‘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 intent on glaring her into submission that he looked like someone else entirely.
She’d loved that other man. Loved him so much she’d broken her own heart rather than break his. Only to find that in the end he hadn’t had a heart to break.
A terrible sense of loss stabbed at her and she felt bitter tears burn at the back of her eyes. She only managed to hold them back by sheer force of will.
‘It isn’t as easy as that,’ she managed, her voice rough and uneven. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed, the economy…’
She swallowed down the last of the sentence, knowing that finishing it would only give him more ammunition to use against her. Of course he knew all about the economy, and the way things had changed so dramatically in a couple of years or so. It was what he had used against Edwin, manipulating the wild fluctuations in the stock market to his personal advantage and against the man he had hated so bitterly.
‘I thought that you had a business of your own,’ Nikos said now.
‘A small one.’
And one that wasn’t doing very well at all, Sadie acknowledged privately. With things as tight as they were for most people, no one was indulging in the luxury of having a wedding planner organise their ‘big day’. She hadn’t had an enquiry in weeks—and as for bookings, well, the last she’d had had cancelled the next month.
‘Then get yourself another house. There are plenty on the market.’
‘I can’t afford—’
‘Can’t afford a smaller house but yet you want me to rent you Thorn Trees? Have you thought about this? About the sort of rent that can be asked for a place like that?’
‘Yes, I’ve thought about it.’
And had quailed inside at the realisation of the fact that just the rent on her family home would probably be far more than she could possibly manage to rake together every month.
‘Or did you perhaps think that I might be a soft touch and give it to you for—what is that you say—mate’s rates?’
The slang term sounded weird on his tongue, his accent suddenly seeming so much thicker than before, mangling the words until they were almost incomprehensible. But even more disturbing was the knowledge that there was no way at all that they applied to the relationship between herself and Nikos. Whatever else they had been, they had never been ‘mates’. Never truly friends or anything like it. Hot, passionate lovers, fiancés, prospective bride and groom—or at least that was what had been intended.
Or had it? She had been overjoyed to accept Nikos’s proposal. Had looked forward to her wedding day with joyful anticipation and had wept out her devastated heart when she had been forced to cancel it. But what she had thought had been a broken heart had been as nothing when compared to the misery she had endured later, when she had learned the truth about what Nikos had really been planning.
The shattering of her dreams had coincided with such a major crisis in her family life that she had barely known what she was doing from day to day. In the end she had resorted to the policy of least resistance, letting her father dictate everything she did, the way she behaved. He had written the script for those appalling days and she had followed it exactly. At least that way her mother had been safe, and Edwin Carteret had made sure that Nikos had failed in his attempts to get back into her life, to try and see Sadie—and no doubt hurt her even more.
‘I…’
‘Get yourself another house, Sadie,’ Nikos commanded. ‘Nothing else is on offer.’
‘I don’t want another house—I want…’
I want Thorn Trees was all she had to say. And then he would ask her why.
And if she answered with the truth, how would he react? Would he sympathise, as the Nikos she’d thought she had known all those years ago would have sympathised? Or would the Nikos he was now see yet another opportunity to further deepen his revenge against the family who had ruined his father and taken almost everything from him?
Not knowing whether telling him the truth would help or simply put another weapon into his hands, she swallowed hard against the uncomfortable dryness of her throat.
‘Look…’
Her voice croaked embarrassingly.
‘Do you think I could have a coffee or something? Even some water?’
Seeing the look he gave her, she felt her heart clench at the savage contempt that burned in his eyes.
‘Of course not,’ she commented bitterly. ‘That would eat into the paltry five minutes you’ve allotted me. It’s all right.’
Despair blurred her eyes, tiredness making the room seem to swing round her. Why didn’t she just admit defeat, give up and go home? But the memory of her mother’s face as she’d left the house was there, urging her to try again. Sarah needed a home and so did little George. And right now Sadie was their only chance of keeping the house.
‘Here…’
The abrupt word made her start, jump back slightly. Nikos sounded suddenly so very close. Disturbingly so. She blinked hard to clear her vision and found herself staring at a glass filled with water, bubbles rising inside, beads of moisture sliding down the sides. Feeling as she did, it had the effect of discovering a cool oasis in the centre of a blazing desert.
‘Thank you.’ It was genuinely grateful.
Reaching out a hand to take the glass from him, she misjudged the distance, the right approach, and found that although she aimed to grasp it at the base, well below his hand, in fact she closed her fingers over his, feeling their strong warmth in contrast to the cold hardness of the glass.
‘I’m sorry!’
A sensation like the shock from a bolt of lightning shot up all the nerves in her arm, so that she wanted to snatch her hand away, and yet at the same time it seemed that the sudden heat had welded their fingers together, so she couldn’t peel hers away without a terrible effort.
Nikos