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‘Maybe they will,’ she said quietly. ‘But that’s not a reason to marry a man I don’t know.’
There was a small, stifling pause.
‘So let’s get to know each other,’ he said softly, and then, more softly still, ‘Tell me about yourself, Effie Price. Who are you?’
Staring up at Effie’s small, pale face, Achileas felt his breathing jolt.
Why had he asked her that?
It wasn’t a question he had ever asked anyone—certainly not a woman. Then again, he had never wanted to know the answer before, and if he did now, it was only for the obvious reason that he needed a wife.
His jaw tightened. Need. That word again.
He could play semantics, call it a requirement, but that didn’t change the facts. If he wanted the key to his father’s kingdom, he needed a wife.
Correction: he needed Effie to be his wife.
Back at his apartment, when the idea had appeared fully formed in his head, he had known there and then that she would be perfect. Why else would fate have thrown them together like that?
Unfortunately, Effie was not coming up with the same answer as he was.
A spasm of tension in his back—the same spasm that had been plaguing him for weeks now—made his shoulders tense against the misshapen fabric-covered lump that was masquerading as her sofa.
He was honest and arrogant enough to admit that he hadn’t anticipated her being so resistant to the idea of him as a husband. Obviously, he had known she would be surprised, stunned, speechless... But he was Achileas Kane, founder and CEO of Arete Equity. He was rich, powerful and handsome. And she—well, she just was a chambermaid...a real-life Cinderella to his hedge fund prince. So, after her initial shock had worn off, of course he’d assumed that she would react like any normal woman.
His eyes narrowed on the way Effie was standing, her thin arms clutching the cheap plastic folder in front of her chest like some kind of shield, and he wondered why he had made that assumption.
What was the matter with her? Didn’t she know how lucky she was? He was offering to give her five times what she was asking from the bank, and instead of being grateful and excited she was staring at him with that same, grave expression on her face as before.
And now she was shaking her head.
‘You know who I am.’ Her brown eyes hovered on his face. ‘You know where I work, how much I earn. You know where I live...how I live,’ she said, in that delicate, precise way of hers. ‘But if you’re serious about this “arrangement”, then the question I need answering is, who are you?’
For a moment he was stunned, then outraged.
No, that’s not how this works, he thought for the second time that day. She didn’t get to question him, make him jump through hoops, judge him.
Nobody did.
Nobody except one man—the only man he could neither vanquish nor reject because, in spite of everything Andreas had done and not done, it was the saw-toothed ache of his absence that drove Achileas through each day. An ache that was not yet rubbed smooth even though he had turned it over and over endlessly, like an angry sea throwing pebbles against the shore.
He hated how it made him feel so powerless. And now this woman was wanting to know who he was. As if he would ever tell her—tell anyone.
It was ludicrous, unthinkable, and he remained stubbornly silent. Having been on the receiving end of his father’s silence for so long, he knew first-hand just how effective a weapon it was. But if he didn’t answer her, then what?
He glanced over at the tilt of her chin. Incredibly, it seemed that she would refuse his offer and there would be nothing he could do about it.
She might bend, but she wouldn’t break.
Like one of those small, thin-stemmed flowers with pale petals that seemed to grow everywhere in England. A wildflower that looked as if one good gust of wind would snap it in two.
But there was strength in those fragile stems. At school, he’d had to endure cross-country runs through the grounds, and after a storm, when everything else had been pulled up by its roots or flattened, those delicate-stemmed flowers had still been upright.
‘What do you want to know?’ he said slowly.
‘I’m not sure...’
She hesitated, and he felt something pinch inside him. Outside the Stanmore, even in the car, she had been so composed, so calm. Now, though, here in her home, with her hair in a plait, and her taut, unblinking gaze, she reminded him of one of those Margaret Keane paintings of huge-eyed waifs. She seemed smaller, younger, wary... And he didn’t like how that made him feel.
