MELANIE MILBURNE - The Greek's Bridal Bargain

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.