Penniless and Purchased (7 page)

She summoned the only weapon she could, crushing down
every other emotion. Her face hardened. ‘What’s this farce all about, Nikos?’ she demanded, every muscle in her body like steel under impossible tension. Her voice was as hard as her expression.

So was his. ‘Sit down.’ He pulled out a facing chair, holding it for her.

He saw her balking, and lifted one eyebrow sardonically. ‘I said, sit down, Sophie. I’ve engaged your services this evening, so start earning your money.’

Sophie sat, her legs suddenly soggy. Numbly, she watched Nikos fold his long, lean body, clad in a superb hand-made suit, into the opposite chair, every centimetre of him assured, sleek, powerful.

Devastating.

She felt the hollow gape in her stomach, felt emotions rush into the space, churning and convulsing. Overpowering.

Nikos, so close she could see every line and plane of his face! So close she could reach out and touch him!

No! Desperately she fought against the rush of blood as her gaze clung to the man opposite her. No! That was all—the only word she must keep in her head. No! No to everything that made her want to go to him, that made the pulse quicken in her veins, the breath tighten in her lungs.

She opened her mouth to speak, to voice her protest at what was happening, but he was there before her.

‘I’ve booked you for tonight, Sophie, for one reason and one reason only,’ he said, and his voice was steely.

His face was shuttered, jaw set. His eyes bored into her, pinioning her. She could not move, could only endure—frozen, immobile.

‘Didn’t I tell you last night what a dangerous game you were playing?’ he iced out. ‘You’re standing at the gutter’s
edge, Sophie, and it will take only a single step to be in it! You can think yourself unsullied because you call it escorting, but that’s not what others will think, believe me!’

His hard eyes excoriated her. ‘I thought I’d got the message home to you last night, but I haven’t, have I? You’re still on the agency’s books, and your presence here right now is proof you haven’t wised up yet. Or won’t!’ He took a sharp intake of breath. ‘You got lucky last night, Sophie! That jerk Cosmo had other girls to help himself to, so he didn’t turn nasty on you! That won’t happen every time! And a man like that, who thinks he’s paying for a woman for the night, won’t take kindly to being told, sorry, but you’ll go home to your virtuous single bed at midnight!’

Her face was closed, shutting him out, rejecting what he was saying. ‘I can handle myself,’ she retorted, quelling the churning inside her. She wanted to leap to her feet, run, but she couldn’t move, could hardly get words out while he laid into her.

‘Like hell!’ he shot back dismissively. ‘Last night you saw the kind of scene that the men who’ll hire you like to enjoy! All it will take is a spiked drink, or worse, and a little exercise of masculine strength. And you don’t think anyone at a place like that is going to believe your protests, do you? Do you
want
to end up drugged and raped?’

Her face was white under the make-up. ‘It won’t happen! I’ll be careful! I’ll stick to public places, like this.’

Nikos’s voice was scathing. ‘And then what, Sophie? Have you thought that through? Because I have, believe me! And it’s the reason you’re sitting here right now. Let me spell it out for you.’ He took another scissored breath. ‘You may not give a cent for your reputation, you may not care if the whole world knows your line of work, but spare a thought, if you please—’ his voice was edged with scathing sarcasm ‘—for
others. Whether you get into serious trouble with a demanding client or not, you’ll cause trouble for others. Think of your father, Sophie. Whatever his business problems, he wasn’t responsible for the way you behaved four years ago. His fault was in indulging you, making you think you could have everything you wanted, the easy way. But he wouldn’t want this for you now, what you’re doing—what father would?’

A steel band had started to tighten around her skull, digging into her skin. ‘He won’t know.’ It was all she could get out and it cost her, even to say that.

Nikos’s eyes hardened. ‘You think? By swanning around in public places people will see you—people who know you. After all…’ he paused ‘…I did.’ He paused again, his eyes boring into her like drills. ‘And I won’t be the only one to make the conclusion I did about you last night. Do you think anyone is actually going to
believe
your claim that you only sell your company—not your body?’ His voice was harsh, pitiless. ‘They’ll call you a hooker, a whore, a call-girl—whether you like it or not!’

The unbearable lecture went on, and she wanted to scream and yell, but she couldn’t—she couldn’t. She had to sit there and take it, endure it.

‘And then, Sophie, what about when the tabloids cotton on to what you’re doing? Someone will spot you and tip them off. And it doesn’t matter that Granton plc is no more, they’ll dredge it back up and they’ll have a field day exposing how a millionaire’s daughter has ended up on the game now Daddy’s run out of his millions. They’ll revel in it, Sophie! You can protest your innocence all you like, but they’ll still put “escort agency” in quotes, and everyone will know it’s just a euphemism, whether you like it or not. Then some kindly soul will put the tabloid rag in front of your father, with a sympathetic
look on their face, and your father will know just how far his precious darling daughter has fallen…’

The band was red-hot now—red-hot against her forehead. If only he would stop, just
stop
…

She could feel her nails almost piercing her palms, feel the pain spiking up her arms. And still he went on, hectoring and lecturing.

‘It’s a sleazy, sordid world you’re moving in, and you can give it all the prettied-up anodyne names you like, dress it up however you please, but that doesn’t hide the truth of it! So face up to it.’

She wanted to laugh—harsh, bitter—in his damn face.
Face up to it?
Dear God, wasn’t that what she was doing? What she had no choice but to do? Facing up to the fact that she had to find money—any amount, by any means—because to fail…to fail…

No—failure wasn’t an option. She had to find the money. And if that meant looking at herself in the mirror and hating what she saw, being repulsed by what she saw, then so be it She could not afford pride, self-respect or self-loathing to get in her way.

She took a cold, icy breath, freezing her lungs, her voice. ‘Don’t lecture me, Nikos! I told you, I am not doing this from
choice
! I need the money!’

‘How much?’

She stared.

He gave a rasp of irritation. ‘I said, how much?’

Her chin lifted. ‘What’s it to you?’

Anger, controlled but visible, flashed in his eyes. ‘Just answer me.’

He wanted to know? She told him, nails digging into her palms. ‘Five thousand pounds.’

That was what she had to have—enough to see her clear, at least for the next couple of months. After that—well, time enough to worry then…

As it always did when she had to think about the endless requirement for money, her mind cut out. To do anything else was far, far too frightening.

‘Five thousand?’ Nikos echoed the amount in a harsh voice. ‘And you think you can clear that kind of money just by working as a no-sex escort? A little light evening work, just smiling and chatting and looking sexy?’ He didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. ‘Why do you need the money, anyway?’

Her nails dug deeper. Tension netted around her. ‘I owe it.’

‘Paying off credit cards that have stopped funding you, is that it? So why not just go to Daddy and get him to bail you out—or has he finally stopped indulging you?’

The band around her head was tightening more. ‘He doesn’t know I owe the money.’ She spoke tersely. It was all she could manage.

Nikos looked at her. So she was hiding not just her lifestyle from her father but her debts, as well. For a moment he considered tracking down Edward Granton and putting him in the picture. Then he disposed of the thought. The man did not deserve to know the unsavoury truth about his daughter now, much as he hadn’t needed to know what she had tried four years ago. However, Sophie had to be stopped, right now, from the course she was so rashly taking. Time to cut to the chase. It galled him to do it, but it was necessary—that was all.

‘Very well. I will settle your debts for you. I will give you the five thousand pounds.’

She heard the words, heard them but could not take them in. He was offering her the money she so desperately needed?
For a moment emotion knifed in her like a sword. Then a word formed on her lips.

‘Why?’

‘Because, Sophie, it’s in my interests.’

Emotion knifed again. She wanted to lash out at him, tell him he could take his money and go to hell! She would never, never take a penny from him! Never!

His eyes were like steel hooks, holding hers. ‘Once the tabloids pick up on you, they will dig into your background—and what will they find, Sophie?
Who
will they find?’ His voice was edged, like a razorblade. ‘They’ll find me. They’ll find that I once—
dated
—you.’ He said the word as if it were poison. ‘And then they’ll drag me into the mud that you’re wading into. The Greek tabloids will pick up the story, linking a Kazandros to a hooker—because that’s what they’ll call you, however coyly—and then my parents will hear of it. I won’t have that, Sophie. I really won’t.’ His voice was hard, icy. ‘So I’m prepared to hand over the five thousand pounds you say you owe. But—’ he held up a peremptory hand ‘—not only do you ditch the escort agency and never go near it again, you also clear out of London.’

Her answer was automatic. ‘I can’t. I can’t leave London.’

‘You want my money—you leave London.’

‘I live here.’ She kept her answers short. It was all she could manage.

She saw him give a shrug. ‘You can come back. But not till Cosmo Dimistris is out of the country, you’ve rusticated long enough, and I’m out of the UK, as well.’

Her emotions were churning. Aggression, resentment, and so much more—all in a concrete mixer, heaving around inside her. Mixing with the voice inside her.

Don’t listen to him! You can’t take his money—you can’t!

But hope, desperation, seared like hot steel through her brain.

Oh, God, he could hand me the money. It means nothing to him, just loose change, but to me…to me…

She tried to cut her mind off. Tried not to let the words form in her head, the pleading, the hope, flaring like a thin, impossible flame.

I can’t! I can’t take his money! It’s impossible! Impossible! Anyone but him…any one! Not him—not him!

Not Nikos Kazandros. Not the man who had once been everything to her. A dream come true, a dream of bliss—until the dream had turned into a nightmare. A nightmare that had never left her. A nightmare she had to cope with day in, day out. That and the desperate need for money—so desperate that she’d been prepared to take on the vile work that Nikos was lecturing her about. Standing at the gutter’s edge, the way he’d said. And if she was prepared to do that, then why be squeamish about taking money from Nikos?

It’s money—that’s all that matters. Money you need, money you’ve got to have—because if you don’t have it then you know what’s going to happen. And who cares where it comes from? You were ready enough to earn it by draping yourself over any man who paid you! So who the hell do you think you are to be so damn delicate now, saying you can’t touch Nikos Kazandros’s money because he once ripped every stupid
,
pathetic illusion from you!

The voice stabbed brutally at her, merciless and harsh, telling her what she didn’t want to know, didn’t want to face. But she had to face it. Had learnt in the bitter years since her world had crashed around her that running away was not an option. That facing the brutal realities of life, of the life that she had been plunged into, forced into, was all she could do.

Her lesson had been hard. Bitterly hard.

But she had learnt it.

Her lips pressed together tightly; her hands clenched. If Nikos Kazandros was offering her five thousand pounds she would take it. Grab it. Seize it. What did her pride matter? Her heart? Her feelings?

They had stopped mattering four years ago, when everything had crashed around her.

Her eyes were like stone, her voice short and sharp as she addressed him. ‘How long will that be?’ she demanded aggressively.

‘How long?’ He echoed her demand. ‘A couple of weeks? Then you can do what the hell you want.’

Sophie’s mind raced. Homing in on the essentials.

‘I need the money before then.’ She spoke tersely, grittily.

‘You can have a cheque when you’re out of London.’

She had seen his eyes flash, flare with brief anger at the way she was speaking to him. She didn’t care.

‘Where do I have to go? I can’t leave the country.’ She spelt that out up-front. She could be out of London for two weeks, just about, but she couldn’t be out of the country. She needed to know she was only a train ride from London, not risk being stranded abroad, unable to afford the fare home.

Nikos’s mouth thinned. ‘Don’t worry, Sophie, I’m not whisking you off to some romantic hideaway.’ The sarcasm bit at her, but she ignored that too. She would ignore everything about Nikos Kazandros—everything except the money he was offering her. The lifeline…

Emotion stabbed inside her again, despite her attempt to crush it back. Dear God—money and Nikos Kazandros…

Nikos Kazandros, offering a lifeline…

The lifeline he had refused to offer before.

The irony of it twisted in her consciousness.

But the lifeline I wanted then wasn’t a paltry five thousand pounds…

No. The thought seared like a burning brand in her head. It was a lot more. Far, far more than money…

She sheered her mind away. No point treading that bitter path again. The path paved with broken dreams. She made herself meet his gaze, made herself look at those dark, cold eyes. Eyes that had once melted her in their heat.

But never would again.

For a second, a fraction of a second so brief she hardly registered it, she felt emotion so powerful, so agonising, that she felt faint with it. Then it was gone. Only the expressionless, indifferent gaze on her was left.