She couldn’t say any more. Her face was convulsing, her shoulders shaking with emotion. All those years of struggling and making do, of her poor, sick mother coughing up her lungs in their damp flat, eking out every last penny, dreading every bill that arrived until finally the end had come and she had died in poverty and bleakness. And she herself, homeless after the flat had been repossessed by the council, reduced to living in that stinking dive of a bedsit, working every hour of the day cleaning up other people’s filth, studying into the small hours of the night to get the qualifications she’d need to lift herself out of the grinding poverty she’d lived in all her life.
And her father had known and done nothing—nothing—to lift a finger to help either of them!
It burned in her like acid and she could not bear it—she just could not bear it.
She was shaking like a leaf, choking and trembling, sobbing out hot tears...
CHAPTER FIVE
AND THEN ARMS were coming around her. Arms that were holding her, cradling her, letting her sob and sob for all the sadness and bleakness of her mother’s life, of her own...sob for the cruelty and callousness of the man she had to call her father when she would have torn every shred of his DNA from her body if she could.
She sobbed until there were no more tears in her, barely conscious of the hard chest she was collapsed against, of the strong arms around her, holding her. The same hands that were now carefully, slowly, setting her back on her feet as her anguished sobs died finally away. A handkerchief was being handed to her, fine cotton and huge, and she took it, blowing her nose and wiping away the remnants of her tears, blinking to clear her blurred vision.
Alexandros Lakaris was speaking, and his voice held something she’d never heard in it before. It was the last thing she’d expected from him after the impersonal brusqueness he’d treated her with in London.
Kindness.
‘Come, let me give you a lift—it’s the least I can do.’
He ushered her towards the car and she sank down into the low leather seat, her legs weak suddenly, her whole body exhausted. She was drained of all emotion. Barely aware of what was happening.
He got into the driver’s seat, pulled her seat belt across and fastened it. Then he turned to her. When he spoke the kindness was there in his voice again, but now she could also hear apology.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Sorry that I didn’t warn you. Sorry that I just left you there last night.’ He took a heavy breath. ‘I’m sorry that you had to find out just what sort of man your father is.’
She saw his expression alter, his face set. Absently, with a part of her brain that was working even though it shouldn’t be, because it was quite irrelevant, she was aware all over again of just how incredibly good-looking he was, with his deep-set, long-lashed, dark, dark eyes and his sculpted mouth, and his chiselled jawline and sable hair.
Unwillingly, in her head, she heard her father’s hateful words score into her. ‘Every woman in Athens will envy you—’
She tore them from her. Tore away everything else he’d said. Every outrageous, appalling word...
How could he even think it—let alone assume it?
But she wouldn’t think about what he’d said. Wouldn’t give it the time of day.
The man sitting beside her—the man her despicable, monstrous father had said such things about—was speaking again, his voice sombre and heavy.
‘Stavros Coustakis is not known for caring about other people,’ he said tersely. ‘But he is known for manipulating people for his own ends.’
Rosalie felt his gaze on her, as if he was assessing how she was going to take what he was telling her. She stilled. Heard him go on.
‘That’s what he’s been trying to do with me—and...’ He paused, his dark eyes now holding hers quite deliberately. ‘It’s what he’s tried to do with you.’
His mouth thinned again, and he drummed his fingers on the dashboard.
‘Look, like it or not, we do need to talk. There are things I need to explain to you. Things you need to know. But not in this cramped car.’ He suddenly gunned the engine, which made a low, throaty noise. ‘I’ll take you to lunch.’ He held up a hand, as if she were going to protest. ‘Then afterwards I’ll get you to the airport, okay?’
Rosalie’s face worked. He was being different, somehow. It was as if he were speaking to her for the first time. Speaking honestly—not concealing anything. And that, she realised slowly, was why he’d been so brusque with her in London.
Because he knew all along what I’d be facing when I met my father.
Well, now she knew, too—and it had devastated her. Repulsed her.
She nodded numbly. ‘Okay,’ she said, her voice low. She was not able to summon the energy to say anything else.
In her lap she twisted his handkerchief, then busied herself stuffing it into her handbag. He would hardly want it now, all soggy and used.
She sat back, exhausted suddenly. It had all been too much. Much too much. Too much for anything except sitting here, staring out of the window, saying nothing, letting Alexandros Lakaris drive her wherever it was he was taking her.