‘Your father has an unfortunate habit of ordering people about, but I hope that he will soon see the error of his ways. I thought it in your best interests for you to be here this afternoon. I did not ask him to summon you.’
‘Can we get straight to the point of this?’ she asked with increasing impatience. ‘I’m getting a little tired of all the word games.’
Kane drew in a breath as he studied her incensed features. She thought the worst of him and for now that suited him. He couldn’t afford to let her find out his real motives in coming here today.
He’d waited a long time for a chance to confront Owen Mercer. Ten years of working unspeakable hours to climb up from the depths he’d been tossed into. Rage had simmered in his blood for the last decade as he’d waited for the opportunity to strike back.
Austin Mercer had met his destiny and, as much as Kane knew the family still grieved their loss, he didn’t feel a microgram of regret that the only male Mercer heir was now dead and buried.
Kane’s mother, Sophia, on the other hand, had died before he could provide her with the things he’d so wanted to give her in return for all the sacrifices she’d made.
All the filthy sacrifices Owen Mercer had made her make.
He watched Bryony’s struggle to keep cool under pressure and privately admired her for it. Her father had caved in like the cowardly bully he was, but Bryony was a fighter and he still had the scar to prove it.
She was even more beautiful as a young woman than she’d been as a teenager. Her figure was slim and she moved with the easy grace of someone well trained in the art of classical ballet. Her silky blonde hair was long, drawn back into a single clip at the back of her neck, her eyes an azure, mesmerizing blue. Her mouth was full and tended towards a petulant sneer, but he knew that was probably because she considered him totally beneath her, not worthy of the million-dollar smile she flashed at other men.
But he was patient. He’d waited this long; he could wait a little longer…
Bryony found Kane’s scrutiny increasingly disturbing but stood her ground, waiting for him to speak. She reassured herself that he couldn’t possibly do any worse than he’d already done. If it were indeed true that he now owned everything she would have to move out of the city apartment, but there were plenty of other places she could rent instead.
Her work as a ballet teacher brought in a reasonable income, but she still had to be careful financially, mostly because she found it hard to charge the going rate when children from less fortunate backgrounds fell behind in their fees.
She knew she could always supplement her income some other way, although she had no intention of asking for her father’s help. She suppressed a tiny bubble of what threatened to be hysterical laughter as she even considered taking up house cleaning.
‘Would you care to share the joke?’ Kane asked.
She stared up at him, uncertain of what to make of his expression. ‘No, actually, it wasn’t even funny.’
‘Not much in life is, is it?’ he asked.
She compressed her lips by way of reply. He of all people knew how much she’d idolized her older brother—yes, life wasn’t all that much fun any more.
‘I have made a deal with your father,’ he announced after another one of his nerve-tightening pauses.
‘Oh?’ She hoped she sounded uninterested.
‘I’m giving him the chance to escape the harrowing experience of the judicial system.’
‘Why would you do that?’ She frowned. ‘Especially since…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. She still remembered the shame and disgrace Sophia Kaproulias had gone through when her son had been charged with wilful damage. The local paper had got wind of it, calling Kane Kaproulias an ungrateful rebel who had turned on the benefactor who’d paid for his private education.
The hand of the law had fallen hard on him and she was glad it had. She’d heard he’d spent some time behind bars but had got out early due to good behaviour.
Somehow good behaviour and Kane Kaproulias didn’t sit all that well together in her opinion, especially now, with him watching like a hawk did before it made its final swoop.
‘Your father would not survive a month in prison,’ Kane said. ‘Your mother wouldn’t even make it past the first day.’
‘My mother?’ She looked up at him in sudden consternation. ‘What has my mother got to do with any of this?’
‘Your mother would be implicated in aiding and abetting a criminal,’ he informed her impersonally. ‘And, since I now own and control the family fortune, no decent lawyer would defend their case.’
‘You’re making this up…you have to be…’
‘I’m afraid not, Bryony. Your father has been doing some rather shady deals over the past few years. I got wind of it and decided it was time to make him face the music, so to speak.’
‘With you as principal conductor, I suppose?’ Her look was arctic.
‘But of course.’
She took a prickly breath. ‘So what is my role in all this? You can hardly implicate me. I don’t have anything to do with the family business; I never have.’
‘That’s true; however, you do have rather an important role to play now. For unless you play it both your parents will leave Mercyfields in the back of a police van as I did ten years ago.’
It was hard to maintain her composure as a vision of her fragile mother came to mind. She felt the drum beat of fear pounding deep in her stomach, sending shockwaves all the way to her brain as she tried to imagine what he had planned for her.
What sort of sick revenge would he require to appease his bitterness over the past?
There was only one thing she thought of that would truly rock her to the core of her being, but surely he wouldn’t be thinking along those lines…
He straightened from his leaning position against her father’s desk and strode with loose-limbed grace to where she was sitting on the edge of the wing chair, her crossed leg trembling just ever so slightly as he drew nearer.
She looked up at his face and for the first time realised she had seriously underestimated him. There was a hint of ruthlessness in his glittering eyes, as if he couldn’t wait to tell her of what he had in store for her but was deliberately making her wait to draw out the agony of her suspense for his own enjoyment.
She was close to losing her head and sensed he knew it. Her mouth was dry, her hands damp and her neck and shoulders so tense she could feel a muscle spasm begin in the middle of her back, beating in time with her increasing headache.
She got to her feet, then wished she hadn’t as it brought her far too close to the wall of his body, her thighs almost touching his.
She shrank back but one of his hands came out and held her by the elbow, making escape impossible.
‘Get your filthy hands off me.’ She hissed the words at him with aristocratic hauteur.
His nostrils flared and she felt the unmistakable tightening of his grasp for endless seconds before he finally let her arm go.
She fought to keep her breathing under some sort of control but the feel of his long fingers on her had set off a host of strange electric sensations throughout her body. She felt frightened of him but drawn to him all at the same time, making her feel confused and disoriented.
‘In time you will get used to having me touch you, Bryony,’ he said. ‘You may, in fact, eventually crave it.’
‘I wouldn’t have you touch me for all the money in the world,’ she told him with stiff pride.
‘What about for all the money in the Mercer family vault?’ he asked.
‘W-what are you talking about?’
He gave her an unfathomable look. ‘You see, that is my plan for you, Bryony. Your parents will maintain their freedom and, as I’m feeling generous, a certain level of financial support, but on one condition and one condition only.’
She gave one tiny nervous swallow before she could stop herself. ‘Which is?’ she asked, not really wanting to know the answer, somehow s
ensing it wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.
And she was right.
It wasn’t.
‘I want you to be my wife.’
CHAPTER TWO
BRYONY knew she was giving a very good imitation of a stranded fish, with her mouth opening and closing in shock, but there was little she could do to stop it.
‘You’re a whole two months early for April Fool’s day,’ she said when she could find her voice.
‘This is not a joke, Bryony.’
‘You surely don’t expect me to take this seriously?’
‘If you want your parents to avoid the weight of the law, then yes, I do.’
‘This has got to be some sort of sick joke!’ she insisted. ‘It has to be!’
‘No.’
His one word answer upset her more than if he’d rattled off an entire dictionary of words at her.
Her long stunned silence came to a jarring end when he announced with implacable calm, ‘You will be my wife within a fortnight or both of your parents will be staring at the four walls of a cell.’
‘You definitely need a little work on the proposal, Kane.’ Her tone was deliberately dry to disguise her distress. ‘It makes one wonder how you approached the whole issue of dating over the last few years. What did you do? Drag the nearest woman off by the hair?’
‘No, I never found I had to resort to such tactics.’
‘What did you do? Pay them?’
‘Careful, Bryony,’ he warned her silkily. ‘It wouldn’t be wise to test my control too much. I might be tempted to walk away with the lot and let your parents face a judge and jury all on their own.’
She wished she had the courage to call his bluff, but as her father’s business affairs were so unknown to her it made her realize she was at a distinct disadvantage.
‘I can’t imagine why you would want to marry me.’ She injected her tone with icy disdain. ‘We have nothing in common.’
‘I take it you’re referring to the fact that you have what your family likes to think of as blue blood while mine is, shall we say, a little contaminated?’
‘Your entire brain is seriously contaminated if you think I would ever agree to be your wife. I wouldn’t even agree to be your neighbour, much less live with you in a relationship such as marriage.’
‘It’s understandable you’d find the notion of marriage to me a little distasteful, but in time you may come to see it as justice well served.’
‘My parents would never allow such a marriage to take place,’ she said with somewhat shaky conviction. ‘It would break their hearts to have their only daughter marry the illegitimate son of one of their previous housekeepers.’
‘Your parents have expressed their distress but wisely realize what’s at stake. They’ve given their permission, not that I needed it, of course. I would have gone ahead without it anyway.’
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ She gave him a scornful glare. ‘Isn’t the bride supposed to accept the proposal?’
‘You have no choice other than to accept.’
‘Well, here’s news for you, Kane Kaproulias. I do not accept your outrageous proposal. You’d have to have me drugged and hogtied to get me within a bell’s toll of a church to marry you.’
‘I wasn’t thinking along the lines of a church wedding.’
She stamped her foot on the carpet at her feet. ‘There is not going to be any sort of wedding!’
He continued calmly, as if she hadn’t just screeched at him. ‘It will be a civil ceremony with the minimum of guests.’
‘The last thing I’d call you is civil,’ she tossed back. ‘You’re acting like a primitive jerk issuing these stupid commands like some sort of dictator.’
‘I can be very civil when I need to be, Bryony, but if my buttons are pressed a little too often I’m afraid you might find me less than urbane.’
‘I find you less than human! What were you thinking, coming back here after all this time waving property deeds around and insisting on extracting revenge when you were the one in the wrong in the first place? You are seriously unhinged if you think for one moment I’d commit myself to a man I loathe with every breath in my body.’
‘I shall enjoy teaching you to respect me. I’ve been waiting a long time to do so.’
‘How could I possibly respect you?’ she threw at him coldly. ‘You’re the very last man on earth I would ever respect. You’re nothing, do you hear me? Nothing but a piece of—’
She didn’t get time to finish her stinging insult. He was suddenly towering over her, both of his hands on her upper arms, hauling her up against his hard body, the contact of his flesh on hers knocking all the air out of her lungs.
His head came down, blocking out the fading afternoon sunlight as his mouth came crashing down to hers.
She began to struggle but as soon as his tongue drove through the cleft of her lips she felt herself melt as if he’d turned a switch inside her body from off to on. Sizzling heat coursed through her as his mouth commandeered hers with a mastery she knew was his particular speciality. After all, it had been him who had taught her long ago how truly devastatingly tempting a fiery kiss could be.
She felt the stirring of his body against her stomach, making her legs go weak with unexpected longing. She couldn’t understand her response to him, much less do anything to stop it. Need clawed at her insides, making her kiss him back without the restraint she’d intended on executing.
She felt the ridge of his scar as he shifted position, felt too the rasp of male skin in the dip between her chin and mouth, making her sink even further into his pulsing heat.
He dropped his hold and stepped back from her, his movement so unexpected and sudden she actually swayed on her feet.
It took her at least six precious seconds to gather herself enough to glare at him while she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as if to remove the taste and feel of him from her lips.
‘Don’t you ever try that again,’ she ground out furiously, more angry with herself than him. ‘Who do you think you are?’
‘I am your fiancé until the week after next,’ he said smoothly. ‘After that you will wear my ring and receive my body without complaint.’
‘I hope you’ve got ready access to a large supply of stupefying drugs,’ she bit out. ‘For I can’t imagine any other way you’re going to get me to agree to sleep with you.’
The edge of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. ‘Such dramatics I suppose are to be expected from someone who has had their own way all her life. Marriage to me will be the making of you, Bryony. I guarantee it.’
‘You’re assuming, of course, that I’m going to agree to this preposterous plan.’
‘I’m not just assuming—I’m counting on it. Any doubts you may harbour at this point will soon be swept away with just one conversation with your father.’ He walked to the door and held it open for her. ‘Why not go to him now and get it over with?’
She hesitated, somehow sensing that once she walked through that door she was going to be entering a completely different stage of her life.
He elevated one dark brow at her as he waited for her to move past, his action seeming to mock her indecision, igniting her fury anew.
She drew in a breath and, stiffening her spine, stalked past him with her head in the air, giving him her best imitation of affronted aristocratic pride.
She sensed his self-satisfied smile as she moved past and, clenching her teeth, strode away down the hall, her footsteps echoing with an agitated syncopated beat.
Her parents were in the green sitting room, her father standing at the window staring out over the view of the extensive gardens, her mother sitting in a frozen position on one of the linen covered sofas, her hands tied into two tight knots in her lap.
Bryony closed the door behind her with a little click that made her mother instantly flinch and her father turn around to face her.
‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked.
Her mother began to sob brokenly.
‘Shut up, Glenys.’ Owen Mercer threw his wife a disparaging glance. ‘It’s too late for hysterics; it won’t change anything now.’
Bryony hated the way her father always dismissed her mother but, as much as she wanted to berate him for doing it now, she was here for other reasons and didn’t want to be distracted from them.
‘Is it true?’ She addressed him squarely. ‘Does Kane Kaproulias now own everything?’
She saw her father’s Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat and the fine beads of perspiration clinging precariously to his fleshy upper lip.
‘Yes…it’s true.’
She blinked at him in shock. ‘But…but how? How did such a thing happen?’
Her father seemed to be having some difficulty in meeting her eyes.
‘I made a few mistakes,’ he began awkwardly. ‘None of them serious, but over time they started to bank up behind me.’
‘What banked up behind you?’
‘Debts…’
‘What sort of debts?’
He told her a sum and she sank to the nearest sofa. ‘Oh, my God.’
‘Kane heard about it and swooped in for the kill. There was nothing I could do to stop him.’
Her mind was racing with the effort of finding a way out of their predicament but all she could see was her future mapped out for her as if written in her blood on the wall.
Kane had come after her.
She was the one he had chosen to pay the price.
‘He’s offered us a solution to our problems,’ her father said into the silence.
‘Oh, really?’ She gave him a cold look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve agreed to his tidy little solution, have you?’
‘Darling…’ her mother began.
‘I told you to keep out of this, Glenys,’ Owen barked at her before turning back to Bryony. ‘He’s a rich man. I might have asked for someone a little less…er…primitive, but his wealth will more than make up for that.’
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