The Greek's Bridal Bargain

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…