across an expanse of tapestried carpet, and the whole room was lined with floor-to-ceiling bookcases filled with books. It was at once impressive and intimidating, Rosalie registered, with the part of her brain that was not focussed on the man watching her approach.

  But her eyes were only for her father—fixed on him. She reached the desk, expecting him to stand up, come to greet her. Embrace her. Welcome her to his life.

  But he did not. He simply sat back in his chair. Looking her over.

  ‘So,’ he announced, ‘you are here.’

  His gaze was like a gimlet and then he made a sudden gesture with his hand. ‘Turn around.’

  Rosalie stared, eyes widening. Suddenly it was as if there was sand in her throat. Why wasn’t he getting up and coming to her, greeting her, hugging her?

  ‘I said turn around.’

  Her father’s voice, strongly accented, had sharpened, as though he disliked not being obeyed immediately.

  A frown creased Rosalie’s brow. ‘What for?’ She heard the words come from her without her volition, in an automatic response to an order.

  Something snapped in his eyes. ‘Because I tell you to!’

  ‘You tell me to?’ There was disbelief in her voice.

  She saw his eyes snap again.

  Grey-green eyes, like mine.

  The thought flitted across her brain, but she had no time for it. He was speaking again.

  ‘If you want what I can give you, you will do what I tell you!’ Something changed in his voice—something that made it not sharp, but as if something were twisting it out of true. ‘And I can see from your expensive get-up that you do, indeed, want what I can give you. If I choose to do so!’

  He sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers.

  ‘Do you understand the situation now?’

  Rosalie shook her head. No, she did not understand the situation. She did not understand it at all. This was her father. And yet he was speaking to her as if she were a...a servant! A lowly employee... Not as his long-lost daughter at all...

  She felt something stab inside her—a pain so sharp that she felt it pierce to her core. But she also felt the force of what he’d just said. She’d rushed out to buy designer clothes the moment she knew she could.

  ‘I...I’m sorry...’ The words stumbled from her. ‘I...I bought nice clothes because I thought...thought you would like me to look...nice...for you. I wanted to please you—’ She could hear her voice catch as she spoke, but couldn’t prevent it. ‘I didn’t mean to waste your money!’ she finished in a rush of apology.

  Her father’s expression changed. Sharpened almost to the point of glinting.

  ‘You won’t—be assured of that,’ he retorted. ‘And if you wish to please me do as I tell you. Turn around!’

  Tautly, Rosalie did what he bade. As she came full circle he was nodding, his expression less sharp.

  ‘That’s better,’ he informed her. His gimlet eyes rested on her face assessingly, his hands still steepled. ‘You have my eyes—good. The rest must come from your mother. I remember very little about her.’

  ‘She remembered you!’ Rosalie cried out before she could stop herself. ‘She told me everything she could—’

  Her father’s expression changed again. There was a cynical light in his eyes now. ‘I made sure there wasn’t much to know. And I kept it that way.’

  A frown furrowed Rosalie’s brow. She could feel her emotions tightening within her, still feel that pain inside—because this wasn’t right... This wasn’t right at all. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be...

  ‘So...so how did you find out about me? My mother told me that she tried to get in touch when she learnt she was pregnant, by writing to the construction company, but you must have left the country already because she never heard back. Her letter must never have reached you—’

  ‘Of course it reached me!’

  A gasp broke from Rosalie and she stared at the man across the desk from her.

  An impatient look crossed his face. ‘I’ve always known of your existence.’

  Rosalie stared on. Inside her, a stone seemed to be occupying her entire lung capacity.

  ‘You’ve always known?’ The words forced themselves past the stone that was choking her.

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘You’ve known and never got in touch?’

  ‘Why should I have?’

  ‘Why? Because I am your daughter!’

  A sneer had formed on his face—Rosalie could see it. Was appalled by it. Appalled by everything that was happening...

  ‘What was that to me?’ he retorted. ‘Nothing! What possible interest could I have had in you, or your fool of a mother?’ His face tightened, an expression of angry displeasure forming. ‘You have been of no use to me until now. Which is why I sent for you.’

  Emotion was storming in Rosalie, hard and angry and desperately painful.

  ‘You knew about me and did nothing? Nothing to help? Did you know how ill my mother was?’

  The grey-green eyes so hideously like her own flashed again.

  ‘She was a fool, like I said! A clinging, feeble-minded fool! As for you—the state looked after you as a child... Your mother got child support, a flat to live in. Why would I waste my money on you?’

  The harsh, cruel words about her hapless mother struck her like blows and she flinched to hear them. Protest rose in her, and she sent an arm flying out to encompass the opulence of the room she stood in, the grandeur of this mansion her father lived in.

  ‘You’re rich! We were so poor—grindingly poor! Mum was so ill she couldn’t work, and I couldn’t either because I had to look after her—’

  A hand slammed down on the desk’s tooled surface with heavy force. ‘Be silent! Don’t come crying to me! My money is mine—do you understand? Mine to do with exactly as I like!’ His face hardened. ‘And if you want to enjoy a single cent of it you’ll change your attitude, my girl!’

  Rosalie’s face froze. She’d heard the last of his outburst—‘my girl!’—and it was as if the words were acid on her skin.

  But I’m not his girl—I’m no more his daughter than a block of wood! He knew... He knew about me and never
cared at all...

  The words tumbled through her stricken brain like spiked wheels, each one inflicting stab after stab of pain.

  As if through a mist she saw her father get to his feet, come around the desk. For a moment, a wild, last frantic flare of the pitiful emotion that had been filling her ever since Alexandros Lakaris had made that astounding announcement leapt within her as for the briefest space of time she thought he was coming to her now, to embrace her in a crushing, paternal, loving embrace...

  Her father, after all these long, empty years...

  But he simply reached out to take her elbow and steer her bodily towards a pair of ornate chairs a little way from the desk.

  ‘Sit,’ he instructed, and lowered himself heavily on to the other chair.

  Like a dummy, she did so, her legs suddenly weak.

  He nodded. ‘Now that you have divested yourself of whatever sentimental rubbish was in your head, you can listen to me.’

  His eyes rested on her like heavy weights. They were puffy eyes, she found herself registering abstractedly, irrelevantly, and there were deep lines scored around his mouth, which was thin and tightly set.

  ‘You need not think that you won’t come out of this a great deal better off than you have been all your life,’ he continued, and there was less harshness in his voice now, as if he were adapting it to what he was saying. ‘On the contrary. This is your lucky day indeed, I promise you! You will be able to live up to the clothes you have so eagerly rushed out to acquire! You’ll be able to buy ten times that number! Live a life of idle luxury! Buy anything you want! Have anything you want!’

  His voice altered again, the expression in his eyes changing, and Rosalie sat there numbed, yet with her mind filled with knives, her lungs choked.

  ‘Tell me,’ she heard him say, as if from far, far away, as if she weren’t really sitting there, unable to move, filled with horror and disbelief at the ugly truth of the dream she had so stupidly woven in her head, ‘what did you make of our handsome Alexandros, eh?’

  She stared...swallowed. ‘Alexandros Lakaris?’ she echoed, as if she had not heard aright. Why was this man who was her father but not her father—no, never her father—saying the name of the man he had sent to bring her here?

  ‘Yes, the handsome and oh, so well-born Alexandros Lakaris! So eager to go and find you and bring you to Athens!’

  There was a twist in his voice, and Rosalie could hear amusement—a cruel amusement.

  ‘So eager to do what is necessary to achieve what he wants. Tell me,’ he said again, and the thin mouth twisted, and there was a glint in the grey-green eyes as if he took pleasure in what he was saying, ‘just how disappointed was he when he found you? My daughter—charring for a living! Hah! How that must have galled him!’

  His thin mouth set. ‘So, was it he who had you cleaned up and dressed to come here?’ A harsh laugh broke from him and his hands clenched the arms of his chair. ‘Not that it would have mattered a jot to him! It’s just a bonus that you’ve turned out to be a looker, despite your origins, if enough money is spent on you! He can thank his lucky stars for that—and so can you! You’ll enjoy your luxury lifestyle and Alexandros Lakaris as well! Every woman in Athens will envy you!’

  The grey-green eyes sparked again, with gratified relish.

  ‘And I will get exactly what I want, as I always do! A lordly Lakaris for a son-in-law!’

  Rosalie stared at him, as if from a long, long way away.

  ‘Son-in-law?’ The syllables dropped from her mouth uncomprehendingly.

  She saw the man who was her father and yet would never, never be her father lift his hand in a swift, impatient gesture.

  ‘Of course my son-in-law! Why else do you imagine I have had you brought here? To marry Alexandros Lakaris, of course!’

  She heard him say it, and yet did not hear him. Her mind was reeling, as if she were in a car crash that was going on and on and on, and she could not get out of it, could not escape it...

  ‘You’re mad...’

  The blunt words were hollow as she spoke them. And she saw the face of the man who’d just told her the most impossible, insane thing in the world—the man who had only moments earlier smashed to pieces the idiocy she’d conjured up in her stupid, stupid brain—twist with anger at her retort.

  ‘Do not try my patience! It is all arranged—all agreed. Alexandros Lakaris wants to merge his business with mine, and it is an excellent financial prospect for both of us. But I will only let him do so for a price. The price is you. Thee mou, what is there for you to look like that for? You’ve seen the man! I tell you again, every woman in Athens will envy you!’

  ‘You’re mad...’ She said the words again, but this time, finding some last vestige of strength in her boneless limbs, she forced herself to her feet. She was in a nightmare—a living nightmare.

  She turned away, wanting only to get out of there—get out of the room, get out...

  Her father’s harsh, ugly voice slashed through the air.

  ‘Walk away from me now and you walk away completely! You can go back to the slums of London! Back to the gutter! You will get nothing—nothing from me!’

  She turned. Her face was like stone. ‘Go to hell!’ she said.

  And she left the room, tears and misery choking her throat at the ruination of all her dreams.

  * * *

  Xandros sat at his desk, unable to concentrate on what he should be doing—going about the daily routine of his business life. Instead an image was playing in his head. Tugging at his conscience...

  The way he’d just driven off last night as Stavros’s unwitting daughter had been swallowed up into her father’s oppressive mansion... Walking in there with all her dreams about some fairy-tale reunion with a father who would embrace her lovingly and welcome her into his life.

  His mouth set. Well, she’d have been disabused of that by now. Presumably they’d met, and she’d realised just what kind of a man Stavros was.

  She’ll be devastated...

  The words were in his head and he could not stop them. Nor could he stop himself suddenly pushing back his chair and getting to his feet. He flicked the intercom and told his secretary he was heading out for a while, that she should cancel his scheduled meeting with his finance director.

  Reluctance warred with his conscience. No, he did not want to have anything more to do with that toxic set-up, and, no, Stavros Coustakis’s English daughter was not his concern, let alone his responsibility, but for all that...

  I can’t just abandon her like that.

  That was the brute truth of it. Like it or not, he should have given her some warning of what to expect, and not let her indulge herself in illusions of some kind of heavenly reunion. He should at least check that she was...well, coping with the situation.

  Ten minutes later he was in his car and heading out of central Athens. His plan was vague, but it focussed on calling at the Coustakis mansion...enquiring after the girl. Just checking that she was okay...salving his conscience.

  And most definitely he would not let his eyes rest once more on the astonishingly revealed beauty that had so unexpectedly emerged from behind that wretched bucket and mop image of his first sight of her. He crushed the thought instantly, before it could take any shape at all.

  No, that was not the reason he was checking up on Rosalie Jones. Not at all...

  * * *

  Rosalie was walking. Rapidly, blindly and with one purpose only: to find some kind of public transport—a bus, a tram, a train...she didn’t care what—to get her to the airport. Where she would raid her meagre savings to buy the cheapest possible ticket back to the UK.

  Because anything else was impossible. Just impossible!

  Emotions knifed in her, anger and misery, both of them stabbing and slicing away at her. Hot tears stung her eyes as she hurried, head down, clutc
hing the handbag that held her precious passport and wallet. She was oblivious to everything except her need to reach the main road. Oblivious to the low, lean car suddenly pulling up beside her at the kerb.

  She saw it only when a figure suddenly vaulted in front of her, tall and blocking out the morning sunshine. She stopped dead, her head jerking up.

  Alexandros Lakaris was striding towards her, catching her arm.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  His voice was sharp and she stared blindly at him, the hot, stinging tears in her eyes making him misty. She saw him frown, heard him say something in Greek just as sharp.

  ‘I’m going back to England!’ she bit out. ‘I need to get to the airport! There has to be a bus, or a tram, or—’

  He cut across her. His expression was grim. ‘We need to talk,’ he said.

  Violently she yanked her arm free. ‘No, we do not need to talk! I’ve had my talk! And my father—’ she said the word with a twist in her voice that was like swallowing acid ‘—has explained everything to me! So, Mr Alexandros Lakaris, we do not need to talk! I am having nothing to do with my father’s total insanity! And nothing to do with him!’

  She heard Alexandros Lakaris take a harshly incised breath. Alexandros Lakaris—the man who, so her monstrous father had just informed her, had brought her to Athens solely and specifically for the purpose of marrying her, so he could do some kind of lucrative business deal with the foul, despicable man who had said such cruel things about her poor mother, who had treated her so callously—the vile pig of a man who she was now ashamed to call her father.

  ‘Just what has he said to you?’ Alexandros Lakaris bit out, his face dark, his eyes darker. He took another heavy breath, his mouth tightening, shaking his head. ‘I should have warned you—prepared you—’

  Words burst from Rosalie, exploding from her. ‘He said he’s always known about me! He’s known about me from the very start! He’s known about me and he has done nothing! Nothing at all! He left my poor, poor mother to cope all on her own! He didn’t lift a finger! Just left us to rot!’