‘You’ve had five years of taking your revenge. Haven’t you done enough, had enough?’
‘If you want the truth, then the answer is no,’
It was a flat, hard statement, his tone as harshly unyielding as his face, and when she looked into the deep pools of his eyes she saw no spark of warmth, no hint of humanity. Instead they were as cold and unresponsive as ice, his opaque, blanked-off stare shocking and frightening.
‘What more can you have? There’s nothing left. My father’s dead—his fortune, his company are yours. Isn’t that enough for you?’
‘No, it is not.’
Nikos’s golden eyes flicked over her face, catching and locking with her furious gaze just for one moment. Then he looked away again, heavy lids coming down to cut him off from her.
‘I thought it was, but now I find it just won’t do. It isn’t enough. It doesn’t give me the satisfaction that I wanted. I need to find some other way of making sure of that.’
And then she knew. With a terrible, sinking sense of despair she realised just what was going on here. Nikos Konstantos had always been determined to have his revenge for the way that Edwin had ruined his family. He had worked for that and for nothing else all the five years since she had last seen him. He’d taken the Carteret name, the Carteret business and stamped them into the mud, drained them of every last penny they possessed. He was even prepared to take the family home from them and throw her and her mother and little George out into the street.
And she had done the worst thing possible, made the most terrible mistake imaginable, by coming here to plead with him for a chance.
Because that had given Nikos one more chance to exact revenge on the member of the family he had the most personal reasons to hate. The one that he hadn’t yet crushed beneath his heel and laughed in triumph as he did so.
He hadn’t truly had his revenge on Sadie herself. Until now. And now it was strictly personal and totally ruthless. This wasn’t about the house or the past except as it pitted the two of them against each other. This was the last part that would make his campaign of revenge complete.
He had her in his sights and he wasn’t letting go.
‘And the way you’ve found is by making sure that my family don’t have a home to live in. How can you live with that on your conscience?’
‘No problem.’
Nikos’s shrug dismissed the question as being of no importance to him whatsoever. He didn’t care and he had no intention of caring.
‘I live with it as easily as you and your father could walk away from the devastation you made of my life—and my family’s.’
‘And you think that gives you the moral high ground? You were pretty damn good at playing games at that time, if I remember rightly.’
‘Not games, Sadie.’
Nikos shook his head, his expression almost sorrowful, but Sadie knew that sorrow was the furthest thing from what he was feeling. He might hide it well but she knew that deep inside he was probably taking a cruel delight in tormenting her like this, having her with her back to the wall, nowhere to run.
‘Believe me, I was serious. Deadly serious.’
‘Oh, yeah, deadly serious about perpetuating that damn family feud. And look what that did to you. It almost ruined your family.’
‘Almost,’ Nikos echoed with deadly emphasis. ‘Almost— but it did not actually ruin us, did it? Not totally. And now the shoe is very definitely on the other foot.’
‘As I’m only too well aware,’ Sadie muttered belligerently.
She wondered what would happen if she told Nikos that the only reason that ‘almost’ was even there was because of her. Because of the choice she’d made.
He’d probably never believe her. The mood he was in, he wasn’t going to listen to anything she said.
‘So this is checkmate, is it?’ she went on. ‘You must know that I can’t leave it like this—without persuading you to let us stay in Thorn Trees…’
‘That isn’t going to happen,’Nikos stated with cold obduracy.
‘So what do I do?’
Once more those powerful shoulders under the superbly tailored jacket lifted in an unfeeling and dismissive shrug.
‘You said you were prepared to do anything to get what you wanted,’ he drawled heartlessly. ‘Turn those wiles that you were using earlier on someone else and you might have more success with someone who doesn’t know you as well as I do.’
‘Wiles…’ Sadie spluttered in furious indignation. He really thought that she had set out to seduce him as a way to manipulate him into giving her what she wanted. ‘How dare you…?’
But Nikos ignored her angry interjection.
‘Find yourself another rich man and beg him to give you a chance to earn the price of the house. He might not find the offer so distasteful—his standards may not be as high as mine.’
Sadie gritted her teeth against the need to refute the implications of that cynical ‘earn,’ though her fingers twitched sharply at her side with the urge to lash out and swipe that cold sneer from his arrogant face. Whatever momentary satisfaction it would bring—and it would be very satisfying—it would also make things so much worse and only succeed in angering Nikos even further.
‘And if I did then you would only put the price up higher and higher each time.’
Nikos’s smile was pure cold evil. The smile of the devil.
‘How well you understand me, glikia mou. And, knowing me as you do, I am sure that you will recall that once I have made up my mind on a matter then I never change it. No matter what the temptation.’
And he had made up his mind on this, so it would be like battering her head against a brick wall if she continued to try to persuade him.
‘And now, as you have had more than twice the amount of time allotted to you, I really would prefer it if you left immediately.’
Striding across to the door, Nikos pulled it open and stood pointedly, waiting for her to leave.
‘I am sure that both of us would prefer to avoid the publicity that my calling Security might create.’
Knowing Nikos, Sadie recognised when she had come to the end of the road and there was nowhere else she could go. Defeat was staring her in the face and the only thing left to her was to accept it with as much dignity as she possibly could. Though the thought of going home and telling her mother…
Putting her head up high, stiffening her back and straightening her shoulders, she forced her feet to take her towards the door he had indicated. She had fully determined that she wouldn’t say another word. That she wouldn’t show him any weakness. She wouldn’t even look at him. But somehow as she had to pass him her footsteps faltered, and in spite of her determination her reluctant gaze was drawn to his dark, stunning face, meeting the icy glare of those golden eyes.
‘Is there nothing I can do…?’ she began and knew her mistake as she saw his face harden even more, hooded eyes closing off from her.
‘Yes,’ he said coldly, unbelievably. ‘The one thing you can do is go home and start