She flinched back slightly at his harsh tone and he seemed to notice. She could see a pulse flicker at his jaw, as if he was controlling something.
‘Tell me, Kallie. Why did you feel it necessary to tell that rag about our conversations? Wasn’t it enough to just publish the photo?’
She flushed a dull red. It had killed her when she’d found out just how her own trust had been abused so abominably. But by then it had been too late. And would he understand what it was like to be a teenage girl in the throes of young passion? How she’d merely confided in someone she’d thought she could trust? Of course he wouldn’t. The Alexandros she’d known a long time ago might have…but this man wouldn’t.
She gave thanks for having held her tongue about Eleni…for not having blurted out the truth. Eleni’s situation meant that Kallie couldn’t use her as an easy excuse for vindication. She had to find out just what he wanted. Because that was as clear as the nose on her face. He wanted something.
Kallie hardened her heart. She had to. Those conversations he mentioned had belonged to another time, a more innocent time when she’d believed he’d had different sensibilities, like her own. But, she had to remind herself, once his father had died and he’d taken over running Kouros Shipping, he’d changed. Under his hands it had gone from million-dollar profits to generating billions. That wasn’t the same person she’d known who had confided a wish to go to art college. He’d obviously smelt the chance to make money, lots of it, and he’d changed.
But, pathetically, she couldn’t stand the thought that he would tar her with the same brush, despite the evidence she knew was stacked against her. ‘I didn’t…It wasn’t how you think…’ she said ineffectually, miserably.
He leant forward, his face hard. ‘Oh, and just how was it, Kallie?’
Now they were getting to it. Kallie felt something like relief flood through her. This she could handle. Alexandros being angry, hating her.
She looked at him slightly defiantly. She could, at least for the moment, be honest about this. ‘I never intended to hurt you, Alexandros. Believe what you want—you made up your mind that day.’
He was derisive. ‘Oh, you didn’t hurt me, Kallie. But you did wreak a trail of destruction with your careless, cruel actions.’
She swallowed painfully. She hadn’t been intentionally cruel. But he was right—she’d been careless, and foolish. She couldn’t argue with him about that.
‘Your uncle Alexei…’
He didn’t finish the sentence. His rapid changes of subject caught her off guard. He was like an opponent conducting some form of mental martial art. Immediately she was wary. She clenched her hands into fists under the table.
‘What about him?’
Alexandros shrugged negligently. ‘I hear he’s having some difficulties…’
Guilt flooded Kallie. She suddenly remembered her uncle’s words from the other night, how he’d mentioned he’d had to get in touch with Alexandros. It hadn’t occurred to her to question him, she’d been so distracted.
‘What kind of difficulties?’ she bit out. Hating Alexandros with passion at that moment. He was milking every single moment of this dinner. Her nerves were on a knife edge of sensation so acute that she thought she might break in two.
‘The kind that would be solved with a cash injection of a few million euros.’
Kallie tried not to let shock show on her face. She had a sudden very acute fear that they could be vulnerable to Alexandros, who was clearly out for some kind of revenge now.
‘You don’t even have your shares, do you?’
How did he know that?
She shook her head warily.
‘Apparently you couldn’t even wait until your parents were cold in the grave before you cashed them in…’
She gasped at the cruelty of his words. It had been nothing like that. She’d handed them over to A
lexei and he’d cashed them in, giving her the small amount she’d needed to set up her business. She hadn’t wanted anything else to do with them and her uncle had needed them.
She leant forward, unaware of how it gave Alexandros a tantalising view of her cleavage beneath her shirt. She quivered with rage and injustice.
‘What I did or didn’t do with my shares is none of your business, Alexandros.’
He shrugged like he didn’t much care and Kallie felt impotent, wanted to walk around and slap the look of smug superiority off his face. It held all the arrogance of his forebears.
‘The fact of the matter is that your uncle has come to me for help…for a loan, if you will.’
Kallie sagged back against her chair. Oh, Alexei, what have you done? Her uncle had never been the brains behind Demarchis Shipping. That had been her father, until…Her mind slammed down on painful memories.