Harlequin Presents®

GREEK TYCOONS

They’re the men who have everything—except brides…

Wealth, power, charm—what else could a heart-stoppingly handsome tycoon need?

In THE GREEK TYCOONS miniseries you have already been introduced to some gorgeous Greek multimillionaires that are in need of wives.

Now it’s talented Harlequin Presents author Melanie Milburne’s turn, with her sensual romance The Greek’s Bridal Bargain

This tycoon has met his match, and he’s decided he has to have her…whatever that takes!

The Greek’s Bridal Bargain
Melanie Milburne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COMING NEXT MONTH

CHAPTER ONE

‘PLEASE don’t go in there, Bryony,’ Glenys Mercer told her daughter tremulously. ‘Your father has an important…er…visitor with him.’

Bryony’s hand fell away from the doorknob of the main study as she turned to look at her mother, standing in the great hulking shadow of the grandfather clock that had kept time at the Mercer country estate for six generations.

‘Who is it?’ she asked.

Her mother’s drawn features seemed to visibly age before Bryony’s clear blue gaze.

‘I’m not sure your father would like me to tell you.’ Glenys Mercer twisted her thin hands together. ‘You know how he is about those sorts of things.’

Bryony did know.

She moved closer to her mother, her light footsteps on the polished floorboards echoing throughout the huge foyer, reminding her yet again of the emptiness of the grand old house since her brother’s death.

Ever since Austin had died almost ten years ago the house had seemed to grieve along with the rest of the family. Every window, room, corner and shadowed doorway held a memory of a young man’s life cut short, even the creaking of the staircase every time she went up or down seemed to her to be crying out for the tread of his steps, not hers.

‘What’s going on, Mum?’ she asked, her voice dropping to an undertone.

Glenys couldn’t hold her daughter’s questioning gaze and turned away to inspect the intricately carved woodwork on the banister.

‘Mum?’

‘Please, Bryony, don’t make a fuss. My nerves will never stand it.’

Bryony suppressed a heartfelt sigh. Her mother’s nerves were something else she knew all about.

There was a sound behind her and she turned to see her father come out of the study, his usually florid face pale.

‘Bryony…I thought I heard you come in.’ He wiped his receding hairline with a scrunched-up handkerchief, the action of his hand jerky and uncoordinated.

‘Is something wrong?’ She took a step towards him but came up short when a tall figure appeared in the study doorway just behind him.

Cold dread leaked into every cell of her body as she met the dark unreadable gaze of Kane Kaproulias, her dead brother’s sworn enemy.

She opened and closed her mouth but couldn’t locate her voice. Her fingertips went numb, her legs trembled and her heart hammered behind the wall of her chest as her eyes took in his forbidding presence.

He was much taller than she remembered, but then, she thought, ten years was a long time.

His brown-black eyes even seemed darker than they had been before, the straight brows above them giving his arresting features a touch of haughtiness.

Her eyes automatically dipped to his mouth as they had done every time since the day she’d put that jagged scar on his top lip.

It was still there…

‘Hello, Bryony.’

His deep velvet voice shocked her out of her private reverie bringing her startled gaze up to meet his compelling one.

She cleared her throat and tested her voice, annoyed that it came out husky and tentative instead of clear and forthright. ‘Hello…Kane.’

Owen Mercer stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket and faced his daughter. ‘Kane has something he wishes to discuss with you. Your mother and I will be in the green sitting room if you should need us.’

Bryony frowned as her parents shuffled away down the great hall like insects trying to escape the final spurt of poison from someone holding a spray can above their heads. Her father’s words seemed to contain some sort of veiled warning, as if he didn’t trust the man standing silently just behind her not to do her some sort of injury while he had her all to himself.

She turned back to face Kane once more, her expression guarded, her tone clearly unwelcoming. ‘What brings you to Mercyfields, Kane?’

Kane held the study door open and indicated with a slight movement of his dark head for her to go in before him.

His silence unsettled her but she was determined not to show how much. Schooling her features into cool impassivity, she stepped through, trying not to notice the musky spiciness of his aftershave or the expensive cut of his business suit as she made her way past his imposing frame.

The Mercyfields housekeeper’s bastard son had certainly turned some sort of professional corner, she reflected. There was no trace of the gangling youth of her childhood now. He looked like a man well used to getting his own way, certainly not one who took orders from others.

She crossed what seemed an entire hectare of Persian carpet to take a seat on the wing chair near the window overlooking the lake. In an effort to maintain her composure she slung one long slim leg over the other and inspected the pointed toe of her shoe as she gave her ankle a twirl.

She knew he was watching her.

She could feel the pressure of his dark gaze on her body as if he had reached out and touched her. She was well used to male appraisals, but somehow whenever Kane Kaproulias looked at her she felt as if every layer of her clothing was slipping away from her, leaving her vulnerable and exposed to his all-encompassing dark eyes.

She sat back in the chair and regarded him with a cool impersonal stare.

He held her look without speaking. She knew it was some sort of test to see who would be the first to look away, but as much as she wanted to escape that brooding mysterious gaze she held on, not even allowing herself to blink.

His eyes went to her mouth and lingered there.

Bryony felt an almost irresistible urge to run her tongue over the parchment of her lips but fought against the impulse with every fibre of her being. So great was the effort to appear unaffected by his disturbing presence she began to feel the hammer-blows of a tension headache gathering at her temples, and her resentment towards him went up another notch.

Finally she could stand it no longer.

She got agitatedly to her feet and, crossing her arms over her chest, faced him determinedly.

‘OK. Let’s skip the weather and the current cricket score and get right down to why you are here.’

He held her defiant glare for another pulsing pause. ‘I thought it was time I paid the Mercer family a visit.’

‘I can’t imagine why. You’re not exactly on the Christmas card list any more.’

His mouth thinned in what she recalled was his version of a smile. ‘No, I imagine not.’

She forced her eyes away from the jagged edge of his scar, surprised at how it still affected her to see it after all this time.

He looked fit and strong, as if he was no stranger to hard physical exercise, and his skin was tanned, but then, she reminded herself, his maternal Greek heritage had always given him somewhat of an advantage in the summer sun. Standing before him now, her creamy skin seemed so pale in spite of the intolerably hot weather they’d been having since Christmas four weeks ago.

‘How is your mother?’ she felt compelled to ask out of common politeness.

‘She’s dead.’

Bryony blinked at his bluntness. ‘I…I’m sorry…I hadn’t heard…’

His eyes glittered with hard cynicism. ‘No, I expect the passing of a long-term servant wouldn’t quite make it to the Mercer breakfast table, let alone as a topic for discussion over lunch or dinner.’

The bitterness of his words stung her as he clearly intended it to. As much as she hated admitting it, he was very probably right. Her parents would never discuss servants as if they were real people. She’d grown up with their attitudes, had even demonstrated similar ones herself, but as she had grown older had shied away from maintaining such outdated snobbery.

Not that she was going to let him know that.

No, let him think her the spoilt brat heiress of the Mercer millions.

She sent him an imperious look over one shoulder as she wandered back to her chair, taking her time to arrange her skirt over her knees.

‘So—’ she inspected her neatly French-manicured nails before lifting her blue gaze back to his ‘—what do you do these days, Kane? I don’t suppose you’ve followed in your mother’s footsteps and clean up other people’s messes for a living?’

She knew she sounded exactly like the shallow socialite he’d always considered her to be; she could even see the slight curl of his damaged lip as if he was satisfied his opinion had been justified by her crass words.

‘You suppose right.’ He leant back against her father’s antique desk with the sort of indolence she’d come to always associate with him. ‘You could say I’m in shipping.’

‘How very Greek of you,’ she observed with undisguised sarcasm.

His dark eyes challenged hers, a flicker of anger lighting them from behind. ‘I am just as much an Australian citizen as you are, Bryony. I’ve never even been to Greece, nor do I speak any more than a few words of the language.’

‘How can you be sure of your true heritage?’ she asked. ‘I thought you didn’t know who your father was?’

It was a nasty taunt, and one she wasn’t proud of, but his manner had increasingly unnerved her to the point of reckless rudeness.

She watched as he reined in his anger, the white edge of his scar standing out as his mouth tightened.

‘I can see you still like to play dirty,’ he said.

She shifted her gaze back to the unfathomable depths of his. ‘When pressed to do so, yes.’

‘Let’s hope you can cope with the consequences if such a need arises in the very near future.’

Bryony couldn’t hold back a small frown at his coolly delivered statement. There was something about his demeanour that alerted her to the strange undercurrents she’d felt swirling about her ever since she’d driven down from Sydney that morning.

‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘What possible reason could you have to be here?’

‘I have several reasons.’

‘Let’s start with number one.’ She set her chin at an imperious angle even though inside she was trembling with an unnamed fear.

He crossed one ankle over the other, his action drawing her eyes to his long muscled thighs.

She tore her gaze away and forced herself to hold his Sphinx-like stare.

‘Number one is—’ He paused for a mere fraction of a second, but it was long enough for another flutter of unease to feather along the lining of her stomach. ‘I now own Mercyfields.’

Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘W-what did you say?’

Kane ignored her question and continued with implacable calm, ‘Number two is I also own Mercer Freight Enterprises.’

She swallowed her rising panic with difficulty. ‘I-I don’t believe you.’

Again he ignored her strangled comment. ‘I also own the harbourside apartment and the yacht.’ He paused as he gave her an inscrutable look before adding, ‘However, I have decided to allow your father to keep his Mercedes and Jaguar; I have enough cars of my own.’

‘How very magnanimous of you,’ she managed to quip caustically. ‘Is there anything else in the Mercer household you think you now own?’

He smiled a hateful smile that chilled her already tingling flesh.

‘I don’t just think I own the Mercer package, Bryony—I do own it.’

He reached for a sheaf of papers that was lying on her father’s desk behind him and handed them to her. She took them with fingers that felt like wet cotton wool, her tortured gaze slipping to where her father’s signature should have been but very clearly wasn’t.

Each document was the same.

The new owner of everything to do with the Mercer millions was now Mr Kane Leonidas Kaproulias. The houses, the business, the investments, the yacht…

She let the papers flutter to the floor as she stood up on watery legs. ‘I don’t understand…how did this happen? My father would never let things get to this state! He’d rather die than see you take everything.’

The loathsome smile was back. ‘Actually, he was quite agreeable to it all in the end.’

‘I don’t believe you. You must be blackmailing him or something, for he would never allow you to—’ She stopped as she thought about her father’s recent behaviour. Always a stressed-out control freak, he’d definitely worsened of late. Christmas had been a tense affair, his constant harping on at her had seen her make up an excuse to leave a couple of days early, even though she’d felt guilty at leaving her mother.

Had Kane set him up to destroy him?

He certainly had all the motives one would need to implement such a plan, for even though her father had sponsored Kane’s private academy education as a goodwill gesture he’d still treated him appallingly during the time he’d lived on the estate, when his mother had been employed to do the cleaning.

And not just her father. Her brother, Austin, had been relentless in his bullying at times, not to mention her own reprehensible behaviour, which still made her cringe with shame whenever she allowed herself to think about it…

‘I wouldn’t exactly describe it as blackmail.’ He cut across her thoughts. ‘Suffice it to say I persuaded him to consider his somewhat limited options. And, as I expected him to, he took the easy way out.’

‘The easy way?’ She gave him an incredulous look. ‘You call handing over several million dollars worth of assets the easy way out?’

‘It is when you’re facing a lengthy term in prison.’

She stared at him speechlessly, her heart ramming against her sternum until she was sure it was going to jump out and land at his feet.

‘Prison?’

‘Jail, the slammer, penitentiary, crim-coop, calaboose…’

‘I know what a bloody prison is, for God’s sake,’ she snapped. ‘What I don’t understand is why my father deserves to go there. What’s he supposedly done? Forgotten your birthday?’

‘Now that would indeed be a crime, considering my number five reason for being here.’

She mentally backtracked: one was the Mercyfields estate, two was the business, three was the yacht, four the city apartment…

‘What are you talking about? You’ve got it all; what more is there?’ she asked.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t guessed by now. It is, after all, the one thing I’ve wanted ever since the day my mother and I walked through the Mercyfields gate.’

‘Revenge…’ She almost whispered the word, so deep was her panic. ‘You’re after revenge…’

His dark eyes never once left her face. ‘Now, what form do you think that revenge might take, sweet Bryony?’

She injected her look with as much venom as she could. ‘I have no idea how the mind of a sociopath works; I’m afraid you’ll have to tell me.’

He laughed, a deep rumble of amusement that sent ice through her veins. ‘How ironic you see me in that way.’

‘How else could I see you?’ she asked. ‘You were sent from Mercyfields with a criminal record for damage to property and unspeakable cruelty to animals, or have you forgotten about Mrs Bromley’s spaniel?’

His eyes hardened as they burned down into hers. ‘I did not commit that particular crime. The property damage, however, was an unfortunate outburst of temper on my part and I took full responsibility for it.’

She gave a derisive snort. ‘So you’ve grown a halo over the last ten years, have you? What a pity I can’t see it.’

‘You only see what you want to see,’ he said with bitterness. ‘But there will come a time when you’ll have to face the brutal reality of the truth.’

‘I find it highly entertaining to hear you mention the word truth as if you and it are regular acquaintances,’ she tossed back. ‘So tell me, Kane. What instrument of torture do you have planned? I take it I’m the one who has to pay the price, otherwise why would I be summoned to appear?’

‘Your father has an unfortunate habit of ordering people about, but I hope that he will soon see the error of his ways. I thought it in your best interests for you to be here this afternoon. I did not ask him to summon you.’

‘Can we get straight to the point of this?’ she asked with increasing impatience. ‘I’m getting a little tired of all the word games.’

Kane drew in a breath as he studied her incensed features. She thought the worst of him and for now that suited him. He couldn’t afford to let her find out his real motives in coming here today.

He’d waited a long time for a chance to confront Owen Mercer. Ten years of working unspeakable hours to climb up from the depths he’d been tossed into. Rage had simmered in his blood for the last decade as he’d waited for the opportunity to strike back.

Austin Mercer had met his destiny and, as much as Kane knew the family still grieved their loss, he didn’t feel a microgram of regret that the only male Mercer heir was now dead and buried.

Kane’s mother, Sophia, on the other hand, had died before he could provide her with the things he’d so wanted to give her in return for all the sacrifices she’d made.

All the filthy sacrifices Owen Mercer had made her make.

He watched Bryony’s struggle to keep cool under pressure and privately admired her for it. Her father had caved in like the cowardly bully he was, but Bryony was a fighter and he still had the scar to prove it.

She was even more beautiful as a young woman than she’d been as a teenager. Her figure was slim and she moved with the easy grace of someone well trained in the art of classical ballet. Her silky blonde hair was long, drawn back into a single clip at the back of her neck, her eyes an azure, mesmerizing blue. Her mouth was full and tended towards a petulant sneer, but he knew that was probably because she considered him totally beneath her, not worthy of the million-dollar smile she flashed at other men.

But he was patient. He’d waited this long; he could wait a little longer…

Bryony found Kane’s scrutiny increasingly disturbing but stood her ground, waiting for him to speak. She reassured herself that he couldn’t possibly do any worse than he’d already done. If it were indeed true that he now owned everything she would have to move out of the city apartment, but there were plenty of other places she could rent instead.

Her work as a ballet teacher brought in a reasonable income, but she still had to be careful financially, mostly because she found it hard to charge the going rate when children from less fortunate backgrounds fell behind in their fees.

She knew she could always supplement her income some other way, although she had no intention of asking for her father’s help. She suppressed a tiny bubble of what threatened to be hysterical laughter as she even considered taking up house cleaning.

‘Would you care to share the joke?’ Kane asked.

She stared up at him, uncertain of what to make of his expression. ‘No, actually, it wasn’t even funny.’

‘Not much in life is, is it?’ he asked.

She compressed her lips by way of reply. He of all people knew how much she’d idolized her older brother—yes, life wasn’t all that much fun any more.

‘I have made a deal with your father,’ he announced after another one of his nerve-tightening pauses.

‘Oh?’ She hoped she sounded uninterested.

‘I’m giving him the chance to escape the harrowing experience of the judicial system.’

‘Why would you do that?’ She frowned. ‘Especially since…’ She didn’t finish the sentence. She still remembered the shame and disgrace Sophia Kaproulias had gone through when her son had been charged with wilful damage. The local paper had got wind of it, calling Kane Kaproulias an ungrateful rebel who had turned on the benefactor who’d paid for his private education.

The hand of the law had fallen hard on him and she was glad it had. She’d heard he’d spent some time behind bars but had got out early due to good behaviour.

Somehow good behaviour and Kane Kaproulias didn’t sit all that well together in her opinion, especially now, with him watching like a hawk did before it made its final swoop.

‘Your father would not survive a month in prison,’ Kane said. ‘Your mother wouldn’t even make it past the first day.’

‘My mother?’ She looked up at him in sudden consternation. ‘What has my mother got to do with any of this?’

‘Your mother would be implicated in aiding and abetting a criminal,’ he informed her impersonally. ‘And, since I now own and control the family fortune, no decent lawyer would defend their case.’

‘You’re making this up…you have to be…’

‘I’m afraid not, Bryony. Your father has been doing some rather shady deals over the past few years. I got wind of it and decided it was time to make him face the music, so to speak.’

‘With you as principal conductor, I suppose?’ Her look was arctic.

‘But of course.’

She took a prickly breath. ‘So what is my role in all this? You can hardly implicate me. I don’t have anything to do with the family business; I never have.’

‘That’s true; however, you do have rather an important role to play now. For unless you play it both your parents will leave Mercyfields in the back of a police van as I did ten years ago.’

It was hard to maintain her composure as a vision of her fragile mother came to mind. She felt the drum beat of fear pounding deep in her stomach, sending shockwaves all the way to her brain as she tried to imagine what he had planned for her.

What sort of sick revenge would he require to appease his bitterness over the past?

There was only one thing she thought of that would truly rock her to the core of her being, but surely he wouldn’t be thinking along those lines…

He straightened from his leaning position against her father’s desk and strode with loose-limbed grace to where she was sitting on the edge of the wing chair, her crossed leg trembling just ever so slightly as he drew nearer.

She looked up at his face and for the first time realised she had seriously underestimated him. There was a hint of ruthlessness in his glittering eyes, as if he couldn’t wait to tell her of what he had in store for her but was deliberately making her wait to draw out the agony of her suspense for his own enjoyment.

She was close to losing her head and sensed he knew it. Her mouth was dry, her hands damp and her neck and shoulders so tense she could feel a muscle spasm begin in the middle of her back, beating in time with her increasing headache.

She got to her feet, then wished she hadn’t as it brought her far too close to the wall of his body, her thighs almost touching his.

She shrank back but one of his hands came out and held her by the elbow, making escape impossible.

‘Get your filthy hands off me.’ She hissed the words at him with aristocratic hauteur.

His nostrils flared and she felt the unmistakable tightening of his grasp for endless seconds before he finally let her arm go.

She fought to keep her breathing under some sort of control but the feel of his long fingers on her had set off a host of strange electric sensations throughout her body. She felt frightened of him but drawn to him all at the same time, making her feel confused and disoriented.

‘In time you will get used to having me touch you, Bryony,’ he said. ‘You may, in fact, eventually crave it.’

‘I wouldn’t have you touch me for all the money in the world,’ she told him with stiff pride.

‘What about for all the money in the Mercer family vault?’ he asked.

‘W-what are you talking about?’

He gave her an unfathomable look. ‘You see, that is my plan for you, Bryony. Your parents will maintain their freedom and, as I’m feeling generous, a certain level of financial support, but on one condition and one condition only.’

She gave one tiny nervous swallow before she could stop herself. ‘Which is?’ she asked, not really wanting to know the answer, somehow sensing it wasn’t going to be what she wanted to hear.

And she was right.

It wasn’t.

‘I want you to be my wife.’

CHAPTER TWO

BRYONY knew she was giving a very good imitation of a stranded fish, with her mouth opening and closing in shock, but there was little she could do to stop it.

‘You’re a whole two months early for April Fool’s day,’ she said when she could find her voice.

‘This is not a joke, Bryony.’

‘You surely don’t expect me to take this seriously?’

‘If you want your parents to avoid the weight of the law, then yes, I do.’

‘This has got to be some sort of sick joke!’ she insisted. ‘It has to be!’

‘No.’

His one word answer upset her more than if he’d rattled off an entire dictionary of words at her.

Her long stunned silence came to a jarring end when he announced with implacable calm, ‘You will be my wife within a fortnight or both of your parents will be staring at the four walls of a cell.’

‘You definitely need a little work on the proposal, Kane.’ Her tone was deliberately dry to disguise her distress. ‘It makes one wonder how you approached the whole issue of dating over the last few years. What did you do? Drag the nearest woman off by the hair?’

‘No, I never found I had to resort to such tactics.’

‘What did you do? Pay them?’

‘Careful, Bryony,’ he warned her silkily. ‘It wouldn’t be wise to test my control too much. I might be tempted to walk away with the lot and let your parents face a judge and jury all on their own.’

She wished she had the courage to call his bluff, but as her father’s business affairs were so unknown to her it made her realize she was at a distinct disadvantage.

‘I can’t imagine why you would want to marry me.’ She injected her tone with icy disdain. ‘We have nothing in common.’

‘I take it you’re referring to the fact that you have what your family likes to think of as blue blood while mine is, shall we say, a little contaminated?’

‘Your entire brain is seriously contaminated if you think I would ever agree to be your wife. I wouldn’t even agree to be your neighbour, much less live with you in a relationship such as marriage.’

‘It’s understandable you’d find the notion of marriage to me a little distasteful, but in time you may come to see it as justice well served.’

‘My parents would never allow such a marriage to take place,’ she said with somewhat shaky conviction. ‘It would break their hearts to have their only daughter marry the illegitimate son of one of their previous housekeepers.’

‘Your parents have expressed their distress but wisely realize what’s at stake. They’ve given their permission, not that I needed it, of course. I would have gone ahead without it anyway.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ She gave him a scornful glare. ‘Isn’t the bride supposed to accept the proposal?’

‘You have no choice other than to accept.’

‘Well, here’s news for you, Kane Kaproulias. I do not accept your outrageous proposal. You’d have to have me drugged and hogtied to get me within a bell’s toll of a church to marry you.’

‘I wasn’t thinking along the lines of a church wedding.’

She stamped her foot on the carpet at her feet. ‘There is not going to be any sort of wedding!’

He continued calmly, as if she hadn’t just screeched at him. ‘It will be a civil ceremony with the minimum of guests.’

‘The last thing I’d call you is civil,’ she tossed back. ‘You’re acting like a primitive jerk issuing these stupid commands like some sort of dictator.’

‘I can be very civil when I need to be, Bryony, but if my buttons are pressed a little too often I’m afraid you might find me less than urbane.’

‘I find you less than human! What were you thinking, coming back here after all this time waving property deeds around and insisting on extracting revenge when you were the one in the wrong in the first place? You are seriously unhinged if you think for one moment I’d commit myself to a man I loathe with every breath in my body.’

‘I shall enjoy teaching you to respect me. I’ve been waiting a long time to do so.’

‘How could I possibly respect you?’ she threw at him coldly. ‘You’re the very last man on earth I would ever respect. You’re nothing, do you hear me? Nothing but a piece of—’

She didn’t get time to finish her stinging insult. He was suddenly towering over her, both of his hands on her upper arms, hauling her up against his hard body, the contact of his flesh on hers knocking all the air out of her lungs.

His head came down, blocking out the fading afternoon sunlight as his mouth came crashing down to hers.

She began to struggle but as soon as his tongue drove through the cleft of her lips she felt herself melt as if he’d turned a switch inside her body from off to on. Sizzling heat coursed through her as his mouth commandeered hers with a mastery she knew was his particular speciality. After all, it had been him who had taught her long ago how truly devastatingly tempting a fiery kiss could be.

She felt the stirring of his body against her stomach, making her legs go weak with unexpected longing. She couldn’t understand her response to him, much less do anything to stop it. Need clawed at her insides, making her kiss him back without the restraint she’d intended on executing.

She felt the ridge of his scar as he shifted position, felt too the rasp of male skin in the dip between her chin and mouth, making her sink even further into his pulsing heat.

He dropped his hold and stepped back from her, his movement so unexpected and sudden she actually swayed on her feet.

It took her at least six precious seconds to gather herself enough to glare at him while she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as if to remove the taste and feel of him from her lips.

‘Don’t you ever try that again,’ she ground out furiously, more angry with herself than him. ‘Who do you think you are?’

‘I am your fiancé until the week after next,’ he said smoothly. ‘After that you will wear my ring and receive my body without complaint.’

‘I hope you’ve got ready access to a large supply of stupefying drugs,’ she bit out. ‘For I can’t imagine any other way you’re going to get me to agree to sleep with you.’

The edge of his mouth lifted in a twisted smile. ‘Such dramatics I suppose are to be expected from someone who has had their own way all her life. Marriage to me will be the making of you, Bryony. I guarantee it.’

‘You’re assuming, of course, that I’m going to agree to this preposterous plan.’

‘I’m not just assuming—I’m counting on it. Any doubts you may harbour at this point will soon be swept away with just one conversation with your father.’ He walked to the door and held it open for her. ‘Why not go to him now and get it over with?’

She hesitated, somehow sensing that once she walked through that door she was going to be entering a completely different stage of her life.

He elevated one dark brow at her as he waited for her to move past, his action seeming to mock her indecision, igniting her fury anew.

She drew in a breath and, stiffening her spine, stalked past him with her head in the air, giving him her best imitation of affronted aristocratic pride.

She sensed his self-satisfied smile as she moved past and, clenching her teeth, strode away down the hall, her footsteps echoing with an agitated syncopated beat.

Her parents were in the green sitting room, her father standing at the window staring out over the view of the extensive gardens, her mother sitting in a frozen position on one of the linen covered sofas, her hands tied into two tight knots in her lap.

Bryony closed the door behind her with a little click that made her mother instantly flinch and her father turn around to face her.

‘What the hell is going on?’ she asked.

Her mother began to sob brokenly.

‘Shut up, Glenys.’ Owen Mercer threw his wife a disparaging glance. ‘It’s too late for hysterics; it won’t change anything now.’

Bryony hated the way her father always dismissed her mother but, as much as she wanted to berate him for doing it now, she was here for other reasons and didn’t want to be distracted from them.

‘Is it true?’ She addressed him squarely. ‘Does Kane Kaproulias now own everything?’

She saw her father’s Adam’s apple move up and down in his throat and the fine beads of perspiration clinging precariously to his fleshy upper lip.

‘Yes…it’s true.’

She blinked at him in shock. ‘But…but how? How did such a thing happen?’

Her father seemed to be having some difficulty in meeting her eyes.

‘I made a few mistakes,’ he began awkwardly. ‘None of them serious, but over time they started to bank up behind me.’

‘What banked up behind you?’

‘Debts…’

‘What sort of debts?’

He told her a sum and she sank to the nearest sofa. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘Kane heard about it and swooped in for the kill. There was nothing I could do to stop him.’

Her mind was racing with the effort of finding a way out of their predicament but all she could see was her future mapped out for her as if written in her blood on the wall.

Kane had come after her.

She was the one he had chosen to pay the price.

‘He’s offered us a solution to our problems,’ her father said into the silence.

‘Oh, really?’ She gave him a cold look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve agreed to his tidy little solution, have you?’

‘Darling…’ her mother began.

‘I told you to keep out of this, Glenys,’ Owen barked at her before turning back to Bryony. ‘He’s a rich man. I might have asked for someone a little less…er…primitive, but his wealth will more than make up for that.’

‘You think that money means anything to me?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve sold me like some medieval bride!’

‘You could do a lot worse.’

‘I’d like to know how.’ She sprang off the sofa in agitation. ‘I hate him! He’s a criminal, or have you forgotten that little detail?’

‘We all make mistakes, Bryony…’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ she gasped. ‘You were the one to send him off to whatever correction facility he went to. How can you allow him to step in and carry me off like some sort of caveman?’

‘You’re being hysterical just like your mother.’

‘I’m being hysterical? This whole farce is hysterical! I will not marry him and that’s my final word.’ She spun away and stomped to the door and had her hand out to turn the knob when her father spoke, instantly freezing her to the spot.

‘He has information about me that will send both your mother and I to prison for the rest of our lives.’

Bryony turned around slowly, as if by prolonging the moment she might find her life had turned back to what it had once been, not the theatrical drama that was facing her now.

No such luck.

The look on her father’s face was nothing short of desperate and her mother was bent over double on the sofa, the sounds of her distress muffled but no less disturbing.

‘What did you do?’ she asked when she could move her stiff lips into gear. ‘Kill someone?’

His eyes skittered away from hers. ‘I won’t distress you with the details.’

‘I think under the current circumstances I can handle it,’ she informed him drily. ‘My shockometer has already blown a fuse this afternoon so one more hit shouldn’t make much difference.’

‘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 don’t need a slave, I need a wife.’

‘You don’t need a wife; in my opinion you’re in desperate need of a behavioural psychologist.’

He laughed at her, the rich deep sound surprising her into silence.

She stood immobile at the foot of the huge staircase, staring up into his eyes while the grandfather clock kept solid time in the background.

One second…two seconds…three…four…five…

‘I have to get back to the city,’ he said, jolting her out of her stasis. ‘I’ll contact you at the city apartment to inform you of the arrangements.’

She watched as he made his way to the front door of her family home as if he owned the place, realizing with a sickening little lurch of her stomach that he now did.

And not just the house…

Bryony waited until the sound of his car driving over the crushed limestone driveway faded into the distance, the crunch of displaced stones reminding her of the impact he’d had on her in the space of little more than an hour.

How was she to cope with extended periods of time in his presence, much less marry him?

Marriage to anyone was anathema to her, let alone to someone whom she hated.

How had her father got them into this? And if her mother had known something of it, why hadn’t she thought to warn her?

Too agitated to stay within the house but for some strange reason unwilling to leave by the same exit Kane had just used, she turned and made her way out through one of the rear doors into the gardens.

She stood and breathed in the scent of sun-warmed roses, their heady fragrance a welcome relief from the cold and formal atmosphere of the house.

A light afternoon breeze shivered over the surface of the lake in the distance, its fringe of weeping willows offering Bryony a solace she found hard to resist. She walked across the verdant expanse of well-manicured lawn, her light footsteps cushioned by the lushness of fastidiously clipped growth, and headed for the shade of the arc of willows on the far side of the lake.

It was much cooler near the water.

She sat on one of the large rocks and, slipping off her shoes, dangled her toes in the cool dark depths, watching as the bowing branches moved on the surface like feathery fingertips as the eddy of disturbed water reached them.

She hadn’t been to this dark secluded spot for ten years.

Even the gardeners didn’t come this far. Their work was to make the exposed parts of Mercyfields appear perfect at all times. Under here, where the pendulous branches of the willows shielded the house from view, was of no interest to them.

She breathed in the earthy smell of the damp bank, the fragile lace of maidenhair fern shifting faintly as the warm breath of the breeze moved through the shady sanctuary, and her thoughts drifted just like the water she’d disturbed…

It had been one of those unbearably hot afternoons the countryside of New South Wales was famous for, the smell of eucalyptus-tinged smoke lingering in the sultry air, the clouds overhead gathering in wrathful grey clusters as if deciding whether or not to take out their rage on the earth below.

She’d come down to the lake to bathe in private, for even though the large kidney-shaped swimming pool lay near the wisteria walk at the rear of the house she hadn’t wanted to be observed, preferring the secluded shade of her favourite hideaway.

At seventeen she’d been conscious of the weight she’d gained during her final term. An injury to her knee, her anxiety over exams and the stodgy diet ordered by Madame Celeste had taken its toll on her normally svelte figure. She hadn’t been able to dance for eight weeks and it showed.

She’d slipped into the cool embrace of the dark water and sighed with pleasure, her limbs feeling like silky ribbons released after months of being tightly coiled. She’d swum back and forth beneath the shield of the hanging arms of the willows, glad to be finally free of the constraints of the school term.

She’d lain on her back and looked up through the canopy, the dapple of sunlight speckling along her wet body as if someone had dropped a handful of gold-dust over her.

Smiling at her overactive imagination, she’d begun stroking backwards, her arms slicing through the water, gradually gathering speed as she’d pretended she was in the final heat of the Olympic fifty metre backstroke, she was in front…she was going to win…Thump!

Bryony had gagged on the mouthful of water she’d swallowed before turning around to see what she’d run into, expecting to find a fallen log or even a partially submerged rock.

She had not expected to see Kane Kaproulias standing waist-deep in the water with his nose streaming blood…

‘Oh, my God!’ she gasped while her feet searched vainly for a foothold in the slippery mud.

‘Did I hurt you?’ he asked as his hands came out to her shoulders to steady her.

Bryony felt her feet sink into the velvet mud, offering her a stability she badly needed once Kane’s warm brown work-roughened hands touched the creamy skin of her shoulders.

She stared up at him, fighting for breath, suddenly conscious of the tight cling of her Lycra bathing suit which, in her current physical shape, was at least two sizes too small.

‘No…’ she said a little breathlessly, ‘you didn’t hurt me at all but look what I did to your nose.’

‘It’s nothing.’ He let her go and rinsed his face in the water.

‘I didn’t know anyone was here, otherwise I would have—’

‘It’s just a nosebleed, Bryony, it won’t kill me.’

She found it hard not to stare at his face. She hadn’t seen him for months. During her last holiday he’d been working part-time on a neighbour’s property, only coming home occasionally to see his mother. She’d heard he was saving up enough money to put himself through a university course but she had never asked him what he’d intended studying.

He looked much fitter and stronger than the last time she’d seen him. At twenty-two he was only a year older than her brother but somehow he seemed to be so much more mature.

Austin was boisterous and loud, as were most of his friends who often spent time at Mercyfields during their university vacations, their numerous boyish pranks in stark contrast to Kane’s silent brooding presence. She suspected his surly demeanour was an inbuilt part of his personality and not just a reaction to being labelled the cleaning lady’s son.

She couldn’t imagine what her father would say if he could see her now, standing in the water with Kane, his broad smooth chest glistening with droplets of moisture as he looked down at her with eyes darker than the mud beneath her curling toes.

‘Do you usually swim here?’ he asked.

‘I…no…not usually.’

‘You shouldn’t come here, especially not alone.’

She didn’t care for the quiet authority in his tone. She was the daughter of the house, he was the servant’s son—he had no right to tell her what to do.

She tilted her chin at him. ‘Why not? It’s my lake, not yours.’

The look he gave her was hard to decipher given the shady nook they were in, but she suspected he was sneering at her behind the screen of his dark lashes.

‘If you hurt yourself no one would find you.’

‘How could I hurt myself? I’m a good swimmer.’

‘You’re a very careless swimmer.’ He gave his nose another wipe with the back of his hand. ‘Instead of me it could have been a rock you hit. You could have easily knocked yourself out and drowned.’

‘It’s none of your business what I do,’ she said, annoyed that he was right but unwilling to admit it. ‘If I want to swim here I will and nothing you say or do can stop me.’

Bryony became increasingly aware of the pulsing silence. The shadows danced like wraiths around them, the water where his blood had spilled lapping gently against her thighs like a caress, heightening her awareness of his physical closeness in the most intimate and primal way.

The sunlight shifted, revealing more of his face to her, and she was relieved to see that his nose had more or less stopped bleeding. But then she gave a tiny involuntary shiver as she saw his eyes slide down to the overflow of her breasts, her tight bathing suit doing an inadequate job of keeping them contained with any sort of decency.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. ‘I’ll tell my brother you have insulted me by leering at me like that.’

His gaze lingered another full ten seconds before he lifted it to meet her flashing one. ‘Do you imagine I am afraid of that spineless little jerk?’

She was incensed by his attitude towards the older brother she adored. ‘You will be when I tell him you’ve touched me under the willows of the lake.’

He didn’t say a word, just stood watching her steadily, which somehow made her even angrier.

‘Do you think he won’t defend his sister from the filthy hands of the cleaning lady’s son?’ she added spitefully.

‘He very probably will,’ he answered after another long cicadas-beating-in-the-background pause. ‘So in that case I’d better make sure that what’s coming to me is well and truly warranted.’

She was still trying to make sense of his coolly delivered words when he reached for her, his strong arms coming around her, pulling her out of the sucking mud and up against his hard body. His mouth came down, his lips warm and firm as they explored the soft surface of hers.

Bryony had never been kissed before and wasn’t quite sure how to react. Part of her insisted she pull away at once, but the lure of finding out what a real man’s kiss tasted like won. She closed her eyes and gave in with a soft sigh of pleasure at the feel of his mouth discovering the moistness of hers with a determined probe of his tongue. She could taste the metallic saltiness of his blood where it had come into contact with his mouth and a new and totally alluring sensation unfurled low in her belly, making her cling to him unashamedly.

He suddenly pulled away from her with a jerky movement that made her lose her footing. She went sprawling backwards, landing ungainly on her bottom in the mud, the murky water lapping her chin as she glared up at him in outrage at being released without warning.

He offered her a hand at the same time as her other hand came upon a rock under the water, her fingers curling around it as he hauled her inelegantly to her feet.

It was his smile that made her do it.

Without really thinking of the consequences, she raised her hand and smashed the rock in her tightly clenched fist against that sneering mouth…

CHAPTER THREE

BRYONY blinked herself back out of the past and stared down at the now still surface of the lake, surprised the water wasn’t still red even after ten long years.

She hadn’t thought an injury could bleed so much.

She hadn’t thought she’d been capable of such a despicable action.

She hadn’t thought he’d wait for ten long years to have his revenge…

She drove back to the city that night, unable to stay a minute longer now she’d disturbed the vault of her memory. Her parents hadn’t questioned her decision to leave. Her father hadn’t even bothered to say goodbye but her mother had more than made up for it by standing on the marble steps at the double front door, tears streaming down her face as she’d waved her off.

Bryony turned on the music system and hoped the heavy strains of a Mahler Symphony would distract her from what lay ahead, but even as she pulled into the garage of the apartment block two hours later she knew there was no escaping her nemesis.

Fate had written the script of her life ten years ago and now it was finally time for her to take her place on the stage…

By the time Bryony arrived at the studio on Monday, Pauline LeFray, her teaching partner, had already finished her warm-up stretches.

Pauline wiped her hands on a small towel, her brow furrowing at the look on her partner’s beautiful face.

‘What’s going on?’

Bryony slipped off her wraparound skirt and reached for the barre, easing herself into her pre-teaching routine.

‘It would take me a decade to tell you,’ she said, stretching her calves.

Pauline glanced at the clock on the wall. ‘We’ve got ten minutes until the five-year-olds arrive. Want to quickly summarise?’

Bryony eased her hamstrings into action as she met her friend’s interested gaze. ‘I’m getting married.’

‘Married?’ Pauline gasped.

Bryony lifted her right leg to the barre and bent her head to her knee, staring at the wooden floorboards below as she spoke. ‘Married as in wedlock, matrimony…’ Jail, she added silently.

‘This is a bit sudden, isn’t it?’ Pauline asked. ‘I mean…I didn’t know you were even seeing anyone. Have you been seeing someone?’

Bryony changed legs and repeated the exercise, again staring at the floor. ‘No.’

Pauline’s frown deepened. ‘You’re not making a whole lot of sense, Bry. You haven’t had a date in years and now you tell me you’re getting married. Call me thick if you like, but how does that work? You’re not doing some crazy mail-order or Internet hook-up thing, are you?’

I wish, Bryony thought. Better to marry a perfect stranger than someone you couldn’t bear to look at because…

‘It’s nothing like that,’ she answered as she straightened. ‘I know it’s sudden but he’s someone from my…past and we just hit it off, so to speak.’

‘Hit it off?’

Bryony gave her a false smile and hoped it would pass for pre-wedded joy. ‘He’s tall, dark and handsome and disgustingly rich.’

‘Rich?’ Pauline stared at her. ‘You don’t do rich, remember? The last guy you dated, what was it…three years ago, didn’t even have a job!’

‘I’ve changed my mind.’

‘Hello?’ Pauline waved her arms in the air at her. ‘It’s me—Pauline. You can’t seriously expect me to believe you are attracted to a guy because of the size of his wallet.’

‘OK, so it’s not his wallet I’m attracted to.’ Bryony avoided her friend’s eyes in the wall-to-wall mirror as she stretched her arms.

‘Now you’ve got me even more worried. What else did this guy show you apart from his wallet? Don’t tell me you’ve finally done the deed?’

Bryony felt a trickle of warmth leak into her belly at the thought of Kane’s body possessing hers and in spite of the air-conditioning of the studio her whole body grew hot.

‘Have you?’ Pauline probed when she didn’t answer.

Bryony turned around and reached for her towel. ‘Not yet.’

‘Not yet? What do you mean, not yet? If you’re going to marry him, don’t you think you should check out if everything’s in good working order?’

‘I’m perfectly healthy and—’

‘Not you, dummy.’ Pauline rolled her eyes. ‘Him. He might be a complete dud for all you know. Would you buy a car without taking it for a run first? It’s the same with men. Take it from someone who knows about these things. If he’s not good in bed the relationship is dead.’

Bryony considered telling her the truth about her relationship with Kane but decided against it at the last minute. It was too complicated to explain, even to a close friend. It was better to let Pauline think it was a match made in heaven rather than reveal the true hell of her situation.

‘We’ve only just become engaged,’ she said instead. ‘It’s all happened so fast but I’m sure we’ll…er…get around to it.’

‘Yeah, well see that you do,’ Pauline advised as the outer door opened and ten little girls traipsed in dressed in tiny tutus and ballet slippers.

Bryony plastered a welcoming smile on her face as she faced the girls and hoped that by the end of the afternoon Pauline wouldn’t return to the topic of her sex life.

She didn’t have a sex life and, marriage or no marriage, she wasn’t going to have one if she could help it.

It was three days until Kane contacted her.

She knew it was him even before she picked up the receiver on her bedroom extension.

‘Hello, Bryony.’

‘Who is it?’ she asked, pretending not to recognise that unmistakable deep velvety voice.

‘You know who it is.’

‘How am I supposed to know who it is if you don’t identify yourself? Didn’t your mother ever tell you it’s polite to announce your identity when you call someone?’

‘My mother taught me many things,’ he said, ‘and I intend to act on all of them.’

She wasn’t sure she wanted him to elucidate on just exactly what he meant so she changed the subject.

‘Why did you call?’

‘I think it’s time we went out on a date.’

‘A date?’ She frowned. ‘Save yourself the time and bother, Kane. You don’t need to wine and dine me; you’ve paid for me already, remember?’

‘As you wish.’

She knew it was inconsistent of her to be disappointed by his ready agreement but she just was.

‘I guess we can discuss the wedding arrangements just as easily over the telephone as we can over a dinner table somewhere,’ he continued. ‘I’ve decided we’ll have the ceremony conducted at Mercyfields overlooking the lake.’

Her hand around the receiver tightened until her knuckles went completely white.

‘Your mother will appreciate you being married at your home,’ he added when she didn’t speak.

‘It’s no longer my home,’ she pointed out somewhat sourly. ‘It’s yours.’

‘It will belong to both of us. Your parents’ things will be moved out while we’re on our honeymoon.’

‘Honeymoon?’ she choked.

‘That’s what newly married couples usually do, is it not?’

‘Yes…but…’

‘I’ve arranged a week on a private beach on the south coast.’

‘The south coast?’

‘You do know where that is, don’t you?’ he drawled.

‘Of course I do, but I—’

‘It will be slightly cooler there than the city but the water is warm and the beach long and lonely.’

‘You sound like a travel journal,’ she said with a touch of scorn.

His rumble of laughter sent a shiver over the surface of her skin.

‘I like to get away from the hustle and bustle of high city life,’ he said. ‘I go there quite a lot. It’s just about the only place you can still have the beach to yourself, no jet-skis, no crowds, just the sound of the waves beating along the shore.’

Bryony could almost smell the sea-spray. She loved the beach but it had been months since she’d felt the sand between her toes.

‘Your parents will leave for a month-long cruise of the Pacific Islands the day after our wedding,’ he informed her, apparently undeterred by her lack of response. ‘Until I settle all his debts over the next few weeks, your father needs to keep his head down. Your mother, quite frankly, needs a holiday.’

It was difficult not to voice her agreement but somehow she managed to remain silent.

‘It will take me the best part of that month to sort out the mess your father has made,’ he went on. ‘I have to wait until I get clearance of some international funds to relieve the situation.’

That did get her attention.

‘International funds? What international funds?’

‘I recently inherited my maternal grandfather’s estate in Greece. I have to wait until the bank clears the funds to access them.’

Bryony’s forehead creased in a frown. His maternal grandfather had been wealthy? It didn’t make sense. Why then had his mother worked her fingers to the bone cleaning?

‘I thought you didn’t know any of your relatives.’

‘I don’t, nor do I wish to. They didn’t help my mother when she most needed it so I don’t see why I should pay them any attention now.’

‘But surely if your grandfather left you his entire estate you must feel some sort of obligation to go and see the rest of the family and—’

‘My grandfather’s money is nothing more than guilt money. I’ve made my own fortune without it.’

‘Then why are you using it to sort out my father’s debts?’

‘You’re not listening, Bryony,’ he chided her. ‘I told you, my grandfather’s money is guilt money. I think it’s highly appropriate if I use it to dig your father out of the hole he dug for himself.’

Guilt money.

Her stomach churned as she thought about it.

‘Exactly whose guilt are we talking about here?’ she asked.

‘I think you know whose guilt we’re talking about,’ he answered.

She took a breath and hoped he didn’t hear the way it snagged in her throat.

‘What sort of outfit should I wear to the ceremony?’ she asked for the want of something to say to steer the subject away from the topic of guilt.

‘It’s a wedding, Bryony. Your mother will expect you to look like a bride.’

He really knew how to press her buttons. Her mother had been planning her wedding since she’d been five, her enthusiasm undaunted by her daughter’s flat refusal to select herself a groom.

‘I don’t look good in white,’ she said. ‘It’s not my colour.’

‘Wear cream, then.’

‘Shouldn’t I be wearing black?’ she asked. ‘After all, isn’t this the end of my life as I now know it?’

‘Quite frankly, I don’t care what you wear,’ he said with the first sign of impatience in his tone she’d heard. ‘Your job is to appear at the right time, say the right words and do what you’re told. If you don’t your father and mother will be cruising the exercise yard of whatever correctional facility they’re sent to instead of the Pacific Islands.’

Bryony stared at the buzzing receiver in her hand as he ended the call with an abruptness that left her feeling somehow deflated.

Her mother rang the next morning and arranged a time to meet her in the city to select the wedding finery. Bryony had to give herself a mental shake once or twice to remind herself that this wasn’t going to be a normal wedding in any shape or form, because her mother was quite clearly on a mission and had been waiting years to execute it.

‘I don’t want a huge bouquet,’ Bryony insisted in the florist’s shop.

‘You must have a big bouquet,’ Glenys said, thrusting yet another design under her nose. ‘This is the most important day of your life; you have to have everything perfect.’

Bryony stared down at the various floral arrangements in the brochure in front of her and wondered what had ever been perfect in her parents’ marriage. Her mother continually danced around her father’s demands, subsuming her own needs into the satisfaction of his. What was perfect about that?

‘I’ll have the roses,’ she told the hovering assistant. ‘Cream, not white.’

They left the florist to do yet another round of the bridal boutiques as she had been unable to find anything that suited her colouring or her figure.

‘I need to go on a diet,’ she lamented at the fifth boutique, her hands pushing against her tummy where the satin of the gown she was trying on was showing too much detail of her Christmas indulgences.

‘You worry too much about your figure,’ her mother remonstrated as she eyed the gown. ‘I was at least ten pounds heavier than you when I got married.’

‘At least you were marrying the man of your choice,’ Bryony said.

There was a funny little silence.

Bryony twirled around to face her mother, the rustle of the garment she was wearing the only sound in the changing room.

Glenys bent to the hem of the gown, fussing over some little detail which Bryony hadn’t noticed.

‘Mum?’

‘Yes, darling?’ Glenys straightened and gave her an absent look.

Bryony rolled her lips together and, taking a breath, took one of her mother’s thin hands in hers, the tendons on the back reminding her of the struts of an umbrella.

‘You do want me to marry Kane, don’t you?’

Glenys gave her a watery smile. ‘I know you don’t think much of him but he’s doing us all a favour by marrying you.’

‘You make me sound like some sort of white elephant you can’t wait to get rid of,’ Bryony said indignantly.

‘I don’t mean to, darling, but your father has…’ She inserted a little choked sob. ‘Your father hasn’t been the same since Austin…left us.’

Bryony felt like screaming with frustration.

Why couldn’t anyone in her family say the words?

Austin had died.

He hadn’t passed away.

He hadn’t left.

He’d died.

She sighed and, reaching out, gave her mother a consoling hug, catching sight of herself in the mirror opposite, the outfit she was wearing making her look like a meringue without the cream and strawberries.

‘I hate this dress.’ She released her mother and began stripping off the gown. ‘I want something simple and elegant. Is there nowhere in Sydney where I can find what I want?’

She found it in Paddington.

It was cream, it was long and voluminous, it was elegant—it was perfect.

Even if her groom wasn’t.

He rang that night as if he’d somehow sensed she’d found what she was looking for.

‘Hello?’

‘Hello, Bryony.’

She pursed her lips sourly. ‘Who is it?’

‘You know who I am, so stop playing games.’

‘I’m not playing games. I just wish you’d identify yourself when you call.’

‘Don’t you have caller ID?’

‘I still like to know who is speaking. Numbers mean nothing to me.’

‘You’re definitely your father’s daughter then.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

She heard the rustle of papers before he spoke. ‘Your father has made the most God-awful mess of things. There are creditors breathing down my neck as we speak.’

She wasn’t sure how to respond. Should she thank him for what he was doing, even though he was taking away her freedom by doing it?

‘I had no idea…’

‘No, I imagine not,’ he said. ‘Are you doing anything right now?’

She tried to think of something that could be legitimately occupying her time at seven-fifteen in the evening but she’d already washed her hair that morning.

‘No…’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes.’

‘But—’

The receiver buzzed in her hand for the second time in twenty-four hours. She put it back in its cradle and stared at her reflection in the mirror, wondering why it was that her mouth suddenly felt the urge to smile.

Bryony opened the door fourteen minutes and twenty-one seconds later to find Kane standing there dressed in a black dinner suit, his thick hair still showing the grooves of a recent comb.

‘Ready?’

She nodded, not sure what to expect but resigned to go along with whatever he had planned.

‘I have tickets,’ he said once they were in his silver Porsche.

‘What for?’

He gave her a quick inscrutable glance as he turned over the engine, ‘The ballet.’

She turned back to the front of the car and hustled her thoughts together.

The ballet?

He was taking her to the ballet?

She toyed with the catch on her evening purse. ‘I didn’t have you pegged as a ballet man.’

‘I like a good dance as much as the next man.’

She had to force herself not to look his way. ‘I must admit I can’t quite imagine you prancing around in a leotard.’

His laughter washed over her like a soft rain shower.

‘No, but I can definitely imagine you doing it. I’ve seen you many times.’

She swivelled her head to look at him. ‘You’ve seen me? Where?’

Kane expertly manoeuvred the car into a tight space between a Fiat and a Volvo a short walking distance from the Opera House.

‘At Mercyfields in the ballroom.’

She sat back in her seat in shock.

He’d seen her?

He’d seen her pretending to be the next bright star of the ballet world, when all the time her knee was telling her it was time to quit her dream of professional dancing.

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