‘I don’t wish your mother to be upset.’
‘You’ve made it your lifetime’s work to make her upset so I can’t see why you’re feeling so solicitous now.’
‘I won’t be spoken to like that, young lady,’ Owen growled at her darkly.
‘I’m not a child you can smack into obedience,’ she flashed at him, recalling all the times he had as if they were yesterday. ‘I’m twenty-seven years old so you can hardly resort to such brutality now.’
‘You deserve Kaproulias as your husband,’ her father snarled at her. ‘You need someone cruel and calculating to bring you to heel.’
She didn’t think she had hated her father more than at that point in her entire life.
She knew Austin had been his favourite child. She had never come first in his affections and had barely managed to scrape in second. His work was his life and he’d brandished his wealth about with self-indulgent pride. She would have walked away long ago and never looked back except for her mother…
‘So my fate is sealed.’ She flicked a glance towards the bowed figure on the sofa, her heart sinking all over again at the sight of her mother’s brokenness.
‘It’s the only way out,’ Owen said. ‘You owe us this. You’re a Mercer and we must always stand together.’
‘What a pity you didn’t consider that when you went on your little gambling spree.’ She sent him a disdainful look. ‘I’m assuming that’s where most of the money has gone?’
He didn’t bother denying it. ‘I was on a winning streak, my numbers were up and then it all changed.’
Oh, how it had changed, she thought with increasing despair.
‘Kaproulias is being quite generous,’ her father continued. ‘He’s paying for your mother and me to go on a trip to get out of the line of fire. There are people after me…’
As far as she was concerned they were welcome to him but she couldn’t bear the thought of her mother suffering any more grief. In spite of her father’s mean-spirited nature, she knew her mother still loved him desperately.
Bryony couldn’t imagine ever allowing herself to love someone so unguardedly. Her heart was untouched and, as far as she was concerned, it was going to stay that way.
She left the harrowing spectre of her parents’ financial demise to the confines of the green sitting room and made her way towards the stairs.
‘I wish to discuss the details of our marriage with you.’ Kane’s deep voice sounded from behind her.
She sucked in an angry breath and turned on her heel to look at him, wishing she’d made it up four or five steps so she could at least have given her craning neck a rest.
Had he really been that tall all those years ago?
She was a good five foot seven, could even stretch it to ten in some of her heels, but he still towered over her, making her feel small and insignificant.
‘I thought you would have taken the hint by now and left,’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’
‘We have a wedding to arrange.’
‘It seems to me it’s already been arranged—’ she sent him a withering look ‘—by you.’
‘I want your input on one or two details.’
‘You’ve made all the decisions so far, so feel free to make the rest. I don’t give a toss.’
‘Do you not wish to know where we will live?’
She hadn’t given it a thought. So much had happened in the last hour; she was still reeling from the staggering blow she’d received, her brain more or less paralysed by a combination of fear and sick resignation.
Marriage to Kane Kaproulias was quite clearly inescapable. While she would have happily left her father to the pack of wolves currently after his blood, her mother was another thing entirely. Even if Bryony had to wed Lucifer himself it would be preferable to watching her mother destroyed.
She would not—could not let that happen.
‘Mercyfields is out of the question,’ she said, carefully avoiding his eyes. ‘I need to be close to my work in the city.’
‘You won’t need to work once you are my wife, or at least not in that capacity.’
She frowned at his statement. ‘Of course I must work. I love my job.’
‘I don’t mind if you have a job as long as you run my home for me according to my standards.’
Her jaw dropped open. ‘What did you say?’
His mouth tilted in a self-satisfied little smile. ‘I want you to be a proper wife. You will keep our home clean and tidy as well as cook on the occasions we don’t dine out.’
She couldn’t believe her ears. She felt like shaking her head to make sure she wasn’t going deaf and misinterpreting what he’d said.
‘You want me to do housework?’
‘But of course.’
‘I don’t do housework,’ she stated emphatically.
‘All wives do housework.’
‘Not in this century they don’t.’
‘I don’t expect you to do everything, of course—’ he folded his arms casually ‘—or at least no more than your family demanded of my mother.’
She was starting to put the pieces together in her head and it wasn’t looking pretty. Kane was out for blood for the way her family had supposedly treated his mother, but she could hardly recall ever speaking to the woman in the whole time she’d occupied one of the servants’ cottages at the back of the estate.
Sophia Kaproulias had been a quiet and seemingly diligent worker, but Bryony hadn’t been encouraged to mix with the household or grounds staff, especially when a rumour had started going around about the housekeeper’s promiscuous behaviour with someone on the estate.
Besides, she’d been at boarding school most of the year and during holidays at Mercyfields she’d pointedly avoided the housekeeper in case she came into contact with Kane who’d always seemed to her to be rather sullen.
She refused to think about the one occasion she had come into closer contact with him…
‘You’re totally sick.’ She clenched her hands into fists by her sides.
‘On the contrary, I’m in the peak of fitness and health,’ he returned as he held her infuriated gaze with ease.
She fought against the temptation to run her eyes over his tautly muscled form as he stood before her. She could sense the strength of his body, and imagined each and every muscle had been honed to perfection by a strict and disciplined approach at some state-of-the-art well-appointed gym.
She sucked in her post-Christmas tummy and gave him a glowering stare. ‘You think you’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you? Mr Nobody makes the big time and lands himself a trophy wife. But you’re in for a surprise, for I refuse to be any man’s slave in any room of the house.’
Kane watched as her eyes flashed with hatred and couldn’t help wondering how passionate she’d be in bed. His body grew hard just thinking about it, speculating on how many men there had been before him.
She had the sort of mouth that begged to be kissed, the softness of her bottom lip jutting in sulkiness, tempting him so much he had to push his hands into the pockets of his trousers to stop himself from reaching for her again.
‘I