Feeling cornered, with her back against the wall, she snatched up the menu again and chose a pasta dish completely at random, only wanting the man to be gone so that she could confront Nikos and find out just what was going on.
‘I don’t for one moment believe,’ she began as soon as they were alone again, ‘that you have invited me here simply to spend an evening together and eat pasta—however good it might be.’
‘You’re right…’
Nikos set his own menu aside and folded his hands together on the tabletop. The movement made a sudden flash of gold catch the light from the candle flame, and Sadie felt her heart thud just once, hard and sharp against her ribs, as she realised that she had no idea whether Nikos was married or if there was a woman in his life.
Someone to replace her.
Outside a heavy rumble of thunder announced the fact that a storm was approaching. Sadie noted it with only half her mind, the rest of her attention focussed on those long, strong, tanned fingers resting on the red and white checked cloth. Fingers where she now saw the gold was just a signet ring, worn on Nikos’s right hand. At the realisation her breath escaped her in a rush. Breath that she hadn’t even been aware of holding in.
‘I haven’t just invited you here to spend the evening with me. I asked you to meet me because I wanted to offer you a job.’
‘A job?’
And now the waiter was back with the wine, interrupting them again. Was Nikos really making a particular thing about checking the label, having the bottle opened, tasting the small amount the waiter poured into his glass? Or was it just that it seemed that way to her, with every long drawn out second seeming to grate more on her already overstretched nerves, making her want to scream or make some protest. Instead she had to settle for waiting, her back tense, teeth digging into the softness of her bottom lip, until he had nodded his satisfaction and indicated that the waiter should pour her a drink.
‘No, thanks,’ Sadie put in hastily, pressing her hand over the top of her glass. She needed to keep a clear head until she found out just what Nikos was up to. If he pressed her…
Nikos took her decision with surprising equanimity, sipping appreciatively at the rich red liquid in his own glass, once again taking his time before he moved the conversation on at all. Sadie couldn’t stand the waiting any longer.
‘What sort of a job?’ she demanded when the silence had stretched out just too long to bear. ‘Why would you want to employ me? And what makes you think that I would ever want to work for you?’
‘You did,’ Nikos told her coolly, taking another swallow of his wine.
‘I never!’
‘Oh, yes, you did.’
And when she frowned in blank incomprehension, he shook his head slightly, as if in disbelief.
‘What a very short memory you have, Miss Carteret. Whatever happened to “There must be some arrangement we can come to! Surely there’s something I can do—anything”? Anything,’ he added, with soft menace and deadly emphasis.
Recalling the interpretation he had put on that ‘anything’ earlier that day, Sadie suddenly wished she had accepted some of the wine. Right now it might ease the painful knot of tension tight in her chest, ease the uncomfortably jerky pounding of her heart. She knew she would do anything in her power to gain some extra time that her mother and George could spend in the home that meant so much to them. But did Nikos really mean…?
‘What exactly did you have in mind?’ she managed to croak, another rumble of distant thunder seeming to underline the apprehension in her tone.
Once more Nikos took his time in replying, stony, hard eyes never leaving her face as he leaned back in his chair and seemed to consider his response. Not that he had any need to, Sadie reflected. She had little doubt that he knew exactly what he was going to say and how it would affect her. She had the most uncomfortable feeling that she was as powerless as a puppet, with its strings dangling from the hands of a ruthless and cruel master.
‘We’ll come to that in a moment,’ he said evenly. ‘But first I want you to tell me exactly why you want the house so much.’
‘Isn’t it obvious?’ Sadie hedged, unwilling to expose her mother’s story to his pitiless gaze.
‘Oh, yes, totally obvious.’
Could his tone get any more cynical?
‘Young woman with no money, a not very successful business as a wedding planner…’
Seeing her start of surprise, he gave a tight smile.
‘I make sure I keep up to date with what is happening to anyone I have had dealings with in the past.’
So how much did he know? The idea of being kept under surveillance like that when she hadn’t known he was watching made her skin crawl.
That smile grew darker, more dangerous, the blaze of the candles reflected in the depths of his penetrating gaze.
‘I always thought that it was something of a very black irony that someone who walked out on her own wedding just the day before it was due to take place should now make her living organising other women’s “big days.”’
Nikos’s sensual mouth twisted on the words.
‘But then the one thing I could never deny is that you always had that very special sense of style. When other people were paying, of course.’
‘I had to do something to earn a living,’ Sadie managed from between tight lips. ‘And that at least was a way of using my design course.’
The one her father had paid for as a reward for doing as he asked of her. She wouldn’t need it, Edwin had told her. After all, she was going to be a great catch—a very wealthy young woman now that he had seen off the opposition, which was the way he had described his takeover of almost everything the Konstantos family had owned.
But Sadie had known that she couldn’t just sit around at home. For one thing, the atmosphere there between her parents had been so poisonous that it had been an endurance test simply to breathe the same air. And, for another, the last thing she had wanted to do was to consider the prospect of another suitor who would only want to marry her because of the huge inheritance that was going to come to her when her father died.
She’d been through that once. And once was more than enough.
‘And it was something I could do from home.’
Nikos nodded slowly, turning the stem of his glass round and round in his tanned fingers.
‘And of course Thorn Trees is a prestigious address from which to run a business that would attract society brides and their wealthy families.’
‘But that isn’t why I want to keep the house!’
A deliberately lifted eyebrow questioned her overemphatic outburst.
‘Then why would you want to live in a huge London mansion with—what?—seven bedrooms and an indoor pool? Preferably for free, or at the most for a tiny rent. So, tell me exactly why you need a house
