'Why?' Yiorgos Coustakis echoed. 'Because you carry my blood. You and no one else. I have no choice but to use you, tainted though your blood is. When you marry Nikos Vassilis he will guard my fortune, and my blood will pass through you to your son. He will be my heir. I have had to wait two generations, but I shall have my heir!'
There was a fierceness of possession in his eyes that even his inscrutable expression could not disguise.
So, thought Andrea, as his words sank in, this is what it's all about. I am the vessel for his posterity. Revulsion filled her. Yiorgos Coustakis was nearing the end of his misbegotten life and he wanted the only immortality he could find.
She looked at him. He had everything money could buy, but as a human being he was worthless. He had no kindness in him, no compassion, no gentleness, no feeling for anyone except himself. He had treated his own son like a possession to be beaten into obedience, and her mother had been instantly condemned as a gold-digger trying to get at his precious money!
And now, twenty-five years later, she was standing in front of him, knowing that she was the only person in the world who could give him what he wanted. The final thing he wanted.
The memory of Tony's voice echoed in her mind. Look, if he does want you for something, then if he doesn 't want you to refuse he's going to have to do something you want.
And there was something she wanted. Something she had travelled over a thousand miles to get—the money for her mother that was not just her escape to the sun but her reparation as well. Justice. Finally.
Her grandfather's eyes were resting on her. Seeing her as a tool to be used. Nothing more. Her heart hardened. Well, tools had to be paid for.
Five minutes ago she had wanted nothing except to shake the dust of her grandfather's house from her feet. Now she wanted to get what she came for.
Money.
His shoulders relaxed into the pillow as he read her mind.
'So,' he said, 'tell me—what price do you set on opening your legs to Nikos Vassilis with a ring on your finger to keep you respectable?'
The sneer in his voice was irrelevant. So was the insult and the crudity. Everything about him was irrelevant—except the money he would pay her. Her heart was hard, like stone all the way through. Somewhere in the back of her mind a memory was flickering—the memory of being held in strong arms, her body on fire with soft, seductive flame...
She thrust it away. That kiss had been nothing to do with her. Nikos Vassilis had kissed her because she was the gateway to Coustakis Industries. No other reason. She just hadn't realised it at the time. Now that she did she must not read anything more into it. Nothing.
'Five hundred thousand pounds,' she announced crisply. 'Sterling. Paid into a bank account in London of my choosing, in my name—Andrea Fraser.'
She gave her mother's surname—her name—deliberately. She was no Coustakis. Never had been. Never would be.
His laugh was derisive. 'You set a high price on yourself for the daughter of a penniless slut!'
Nothing showed in her face. She would not allow it.
'You need me. So you'll pay for me. That's all.'
A flash of fury showed in his eyes. 'Do you think that as the wife of Nikos Vassilis you will live the life of a pauper? You will live in a luxury you can hardly dream of! You should be grateful, grateful—on your knees that I have plucked you out of your slum to live such a life as I am offering you!'
'Five hundred thousand.' Her voice was implacable. She needed that much to clear the last of Kim's debts, buy her a decent apartment in Spain, and have enough left over to invest safely for an income for her mother to live on, albeit modestly, for the rest of her life. 'Or I go back to London today.'
Dark eyes bored into hers. She could see the hatred in them. The loathing that this tool he wanted to use was daring to defy him. But defy him she would—she had something he wanted, and he would have to pay for it. Just as Tony had said.
But he would not go down easily.
'You get not a penny until you are married.'
She laughed scornfully. "There will be no marriage,' she said as her eyes narrowed, 'unless I am paid.'
Even as she spoke her mind was splintering in two. What was she doing here? What was she thinking of, selling herself like this? She must be mad! Quite mad!
But then the other side of her mind slammed back. This was no time for scruples, no time for doubts! It was now or never— this was her one and only chance to get reparation for Kim. She would do whatever it took! And agreeing to marry a total stranger was what it was going to take.
A stranger who can melt your bones in a single embrace? Oh, be careful—be careful of what you are doing!
Compunction flashed at her. She was standing here, negotiating a price to marry Nikos Vassilis as if she were doing nothing more than haggling over a CD at a car-boot sale! How low was she stooping?