‘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.’
‘You think that money means anything to me?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve sold me like some medieval bride!’
‘You could do a lot worse.’
‘I’d like to know how.’ She sprang off the sofa in agitation. ‘I hate him! He’s a criminal, or have you forgotten that little detail?’
‘We all make mistakes, Bryony…’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ she gasped. ‘You were the one to send him off to whatever correction facility he went to. How can you allow him to step in and carry me off like some sort of caveman?’
‘You’re being hysterical just like your mother.’
‘I’m being hysterical? This whole farce is hysterical! I will not marry him and that’s my final word.’ She spun away and stomped to the door and had her hand out to turn the knob when her father spoke, instantly freezing her to the spot.
‘He has information about me that will send both your mother and I to prison for the rest of our lives.’
Bryony turned around slowly, as if by prolonging the moment she might find her life had turned back to what it had once been, not the theatrical drama that was facing her now.
No such luck.
The look on her father’s face was nothing short of desperate and her mother was bent over double on the sofa, the sounds of her distress muffled but no less disturbing.
‘What