MELANIE MILBURNE - The Greek's Bridal Bargain

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.