Modern Romance November 2019 Books 1-4. Эбби Грин

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      It was a clever twisting of his own words and Drakon felt trapped—but he could hardly storm out of the room and tell her to go to hell, could he? Not on the second night of his honeymoon. ‘Is this what they taught you to do at nursing school, Lucy?’ he demanded. ‘To keep digging and digging until you got your answer?’

      Biting back an exclamation of impatience, he walked over to the dressing table and extracted a pair of golden cufflinks from one of the drawers. But he was aware that he was playing for time and he suspected Lucy was aware of it, too. He could sense her watching him, and waiting—but the overriding feeling he was getting from her was one of compassion rather than prurience. And suddenly Drakon found himself wondering why he was so intent on keeping his memories locked away, because it wasn’t as if anything he told her was going to affect the practical nature of their relationship, was it?

      Slowly, he slotted the second cufflink in place so that it lay flush and gleaming against the cream silk. Mightn’t it be a relief to confide in her something he’d only ever discussed with his mother? His mouth twisted. His lying mother. He felt the knot of pain in his gut tighten as he turned back to face his new wife.

      ‘Okay.’ He watched as she sat down on the end of the bed, her eyes fixed unwaveringly on his face, and it was only then that he began to speak. ‘You’re probably aware that I grew up in extreme luxury?’

      She gave a short laugh. ‘There were no poor boys at Milton school, Drakon.’

      He nodded. ‘No. I guess there weren’t,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘My father was the only child of an extremely wealthy man, but he didn’t follow my grandfather into the business. In fact, he’d never worked—he just lived off the profits of the company which my grandfather had painstakingly built up from scratch. Maybe the fact that everything had always been handed to him on a plate and the lack of purpose in his life were what lay behind what I was to later discover were his fundamental lack of self-worth and low self-esteem. But from the outside, at least, things looked perfect. He married my mother, who worshipped the ground he walked on, which only made his sense of entitlement all the greater. Everything she did was for my father. It was my first experience of unconditional female adoration, though it certainly wasn’t to be my last. She spent the majority of her time completely preoccupied with her appearance. Trying to stay young. Trying to fight nature’s natural progression with one surgical procedure after another. By the time she was in her forties, her face was so cosmetically altered that she could barely move her mouth to smile.’

      ‘And what was she like towards you—and Niko?’

      ‘We were superfluous to requirements. In short, we got in the way.’ His mouth twisted. ‘When Niko and I were seven they sent us away to school in England, and after that I felt as though I had two very different lives. My life in England and my life in Greece. But every time I went home on vacation, I could sense things weren’t right. I remember the atmosphere as being incredibly tense. I knew the marriage wasn’t happy, but since I had no idea what a happy marriage looked like, I just accepted it. But things seemed to be getting worse and every time I asked my mother if anything was wrong she would just fob me off and tell me everything was just fine. Tell me that my father was nothing less than a genius and it was none of my business.’

      ‘But it wasn’t fine?’ she interjected, into the silence which followed.

      He gave a bitter laugh. ‘You could say that. Behind the scenes everything was breaking down at an unbelievable speed. She knew that and she must have known how the outcome of the decline would impact on all our lives but she lied to me.’ His voice grew silent for a moment. ‘But it wasn’t until my father’s death that it came out just how comprehensively she’d lied. One sordid fact came spilling out after another—and the bubble which had been the perceived perfection of Konstantinou family life burst in the most spectacular way.’

      ‘How?’

      He didn’t answer straight away and when he did, he winced, as if he had just bitten into something sour. ‘I learned that for years my father had been entertaining a series of high-class hookers. Women who indulged him in whatever depravity was his current favourite and, from what I could gather, there were plenty of those. In turn he indulged them with whatever took their fancy—anything ranging from large diamonds to fancy apartments. He became a regular at the world’s biggest casinos and high-rollers like him always attract a following of low-lifers. As a result, the business was in tatters and there was barely anything left. It wasn’t what Niko had been led to believe would be his inheritance and that was the beginning of his descent into addiction. That was when he disappeared. I should have done something,’ he added bitterly. ‘I should have prevented it.’

      ‘But what could you have done, Drakon?’ she questioned urgently. ‘Because I’m getting the feeling that you’re shouldering most of the blame here.’

      Drakon clenched his fists as familiar feelings of anger and frustration pulsed through him. ‘Because by then I had some idea how commerce worked and could have helped,’ he bit out. ‘I could have found some sort of rescue package to have halted the decline of the company, or implored my father to seek help. If my mother had told me the truth instead of pretending nothing was wrong, then I could have done everything in my power to turn it around.’

      She shook her head. ‘But sometimes the best will in the world won’t make people do what you want them to do!’ she said, holding the palms of her hands towards him in silent appeal. ‘Even if you’d known about it, your father might have blocked all your attempts to save the company—he might still have chosen his life of depravity. Sometimes you’re powerless to do anything except sit back and watch while other people make their own mistakes, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.’

      But Drakon shook his head, closing his heart and his ears to what she was saying. ‘I don’t do powerless, Lucy,’ he said. ‘Not any more. That’s something you need to know about me. Maybe the only thing.’

      His words tailed away as the bells from the village church began ringing out and he could hear the sound of the children beginning to sing the traditional kalandra, but Drakon found himself unable to feel any sense of joyful celebration as he glanced down at his watch.

      It was Christmas Day.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      PUSHING ASIDE THE festive wrapping paper, Lucy felt her eyes widen as she pulled a circlet of glittering diamonds from the dark leather box. ‘Oh, Drakon,’ she said.

      ‘Do you like it?’

      ‘How could anyone not like it?’ she questioned shakily, slipping the bracelet over her wrist and holding it up in the air so that it sparkled like a ring of rainbows in the winter sunshine. But the truth was that it felt too expensive. Too impersonal—and nothing like the ink-spot sapphire which he’d picked out himself. She wanted to know who’d chosen it but she also didn’t want to know, for fear that it might have been Amy or one of his assistants. And in the meantime—how humble was her own little present going to look in comparison to this?

      A little awkwardly, she walked over to the Christmas tree and bent to retrieve the gift she’d placed there earlier. ‘It’s not very much,’ she said as she handed it to him.

      ‘I’m sure it will be perfect,’ said her new husband, his voice carrying the bland reassurance of someone who was impossible to buy for.

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