Penniless and Purchased

But as he did she felt his hands tighten on her shoulders suddenly, as if emotion were going through him. She felt a wave of her filial love seize her, coming on top of the state of exhilaration that had been mounting all evening.

‘Oh, Daddy, I’ll be careful! Careful of everything! Careful of letting out trade secrets and of letting him sweep me away! But, oh, oh, he is just so wonderful!’ She stepped away, skipping down the stairs on feet as light as air, her mind totally absorbed once more with the wonderful, glorious, breathtaking gorgeousness of Nikos Kazandros!

The next day was an agony. She so wanted to phone home, to find out if he’d called with a concert date, but made herself wait until she got back from college.

To find no message waiting for her.

Her heart plunged. Had he just said that about the concert but not meant it? She dragged herself up to her room, sank down on her bed, feeling her heart sinking with her. Blankly she stared. Had she really thought he would ask her out?

Yes—yes, I did! I really did!

She felt her insides clench, and for a moment it was like a physical pain, knowing that she’d been so ridiculously optimistic. Her hands clutched in her lap as she stared down at the carpet, knowing with a heavy, bleak certainty that she would never hear from Nikos Kazandros again. Never, ever, ever…

The house phone by her bedside rang, and listlessly she picked it up.

‘Miss Sophie?’ Mrs T’s brisk, tart tones came down the line. ‘I’d appreciate it if you came down to the kitchen. There’s been a delivery for you, and it’s not the sort of thing I can be running up and down to the top floor with!’

My music books, thought Sophie dully. She had some on order, and they weighed a ton, so she knew why Mrs T was reluctant to bring them up herself. Dolefully, she trailed downstairs. But when she saw what was on the dresser, elation soared through her again.

Flowers—a bouquet so vast she knew exactly why the housekeeper hadn’t tried to carry them, their rich, exotic fragrance pouring through the room. And with them a note. Handwritten.

I hope a Covent Garden gala will be acceptable to you?

I’ll send a car for seven tomorrow.

It was just signed ‘NK’.

She hugged it to her and danced all the way back up to her rooms, the blooms in her grip wobbling precariously, her heart singing with delirious delight.

If she’d taken for ever to get ready just for dinner, for the following evening she took all afternoon. She was ready—just—when the sleek limo drew up outside the house, and though she felt a stab of disappointment when she realised she was the only passenger, she could feel her excitement mounting as the car made its slow way towards Covent Garden. By the time she was disgorged she was trembling, and as she climbed out, Nikos was walking forward.

She froze.

He was wearing evening dress, and if she’d thought he looked gorgeous in a lounge suit, in a tuxedo he simply melted her on the spot!

He took her hand, murmuring something in Greek. His eyes were fixed on her, and she felt the thrill come again.

‘You look…’ he said, but there was a husk in his voice and he could not finish.

There weren’t words to describe her! Oh, he could describe the dress—a slim column of ivory silk—and a matching stole, picked out with the most delicate embroidery, and around her throat pearls like angel’s tears. Her hair was caught in a loose coil at the nape of her neck, and her make-up was so barely there that it seemed invisible, except for the exquisite enhancement of her beauty. A beauty he could find no words for, only desire.

Oh, not desire as he knew it, but a new, different kind of desire that had nothing in common with the emotion he usually associated with the term. No, this was a new kind of sensation. One that made him want to…want to…

He didn’t know what. And didn’t bother to try and find words. What for? He didn’t need them. Didn’t need anything right now except to smile at her and lead her forward into the opera house, thronged with arrivals, and murmur something appropriate about being glad that she’d wanted to come this evening.

Her eyes widened. ‘Glad? I can’t even believe you got tickets! They’re gold-dust for events like this!’

The corner of his mouth pulled. ‘Ah, so that’s why you accepted my invitation. And there I was, being a conceited idiot and hoping it was for my sake, not a gold-dust ticket to a gala!’

Her eyes flew to him. ‘How could you think that?’ she breathed.

He stilled. He seemed to do that all the time. She kept stopping him in his tracks. She’d done it over and over again the evening before, but now, like this, as she gazed at him he felt it again, like a trip hammer, slamming down on him.

What is she doing to me?

He became aware they were holding up others, and jolted forwards again, guiding her smoothly. But he didn’t touch her. His hand hovered behind her back, but somehow he felt that the kind of casual body contact he would take for granted with any other woman would be out of place.

When I touch her, it will be special…

And this evening would be special, he knew. Not just because even for him it had taken considerable effort—not to say expense!—to get hold of tickets for the evening, but because—well, because, that was all.

He stopped analysing. Gave himself to the experience. The experience of feeling that something was happening to him that was new—quite, quite new.

She was walking gracefully forward, and he could see male eyes turning. And he could also see that she was gazing around her as they made their way through the throng, her eyes widening every now and then. In the crush bar, champagne was circulating, and Nikos took a glass for himself and for her. She took a sip, then leant forward, slightly towards him.

He was raising his glass. ‘To a memorable evening,’ he said.

She didn’t need to echo his words to know that they were true. Wonderfully, magically true!

And they stayed true all evening. She sat beside him in the plush seats, her face alight, as some of the greatest artists in the world sang on the famous stage below, wreathed in its crimson velvet curtains. All the time, every moment of the gala, she was overpoweringly conscious of Nikos sitting beside her—the lean strength of his body, the occasional breath-catching brush of his sleeve, even though she kept her hands clasped in her lap. By the time the gala ended her emotions were sky-high, swept up by the soaring music and artistry of the performers. In the final applause she turned to Nikos.

‘Thank you! Thank you! All my life I’ll remember this evening!’

Her eyes were like stars, dewed with emotion.

She saw his face still again, as it had done before. Then, slowly, he reached for her hand and raised it to his lips.

‘As will I,’ he said softly.

She could only sit, her heart soaring, face alight, lips parted, gazing at him, feeling more than she had ever felt in her life before! More than she had ever thought it possible to feel.

The soft brush of his lips on her hand had made her breathless, and then he was lowering her hand, but not relinquishing it, instead drawing her to her feet as the audience started to get to theirs. She felt his fingers lace through hers, so strong, so warm, holding hers, and felt faint with the wonderfulness of it.

Nikos! His name reverberated in her head. Nikos! Nikos! Nikos!

She floated on air as she walked beside him, his fingers still laced with hers, as they made their slow procession from the opera house. Leaving took ages, because the narrow streets outside were thronged, but eventually Nikos was handing her into the limo, and she was sinking into its depths, he was coming in beside her, and the limo was moving slowly off.

‘I asked your father if I might take you for supper after the performance,’ Nikos said. His eyes glinted. ‘I’ve got you till midnight, but you must be home on the stroke of twelve!’

She gave a little gurgle of laughter. ‘He’s terribly Victorian.’

But Nikos did not laugh with her. ‘He is right to be careful of you,’ he said soberly. Then his tone altered. ‘Now, I hope my choice of restaurant will please you.’

He could have suggested fish and chips and she would have been enchanted, but where he took her was infinitely more salubrious. It was uncrowded and, best of all, their table was very private. What she ate she had no idea, nor did she have much more idea what they talked about. Sophie knew her whole attention was on Nikos—Nikos alone! Gazing at him, smiling at him, listening to him, knowing with every passing moment that he was the most wonderful, wonderful man she had ever met! And by the time, two hours later, he reluctantly escorted her from the limo up to the front door of her father’s house, she knew something else, as well. Something even more precious.

She was in love.

She knew it for a certainty—irrefutably, incontestably. She was in love with Nikos Kazandros!