His voice was almost gentle and Keeley wanted to tell him not to talk that way. She’d misinterpreted his kindness once before and she wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. She wanted to tell him that she could deal with him better when he was being harsh and brutal.
She shrugged. ‘She started having surgery. A nip here and a tuck there. One minute it was an eyebrow job and the next she was having goodness knows what pumped into her lips. She started to look...’ She closed her eyes as she remembered the cruelty of the newspapers which had once courted her mother so assiduously. The snatched photos which had been only marginally less flattering than the awful ones she’d still insisted on posing for, usually dressed in something cringe-makingly unsuitable—like leather hot pants and a see-through blouse. How quickly she had become a national laughing stock—her face resembling a cruel parody of youth.
And how ultimately frustrating that she had been too blind to see what was happening to her.
‘She started to look bizarre,’ she continued, not wanting to appear disloyal but now the words seemed to be rushing to get out because she’d never talked about it before. She’d kept it buttoned up inside her, as if it was her shame and her secret. ‘She met this surgeon and he offered to give her a complete facelift, only she didn’t bother to check out his credentials or to wonder why he was offering her all that work at such an advantageous price. Nobody was quite sure of what happened during the operation—only that my mother was left brain-damaged afterwards. And that she never recognised me—or anyone else again. Her capacity for normal living is “severely compromised” is how they described it.’ She swallowed. ‘And she’s been living in that care home ever since.’
He frowned. ‘But you visit her regularly?’
‘I do. Every week, come rain or shine.’
‘Even though she doesn’t recognise you?’
‘Of course,’ she said quietly. ‘She’s still my mother.’
Ariston flinched at the quiet sense of dignity and grief underpinning her words. Maybe it was inevitable that they made him think about his own mother, but there was no such softening in his heart. Bitterness rose in his throat but he pushed it away as he studied the woman in front of him. She looked very different today, with her newly washed hair shining over her shoulders in a pale fall of waves. The shapeless sweat-pants and baggy top were gone and in their place was a loose cotton dress. She looked soft and feminine and strangely vulnerable.
‘Why don’t you tell me what it is you want?’ he said suddenly.
She met his gaze warily, as if suspecting him of setting up some kind of trap. ‘I want my baby to have the best,’ she said cautiously. ‘Just like every mother does.’
‘And you think that living here...’ he looked around, unable to hide the contemptuous twist of his mouth ‘...can provide that?’
‘People have babies in all kinds of environments, Ariston.’
‘Not a baby carrying the Kavakos name,’ he corrected repressively. ‘How are you managing for money? Are you still working?’
She shook her head. ‘Not at the moment, no.’
‘Oh?’ His gaze bored into her.
She shrugged. ‘I found another supermarket job when I got back from Lasia and then I started getting sick. I eked out the money you paid me but...’
‘Then how the hell,’ he persisted savagely as her words tailed off, ‘do you think you’re going to manage?’
Keeley swallowed in a vain attempt to stop her lips from wobbling, before drawing on her residual reserves. She’d overcome stuff before and she could do it again. ‘Once the sickness has improved, then I can start working more hours. If I need to I might have to move to a cheaper area somewhere.’
‘But that would take you further away from your mother,’ he pointed out.
She glared at him for daring to point out the obvious but suddenly she couldn’t avoid the enormity of her situation. She hadn’t even got a buggy or a crib—and even if she had, there was barely any space to put them. And meanwhile Ariston was offering what most women in her situation would snatch at. He wasn’t trying to deny responsibility. On the contrary, he seemed more than willing to embrace it. He was offering to marry her, for heaven’s sake. Whoever would have thought it?
But yesterday he’d wanted her to give him the baby, she reminded herself. To take her child away from her. Because he could. Because he was powerful and rich and she was weak and poor. He’d wanted to remove her from the equation—to treat her like a surrogate—and that was a measure of his ruthlessness. At least if she was married to him she would have some legal rights—and wouldn’t that be the safest place to start from? Staring into the watchful brilliance of his eyes, she repressed a shiver as she realised what she must do. Because what choice did she have? She didn’t. She didn’t have a choice.
‘If I did agree to marry you,’ she said slowly, ‘then I would want some kind of equality.’
‘Equality?’ he echoed, as if it was a word he’d never used before.
She nodded. ‘That’s right. I’m not prepared to do anything until you agree to my terms.’
‘And what terms might they be, Keeley?’
‘I would like some say in where we live—’
‘Accommodation is the last thing you need concern yourself with,’ he said carelessly. ‘Don’t forget, I have a whole island at my disposal.’
‘No!’ Her response came out more vehemently than she’d planned but Keeley knew what she could and couldn’t tolerate. And the thought of the isolation of his island home and of being at Ariston’s total mercy made her blood run cold. ‘Lasia isn’t a suitable place to bring up a baby.’
‘I grew up there.’