She had been shut in with him in the lift, in a far smaller space, but somehow, contradictorily, this seemed so much worse. Now Nikos seemed so much bigger, so much more powerful, dominating the space in which he stood and holding her captive simply by the pure force of his presence.
Or was it about the room? Because it was the office that had once been her father’s? But there was no sign at all of the previous occupant. Every last trace of anything that was personal to Edwin had been removed and replaced with something much more modern, more stylish—and much more expensive. Even in the good days of Carteret Incorporated the office had never looked like this.
The heavy, dark desk and chairs had all been removed and replaced by modern furniture in a pale wood. Thick golden rugs covered the floor, and in the window area there was a comfortable-looking settee and armchairs for relaxing.
It spoke of Nikos Konstantos of Konstantos Corporation. The man who had taken everything her father had thrown at him and refused to go down under it. He had seen everything his own father had worked for snatched away, had stared bankruptcy and total ruin in the face and still come out fighting. And in five short years he had built up his business empire to what it had once been—and then outstripped that. The Konstantos Corporation was bigger, stronger, richer than it had ever been. And it had swallowed up Carteret Incorporated and absorbed it whole on its way to the top.
And Nikos was the Konstantos Corporation.
As she hesitated, Nikos shot back the cuff on his immaculate white shirt and glanced swiftly and pointedly at his watch.
‘You have five minutes to explain yourself—and that is more than you would have had if I’d known it was you,’ he stated curtly. ‘Five minutes. No more.’
Which was guaranteed to dry Sadie’s tongue, make it feel as if it was sticking to the roof of her mouth, and no matter how hard she swallowed, she couldn’t quite force herself to speak.
‘Could—could we sit down?’ she tried, looking longingly at the cream cushions on the padded chairs. Perhaps with her attention taken off the need to concentrate on keeping her legs from shaking so that she could stay upright she might manage to put her thoughts—and the necessary arguments to convince him—into some sort of coherent order.
Sitting down was the last thing Nikos had in mind. He had no intention of letting her get settled, allowing her to stay a moment longer than he had to. Just seeing her here like this was making him feel as if the room was suddenly at the centre of a wild and dangerous hurricane, with the day he had been living being picked up and whirled around, turned inside out.
And the sound of her voice was raking up memories he had pushed to the back of his mind for so long. He wanted them to stay there. He had never wanted to speak to Sadie Carteret ever again.
‘Tell him to go away, Daddy.’
The words she had tossed down the staircase at him, the last words he had ever heard her speak on the day that had been the worst day of his life, came back to haunt him, making savage anger flare like rocket fire inside his head.
‘Tell him the only interest he had for me was his money, and now that he has none I never want to see him again.’
And he had never wanted to see her, Nikos acknowledged, his whole body taut with rejection of her presence in his life once more. The disturbing tug of sensuality he had felt in the lift had evaporated, he was thankful to find. The memory of her callous rejection, the cold tight voice in which she’d flung it at him, not even bothering to come downstairs and tell him face to face, had driven that away, leaving behind just a cold savagery of hatred.
The sooner she said what she had to say and got out of here, the better.
‘Five minutes,’ he repeated with deadly emphasis. ‘And then I get Security to escort you out. You’ve wasted one of them already.’
‘I wanted to talk to you about buying Thorn Trees!’
That got his attention. His dark head went back, eyes narrowing sharply.
‘Buying? What is this? Have you suddenly come into a fortune?’
Belatedly Sadie realised her mistake. Nerves had got the better of her and she’d blurted out the first thing that came into her mind.
‘No—of course not.’
‘I didn’t mean buy—I could never afford that. I just…’
The sudden drop of those bronze eyes down to the gold watch on his wrist, watching the second hand tick by, incensed her, pushing her into rash, unguarded speech.
‘Damn you, you took everything we had. Every last thing my father had owned—except for this. I just hoped that I might be able to rent it from you.’
‘Rent?’
Her antagonism had been a mistake, sparking off an answering anger in Nikos, one that tightened every muscle in his face, thinning his lips to a hard, tight line.
‘That house is a handsome property in a prime position in London. With some restoration—a lot of restoration, admittedly—it would sell for a couple of million—maybe more. Why should I want to rent it out to you?’
‘Because I need it.’
Because my mother’s happiness—possibly even her sanity—her life—might depend on it. But Sadie wasn’t quite ready to expose every last detail of the worries that had driven her to come here today to plead with him. Not with Nikos standing there, dark and imposing, arms now folded across the width of his chest, jaw clamped tight, eyes as cold as golden ice, looking for all the world like the judge in some criminal court. And one who was just about to put the black cap on his head, ready to pronounce the sentence of execution.
Besides, her mother had already lost so very much. She wouldn’t deprive her of the last shreds of her dignity, her privacy, unless she really had no choice.
‘As you’ve admitted, it needs a great deal of restoration. There’s no way you would be able to get the market value for it right now.’
‘And no way I can get the necessary renovations done with you and your mother there. I thought I’d given instructions to my solicitor…’
‘You did.’
Oh, he had. She knew that only too well. The letter advising her family that Nikos Konstantos now owned Thorn Trees and that they should vacate the house by the end of the month had arrived a few days before. It had only been by a stroke of luck that Sadie had managed to intercept the envelope before her mother had shown any interest in the post. That way she had succeeded in keeping the bad news from Sarah for a while at least.
But not for good. Within twenty-four hours, her mother had somehow found the envelope and read its contents. Her panicked reaction had been everything Sadie had anticipated—and most dreaded. It was the final straw that had pushed her into action, bringing her to the realisation that there was only one way she could hope to handle this and that that was by going to see Nikos himself, appealing directly to his better nature in the hope that he would help them, let them stay at least until things improved just a little.
Not that Nikos, as he was now, looked as if he had a better nature at all. His face was set and stony, his eyes like glowing flints.
‘Your solicitor did exactly as you told him—don’t worry about that.’
‘Then you know what I have planned for the house. And it does not include a couple of sitting tenants.’
‘But we don’t have anywhere to go.’
‘Find somewhere.’
Could his voice get any more brutal, any more unyielding? There wasn’t even a flicker of emotion in it, nothing she could hope to appeal to. And what made it so much worse was the way a memory danced in front of her eyes. An image of the same man but five years younger. And so unlike the cold-faced monster who seemed