Kane?’
Kane held the study door open and indicated with a slight movement of his dark head for her to go in before him.
His silence unsettled her but she was determined not to show how much. Schooling her features into cool impassivity, she stepped through, trying not to notice the musky spiciness of his aftershave or the expensive cut of his business suit as she made her way past his imposing frame.
The Mercyfields housekeeper’s bastard son had certainly turned some sort of professional corner, she reflected. There was no trace of the gangling youth of her childhood now. He looked like a man well used to getting his own way, certainly not one who took orders from others.
She crossed what seemed an entire hectare of Persian carpet to take a seat on the wing chair near the window overlooking the lake. In an effort to maintain her composure she slung one long slim leg over the other and inspected the pointed toe of her shoe as she gave her ankle a twirl.
She knew he was watching her.
She could feel the pressure of his dark gaze on her body as if he had reached out and touched her. She was well used to male appraisals, but somehow whenever Kane Kaproulias looked at her she felt as if every layer of her clothing was slipping away from her, leaving her vulnerable and exposed to his all-encompassing dark eyes.
She sat back in the chair and regarded him with a cool impersonal stare.
He held her look without speaking. She knew it was some sort of test to see who would be the first to look away, but as much as she wanted to escape that brooding mysterious gaze she held on, not even allowing herself to blink.
His eyes went to her mouth and lingered there.
Bryony felt an almost irresistible urge to run her tongue over the parchment of her lips but fought against the impulse with every fibre of her being. So great was the effort to appear unaffected by his disturbing presence she began to feel the hammer-blows of a tension headache gathering at her temples, and her resentment towards him went up another notch.
Finally she could stand it no longer.
She got agitatedly to her feet and, crossing her arms over her chest, faced him determinedly.
‘OK. Let’s skip the weather and the current cricket score and get right down to why you are here.’
He held her defiant glare for another pulsing pause. ‘I thought it was time I paid the Mercer family a visit.’
‘I can’t imagine why. You’re not exactly on the Christmas card list any more.’
His mouth thinned in what she recalled was his version of a smile. ‘No, I imagine not.’
She forced her eyes away from the jagged edge of his scar, surprised at how it still affected her to see it after all this time.
He looked fit and strong, as if he was no stranger to hard physical exercise, and his skin was tanned, but then, she reminded herself, his maternal Greek heritage had always given him somewhat of an advantage in the summer sun. Standing before him now, her creamy skin seemed so pale in spite of the intolerably hot weather they’d been having since Christmas four weeks ago.
‘How is your mother?’ she felt compelled to ask out of common politeness.
‘She’s dead.’
Bryony blinked at his bluntness. ‘I…I’m sorry…I hadn’t heard…’
His eyes glittered with hard cynicism. ‘No, I expect the passing of a long-term servant wouldn’t quite make it to the Mercer breakfast table, let alone as a topic for discussion over lunch or dinner.’
The bitterness of his words stung her as he clearly intended it to. As much as she hated admitting it, he was very probably right. Her parents would never discuss servants as if they were real people. She’d grown up with their attitudes, had even demonstrated similar ones herself, but as she had grown older had shied away from maintaining such outdated snobbery.
Not that she was going to let him know that.
No, let him think her the spoilt brat heiress of the Mercer millions.
She sent him an imperious look over one shoulder as she wandered back to her chair, taking her time to arrange her skirt over her knees.
‘So—’ she inspected her neatly French-manicured nails before lifting her blue gaze back to his ‘—what do you do these days, Kane? I don’t suppose you’ve followed in your mother’s footsteps and clean up other people’s messes for a living?’
She knew she sounded exactly like the shallow socialite he’d always considered her to be; she could even see the slight curl of his damaged lip as if he was satisfied his opinion had been justified by her crass words.
‘You suppose right.’ He leant back against her father’s antique desk with the sort of indolence she’d come to always associate with him. ‘You could say I’m in shipping.’
‘How very Greek of you,’ she observed with undisguised sarcasm.
His dark eyes challenged hers, a flicker of anger lighting them from behind. ‘I am just as much an Australian citizen as you are, Bryony. I’ve never even been to Greece, nor do I speak any more than a few words of the language.’
‘How can you be sure of your true heritage?’ she asked. ‘I thought you didn’t know who your father was?’
It was a nasty taunt, and one she wasn’t proud of, but his manner had increasingly unnerved her to the point of reckless rudeness.
She watched as he reined in his anger, the white edge of his scar standing out as his mouth tightened.
‘I can see you still like to play dirty,’ he said.
She shifted her gaze back to the unfathomable depths of his. ‘When pressed to do so, yes.’
‘Let’s hope you can cope with the consequences if such a need arises in the very near future.’
Bryony couldn’t hold back a small frown at his coolly delivered statement. There was something about his demeanour that alerted her to the strange undercurrents she’d felt swirling about her ever since she’d driven down from Sydney that morning.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked. ‘What possible reason could you have to be here?’
‘I have several reasons.’
‘Let’s start with number one.’ She set her chin at an imperious angle even though inside she was trembling with an unnamed fear.
He crossed one ankle over the other, his action drawing her eyes to his long muscled thighs.
She tore her gaze away and forced herself to hold his Sphinx-like stare.
‘Number one is—’ He paused for a mere fraction of a second, but it was long enough for another flutter of unease to feather along the lining of her stomach. ‘I now own Mercyfields.’
Her eyes widened in alarm. ‘W-what did you say?’
Kane
