“It is most unfortunate,” he muttered.
Kizzy lowered her gaze, summoning hidden reserves to challenge the black ice that crackled mercilessly in his eyes. “Listen, I’d never have sunk what was left of my savings into the taverna if Mr. Antonides hadn’t promised me it was going to be a long-term thing, that you supported appointing a manager to run the place when he retired. There was no indication that I was going to have the rug pulled right out from under my feet.”
“You’ve spent your own money on the venture? That was a pretty stupid thing to do. Managers take a salary; they don’t go ‘investing’ all over the place.” Andreas shook his head at her in disbelief. “Your file says you’re a graduate, a woman with a brain. What on earth made you act so dumb?”
He’d read her file?
She felt the tenacious tear drip onto the floor, and loathed her lack of control. But there seemed to be little point in keeping up appearances now.
“Timi’s is all I have left; it’s my home and only source of income. Or it was.” The silence was as heavy as the sky was becoming dark. “I can’t believe this is what the Antonideses intended. They’re friends. And they’re going to be so upset when I tell them what’s happened.”
Andreas reached her in three long strides and gripped her by the upper arm. “You will tell them nothing! Nothing at all, do you hear?” His grip only loosened as he registered the shock on her face. “They must never hear of this. Never.”
Kizzy’s brain was now a confused tangle. The Antonideses had been like family to her since her mother died, and she was still in regular contact with them. In fact, Mrs. Antonides had e-mailed a few pictures of their new villa that morning, so it would be impossible not to tell them without being dishonest.
The first acrid threads of anger and indignation began to rise to her defense; roughly, she wrenched her arm free.
“And why the hell shouldn’t I tell them? To protect your reputation or something?” Kizzy let out a bitter laugh. “You want me to lie for you, is that it? I don’t think so.”
“You have no idea what damage you could cause with that mouth of yours. The Antonideses are good people who have worked hard, asked for little and given back a hundred-fold all they received. But they are not good businesspeople. Incredibly proud, but hopeless with money.” He began to pace the floor, and heads turned in the adjacent capsule as he spoke tersely, gesturing. “How do you think they’ll feel if you tell them their lives’ work was just a mountain of debt? That it was all for nothing? And then you intend heaping guilt on them for leaving poor little you in the gutter!”
“No! I’d never—”
“Your indiscretion will ruin their happy retirement and condemn them to spend the rest of their lives in shame and regret. Believe me, Miss Dean, I know how these people are. Prouder and more honorable than you could ever imagine. Besides that, no one owes you a living either; times are hard for everyone right now.” He raked a hand through his black hair. “And please. You’re a pretty little graduate, you can get a reasonable job if you apply yourself, so spare me the crocodile tears.”
Kizzy snapped her jaw shut, crushing her teeth together so hard it hurt. She’d stupidly let him see her cry and he’d pounced on that moment of incredible vulnerability.
No one owes you a living.
As if she didn’t know that already. The man was a beast.
“Of course I would do anything to avoid hurting Theo and Ana. They don’t deserve that.”
He fixed her with a stare as hard and cold as stone. “So how much do you want?”
Kizzy swallowed back more bitter, acid tears. “What?”
“You heard me,” he replied, dark lashes narrowing his eyes until it looked as if he was sneering at her. “How much do I have to pay you to say that you have decided to resign your position, and then to sign a legal document promising you won’t do anything to cause mental or emotional harm to the Antonides family?”
Kizzy’s mouth gaped with disbelief that this dreadful man could think so badly of her. “I told you I would never hurt them deliberately!”
Andreas pretended to choke on a hollow laugh. “And why on earth should I believe that?”
“Because I said so?” Kizzy folded her arms tightly across her chest to stop her hands from shaking.
“What? You? The woman who introduced herself to me as my very own secretary of five years? Who lied with the very first breaths of London air we shared? I can’t take that risk.” Andreas turned abruptly away and, raising both palms above his head, leaned against the cool glass of the capsule window. “I might be a bastard, but I’m not an idiot. Name your price.”
“I don’t want your money.”
“No?” He laughed unpleasantly and pushed himself away from the window. “I find that almost impossible to believe, since you lost everything you possessed in the world only a few seconds ago. So, tell me, what do you want?”
“I want back what’s been taken from me. My job, my home, and my plans for the future. I don’t want your handouts, or anyone else’s for that matter. All I want is the chance to prove myself and to earn my way out of—to earn a reasonable living. Enough to be independent.”
“Interesting.”
Kizzy was beginning to feel more annoyed than upset now that all seemed to be lost and her best efforts had come to nothing. “Well, I’m so glad you think so,” she replied.
At least she’d stopped crying now, Andreas thought disparagingly. “So,” he began. “Would you consider yourself to be a risk-taker?”
Kizzy regarded him suspiciously. “I’m not sure.”
He waited for a moment to see if she would elaborate. “Or do you perhaps see yourself spending the next forty or so years in a dusty office ticking boxes for a living?”
Kizzy’s thoughts strayed to her late mother as she posed in a very old photograph, young, beautiful, and deliciously wild with large golden hoops in her ears. She yearned to be cast to the four winds by circumstance. She would relish the freedom and exhilaration but there were the debts to consider, a bitter legacy she had to bear. She couldn’t just run away from that.
“Absolutely not,” she told him.
“How brave are you feeling at the moment?” Andreas asked, his expression deadly.
Kizzy was perplexed at the tone of his question; something had changed behind those demanding black eyes of his. “I think this is the bravest I’ve ever had to be in my life.”