‘I mean they literally told me they’d disown me if I didn’t break it off with you,’ she added with a look of grief on her beautiful features.
She was back in the past, her mind far from him in that moment.
‘I didn’t care when they said they’d disinherit me.’ She looked at him—and through him. ‘Money meant nothing to me. But they were my link to Libby, and they said they wouldn’t have me in their lives so long as I was with you. That I would never be allowed to return to Kenington Hall.’ Marnie’s voice cracked. ‘The house was—is—all I have left of her...’
* * *
Marnie woke with a start as the plane pitched a little in one direction. She’d dozed off, despite the fact their flight had been a morning one. She stifled a yawn with the back of her hand, her groggy eyes drifting to her husband’s bent head.
He was working.
A smile flicked to her lips with ease, though her stomach churned with a mix of anxiety and an emotion that was so much more confusing.
She didn’t have time to attempt to understand it before the plane shuddered and Marnie’s panic overtook everything. She dug her fingernails into the armrests, her expression showing distress.
Nikos, attuned to her every move, looked up instantly. ‘There is thick cloud-cover over London, that’s all.’
She nodded, but her childhood fear of flying was ricocheting through her. Marnie stared out of the window, trying to distract herself with thoughts of her father’s birthday weekend—anything to curtail the clear picture she had in her mind of the aeroplane spearing nose-first towards the earth.
Their trip had come round quickly—for Marnie, almost too quickly.
After that one night in Athens when they’d shared dinner she felt as if a new understanding had settled between her and her husband and she wanted to hold on to that, to strengthen the understanding that was building between them. Would a trip back to her parents’ unsettle the bridge they’d been building?
They were not a normal couple.
There was no shared love between them—at least not on Nikos’s part. Perhaps not on Marnie’s part either.
She had spent a great deal of her energy trying to decipher and separate her feelings of lust from love; her feelings of past love from present infatuation. Some days she convinced herself that she’d fallen in love with only the idea of Nikos—an idea that bore only a passing resemblance to the ruthless, determined businessman he’d become.
But then he would do something sweet—like bringing her tea in bed when she’d slept late, or calling in the middle of the day to remind her of something small they’d discussed the night before—and her heart would flutter and her soul would know she loved him. Not in a sensible, rational way, but in the way that love sometimes bloomed even when it was not watered or fed.
They barely argued. By tacit agreement each tried to respect the other’s limitations. Marnie accepted the dark streak that ran through Nikos—the side of him that was so hell-bent on making her father see how wrong he was to have passed Nikos off as a failure that he’d blackmailed her into marriage. If she thought about it too much it made her queasy, so she pushed it to the recesses of her mind and clung to a sort of blind hope. Maybe one day he wouldn’t feel that aching resentment so forcefully?
Their truce was underpinned by a sex life that made her toes curl. He had been right about that. Even if it was all they had to go on it would make their marriage worth staying in. Wouldn’t it?
But uncertainty lurked just beyond her acceptance. For they had travelled stormy waters, and weren’t there always eyes in storms? The calm that gave a moment’s respite before the intensity of the cyclone returned with twice its strength?
Was she in the eye of a storm?
Or was this a lasting peace?
Only time would tell, and Marnie had a lifetime to wait and see.
CHAPTER TEN
THE APPLE WAS as sweetly sun-warmed as those she remembered from childhood. Despite the fact the day was cool, the morning had offered just enough heat to darken the flesh of this one more than the others.
Though it wasn’t yet midday, she was tired. They’d been travelling since dawn and the return to Kenington with Nikos by her side had brought with it a sledge-load of emotions.
Juice dribbled down one side of her mouth and she lifted a finger to catch it.
Nikos watched, transfixed.
‘I used to love coming down here to the apple orchard...’
‘I remember.’
Memories. They were his problem. They were thick in the air around them. Memories of how it had felt then. When he’d been young and in love. He would have plucked a matching apple from another branch and enjoyed its fruity flesh alongside Marnie.
She stopped walking and turned around, her back to the heavily adorned fruit trees. ‘I always think this is the best aspect of the house.’ She lifted her free hand and framed the building between her forefinger and thumb. Her smile was born of whimsy. ‘Until I go to the rose garden or Libby’s garden. Then I think that view is preferable.’
She crunched into the apple once more.
‘Perhaps it is the same from all viewpoints,’ he suggested, with a hint of cynicism that was out of place and sounded, even to his own ears, forced.
‘Maybe.’ She shrugged and began to walk back towards the house.
He resisted the urge to ask her to stay with him where they were a little longer.
‘Thank you for coming with me this weekend.’
His laugh was short. ‘I presumed my attendance wasn’t optional.’
She lifted her face to his. ‘I would think almost everything is optional for you.’
His smile was without humour—a relic of his twisted laugh. ‘Not this.’
She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. ‘When are you seeing him?’
‘We’re meeting after lunch.’
Marnie stopped walking, reaching for Nikos’s hand. Her fingers curled around his as though they belonged. Familiarity and comfort knotted through her, momentarily putting aside the nausea and anxiety that had besieged her since they’d arrived in London.
‘What is it, agape?’
A husky question. A promise, too, laced with so many emotions she couldn’t translate.
‘You know how stubborn he is?’
Nikos’s lips curled. ‘Yes.’
‘I just don’t know if he’ll let you help. And I’m... I’m scared.’
His eyes held hers, probing her, trying to read her soul. ‘Tell me something, Marnie. Why do you care?’
She started, scanning his face. But Nikos wasn’t backing off. In fact, he moved closer, welding his body to hers, linking his arms behind her back. His nearness was seductive and distracting.
‘Besides the fact he’s my father?’
‘Blood isn’t everything. Your parents don’t seem too concerned with your happiness. You’re not close to them.’
‘Of course I am,’ she said with a shake of her head.
He laughed, dismissing her assertion easily. ‘You don’t speak to them. You don’t speak of them—except with a sense of obligation and guilt because you survived and Libby died.’
She was startled at his perceptiveness.
‘You married a man who saw you only as a means of revenge in order to stave off the financial fate that they deserve.’
‘They’re my parents,’ she mumbled, her eyes flicking closed. The pain of his words was washing through her. ‘And I’m very grateful to you.’
‘Grateful?’ He stepped backwards, shaking his head. ‘Thee mou. You offer me gratitude? I tell you I see you as a means of revenge and you say thank you?’
She frowned. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘No, I don’t. You have been pushed around b
y your parents, and by me, and yet you seem to treat us all with civility and thankfulness. I cannot comprehend this.’
She swallowed. ‘Do you need to?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’ He lifted a hand to her cheek and stroked it. ‘And I suppose the same could be said for you.’
She pressed a hand to his chest, perhaps intending to put some distance between them, but the warmth of him, the beating of his heart, was mesmerising.
‘Do you really believe our marriage comes down to revenge and sex?’
‘Our marriage—’ He began to speak, the words thick with meaning. He stared into her eyes; he was drowning in them. They were the depths to her soul; the truth to her questions. They mirrored his past, his heart and all his hopes.
They were beautiful eyes. How could people mistake her for being cold-hearted? In her eyes there was always a twisting of emotion and thought, of kindness and concern. Yet he had missed it. He had believed her unfeeling and incapable of true emotion at one point. He’d clung to that; he’d enjoyed believing it of her.
‘Yes?’
It was a husk. An invitation for him to say something that would smooth away the pain of their predicament. A contradiction of the fact that he had bought her out of a need to avenge past wrongs.
But they were wrongs he’d carried with him for a long time. Was he willing to let them go? And, if so, what did that mean?
‘Marnie?’
The voice was shrill and imperious, cutting across the lawn and breaking through the growing understanding that had been forming between them. He was unwilling to close their conversation, but a cloud instantly seemed to spread across Marnie and she stepped back.
The woman who had pulled a sweet apple from a frothy tree and crunched into it hungrily was gone. Lady Heiress was his companion now—only her eyes showed that Marnie was still in there.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said quietly, shifting her gaze to the manor house in the background. ‘I’m glad you’re going to help him. Only be gentle, Nikos. And...’ She turned to face him, hurrying now as Anne Kenington approached them. ‘I know you said you would decide if you wanted to tell him the truth about our arrangement but...’
It seemed like an age ago that they’d had that conversation, but it had only been a month! Something strange lodged in her mind—a recollection she couldn’t quite grab so she pushed it aside.
‘But could you not? Not this weekend? I know you hate him, and that it’s tempting to throw it in his face. But not now. Please?’
He stared at her without speaking and Marnie continued anxiously.
‘I don’t think I could forgive that. It would be... It really would be the end of what we used to mean to one another.’
Nikos was perplexed—and something else. Something he couldn’t analyse or comprehend. So he spoke honestly. ‘I have no intention of telling your father you married me to clear his debts.’
‘Don’t say that!’
She was visibly stricken, but Anne was almost upon them. Like a consummate professional Marnie blinked and slid her mask into place.
It annoyed him, and he wanted to prise it off again—just for a moment. He was sick and tired of masks and pretence.
‘It’s the truth,’ he replied softly, clinging to that fact for her sake as much as his own.
Did he want her to contradict him? Did he want her to redefine their marriage? How could he expect that of her? A challenge? A gauntlet? One he knew she’d never answer.
‘Isn’t it?’
* * *
Their conversation had left Nikos in a foul mood. The lack of resolution, the constant chasing one another in circles, had given him the feeling that as soon as he began to comprehend a facet of his wife she morphed into something else and slipped out of his grip and downstream from him completely.
Worse was the sense that he was losing his own convictions in the face of hers. To lose one’s sister would be hard enough, but to have your parents threaten to cut you completely from their life and support... Even Marnie, who had always seemed to have certainty and strength to her, must have been terrified of what that would mean.
How dared they? How had they dared to speak to their own child with such cold disregard?
It was not the ideal mind-set to bring to his meeting with Arthur Kenington. Nor was it the ideal backdrop. This study of Arthur’s was familiar, yet different. Since they’d stood here six years earlier many changes had taken place—not least between the two men.
The walls were filled with a collection of books, impressive volumes that had never been thumbed—perhaps carefully selected by an interior designer who had chosen the titles because they would add gravitas to a man who was otherwise lacking in it—there was an elegant liquor tray that looked to be well-used, and a family photograph that was framed above Arthur’s desk.
Arthur and Anne had barely aged, though Libby and Marnie looked much younger, so the picture must have been taken at least a decade earlier.
Arthur caught Nikos’s gaze and grimaced. ‘Our last family photo. We used to get them done every year until...we lost her.’ He coughed, his slight paunch wobbling a little with the involuntary spasm. ‘It didn’t make much sense after that.’
Nikos didn’t respond. Marnie and Libby stood at the foreground of the photo, Libby’s arm wrapped around her sister’s shoulders. There was an air of genuine affection between the girls: a sign of true camaraderie. Perhaps it had developed as a result of this environment?
‘She was such an angel,’ Arthur continued, perhaps misunderstanding Nikos’s interest. ‘Not a girl in the world like her.’
Nikos felt a possessive protective instinct flash in his gut. Yes, Libby had been lovely. And beautiful in a way that was ordinary and common. Unlike Marnie, with her steely, watchful gaze and determined little chin. Her reserve that made it difficult for her to speak to people unless she really, truly admired them.
‘We need to discuss your business,’ Nikos said sharply, not wishing to wander down Arthur’s Libby-paved Memory Lane a moment longer. ‘My information on your situation has me...concerned.’
‘And what information is that?’
Nikos leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his thighs. ‘It is no secret. You are out of immediate danger, but that is only temporary.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Then you are a fool.’ Nikos spoke sharply.
Six years had passed since their last private conversation, and in that time Nikos had become used to having the world obey him. Deference generally met his commands—not dithering indecision.
‘Do you want to lose it all, Arthur?’
‘Of course I don’t. But it won’t come to that. Mark my words, there’ll be—’
‘Nothing.’ Nikos eased back in his chair. ‘You are overcommitted. There are no more assets left to shore your interests up and the market continues to fluctuate wildly. I am your only chance.’
The silence sparked between them. It was electrified by resentment.
‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’
Nikos didn’t pretend to misunderstand; his smile was thin and unknowingly filled with disparagement. ‘How I feel isn’t relevant,’ he said finally.
Strangely, he wasn’t enjoying it. He had spent a long time imagining a situation like this. How good it would feel to throw his own success in Arthur Kenington’s face. A man who had told him he would never amount to anything! He’d fantasised about it, and he’d done everything he could—even sacrificing his conscience—to achieve this moment.
And he felt nothing. Except, perhaps, a pervasive pity for this man who had let vanity and arrogance get in the way of financial security. His voice was softer when he spoke again, conciliatory.
‘You cannot lose your business. Nor this house. It would devast
ate Marnie.’
‘Marnie?’ A scoff of surprise. ‘She’d recover. This place never meant to her what it did to Libby.’
Nikos’s fingers flexed into a fist on his lap, but he kept his face impassive. How was it possible that her own father understood her so little? Did he not see what she didn’t say? Didn’t he understand that her reticence to express emotions didn’t mean that she lacked them?
‘It is for Marnie’s sake that I offer my assistance, so do not disdain her feelings.’
The statement held a barely contained warning. Nikos, though, knew he had no option but to help. It was a promise he had made to Marnie and he would never break it.
Arthur dragged a hand through his hair, his eyes skidding about the room. ‘There has to be a way...’
‘Yes. There is. I’m it. You know I have the money. A single phone call would remove this worry from your life.’
‘You have the money?’ Arthur spat, his eyes glistening with dark rage. ‘You. A boy I all but dismissed as—’ He had the wisdom to cut the sentence off.
‘Yes?’ Nikos demanded through bared teeth.
‘Worthless.’ Arthur spat the word with satisfaction.
Nikos stood, his powerful stride taking him to the window. He looked down on Libby’s garden and imagined Marnie there. His will strengthened. The papers he’d had couriered to him that morning were heavy in his pocket, begging for attention.
‘You were wrong.’ He turned, his eyes pinning Arthur where he sat. ‘Do you want my help or not?’
A long silence clouded them. Nikos studied his opponent—there was no mistaking the adversarial nature of their relationship in that moment. With no one else to witness their interaction both men had dropped their masks of civility.
‘I offer it to you with only one condition.’
Arthur snorted. ‘I knew it was too good to be true.’
‘Perhaps.’ Nikos nodded, knowing for certain now the only way he could make sure Marnie was well-looked-after for the rest of her life. ‘But it is your only chance to salvage something of your pride, so I suggest you listen.’
Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge Page 13