Bought for the Billionaire's Revenge

by Clare Connelly

  He heard the words without allowing them to find any credibility within him. ‘She loved me six years ago, when you forced her to end it.’

  Anne didn’t visibly react. It was as though the past was a ribbon, pulling her backwards. ‘She was miserable afterwards. I doubt she ever forgave us.’

  It was a strange sense; he was both hot and cold. He didn’t want to think of how Marnie had felt. He’d been so furious with her, so concerned with his own hurts, he’d never really given her situation any thought. She’d told him she’d been angry, though. Furious, she’d said. Had her fury matched his? It couldn’t have or she would have held their course.

  ‘She moved on,’ he said quietly. ‘Until recently.’

  ‘But she didn’t.’

  Anne’s eyes were darkened by guilt. She pushed up from the bench and strode a little way across the kitchen, then froze once more—a statue in the room.

  ‘She continued to live and breathe, but that’s not the same as moving on. She thought I didn’t notice her reading about you in the papers. That I didn’t catch her looking at photos of you.’ She flicked her head over her shoulder, pinning him with a glance that spoke of true concern. ‘She was so careful, but I saw the way she missed you. The way she seemed to wither for a long time. It was almost like losing two daughters.’

  Disgust, anger and guilt at the way they had all failed Marnie gnawed through him.

  Anne sipped her wine and moved back to her original spot, opposite Nikos. ‘We introduced her to some lovely young men—’

  ‘Suitable men?’ he interjected, with a cynical strength to his words. But Anne’s statement was slicing through him. The idea of Marnie having pined for him was one he couldn’t contemplate.

  ‘Yes, suitable men. Nice men.’ She closed her eyes. ‘She never mentioned your name, but I always knew you to be the reason it didn’t work out. She never got over you.’

  Nikos sipped his coffee but his mind was spinning back over their conversation in his office, when he’d first suggested they marry. She’d been so arctic. So cold!

  But wasn’t that Marnie’s defence mechanism? Wasn’t that how she behaved when her emotions were rioting all over the place? And her being a virgin? Was that simply because she’d never found someone who made her body tremble as it did for him? Had she chosen not to get serious with another guy because she still wanted him?

  ‘I believed we were doing the right thing.’ Anne’s smile was tight. ‘After Libby, we just wanted Marnie to be safe.’

  ‘You thought I was somehow unsafe?’ he barked, anger and frustration and impotence to change the past ravaging his temper.

  ‘You aren’t safe,’ she responded sharply. ‘The way she feels about you is a recipe for disaster.’

  Marnie didn’t still love him, did she? How could she after what he’d put her through? She might have loved him a year ago...even two months ago. But the way he’d burst back into her life had been the one thing that must have ruined any love between them.

  He closed his eyes briefly.

  Anne continued speaking, but she wasn’t particularly focussed on her son-in-law. ‘You must hate us. I know Marnie did for a long time. But I love her, Nikos. Everything I’ve done has been because I love her.’

  ‘Yet you sought to control her life? You told her you would disinherit her if she didn’t leave me?’

  Anne winced as though he’d slapped her. ‘Yes. Well, Arthur did...’ A whisper. A hollow, tormented, grief-soaked admission. ‘At the time I told myself that she must have known we were right. She broke up with you. And Marnie knew her own head and heart. If she’d really loved you, I told myself, she would have fought harder.’

  Nikos felt a familiar sentiment echo within him.

  ‘But she couldn’t. We were holding on by a thread and Marnie knew that.’

  ‘And what about Marnie?’ he asked with dark anger, though he couldn’t have said if it was directed at Anne, Arthur or himself.

  ‘She was Marnie,’ Anne said finally, drinking more wine with a small shrug. ‘Determined to act as though everything was fine even if it was almost killing her.’

  Nikos angled his head away, his dark eyes resting on their reflections in the window. Anne appeared smaller there, shrunken. Surprised, he looked at her and realised that the changes had taken place in real time—he just hadn’t noticed them. She was smaller, wizened, stressed.

  ‘How could you let her go through this?’ he muttered, but his blame and recriminations were focussed on himself.

  Anne pinned him with eyes that reminded him once more of Libby. ‘Libby was such an easy child—so like me. I just understood her. But with Marnie... She’s a puzzle I can’t fathom.’

  Nikos rubbed a hand across his jaw. ‘Marnie is all that is good in the world,’ he said finally. ‘Often to her own detriment. She wants the best for those she loves, even when it means sacrificing her own happiness.’

  Guilt over their marriage was a knife, deep in his gut.

  ‘Yes!’ Anne expelled an angry sigh. ‘I love that girl, Nikos, but I don’t always know how to love her. I suppose that sounds tremendously strange to you—she’s my child, after all.’

  His smile was thin. For Anne’s words had lodged deep in his mind and begun to unravel with condemnation and acceptance. He had loved Marnie once, too, but never in the way she’d needed to be loved. His faults were on a par with Anne and Arthur Kenington’s.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  MARNIE STOOD UNSTEADILY as the plane pitched yet again, rolled mercilessly by the thick cotton wool clouds that had clogged the entire journey from London to Athens.

  Nikos, in the middle of a newspaper article, lifted his gaze curiously. He had been distracted for the entire flight, and he seemed almost to be rousing himself from a long way away now.

  ‘Travel sickness,’ she explained, moving quickly away from him towards the back of the plane.

  She burst into the toilet, relieved to have made it just a second before losing the entire contents of her stomach. Her brow broke out in sweat and still she heaved, her whole body quivering with the exertion.

  She moaned as the taste of metal filled her mouth and finally, spent, straightened. The mirror showed how unwell she’d been: the face that stared back at her was bright red, sweaty, and her eyes were slightly bloodshot in the corners.

  She flushed the toilet and ran the cold water, washing her hands and splashing water over her face, enjoying the relief of the ice-cold liquid.

  As a child she’d been prone to travel sickness. Even a short journey had brought on a spell of nausea. But it had been a long time since she’d felt it. Years. In fact the last time she’d been sick she’d been ten or eleven.

  But what else could it be?

  Marnie froze midway through patting her cheeks with a plush hand towel. Mentally she counted back the days to their wedding, her mind moving with an alacrity she wouldn’t have thought it capable of a moment ago, while doubled over an aeroplane toilet.

  They’d been married just over a month and they’d made love on their wedding night. And since that time a certain something had been glaringly absent.

  She’d started the pill in plenty of time for it to have been effective. So what did that mean? Had going on birth control simply changed her normal cycle? Was that it? Or was she pregnant with Nikos’s baby? Because what she was feeling felt altogether different, and a little terrifying.

  The idea was a tiny seed she couldn’t shake. It put roots down through her mind, so that by the time she returned to her seat, looking much more like her normal self, she was almost certain that she was indeed pregnant.

  She’d need to do a test to be sure, but there was no room in her mind for doubt.

  She barely spoke for the rest of the flight, and she was too caught up in her own imaginings
to notice that Nikos was similarly silent. Brooding, even.

  Athens was cool but humid when they landed; the clouds that had made their flight so bumpy were thick in the air, making the ground steam.

  ‘I have some business to take care of,’ Nikos murmured once they’d disembarked. His Ferrari was waiting on the Tarmac. ‘I will need to go straight to my office once we’re home.’

  Marnie, secretly glad for this reprieve, time to ascertain whether or not she was in fact pregnant, nodded. ‘Okay.’

  It was all Marnie could do not to tell him of her suspicions as he drove the now familiar roads to his mansion. But she wouldn’t do that. Not until she knew for sure that there was a baby.

  It would be a surprise—a shock, really.

  But it didn’t necessarily follow that it would be a nightmare, did it?

  * * *

  ‘A baby between us would never be magical and wonderful. It is the very last thing I would want.’

  The words circled her mind.

  She waited until he’d left, and then for Eléni to arrive, and somehow was casually able to ask for a ride to the markets to pick up some groceries.

  The whole way there, making halting chitchat with Eléni, Marnie wondered what it would mean if she was actually, truly pregnant.

  She paid for the groceries, stuffing the pregnancy test into her handbag rather than stowing it with the other shopping, and listened to Eléni the whole way home.

  Finally she removed herself to her room to find out, once and for all, if her suspicions were right.

  The test showed exactly what she had known it would.

  Two bright blue lines.

  She was pregnant.

  With Nikos’s baby.

  Elation danced deep in her being. She felt its unmistakable warmth zing through her and she treasured it—because she knew that it would not last long. Complications would surely arise soon enough and take away the pleasure she felt.

  For it was an incontrovertible truth that no matter what she chose to do she would be a part of Nikos’s life for ever. And he of hers.

  Where was her despair at that prospect? Her concern?

  She looked into her heart and saw nothing—just joy.

  Tears ran down her cheeks and for the first time in her life they were happy tears. Tears that warmed her and blessed her and made her feel as if she wanted to shout her euphoria from the rooftops. It was not a simple joy—there would be complications—but they paled in comparison to the happiness that shone before her.

  She needed to tell him—but not on the phone. She would wait until he returned and leave him in no doubt as to how pleased she was with this turn of events. Even though she knew they had broken his cardinal rule...

  The minutes of the day seemed to gang up on her, deciding that they’d like to drag their way mutinously towards the hour of Nikos’s arrival gleefully slowly rather than with the alacrity she craved.

  Just wondering when you’ll be home?

  She sent the message, her impatience burning through her, fear threatening to take hold of her.

  Not for a while. N.

  Well, he’d be home eventually, and then she’d just have to put her hope in his hands and pray he didn’t crush it.

  The first sign that there was a problem was that Nikos didn’t drive himself home. A luxurious limousine pulled up out at the front and Marnie, hovering in her office with its view of the driveway, wondered briefly if they had unexpected company.

  When Nikos emerged from the back his large frame seemed different. Slightly unsteady. He stood for a moment, a hand braced on the roof of the car, his eyes scanning the front of his house. Why did he look so grim? Had something happened?

  Concerned, she moved quickly through the house, reaching the front door at the same time he did. She heard his keys drop to the ground outside and pulled the door inwards, her expression perplexed.

  Until she smelled the Scotch and realised that her husband—the father of her tiny, tiny baby—had obviously been drinking. Heavily.

  ‘Nik...?’ she said with disbelief, holding the door wide and letting him in.

  Marnie had never seen him anything other than in complete control. She was struggling to make sense of what might have happened in the hours since they’d returned from London to lead him to be in this state.

  ‘My wife,’ he said, as though it brought him little pleasure.

  Confusion thick in her mind, she waited for him to move deeper into the house so she could close the door. ‘Have you been out?’

  ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘I have been in my office.’

  Unconsciously, she moved a hand to her stomach. ‘Drinking?’

  He expelled an angry breath. ‘Apparently.’

  Marnie nodded, but he still wasn’t making sense. The uncharacteristic act jarred with everything she knew about this man. He was a disciplined control freak.

  Out of nowhere old jealousies and suspicions erupted. ‘Alone?’

  His eyes narrowed, but he nodded.

  ‘Why?’ she asked finally, putting a hand on his elbow in order to guide him towards the kitchen.

  But he pulled away, walking determinedly ahead of her, his physical ability apparently not as affected as she’d first thought.

  She walked behind him, and once in the kitchen moved to the fridge. As if on autopilot, she pulled out the ingredients for a toasted cheese sandwich, her eyes flicking to him every few moments. And he stared at her. He stared at her with an intensity that filled her body with fire and flame even as she was laced with confusion and anxiety.

  So telling him about the baby wasn’t going to happen, she admitted to herself. At least not until the following day, when he might be in a headspace to comprehend what she was saying.

  ‘Why, Marnie?’ He repeated her question in a tone that was so like the way he’d spoken in the past it made her chest heavy; his words seemed to ring with disdain and dislike.

  She tried not to let it fill her heart but it was there. Doubt. Hurt. Aching sadness.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ she said finally. ‘Has something happened?’

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. ‘Your mother believes you’ve spent the last six years pining for me. That you have loved me this whole time.’

  Marnie started, her eyes flying to his involuntarily. Her mouth was dry. ‘I...I don’t understand why that matters. What my mother says...how I felt. What difference does it make right now to this marriage?’

  He spoke slowly, his tone emphatic. ‘Did you stay single and celibate because you love me?’

  Marnie’s heart dropped.

  She spun away from him but Nikos raised his voice.

  ‘Damn it, Marnie. You broke up with me. You walked away from us.’

  ‘I know,’ she whispered, tears springing to her eyes. The happiness of the last twenty-four hours was being swallowed by old hurts. ‘I thought we agreed we wouldn’t talk about the past any more?’

  He slammed his palm against the benchtop. ‘Why didn’t you come back? Why didn’t you call me when you realised you were still in love with me?’

  ‘You’d moved on,’ she said simply. ‘And nothing had changed for me.’

  ‘You were so emphatic when you ended it. You convinced me you didn’t care for me, that you had never been serious. You completely echoed your father’s feelings about me and men of my upbringing.’ He spat the word like a curse.

  She recoiled as though he’d slapped her. ‘I had to do that! You wouldn’t have accepted it unless I made sure you truly believed it was over.’ She shook her head and no longer bothered to check the tears that stung her eyes. ‘I hated saying those things to you when it was the opposite of how I felt.’

  He was not his usual self, but even on a bad day
and after a fair measure of Scotch Nikos was better than anyone at debating and reasoning.

  He honed his thoughts quickly back to the point at hand. ‘You admit you’ve loved me this whole time?’

  Marnie froze, her only movement the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she tried to draw breath into her lungs. She felt that she’d been caught—not in a lie so much as in the truth.

  ‘I would never have done this if I’d known,’ he said after a beat of silence had passed—one he took for her acquiescence.

  ‘Done what?’ She didn’t look at him. Her voice was a whisper into the room.

  ‘This marriage...’

  Her heart fell as if from a great height. It was pulverised at her feet, a tangling mass of heaving hopes.

  ‘It was the worst kind of wrong to use you like this.’

  She couldn’t stifle her sob. ‘Is that what you were doing?’ She forced herself to look at him—and then wished she hadn’t when the intensity of his expression left her short of breath.

  He spoke with a cold detachment that was so much worse than the heat of an argument. ‘I forced you to marry me. Just as your parents forced you to leave me. I am no better than them. Hell, I consider my crimes to be considerably greater.’

  He pushed the back of the envelope open and lifted a piece of paper out. One page. When he handed it to her it was still warm from having been nestled close to his chest all afternoon.

  ‘But at least I can atone for my sins.’

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, even as her eyes dropped to the page.

  ‘Petition for Divorce’ was typed neatly across the top, and as she skimmed lower she saw her name written beside Nikos’s. He’d already signed his name. A masculine scrawl of hard intent.

  Marnie was still. So still. Briefly she wondered if she might pass out. She felt hot and cold, as she’d done on the flight. She dropped the page and moved backwards until her bottom connected with the bench. She stayed there, glad for the support. Her head was spinning.

  ‘Divorce?’

  ‘I was wrong.’ The words were saturated with bleak despair. He was begging her to understand. ‘I regret everything I said to you that day in my office. I heard your father was going bankrupt and this idea came to me. I acted on it before I could realise what a stupid mistake it was. I need to undo it.’