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.