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‘As I said, I didn’t build her debt.’
‘No, but haven’t you agreed to sponsor her—surely you entered into a contract?’
‘With everything built in I need to withdraw if I feel compromised.’
Sybella’s face must have shown what she was feeling because he said more gently, ‘It’s business, Sybella. It happens.’
‘But—but what about her sister, the one you said is the creative behind the label?’
‘She’s a woman with real talent. I’ll make sure she lands on her feet and is given a new opportunity.’
Sybella couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Nik, you can’t play God with innocent people’s lives!’
He began unthreading his tie. ‘Short-term pain, Sybella, for long-term satisfaction.’
‘Other people’s pain, your satisfaction.’
She saw the tension rise in his shoulders. ‘None of this satisfies me, Sybella. The only thing that would is if Galina had never come into our lives, but I can’t turn back the clock.’
‘But you can turn back now. You can change this, Nik.’ Sybella stumbled to her feet. ‘If you do this thing it makes you as bad as her.’
‘Spare me the drama, dushka.’
‘It’s not drama, it’s people’s lives. Marla has a son, her son has an aunty—you’re going to bring all this down on them to retrieve money you don’t even need.’
‘And as I said, it’s not about the money.’
‘No, it’s something worse,’ said Sybella chokily. ‘If you do this it changes you. Listen, Nik, that day I came to the Hall to give your grandfather back those letters I overheard the two of you talking. You were being so tender with him, and all my prejudices about you fell away. I thought you were that man, hard on the outside because you’ve had to be, but with a genuinely good heart and the capacity to love your family.’ Her voice got stuck. ‘You are that man. Don’t let her take that away from you.’
‘Who are you talking about?’
‘Your stepmother. You’re letting your hatred for her twist you into something you’re not.’
‘And you’re being naive, Sybella.’ He began yanking at his shirt buttons, and as they gave a couple popped and hit the floor but he ignored them, as if a tailored shirt was like a tissue in terms of loss, and Sybella began to feel entirely too queasy.
He must have sensed her distress because he stopped and turned around, his hands resting on his lean hips, shirt gaping, more beautiful than any Norse god and certainly as dangerous in his power and unpredictability.
She might as well have ripped the page out of a magazine and stuck it on her wall; he couldn’t have looked more unreal and out of place.
He didn’t belong here. He never had. She’d let the giant into the house and only now was she counting the consequences.
‘I’m a businessman and I’ve done some ruthless things in my time to get where I am.’
Sybella could only shake her head. ‘I don’t feel like I even know you.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe you don’t,’ he threw back at her, pulling off the rest of his shirt and grabbing a fresh one from his open piece of luggage he’d brought in earlier and obviously intended to live out of. Another reminder none of this was permanent.
‘But I’m not wasting any more time arguing over this. You just stick to your storybook world, Sybella.’ He speared an assessing look up under those thick brown lashes. ‘It suits you. I like you in it. I don’t want you in this world. It can be equivocal and dark and you can’t handle it.’
Sybella realised he was getting dressed again and that could only mean he was leaving, and that was when she realised what had been niggling at her.
‘Is that what happened with your grandfather?’
He just kept buttoning his shirt, head down, profile pure chiselled stone.
‘It is, isn’t it? He climbed into his own version of a storybook to find peace in his last years, to get away from your anger.’
‘Don’t even start this, Sybella—’
‘You probably can’t see it,’ she said, fumbling to make sense of concepts she’d just got her first glimpse of, ‘you’ve been living it for so long. Nik, has everything you’ve done been about getting back at your stepmother?’
