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She shook her head despite the dread crawling through her stomach.
‘Money. With my father’s arrest and all our assets frozen, they knew the money that funded their lavish lifestyles would dry up. They had to sell their stories quickly and to the highest bidder before they became yesterday’s news—regardless of the fact that their actions would push my mother into attempting to take her own life.’
She gasped. ‘God, I’m so sorry, Sakis.’
Pain was etched deep on his face but he slid his fingers through hers and brought her hand up to his mouth. But, although his touch was gentle, the gleam in his was anything but. ‘So you see why I find it hard to trust the motives of others?’
Dry-mouthed, she nodded. ‘I do, but it doesn’t hurt to occasionally give the benefit of the doubt.’ The knowledge that she was silently pleading for herself sent a wave of shame through her.
His gaze raked her face, his own features a harsh stamp of implacability. Then slowly, as she watched, his face relaxed. He reached across and cupped her face, pulled her close and kissed her.
‘For you, Brianna, I’m willing to suspend my penchant for expecting the worst, to let go of my bias and cynicism—because, believe me, in this instance I relish the chance to be proved wrong.’
But he wasn’t proved wrong.
At three o’clock that afternoon, Richard Moorecroft rang with a full confession for his part in the tanker crash.
CHAPTER NINE
AN HOUR LATER, Sakis was pacing his office when he heard his head of security enter and exchange greetings with Brianna.
‘Get in here, both of you!’ he bellowed, the anger he was fighting to contain roiling just beneath his skin.
He turned from his desk as they entered. He tried to concentrate on his security chief. But, as if it acted independent of his control, his gaze strayed to Brianna.
She was as contained and self-assured as he’d always known her to be. There was no trace of the woman who’d writhed beneath him last night, screaming her pleasure as he’d taken her to the heights of ecstasy, or the gentle soul who’d listened to him spill his guts about his father in the car, her eyes haunted with pain for him.
He wanted to hate her for her poise and calm but he realised that he admired her for it—something else he admired about her. Theos, his list of things he admired about Brianna Moneypenny grew by the day. Anyone would think she meant more to him than—
His mind screeched to a halt but his legs were weakening with the force of the unknown emotion that smashed through him. Folding his arms, he gritted his teeth and perched on the edge of his desk.
‘What do you have for me?’ he demanded from Sheldon.
‘As you requested, we dug a little deeper into the financials of First Mate Isaacs and Deputy Captain Green. A deposit of one hundred thousand euros was made into each of their accounts seven days ago.’
Sakis’s hands tightened around his biceps as bitterness tightened like a vice around his chest. ‘Have we traced the source of the funds?’ Even now when he had the evidence, he didn’t want to believe his employees were guilty.
Only this morning, he would’ve believed the worst. But Brianna’s caution to give them the benefit of the doubt had settled deep within him. When he’d given her words further thought he’d realised how much he’d let cynicism rule his life. Letting go even a little had felt...liberating. He’d breathed easier for the first time in a very long time.
But now the hard ache was back full force along with memories he couldn’t seem to bury easily.
‘Moorecroft used about half a dozen shell companies to obfuscate his activities. Without his confession it’d have taken a few more days but knowing where to look helped. It also helped that the crew members did nothing to hide the money they received,’ Sheldon said.
‘Because they thought they were home free,’ Sakis rasped. The confirmation from Moorecroft that he’d paid his crew to deliberately crash his tanker to spark a hostile takeover made a tide of rage rise within him. Sakis could forgive the damage to his vessel—it was insured and he would be more than compensated for it once the investigation was over. But it was the senseless loss of lives he couldn’t stomach, along with the fact that the rest of his crew had been put at severe risk.
After his phone call with Moorecroft, with the pain-racked faces of his dead employees’ famili
es fresh in his mind, he hadn’t hesitated to let his broken adversary know to expect full criminal charges against him.
He’d experienced a twinge when he’d looked up from the phone call and caught Brianna’s expression but he’d pushed the feeling away.
Greed had driven another man to put others’ lives at risk. There was no way he could forgive that.
‘What about Lowell’s account?’
‘We’re trying to access it but it’s a bit more complicated.’
Sakis frowned. ‘How complicated?’
