her hand over hers and patted it lightly. ‘You’re so good to do all of this. And with any luck we might not have to sell everything after all. Your father’s hoping there might just be another way out of this mess.’
Briar swivelled around to face her mother, her hands held palms up. ‘But what else is there? We’ve done the rounds of the banks and the financiers; we’ve tried everything going. I thought we’d run out of options.’
‘All except one,’ she said, her eyes taking on a sudden spark. ‘Just today it seems we’ve been offered something of a lifeline. The loans paid off and a settlement—a large one, enough for us to get the staff back and live like we used to, without having to sell everything and scrimp and save. It’ll be just like before—like nothing ever happened. Except…’ Her mother’s fast and furious speech ran down as she turned her head in the direction of the library, a look of bleakness extinguishing the spark, turning her eyes grey and cold, frosty needles ascended Briar’s spine.
‘Oh, no! You can’t mean Diablo? Please tell me this has nothing to do with why that man is here tonight.’
Her mother didn’t answer and despair pumped unchallenged through her system. She launched herself off her stool and put her hands up in protest. ‘But this is all his fault! He’s almost single-handedly brought about the downfall of the Davenport family. Why should he then turn around and offer help? It makes no sense. There’s nothing left for him to take.’
Her mother stood and came closer, tucking one renegade tendril of hair behind her daughter’s ear before running her hands down her arms, squeezing them at her elbows. ‘Right now we’re hardly in a position to be choosy.’
‘But he’s so awful! The way he swaggers around Sydney like he owns the place.’
Her mother raised her eyebrows on a breath. ‘Well, these days that’s probably somewhere close to the truth.’ She smiled weakly. ‘But just think, he can’t be all bad. He must have some redeeming features, don’t you think?’
Briar snorted. ‘They’re well and truly hidden if he has.’
‘And he is a very good-looking man.’
‘I guess, if you go for the bandit look.’ She frowned, the direction her mother’s arguments were taking suddenly niggling at her. ‘Anyway, we’re talking about Diablo Barrentes. The same Diablo Barrentes who has set out to bring down the Sydney establishment, and the Davenport family first and foremost. What’s it matter what he loo—’
‘Briar—’ her father’s gruff tones interrupted them from behind ‘—I’m glad you’re still up. Can you spare me a minute or two?’
She breathed a sigh of relief. Her father’s appearance meant Diablo must have gone at last, and good riddance to him. She was sick of feeling on tenterhooks in her own home. And at least now she might find out what was going on. If her father was planning on accepting help from Diablo, she’d have a few things to say about it first.
‘You go with your father,’ her mother urged, her smile too thin, too unconvincing, as she gestured towards the door. ‘We’ve finished anyway.’
She caught the loaded look that passed between her parents. Something was going on. Why didn’t her parents look happier if there was a lifeline in the offing?
Or were Barrentes’s terms too costly?
A sick feeling snaked in her gut. Nothing would surprise her. Diablo would be sure to want to stick the boot in now that he had her father down.
Damn the man. She’d do everything possible to ensure they could avoid his greedy clutches.
‘Actually,’ her mother piped up, catching her daughter’s hand in a sudden change of heart, ‘maybe I should come along with you.’
‘No!’ insisted Cameron, insinuating himself between the two women and breaking their grasp. ‘You stay here,’ he directed at his wife. ‘This won’t take long. And then I could probably use another coffee.’
‘So are you ever going to tell me what’s going on?’ Briar asked her father a few moments later, wishing he would say something—anything—as he led her through the house. His silence was unsettling. ‘What did Diablo want?’
Just outside the library he paused and turned to her, taking both her hands in his, the look on his face almost one of defeat, and this close up she was shocked to see how dark and heavy those circles under his eyes really were. It might be late but it was clear the stress of their circumstances was eating away at him, too. From inside the library the old grandfather clock ticked away the seconds ominously.
‘Briar,’ he said on a sigh, ‘before we go any further, I want you to know that I didn’t want this to happen, you have to believe that.’ He peered at her so intently she could feel his utter desperation, his bony hands cold and unsettlingly clammy around her own.
She swallowed. ‘You didn’t mean what to happen?’
‘I need you help,’ he continued, evading her question, ‘even though I know that what I am asking of you may be too much.’
‘It’s okay,’ she replied with a confidence she didn’t feel, squeezing his hands back. She tried desperately to raise a smile but a racing heart and a mind filled with shadows and creeping foreboding wouldn’t let her. ‘So what is it you want me to do?’
A dark flicker of movement wrenched her attention away from her father as a prickle of awareness skittered along her skin.
Diablo! So he hadn’t left after all! And now he stood leaning casually against the doorway. Although the look on his face was anything but.
Victory, his features proclaimed.
It was there in the dangerous glint in his eyes. It was there in the voracious tilt of his smile. And it was there in the menacing darkness of his attitude.
‘It’s really quite simple,’ Diablo announced, answering for her father, his teeth flashing dangerously as he levered himself away from the door and closer to her.
‘Your father merely expects you to marry me.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘IF THAT’S your idea of a joke, Mr Barrentes…’ Briar’s voice sounded strangely calm in spite of the explosions going off behind her eyes ‘…I’d say you were seriously overdue for a sense of humour transplant.’
He laughed. Or rather he rumbled, that low rolling sound that vibrated uncomfortably through her.
She bristled, trying to dispel the rush of heat that came with his proximity. ‘I’m afraid I don’t see the joke.’
His mouth quietened, his eyes stilled. On hers. ‘That’s because it is no joke. Your father has agreed that you will marry me.’
For a moment she was speechless. But only for a moment. Then it was her turn to laugh, wiping away his wild assertions with a sweep of one hand. ‘You’re crazy! Dad, tell him how ludicrous he sounds. There’s no way you’d ever expect me to do something so absurd as to marry someone like him.’ She looked at her father, inviting him to agree—imploring him to agree—but her father said nothing, his eyes more desolate than she’d
