Читать книгу Bedded by the Greek Billionaire - Kate Walker - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

‘JESSICA, I need to talk to you.’

Simeon Hilton touched Jessica’s elbow to draw her attention away from the elderly lady she was helping into her coat.

‘It is important.’

‘But does it have to be now?’

Jessica cast a quick glance around the room that was now almost empty and gave a small sigh of relief. The ordeal of the day was almost over. Another few minutes and she had hoped to be able to kick off the elegant shoes that had been crippling her for hours, put her feet up and maybe actually enjoy a cup of tea instead of constantly having to snatch a sip here or there, putting it down and forgetting about it or simply holding it in her hand while the liquid inside grew cold as she struggled to make conversation with yet another person she barely knew.

‘Can’t it wait?’

‘I’m afraid not. It’s about Marty’s will.’

The solicitor was obviously on edge. His eyes wouldn’t quite meet hers and he shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other as he spoke, twisting something sharply in her nerves.

‘Is there something wrong? Simeon—what is it?’

‘I’d prefer to do this properly… In private.’

A wave of Simeon’s hand took in the room, indicating the last few remaining stragglers who were finally making their way towards the door. Angelos Rousakis was not amongst them, Jessica was irritated to see. Instead, he was standing at the far end of the room, staring out of the window at the garden where the rain was once more lashing down.

Just the sight of him sent a nervous thrill down her spine, one that she had grown accustomed to all through the church ceremony and again at the graveside, when she had fought with her tears as the coffin had been lowered into the ground. It was a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold, sneaking wind that had replaced the rain showers for a while. It had everything to do with the terrible sense of apprehension that shuddered over her skin every time she looked at him. She still had no idea at all why he was here, and he clearly was in no sort of a hurry to explain.

It was like waiting for a tiger to pounce. Like being stalked silently and intently by a big, powerful, dangerous predator and never ever knowing just when the beast would leap and she would feel the rake of its claws, the tear of its teeth.

She’d tried to convince herself that she was being over-imaginative. That for some reason, a reason she couldn’t manage to come up with herself right now, Angelos had felt obliged to come and pay his last respects to the man who had once, very briefly, been his employer seven years ago. But no matter how she tried, that line of reasoning just didn’t convince. For one thing, Angelos had never been the sort of man who felt obliged to do anything. Even as a much younger man, he had clearly been in control of his life and bowed to no one when it came to making decisions about it. And now, at thirty, he had so obviously made his way in the world and come so far from the man he had been that she couldn’t imagine him conceding anything to anyone.

Which meant that he was here for his own reasons and he was determined not to let her know what those were until he was good and ready.

Well, they’d have to wait until she’d spoken to Simeon now.

‘Just give me five minutes then…’

Another round of the room, shaking hands, saying goodbyes, filled in the time she’d asked for and soon everyone had left. Everyone except for Simeon, who was busy with some call on his mobile phone, and Angelos, who was still standing exactly where he had been before, hands pushed deep into the pockets of his superbly tailored trousers, his long legs slightly apart, feet in highly polished hand stitched boots planted firmly on the wooden floor, his attention fixed on the view beyond the window.

Seeing him like this, anyone would think that he was the owner of the Manor House, Jessica told herself irritably. He stood there like the lord of all he surveyed when really he was…

He was what?

The question stopped her dead. Her already reluctant steps towards the man at the window faltered to a halt as she remembered just how little she actually knew about Angelos Rousakis. And about the Angelos who had appeared here this afternoon she knew nothing at all. Wherever he had lived, whatever he had done, he had prospered, there was no doubt about that, but she knew nothing of his story, of his way of life.

Had he gone back to his native Greece when he had left here…?

The thought died in her head as, his attention caught by her presence, Angelos turned his head slowly and she met his black-eyed gaze head on.

She had managed to avoid doing this all day and now she knew why. Being fixed by that polished jet stare made her feel like a butterfly, trapped and pinned to a board, unable to move. His expression was calm, even bland, but behind the heavy, hooded lids burned something she couldn’t understand or explain—she only knew that she didn’t trust it for a moment.

‘Miss Marshall…’

His tone was calm too, the inclination of his dark head in acknowledgement of her just enough to be polite, but his expression still gave nothing away.

‘You have a spectacular view,’ she heard him continue with a strong sense of disbelief. Did he really think that she had approached him to chat casually, make light conversation?

‘I don’t believe I ever saw it the last time I was here.’

‘Things were…very different then…’ Jessica managed, her tongue tangling over the words. Because she had the feeling that, coming close to him like this, she had made a terrible mistake. And suddenly she knew just what she had been avoiding all day.

By dodging any contact with him all through the afternoon she had also managed to avoid looking at him—really looking at him. Looking at him up close. And, by doing so, she knew she had been trying to deny the potent impact that he had on her senses. He had a raw, masculine appeal that had reached out and grabbed her years before, when she had been only eighteen, fresh out of school and naïve as anything. And that appeal was still there, intensified, concentrated, enhanced by seven years of maturity, seven years of success, it seemed. If Angelos had once been her Black Angel, then now he was all that and more—a Black Archangel. The epitome of male power and strength and pure, distilled, masculine sex appeal.

It was the recognition of that that had had her on the run all afternoon, dodging any contact with him that might have forced her to face up to the truth sooner. The bitter memories of the past, the sense of apprehension about his reasons for being here, even the fact that she was engaged to be married—nothing could come between her and the fact that Angelos Rousakis was the most devastatingly sexy man she had ever encountered in her life.

‘We were different people.’

She flung the words at him, using the snappish tone as a defence, hoping to hide her inner confusion. He might show every sign of having prospered since she had last seen him, but it didn’t alter the fact that she had once cost him his employment, his only home. Honour demanded that she should acknowledge that but the words tangled up on her tongue as Angelos lifted a sardonically enquiring eyebrow.

‘Were we?’

‘Yes. Totally different.’

Suddenly Jessica had had more than enough of this mystery—more than enough of his unsettling presence with no explanation for it.

‘So perhaps you’ll explain just what you’re doing here. What is it you want?’

‘What do I want?’

Angelos made a pretence of actually considering the question, looking around him with a thoughtful, assessing expression on his stunning face.

‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a house like this for a start. I always thought it was amazing when I worked here—and that was before I’d ever seen inside.’

‘It’s not for sale!’

This time, tormented by unease, she’d spoken too quickly, snapped too hard. She’d given too much away and she knew by the way that those brilliant black eyes narrowed sharply that he’d caught every trace of the discomfort she was trying to hide from him. He’d caught it and, she was beginning to suspect, had a strong suspicion of just what was firing it.

‘Not to the likes of me, hmm?’ he questioned softly, the words coming low and deadly like a striking snake. ‘Is that it, Jessica? Is that what you mean? That the Manor House can only belong to some purebred Englishman with aristocratic blood in his veins? Not some former Athens street urchin who’s fit only to groom your thoroughbred mare, to clean the mud from her coat when you come back from a ride around the estate and then to polish the tack ready for your next ride?’

‘I never said…’ Jessica blustered, horrified that he should even believe her capable of any such thought. ‘I…’

But Angelos hadn’t finished with her.

‘Or was that disappointment in your tone?’

‘Disappointment?’

‘Did you think that I was going to say that I wanted you? That that was why I’d come back—because I couldn’t get you out of my mind? That from the moment I kissed you all those years ago, I have always wanted you, always dreamed of you, always determined to have you? And now that I’ve made my fortune, now that your stepfather can no longer come between us, I’ve come back to claim you, to take you as my bride?’

‘No! Never! No way!’

Her voice was high and shrill—too high and shrill, she read in his face—and with every note it rose higher, with every violent shake of her head in emphasis, she was betraying the way that he had got to her. The way that, just for a terrible, weak, unguarded moment, she had actually felt a small, shivering thrill at contemplating the possibility he had laid before her.

‘I can’t think of anything I’d want less!’

His swift smile caught her on the raw. It was cold, mirthless, icy—a flashing gesture of triumph, without a trace of warmth in it anywhere, and not the tiniest gleam of light in the dark depths in his eyes. Somehow she knew she’d fallen right into the trap that he’d set for her—a trap she hadn’t even noticed he’d been laying.

‘Don’t you think that would sound more valid if you’d pointed out that you’re engaged to be married?’

For a moment the cold question stole away any words from her mind. How had he…?

Of course—he’d spotted her ring. But the way he made her feel—the way he obviously intended to make her feel—was that he believed her fiancé should have been uppermost in her thoughts. Which he should, she acknowledged, a terrible sense of embarrassment and guilt running through her.

She should have refuted Angelos’s suggestion with a furious, I’m not interested in any man other than my fiancé! Chris’s name should have been the first on her lips.

And that, she felt, was the trap that Angelos had planned—had expected her to fall into. Just the thought made something icy-cold slither nastily down her spine.

‘So tell me, where is your fiancé today? I would have thought that he would want to be here to support you at this time.’

Jessica bridled at the note of condemnation in his voice. Once again she wished that Chris had been here to refute the other man’s obviously critical opinion of him, just as she had wished that Marty would see what she saw in her fiancé rather than always being suspicious of his motives.

‘He had urgent business that called him away. Otherwise he’d have been here like a shot. And he wouldn’t have left my side for a moment.’

‘To protect you from the unwanted attentions of former servants who don’t know their place?’ Angelos drawled cynically, every word riddled with disbelief. ‘Then it’s just as well that that’s not why I’m here.’

This, Jessica suspected, was her cue to ask him just why he was here, but it was a cue she had no intention of taking up. Quite frankly, by now she didn’t care what had brought him here today and she didn’t want to find out. All she wanted was for him to go, to take with him the desperate, uneasy, guilty, uncomfortable feelings he’d roused in her simply by walking back into her life, and leave her in peace.

And she hoped and prayed that she would never, ever see him again.

With an effort she switched back to the icy politeness she’d adopted in the first moments she’d seen him—was it really only a couple of hours ago?

‘Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Everyone’s gone home…’ She indicated the empty room with a wave of her hand, taking a step back and half turning, so that his path to the door was completely free, totally unobstructed. ‘And so should you.’

Once more those narrowed eyes seared over her face, then flicked away to look at the open door, before coming back to lock coldly with her uneasy blue gaze.

‘I think not,’ he said firmly, his tone making it plain that he was not prepared to tolerate any argument. ‘There’s no way I’m going anywhere.’

‘But…’

Jessica glanced swiftly round, looking for Peters, but the butler had disappeared. And she had to wonder whether the older man would be able to manage to eject the powerful Greek whose imposing shoulders spoke of an impressive strength. The way that Angelos’s powerful legs and feet were planted so firmly made her think of a commanding tree that would never be easily uprooted.

Her head felt as if it were spinning, but whether from panic or anger she had no way of knowing.

‘Mr Rousakis, I have to tell you to leave!’

‘Miss Marshall, you are not in a position to tell me to do anything,’ he tossed back, the bite of cold anger making her breath catch in her throat. ‘Not any more.’

‘I—’ Jessica began when she heard a soft step behind her.

‘Mr Rousakis…’ It was Simeon Hilton’s voice and when she spun round it was to find the lawyer standing close behind her. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you arrived. I trust you had a comfortable journey.’

To Jessica’s total consternation, Simeon was holding out his hand towards the Greek, a smile on his face.

‘Mr Rousakis was just leaving…’ she managed but much of the strength had gone out of her voice as her confidence started to seep away. She had forgotten that Simeon had told Peters to wait for Angelos. That he had been expecting him.

Beyond the window, the rain had stopped but the slow, ominous passage of a dark cloud across the face of the weak, struggling sun made her tremble in sudden uncertainty. There was something going on. There were undertones here that she didn’t understand.

‘Shall we get started?’

To her horror, Simeon was addressing Angelos, not her, and there was something in that that was more than just a bond between the two men in the room. Simeon’s approach was—respectful—professional.

‘I have all the papers in the library.’

‘But…’ Somehow Jessica found the strength to speak even though a growing sense of fear and apprehension was threatening to close off her throat. ‘But this is a private matter between you and me, Simeon.’

She’d got that wrong, she knew as soon as the words were out. She could read her mistake in Simeon’s face, in the coolly knowing expression in Angelos’s eyes. This was not just between herself and Simeon. Angelos was somehow involved, though she had no idea how and why.

‘Just what is going on?’

It was Angelos who answered her.

‘I suggest you join us in the library,’ he declared with cool arrogance. ‘You’ll find out everything there.’

And, without even a second glance at her face, he turned and walked from the room, Simeon at his side, their long strides taking them across the room, away from her, while she stood and stared in blank bewilderment. It was almost, Jessica thought anxiously, as if Angelos was the owner of the Manor House, when everyone knew that she was the nearest thing that Marty had had to living family. Forcing her legs to move, she hurried after them, the sound of her heels tapping on the polished floorboards beating out the same sort of staccato tattoo as the uneven, jerky beat of her heart.

‘I thought you wanted to talk to me about my—about Marty’s will!’ she declared as she burst through the door into the library after them. Her noisy arrival made Angelos glance up from the tray on a table set in the wide bay window where he was pouring himself a drink from the jug of water that stood there too. ‘That is surely none of Mr Rousakis’s business.’

‘It is now.’

Angelos’s tone was quiet but so definite it was almost like a slap in the face, making Jessica’s head go back sharply as he watched her.

She was definitely rattled now, he noted with grim satisfaction, seeing how her blue eyes had widened in her pale face. They were huge, dark pools above suddenly ashen cheeks and, though she tried to cover up her concern, he could see the anxiety that clouded her eyes. Even the sleek chestnut hair had tumbled from the clips that she had used to hold it back and was now falling loose around her neck, a stray strand catching on her cheek.

She looked so much more like a real woman than the ice queen who had greeted him on his arrival and who had just tried none too subtly to eject him from the house. But he knew that the image was nothing but an illusion. The lady of the manor mask might have deserted her at the moment but as soon as she gathered breath it would be back in place—temporarily at least. But he had news for her that would soon shatter her belief in the way her life was going to work out, the role she was destined to play. The plans she had.

He was going to enjoy stripping them from her once and for all.

‘Mr Rousakis needs to be here for this,’ the lawyer put in carefully, grimacing as he saw the glare that Jessica directed at him.

‘And are you going to explain why?’

‘Would you like a drink?’ Angelos inserted smoothly, lifting a bottle of wine from the tray.

The look she turned on him should have shrivelled him into dust where he stood—or, at least, he knew that was what she wished for. He took a particular satisfaction in not shrivelling at all but meeting her blazing eyes head-on.

‘Do I need one?’ she shot at him and he felt his mouth curl into a smile in response to her angry question. She looked like nothing so much as a small, elegant cat hissing and spitting at an unwelcome intruder into her territory.

The smile incensed her further, he noted as her teeth actually snapped together in an attempt to hold back the fury she wanted to let loose.

‘You might find it easier to relax.’

And, to emphasise the point, he flung himself down into one of the big, squashy tan leather chairs and leaned back, stretching out his legs in front of him and crossing them at the ankles. Taking a long swallow of the water he had poured, he allowed himself another small smile behind the glass.

She caught it of course. He heard her breath hiss in between her teeth in response as he nodded to the waiting lawyer, indicating that Hilton should go ahead.

‘Would you like to…?’ the other man began but Angelos shook his head firmly.

He knew that there was no likelihood that Lady Jessica would believe anything he told her. She would need the legal facts spelled out to her by someone she trusted, someone she had to believe. And that had to be Simeon Hilton.

Besides, he wanted his attention free to see exactly what happened to her face when the truth hit home.

‘You have the papers…’

With a wave of his hand he indicated the folders that Simeon had placed on the big leather-topped desk.

‘You’d better explain everything. Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in.’

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

Jessica had no idea just why those words hit home to her as hard as they did. There was nothing in Angelos’s tone to upset her. The way he spoke was as casual and conversational as if he was simply passing the time of day with a couple of friends. Nothing to worry her in that.

No—it was the fact that there seemed to be nothing to worry her in his tone that set all her mental alarm bells ringing, bringing her warning nerves to red alert in the space of a single heartbeat. From being an intruder—a stranger who had turned up unannounced and uninvited to her stepfather’s funeral—he had slowly but surely morphed into someone who was far too much at ease, far too much in control for her peace of mind. From the moment that he had walked into the house he had gone his own way, no matter what she said or did. He had been a dark, watchful presence at the graveside, a silent, black-eyed observer at the reception afterwards. He looked almost…

The word slithered away from her as Simeon seated himself at the desk and shuffled through the files, picking one up and tapping it straight on the desktop, then clearing his throat carefully.

‘About Marty—your stepfather’s will…’ he said.

‘There can’t be any problem with that.’

In spite of her determination not to, Jessica found herself a chair and sank down into it. Something in the way that Simeon spoke, the way he looked at her over his reading glasses, suddenly took the strength from her legs. It was either sit down—fast—or risk them giving way beneath her and with Angelos’s cold dark eyes fixed so closely on her face, she was determined not to let that happen. At a time like this dignity was important, and if keeping her dignity meant conceding just a little then she was fine with that.

‘Marty had everything sorted out. He arranged everything just as he wanted it.’

Why wasn’t Simeon nodding? He should be nodding, surely? Smiling and nodding and saying that yes, that was right.

‘We came to see you two years ago—when I turned twenty-three—and he said that he wanted to leave everything to me. Wasn’t that legal, then?’

The shock in her voice was as much from the memory of how she had felt that day, made worse now by the worry and uncertainty about just what was going on.

She had never actually believed that Marty would leave her everything. They had always been close—her mother’s second husband, the only father she had ever known—and the warmth between them had grown as they’d clung together after Andrea’s death in a train crash. And of course he’d been there for her seven years ago, moving in to take action, rescuing her from the repercussions of her foolishness, dealing with things…Jessica’s eyes slid to the dark, silent man in the other chair and she shivered, just remembering when she’d come up against Angelos Rousakis all those years ago.

But she had always believed that there must be someone else who had a far better right to, a far greater demand on the Robbins estate—distant relatives, friends, charities—to whom he would bequeath his fortune rather than to her.

Marty had assured her there was no one else. He had been an only child of only children; any cousins, once twice or even three times removed, had died long ago and he had no descendants of his own.

‘Marie could never have children,’ he’d told her in a sorrowful recollection of his first marriage to a woman who had died of cancer at the early age of thirty-five. ‘And by the time I met your mother we were both past that. But you’ve been the daughter I always wanted. The only family I need.’

He had known how much she loved the house, and the land that went with it, he’d said. And he knew that she would care for it, look after it in just the way he’d wanted. She would keep the farms running, be a fair landlady to the tenants, and of course she had always adored the horses.

‘I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather leave it to.’

She’d been overwhelmed, overjoyed, and, knowing she could never thank him, she had set herself instead to learn everything she could about the estate, working with Marty so that she would know how to handle everything when the time came. She had hoped to have so much longer to do so. Jessica had dreamed of maybe taking over the estate when Marty retired, and neither of them had ever thought that the end would come so soon.

The thought that she would be able to carry things on as her stepfather had wished had been the only consolation she had had when the sudden heart attack had taken him when she had least expected it.

‘Yes, that was quite legal,’ Simeon assured her. ‘Then.’

‘Then?’

The single word, hastily added, snagged on a raw nerve and tugged. It made her sit up straighter, a frown drawing her brows together, all her attention focused on the man at the desk.

‘Did something happen? Did Marty change his will?’

Simeon shook his head. ‘He left everything just as it was. That was the problem.’

‘The problem…Simeon, you’re going to have to explain this to me—it’s not making any sense. Marty left everything to me—so what’s the problem?’

‘The problem is that by the time he died Marty didn’t have anything to leave—to you or to anyone else.’

‘He didn’t?’

Jessica was having to struggle to try to understand just what Simeon actually meant. His words sounded as if they were coming to her down a long, echoing tunnel so that they rang distortedly in her head. And the problem was desperately aggravated by her painful awareness of the way that Angelos was sitting silently still, observing everything.

It was as if he had a sharp wire attached to her, one that kept up a constant, steady tug on every nerve, drawing her attention to him. It was a tug she fought to resist. She was having a hard enough time coping with just what Simeon was telling her. If she looked into Angelos’s face, read what he was thinking there, then she would go to pieces at once. She just knew it.

And so she forced herself to keep her face turned towards the lawyer, praying that Angelos could read nothing of her mood, or her fears, from the profile she presented to him.

‘Just what are you saying?’

‘That over the last year—eighteen months—Marty started to gamble.’

‘He always liked a flutter on the horses!’ Jessica exclaimed. ‘It was the only hobby he had. He…’

Her voice failed her as she met Simeon’s eyes, saw the expression on his face.

‘This wasn’t any sort of hobby, Jessica,’ the lawyer told her sombrely and a cold hand squeezed her heart, stilling her completely. ‘And it wasn’t anything like the way he’d been betting before. He started betting more money than he’d ever done—more than was wise. At first he won, so I suppose that made him bet more and more. But then apparently he started losing—and he’d bet more to try to win back his losses.’

Oh, Marty! Jessica had known that something was troubling her stepfather. He’d changed, lost weight, started smoking again when he’d given up years before as a promise to Andrea. Jessica had tried to get him to talk but he’d always dismissed her concerns. Told her she was worrying unnecessarily. And she had to admit that, caught up with her romance with Chris and the excitement of his proposal, just lately she’d been preoccupied and hadn’t seen as much as she should have done.

‘How bad did it get?’

Did she have to ask? Didn’t she know the answer from the gravity of Simeon’s tone, the look in his eyes?

‘The worst. He lost everything—he would have had to move out, leave Manorfield for good, if someone hadn’t stepped in and bailed him out.’

‘Who?’

Jessica winced as she heard the way her voice croaked, the break in the middle of the short word. Again, did she have to ask? The cruel hand that had been squeezing her heart suddenly gave it a vicious, painful wrench as she felt rather than saw the sudden change in the attitude of the other man in the room and glimpsed out of the corner of her eye the way he straightened in his chair, uncrossed his legs.

‘Who bailed him out?’

‘I did.’

The answer came from Angelos as she had known it must. The terrible dark sense of inevitability that had reached out and enfolded her ever since Simeon had begun the story had deepened and tightened around her neck, it seemed, threatening to strangle her as it closed off all the air from her lungs. There could be no other possible answer really. No other reason why he was here and why Simeon had treated him with such courtesy, such respect.

It took an effort to turn her head and face him, to look straight at him when she had spent the last minutes desperately trying to do the exact opposite. She dreaded what she would see in his face, the triumph there must be in his eyes.

But in fact all she could see was a dark, opaque shadow, no features, no details visible at all. The late afternoon sun had actually come out so that Angelos was just a black figure silhouetted against the huge bay window with its leaded panes.

‘What did you do?’

‘I bought him out.’

Stark and flat, the statement still had the power to stab like a brutal sword, slashing through everything she had believed—everything she’d hoped was going to come true.

‘I bought him out—paid off all his debts, got the creditors off his back and gave him a breathing space.’

‘You bought him out? But you couldn’t—there’s no way… how…’

‘You shouldn’t live in the past, Princess,’ Angelos drawled softly, getting to his feet and crossing to the table to refill his glass. ‘People change. I am no longer the stable boy you thought you could have a sordid little fling with. In fact I never was.’

‘What…?’ Jessica began, but he ignored her interjection, cutting straight across her attempt to say something, ask just what he meant.

‘I am more than capable of buying out your stepfather and saving him from ruin three times over if I wanted to.’

‘You make it sound as if you did him a favour, but I can’t believe that. You’re not that sort of a philanthropist. You don’t do things out of generosity—selfless charity. There had to be something you got out of it too.’

‘Oh, there was. I can assure you that I got everything I wanted—everything and more.’

Now at last she could see his face in the light from the window and what she read there made her heart quail inside her chest. Her breathing snagged again as she met his cold eyed, harsh-faced expression and saw the way that his eyes burned with icy anger, with the darkest searing contempt she had ever seen.

‘And…and that was…?’ she managed, snatching in her breath on a raw painful gasp.

‘You’re standing in it, Princess.’

The long-fingered hand that held the glass gestured in an arc that took in the whole room, the long, polished wooden floor, the huge marble fireplace with another set of leather armchairs and chesterfields standing before it, the range of bookcases on every wall, crammed to the edges with reading matter. And then, with his eyes fixed on her face so she knew he saw every tiny flicker of reaction, every tremor that crossed her features, the wide-eyed stare of blank disbelief and shock, he gestured again so that this time the movement widened enough to encapsulate the whole of the house, the grounds beyond—and the miles and miles of Manorfield estate as well.

‘I’ve wanted Manorfield since the time I first saw it when I came here seven years ago. I was determined never to give up until it was mine. Marty’s gambling, his debts, played right into my hands. I bailed him out to the price of the estate.’

‘I don’t believe you—I won’t believe you. If you’d owned Manorfield then you’d have been here like a shot. Marty still lived here—he was still running the estate.’

‘Because I let him. Because it suited me. Marty was an older man—I wasn’t going to throw him out on the streets, even if he had been happy to treat me that way. And, besides, he knew what was needed here—he knew how to handle things. That also suited me. So I let him stay on.’

Angelos paused, took a slow sip of his drink and swallowed it down, his eyes still holding her shocked blue ones over the rim of the fine crystal glass.

‘If he’d lived longer, I’d have let him stay on a while. But not any more, Jessica. That concession was for Marty only—it ended when he died. Once that happened, Manorfield was mine and all mine. The will your stepfather made has no validity—none at all. There’s nothing for you to inherit, you see. He couldn’t leave you anything because he didn’t own anything—barely even the clothes that he stood up in. All the rest was mine.’

He paused, took another swallow of his drink and, as he did so, Jessica felt the first terrible tremors of shock, the trembling of her limbs that made her grateful for the fact that she was sitting down.

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

Tell Miss Marshall the position she’s in…

The words swung round and round in her head, gaining a terrible extra significance with each repetition. She knew now with a dreadful sense of inevitability just what was coming. And she knew that there was no way she could stop it.

She could only sit there and try to control her reactions as she waited for the axe to fall.

He took his time about it. And she knew that was because he was enjoying every moment of this.

‘The truth of the matter is, my dear Jessica, that you can’t inherit Manorfield or any part of it because I own it all—the house, the farms, every last single blade of grass. They are all mine. And you are left with precisely nothing. Not even a home. Because the Manor House is mine and I intend to live here from now on.’

‘No…’

Jessica could only sit and shake her head, struggling, wishing, hoping that by denying Angelos’s arrogant statement she could make it into a nightmare, make it unreal. This couldn’t be happening—it couldn’t…

But even when she looked at Simeon for help she knew that she was not going to get it. Marty’s solicitor was sitting at the desk, the papers in front of him, and the expression on his face, the way that he had done nothing to contradict Angelos’s coldhearted declaration left her without a single hope in her heart.

Everything that he had said was the truth. Every last appalling fact. And now she knew just why his arrival had filled her with such a sense of creeping dread. Why she had known as soon as he’d walked into the room that he was here to do something dreadful, something that would destroy every trace of her peace of mind.

The man she had called the Black Angel was back in her life—and it seemed that he had taken it over and turned it upside down. And it would never be the same again.