'And you could whistle for him now! No man would touch you after witnessing your despicable display last night! But then—' his dark eyes filled with contempt '—without Coustakis Industries as your dowry you would be fit only to warm a man's bed for hard cash, like your whore of a mother!'
'This conversation,' said Andrea, her voice as tight as a drawn bowstring as she tamped down the fury that filled her as she heard this vile man speak so of her mother, 'is pointless. I am leaving for London. Be so good as to order a car to take me to the airport.'
Yiorgos Coustakis's dark face suffused with colour.
'You are going nowhere! You will stay in your room until the morning of your wedding if you take that attitude with me! I will be master in my own house!' His fist slammed down on to the bedcovering. 'And if it takes something more than incarceration to bring you to heel, then so be it! A good beating will turn you docile!'
Andrea paled. A memory of those two expressionless security staff sprang into her mind. Fear stabbed at her. He saw it, and smiled. Her blood chilled as she saw him.
'Hah! Do you think I wouldn't? I thrashed your father with my belt often enough! He soon learnt obedience!' His face darkened. 'Until he met the whore who gave you birth! Then he defied me! I sent him packing! He would have got not a penny from me—if he hadn't smashed himself to pieces in his hurry to get back between the slut's legs!'
She felt the horror of it as if it had been yesterday. Her father, terrorised and abused by this foul man who had caused such misery, and then, just when happiness was at last within his reach, to have it all snatched from him—even his life.
'You vile, vile man...'she whispered. 'You're not fit to live.'
The dark, soulless eyes scorched through her. 'Get out, before I take my belt to you myself! I will not be defied by you— or anyone!'
'Oh, I'm going,' said Andrea. 'If I have to walk into Athens on foot, I'm going!'
His face contorted.
'You will not be allowed to step foot outside this house until Nikos Vassilis takes you off my hands!'
She shook her head. 'You are mistaken. I am leaving—today.'
'From inside a locked room? I think not!'
Andrea looked at him steadily. Now was the time to make things clear to him.
'That,' she said, her eyes like stones, 'would be unwise. You see, if I don't make a certain phone call every night, the British embassy in Athens will be alerted that I am being held against my will. You will not, I am sure, wish to be charged with imprisoning me! Let alone invite the feast me press will make of it!'
The effect of her words was visible. He spat something at her in Greek. She smiled scornfully.
His face contorted. 'And if I make you make that phone call?'
The threat was open—and quite plain to understand.
'Oh, that would be unwise too. You see—' she smiled unpleasantly, hiding the shudder that had gone through her at his words '—if that should happen then I might give the wrong code word during the conversation...'
As if a shutter had dropped, her grandfather's face suddenly became completely unreadable. There was nothing there—none of the fury and temper that had been blazing from him a moment ago.
'Tell me,' he said suddenly, 'if you please, just why is it that you are so averse to the prospect of marrying Nikos Vassilis?'
His change of tack took her aback. Then she rallied. 'Is that a serious question? It's too absurd to be worth asking!'
'Why? Is he not a fine man to look at? He would make a handsome husband, ne? His reputation with your sex, I understand—' his voice became sly '—is spectacular! Women flock to him, and not just because of his money!'
'Money?' Andrea caught at the word. 'He's a fortune-hunter! He admitted as much.'
Yiorgos Coustakis gave a harsh laugh. 'He seeks to net a greater fortune, that is all! Do you imagine I would entrust my empire to someone untried and untested? Nikos Vassilis has his own fortune—he will not waste mine by incompetence and mismanagement!'
She frowned, trying to take in this turnabout. Her grandfather went on. 'Vassilis Inc is capitalised at over rive hundred million euros! He's been after a merger with Coustakis Industries for the last eighteen months—he's an ambitious man, and now, finally, I have decided to let him realise his ambitions.' His voice hardened. 'But I've driven the price higher—he has to marry you before I sign the deal.'
Andrea's brain was racing, trying to make sense of what she was hearing.
'Why?' she said bluntly. 'You've denied my existence for twenty-five years, ever since your goons forced my mother to the airport and shoved her on a plane back to England!'
Nothing showed in his face, not a trace of regret or shame, as she related the way Yiorgos Coustakis had disposed of the woman who had dared to tell him she was pregnant by his dead son.