‘Dad’s... I don’t...’ She shook her head, resting her hands on the table, trying to make sense of the revelation.
‘Your father, like many investors who didn’t take adequate precautions, is suffering at the hands of a turbulent market. More fool him.’
He spoke with disrespect and obvious dislike, but Marnie didn’t leap to defend Arthur Kenington. At one time she’d been her father’s biggest champion, but that, too, had changed over time. Shell shock in the immediate aftermath of Libby’s death had translated to the kind of loyalty that didn’t allow room for doubt. Her need to keep her family close had made it impossible for her to risk upsetting the only people on earth who understood her grief. She would have done anything to save them further pain, even if that had meant walking away from the man she loved because they’d expressed their bitter disapproval.
Her eyes were cloudy as they settled on his frame. Memories were sharp. She pushed at them angrily, relegating them to the locked box of her mind.
Those memories were of the past. The distant past. She and Nikos were different people now.
‘He will lose everything without immediate help. Without money.’
Marnie turned the ring she always wore around her finger—a nervous gesture she’d resorted to without realising. Her face—so beautiful, so ethereally elegant—was crushed, and Nikos felt a hint of pity for her. There was a time when he would have said that causing her pain was anathema to him. A time when he would have leapt in front of a speeding bus to save her life—a time when he had promised to love her for ever, to adore her, to cherish her.
And she’d answered that pledge by telling him he’d never be good enough for her, or words to that effect.
He straightened in the chair, honing in on his resolve.
But Marnie spoke first, her voice quietly insistent. ‘Dad has lots of associates. People with money.’
‘He needs rather a large sum.’
‘He’ll find it,’ she said with false bravado, unknowingly tilting her gaze down her small ski slope nose.
His smile was almost feral in its confidence. ‘A hundred million pounds by the end of the month?’
‘A...hundred...’ Her feathery lashes closed, muting any visible shock. She was hiding herself from him, wanting to keep her turmoil private and secret.
He didn’t challenge her; there was no need.
‘And that is just to start,’ he confirmed with a small nod. ‘But if you want to leave...’ He waved a hand towards the door, as though he didn’t give a damn what she chose to do.
Marnie toyed with the ring again, her eyes studying its gentle golden crenulations before shifting their focus back to his face. ‘So? What’s your interest in my father’s business?’
‘His business?’ Nikos’s laugh was short and sharp. ‘I have no interest in that.’
Marnie’s eyes knitted together, confusion obvious on her features. Even her hair looked uptight, knotted into that style. Her hands, her nails, her perfectly made-up face: she was the picture of stylish grace, just as her parents had always intended her to be.
‘I presume you called me here because you have a plan.’ She pinned him with her golden-brown eyes until the sensation overpowered her. ‘I wish you’d stop prevaricating and just tell me.’
His smile was not one of happiness. ‘You are hardly in a position to issue commands to me.’
Marnie’s face lifted to his in surprise. ‘That’s not what I was doing.’ She shook her head timidly from side to side. ‘I didn’t mean to, anyway. It’s just...please. Tell me everything.’
He shrugged. ‘Bad decisions. Bad investments. Bad business.’ He pressed back further in his chair, the intensity of his fierce gaze sending sharp arrows of awareness and emotion through her blood. ‘The why of it doesn’t matter.’
‘It matters to me.’
He spoke on as though she hadn’t. His eyes bored into hers. ‘I believe there are not ten people in the world who would find themselves in a financial position to help your father. Even fewer who would have any motivation to do so.’
Marnie bit down on her lower lip, trying desperately to think of anyone who might have enough liquidity to inject some cash into her father’s crumbling empire.
Only one man came to mind, and he was staring at her in a way that was turning her mind to mush.
Unable to sit still for a moment longer, Marnie scraped her chair back and stalked to the window. London vibrated beneath them: a collection of cars and souls all going about their own lives, threading together into one enormous carpet of activity. She felt as if she’d been plucked out of the fibres and placed here instead, in a madhouse.
‘Dad’s never been your favourite person,’ she said softly. ‘How do I know you’re not making this up for some cruel reason of your own?’
‘Your father’s demise is not a well-kept secret, matakia mou. Anderson told me.’
‘Anderson?’ The name was like a knife in her gut. She thought of Libby’s fiancé with the shock of grief that always accompanied anything to do with her sister. With Before.
‘We’re still in touch,’ he said with a shrug, as if that wasn’t important.
‘He knows about this?’ She thought of Anderson Holt’s family, the fortune they possessed. Maybe they could help? She dismissed the thought instantly. A hundred million pounds—cash—was beyond most people’s capabilities. Besides, Arthur Kenington would never let himself be bailed out.
‘It is no secret,’ Nikos said, misunderstanding her question. ‘I imagine the whole city knows the truth of your father’s position.’
Her spine stiffened and sorrow for the man who had raised her pushed all thoughts of her late sister’s fiancé from her mind. She blinked quickly, denying the sting of tears that was threatening. She was not willing to show such weakness in front of anyone, let alone Nikos.
‘He has seemed stressed lately,’ she conceded awkwardly, keeping her vision focussed on the buzz of activity at street level.
‘I can well imagine. The idea of losing his life’s work and the legacy of his forebears will be weighing heavily on his conscience. Not to mention his monumental ego.’
She let the barb go by. Her mind was completely absorbed with trying to make sense of this information. ‘I don’t understand why he wouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Don’t you?’ His eyes flashed with anger and resentment as his last conversation with Lord Arthur Kenington came to mind. ‘The man prides himself on shielding you from the world. He would do anything to spare you the pain of actually inhabiting reality with the rest of us.’
‘You call this reality?’ she quipped, flicking a disapproving glance around the cavernous glass office decorated with modern art masterpieces and furniture that would have looked at home in a gallery.
A muscle jerked in his cheek and Marnie wished she could pull those words back. Who was she to sit in judgement of his success? She didn’t know the details, but she knew enough of his childhood to realise that if anyone on earth understood poverty it was Nikos.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said stiffly, lifting a finger to her temple and rubbing at it. ‘None of this is your fault.’
A pang of something a lot like sympathy squeezed in Nikos’s gut. Recognising that she could still evoke those emotions in him, he consciously pushed aside any softening towards her.
‘No.’ He rubbed a hand across