Her eyes smarted with stinging tears and she gulped. Anton had talked so much about Constantine and always with pride, affection and more than a hint of awe. Wealthy Greek parents expected to have a healthy say in their children’s choice of a life partner... he had told her that too.
“Just as well you’re Spanish!” she had teased.
“Mallorquin,” her father had reproved, still proud as punch of his birth in Majorca even after forty years of living in Greece.
Dear heaven, but she despised Constantine Voulos! Her small hands curled into fists on the table-top. Tramp, whore, trash, tart. And, most unforgivably of all, he had accused her of subjecting Anton to such anxiety that she had shortened his life. Her stomach heaved. Well, he could sling his very worst threats and he would find her immovable. Rosie smiled a little to herself then, her smile slowly growing into a decided smirk. Their landlord was, after all, Maurice’s uncle. No way was she going through some disgusting charade of marriage just to help Constantine Voulos circumvent her father’s will and profit from it!
‘That was the brother from hell...am I right?’ Maurice dropped down opposite her and ruefully appraised her hotly flushed face and over-bright eyes. ‘Who else do we know rich enough to travel around in a stretch limousine? Not only your dad’s substitute son but also large enough and verbal enough to make you so mad you are spitting tacks—’
‘Yes, he was Anton’s favourite, wasn’t he? But then I only had four months, not twenty years to make an impression!’ Rosie condemned painfully, and then she crammed an unsteady hand against her wobbling mouth, ashamed of the bitter envy she could hear splintering from her words.
‘Did you tell him who you were this time?’ Maurice enquired gently.
‘Why should I? Why should I tell that hateful creep anything? If Anton couldn’t trust him with the news, I certainly couldn’t!’
Maurice sighed. ‘Presumably Voulos came up here to sort out this inheritance of yours.’
A choked laugh was dredged from Rosie. ‘I haven’t inherited anything! Anton left me to Constantine instead!’
Maurice frowned. ‘Excuse me?’
‘In fact my father tried to force me on him ... as if I were some brainless little wimp in need of care and protection!’ Registering Maurice’s still blank scrutiny, Rosie thrust up her chin and the words of explanation came spilling out of her.
‘Holy Moses...’ Maurice breathed at one stage, but it was his sole interruption. From that point, he listened intently.
‘Can you imagine that ignorant, arrogant louse even thinking that I might agree?’ Rosie pressed, in a furious appeal for sympathetic accord.
Maurice leant back in his chair, looking very thoughtful. ‘Your father has left him in one hell of a fix.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Maurice slowly shook his head. ‘Have you any idea how fast a business can go down with its cash flow cut off? No money going in, no money going out—’
‘I know next to nothing about Anton’s business ventures and I don’t much care either,’ Rosie said huffily.
‘Get your brain into gear, Rosie. Voulos is in a very tight corner. No wonder the guy’s furious—’
‘Exactly whose side are you on?’
‘As always, on the side of common sense and profit,’ Maurice told her without apology. ‘Do you like the idea of your father’s business concerns going bust on a legal technicality? And naturally Voulos doesn’t want to drag this whole sorry affair into an open court.’
Rosie reddened uncomfortably, not having considered the situation from either of those angles.
‘Voulos came here to bargain with the enemy because he had no other choice. The fastest, easiest solution is to meet the terms of your father’s will.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this—’
‘And Voulos is offering to compensate you for your time and trouble. I wonder how much he’s prepared to put down on the table?’ Maurice mused with a slow grin, unaffected by Rosie’s look of appalled reproach. ‘The trouble with you, Rosie, is that you’re an idealist. Voulos isn’t and neither am I. You’d cut off your nose to spite your face.’
“Then why don’t you deal with him when he comes back tomorrow?’ Rosie snapped, rising angrily to her feet.
‘Do you want me to? I’ll willingly stay around and keep an eye on the negotiations. If his temper is anything like yours...well, we don’t want bloodshed, do we? What would we do with his body?’ Maurice asked cheerfully. ‘And dead men can’t write big, fat cheques.’
‘I won’t be here tomorrow,’ Rosie informed him thinly.
‘Look, it’s a business proposition, nothing more. You won’t have to live with the guy or like him. And if you won’t do it for yourself,’ Maurice murmured with a shrewd eye on her frozen face, ‘think about your father’s employees and what’s likely to happen to them if his businesses go down. You can’t hit back at Voulos without bringing grief to other people.’
‘I don’t want to hit back at him, I just want him to leave me alone!’ Rosie slung in frustrated rage, and stalked out of the room.
Hunched within the capacious depths of an old waxed jacket, Rosie stamped her feet to keep warm and watched her breath steam in the icy air. On a cold, frosty morning the market was always quiet. Maurice strolled up and slotted a plastic cup of coffee into her hand. Rosie surveyed him in surprise. ‘What are you doing here?’
Maurice shrugged, carefully avoiding her eyes. ‘How’s trade going?’
Rosie grimaced. ‘It’s slow.’
Maurice picked up a large green ceramic rabbit and frowned. ‘Isn’t this part of your own collection?’
It was Rosie’s turn to shrug, faint pink spreading over her cheekbones. ‘I’ll pick up another one.’
‘Nobody’s ever going to pay that for it,’ Maurice told her, studying the price tag and wincing.
‘It’s already attracted interest—’
‘But not a buyer. You’re overpricing it because you can’t bear to part with it.’
Frowning at that uncomfortably accurate assistance, Rosie sipped at her coffee. ‘Did he show up?’
‘Yeah...’ Maurice rearranged the stock on her stall without raising his head. ‘I told him where to find you.’
‘You did what?’ Beneath the brim of her black trilby, Rosie’s startled brows shot heavenward.
‘I’ll watch your stall. Here he comes now...’
As Rosie’s horrified eyes fell on Constantine Voulos, her heart turned a somersault and lodged somewhere in the region of her working throat. Her nerveless fingers shook and coffee slopped everywhere without her noticing.
The tall Greek stationed himself on the other side of the stall, his vibrantly handsome features taut with sardonic impatience as he spread a derisive glance around the shabby covered market. ‘You do like to play childish games, don’t you, Miss Waring?’
Maurice uttered