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Authors: Abby Green
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encompassed this entire flat about twice over...
A huge shadow darkened her bedroom door and Andreas rapped out with clear impatience, ‘Actually, you can leave everything here. Unless there’s something of sentimental value. I’ll be supplying you with a new wardrobe.’
Siena just looked at Andreas. She saw an austerely handsome man, eager to get out of this hole of a place and take her with him so that he could mould her into what he wanted. He was so sure of himself now—a Titan of industry, used to having what he wanted when he wanted.
Siena didn’t doubt that most of the women in Andreas’s life were only too happy to comply with his demands, and she had to quash the dart of something dark at the thought of those women. Dismay gripped her. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be jealousy. She hated this man for what he was doing and what he’d become—he was welcome to his hordes of satisfied lovers.
Self-derision that she could allow this to happen to her and the knowledge that she had no choice because this was her only hope to help Serena made Siena’s spine straighten. Tersely she bit out, ‘Give me five minutes.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘W HAT WILL HAPPEN to my flat?’
Siena was trying not to notice Andreas’s big hands on the steering wheel of his car, the way he handled it with such lazy confidence. Of course his car hadn’t been on blocks when they’d gone outside. The young kid had been watching it like a hawk and had stared at Andreas as if he was a god.
Siena didn’t know how to drive. Her father hadn’t deemed it necessary. Why would she need to drive if she was going to be chauffeur-driven everywhere?
Sounding crisp, Andreas replied, ‘I’ll have my assistant settle up with your landlord. She can also inform your employers that you won’t be coming back.’
Siena’s hands tightened in her lap. In a way it was karma. She’d lost him his job and now he was losing her hers. Just like that. With a mere click of his fingers, Andreas was changing her life and ripping her very new independence out from under her feet. If she only had herself to worry about she wouldn’t be here now, she assured herself inwardly, and hated the tiny seed of doubt that even then she could have held out against Andreas’s will, or the guilt she felt.
She wondered what Andreas would have done if he’d known that she couldn’t care less for his fortune? That his money wasn’t for her at all? But she was forgetting that this man didn’t care. Just as the younger man from five years ago hadn’t cared. He’d only wanted her because it had been a coup to seduce one of the untouchable debutantes; their supposed virtue had been more prized and guarded than a priceless heirloom in a museum.
Except that virtue had been a myth. Siena had known all too well just how touchable the vast majority of her fellow debs had been. They’d looked innocent and pure, but had been anything but. She could recall with vivid clarity, how one of the girls—a princess from a small but insanely wealthy European principality—had boasted about seducing the porter who had brought her bags up to her room while her mother had slept in a drug-fuelled haze in the next room. She’d threatened the man with losing his job if he told anyone.
Siena’s mouth hadn’t dropped open—but only because her own sister had told her far more hair-raising stories than that, and had inevitably been a main participant when she’d been a debutante.
That evening she’d managed to escape from her father and had tried to find Andreas, to explain why she’d lied, hating herself for the awful falsehood. She’d explored an area reserved for staff only, and had come to an abrupt halt outside a half-open door when she’d heard a newly familiar voice saying heatedly, ‘If I’d known how poisonous she was I’d never have touched her.’
A voice had pointed out coldly, ‘You’ve done it now, Xenakis. You shouldn’t have touched her in any case. Do
A huge shadow darkened her bedroom door and Andreas rapped out with clear impatience, ‘Actually, you can leave everything here. Unless there’s something of sentimental value. I’ll be supplying you with a new wardrobe.’
Siena just looked at Andreas. She saw an austerely handsome man, eager to get out of this hole of a place and take her with him so that he could mould her into what he wanted. He was so sure of himself now—a Titan of industry, used to having what he wanted when he wanted.
Siena didn’t doubt that most of the women in Andreas’s life were only too happy to comply with his demands, and she had to quash the dart of something dark at the thought of those women. Dismay gripped her. It wasn’t jealousy. It couldn’t be jealousy. She hated this man for what he was doing and what he’d become—he was welcome to his hordes of satisfied lovers.
Self-derision that she could allow this to happen to her and the knowledge that she had no choice because this was her only hope to help Serena made Siena’s spine straighten. Tersely she bit out, ‘Give me five minutes.’
CHAPTER FOUR
‘W HAT WILL HAPPEN to my flat?’
Siena was trying not to notice Andreas’s big hands on the steering wheel of his car, the way he handled it with such lazy confidence. Of course his car hadn’t been on blocks when they’d gone outside. The young kid had been watching it like a hawk and had stared at Andreas as if he was a god.
Siena didn’t know how to drive. Her father hadn’t deemed it necessary. Why would she need to drive if she was going to be chauffeur-driven everywhere?
Sounding crisp, Andreas replied, ‘I’ll have my assistant settle up with your landlord. She can also inform your employers that you won’t be coming back.’
Siena’s hands tightened in her lap. In a way it was karma. She’d lost him his job and now he was losing her hers. Just like that. With a mere click of his fingers, Andreas was changing her life and ripping her very new independence out from under her feet. If she only had herself to worry about she wouldn’t be here now, she assured herself inwardly, and hated the tiny seed of doubt that even then she could have held out against Andreas’s will, or the guilt she felt.
She wondered what Andreas would have done if he’d known that she couldn’t care less for his fortune? That his money wasn’t for her at all? But she was forgetting that this man didn’t care. Just as the younger man from five years ago hadn’t cared. He’d only wanted her because it had been a coup to seduce one of the untouchable debutantes; their supposed virtue had been more prized and guarded than a priceless heirloom in a museum.
Except that virtue had been a myth. Siena had known all too well just how touchable the vast majority of her fellow debs had been. They’d looked innocent and pure, but had been anything but. She could recall with vivid clarity, how one of the girls—a princess from a small but insanely wealthy European principality—had boasted about seducing the porter who had brought her bags up to her room while her mother had slept in a drug-fuelled haze in the next room. She’d threatened the man with losing his job if he told anyone.
Siena’s mouth hadn’t dropped open—but only because her own sister had told her far more hair-raising stories than that, and had inevitably been a main participant when she’d been a debutante.
That evening she’d managed to escape from her father and had tried to find Andreas, to explain why she’d lied, hating herself for the awful falsehood. She’d explored an area reserved for staff only, and had come to an abrupt halt outside a half-open door when she’d heard a newly familiar voice saying heatedly, ‘If I’d known how poisonous she was I’d never have touched her.’
A voice had pointed out coldly, ‘You’ve done it now, Xenakis. You shouldn’t have touched her in any case. Do
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