Bought For The Billionaire's Revenge. Clare Connelly

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СКАЧАТЬ started, and it dawned on him that Marnie was nervous. Her facade was exceptional. Cold, unfeeling, composed. But Marnie was uncertain, too. Her enormous almond-shaped eyes, warm like coffee, flew to his face before she seemed to regain her footing and inject her expression with an air of impatience.

      But she wasn’t impatient. How could she be? The past was claiming her. He was him, and she was her, but they were kids again. Teenagers madly in love, sure of nothing and everything, unable to keep their hands off each other in the passionate way of illicit love affairs.

      Sensing her prevarication, he spoke firmly. ‘Your father is on the brink of total ruin, and if you don’t listen to me he’ll be bankrupt within a month.’

      She froze, all colour draining from her face. She shook her head slowly from side to side, mumbling something about not being able to believe it, but her mind was shredding through that silly denial. After all, she’d seen for herself the change in him recently. The stress. The anger. The drinking too much. The weight loss. Disturbed sleep. Why hadn’t she pushed him harder? Why hadn’t she demanded that he or her mother tell her honestly what was going on?

      ‘I have no interest in lying to you,’ he said simply. ‘Sit down.’

      She nodded, her throat thick, as she crossed the room and took a chair at the meeting table. He followed, his eyes not leaving her face as he poured two glasses of water and slid one across the table, before hunkering his large frame into the chair opposite.

      His feet brushed hers accidentally beneath the table. The shock of her father’s situation had robbed her of her usual control and she jumped at the touch, her whole body resonating before she caught herself in the childish reaction.

      And he’d noticed it; the smile of sardonic amusement on his face might have embarrassed her if she hadn’t been so completely overcome by concern.

      ‘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 СКАЧАТЬ