The Greek's Bridal Bargain

‘What banked up behind you?’

‘Debts…’

‘What sort of debts?’

He told her a sum and she sank to the nearest sofa. ‘Oh, my God.’

‘Kane heard about it and swooped in for the kill. There was nothing I could do to stop him.’

Her mind was racing with the effort of finding a way out of their predicament but all she could see was her future mapped out for her as if written in her blood on the wall.

Kane had come after her.

She was the one he had chosen to pay the price.

‘He’s offered us a solution to our problems,’ her father said into the silence.

‘Oh, really?’ She gave him a cold look. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve agreed to his tidy little solution, have you?’

‘Darling…’ her mother began.

‘I told you to keep out of this, Glenys,’ Owen barked at her before turning back to Bryony. ‘He’s a rich man. I might have asked for someone a little less…er…primitive, but his wealth will more than make up for that.’

‘You think that money means anything to me?’ she asked. ‘Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve sold me like some medieval bride!’

‘You could do a lot worse.’

‘I’d like to know how.’ She sprang off the sofa in agitation. ‘I hate him! He’s a criminal, or have you forgotten that little detail?’

‘We all make mistakes, Bryony…’

‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this!’ she gasped. ‘You were the one to send him off to whatever correction facility he went to. How can you allow him to step in and carry me off like some sort of caveman?’

‘You’re being hysterical just like your mother.’

‘I’m being hysterical? This whole farce is hysterical! I will not marry him and that’s my final word.’ She spun away and stomped to the door and had her hand out to turn the knob when her father spoke, instantly freezing her to the spot.

‘He has information about me that will send both your mother and I to prison for the rest of our lives.’

Bryony turned around slowly, as if by prolonging the moment she might find her life had turned back to what it had once been, not the theatrical drama that was facing her now.

No such luck.

The look on her father’s face was nothing short of desperate and her mother was bent over double on the sofa, the sounds of her distress muffled but no less disturbing.

‘What did you do?’ she asked when she could move her stiff lips into gear. ‘Kill someone?’

His eyes skittered away from hers. ‘I won’t distress you with the details.’

‘I think under the current circumstances I can handle it,’ she informed him drily. ‘My shockometer has already blown a fuse this afternoon so one more hit shouldn’t make much difference.’

‘I don’t wish your mother to be upset.’

‘You’ve made it your lifetime’s work to make her upset so I can’t see why you’re feeling so solicitous now.’

‘I won’t be spoken to like that, young lady,’ Owen growled at her darkly.

‘I’m not a child you can smack into obedience,’ she flashed at him, recalling all the times he had as if they were yesterday. ‘I’m twenty-seven years old so you can hardly resort to such brutality now.’

‘You deserve Kaproulias as your husband,’ her father snarled at her. ‘You need someone cruel and calculating to bring you to heel.’

She didn’t think she had hated her father more than at that point in her entire life.

She knew Austin had been his favourite child. She had never come first in his affections and had barely managed to scrape in second. His work was his life and he’d brandished his wealth about with self-indulgent pride. She would have walked away long ago and never looked back except for her mother…

‘So my fate is sealed.’ She flicked a glance towards the bowed figure on the sofa, her heart sinking all over again at the sight of her mother’s brokenness.

‘It’s the only way out,’ Owen said. ‘You owe us this. You’re a Mercer and we must always stand together.’

‘What a pity you didn’t consider that when you went on your little gambling spree.’ She sent him a disdainful look. ‘I’m assuming that’s where most of the money has gone?’

He didn’t bother denying it. ‘I was on a winning streak, my numbers were up and then it all changed.’

Oh, how it had changed, she thought with increasing despair.

‘Kaproulias is being quite generous,’ her father continued. ‘He’s paying for your mother and me to go on a trip to get out of the line of fire. There are people after me…’

As far as she was concerned they were welcome to him but she couldn’t bear the thought of her mother suffering any more grief. In spite of her father’s mean-spirited nature, she knew her mother still loved him desperately.

Bryony couldn’t imagine ever allowing herself to love someone so unguardedly. Her heart was untouched and, as far as she was concerned, it was going to stay that way.

She left the harrowing spectre of her parents’ financial demise to the confines of the green sitting room and made her way towards the stairs.

‘I wish to discuss the details of our marriage with you.’ Kane’s deep voice sounded from behind her.

She sucked in an angry breath and turned on her heel to look at him, wishing she’d made it up four or five steps so she could at least have given her craning neck a rest.

Had he really been that tall all those years ago?

She was a good five foot seven, could even stretch it to ten in some of her heels, but he still towered over her, making her feel small and insignificant.

‘I thought you would have taken the hint by now and left,’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything to say to you.’

‘We have a wedding to arrange.’

‘It seems to me it’s already been arranged—’ she sent him a withering look ‘—by you.’

‘I want your input on one or two details.’