Page 40 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

She hurried up the stairs, knowing she must face her father—but not, dear God, with the true extent of her feelings.

Not that I even know what they are. I’m all in pieces—completely in pieces!

Her father was in bed, and the massive bed frame was dwarfing him, she realised with a pang, as it had never done previously. He looked frail and ill. The pang in her heart struck more deeply, but she put a cheerful smile on her face, moving across to kiss his sunken cheek.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked brightly.

‘That depends on you,’ came the laboured reply. ‘You have been to dinner with young Kavadis? Of course I knew! He asked my permission first! So...’ he levelled his sunken eyes on her ‘...what answer have you given him?’

Dismay flushed through her. She could see in his eyes what she did not want to see. Expectation...and hope.

She felt her stomach clench.

‘Papa, I—’ Her mouth was dry suddenly. ‘It...it was...out of the blue.’

She sounded like a Victorian maiden, she thought wildly, trotting out the traditional Oh, this is so sudden! prevarication.

The expression in her father’s eyes changed. It was knowing now—amused, even. As though his daughter was an open book to him. And Nikos too.

‘Really?’ he riposted sceptically. ‘The man hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you! Right from when he walked into my party! Do you think I can’t tell when a man has been struck by lightning? Oh, you may play the ice queen,’ he said, the amusement deepening, ‘but that can be alluring to a man like him. He’s a man who knows what he wants. He’s made himself something from nothing—achieved everything he wanted. And now...’ his eyes rested on Calanthe and she could not escape their message ‘...he wants you.’

She felt her face tighten. ‘What he wants, Papa, is your company!’ she bit out.

He waved his hand again. ‘Of course he does! I would not respect him if he didn’t!’ His voice changed, and there was shrewdness in his face once more. ‘And I would not contemplate him coming within a hundred metres of it if I didn’t think he had three essential qualities. One—ambition. The way I had it, Calanthe, when I started out in business. The kind of ambition to make something of myself—as he has already proved he has. The second is competence. I will not let what I have spent my life building up be in the hands of someone who isn’t capable. And the third...’

Calanthe saw his expression change, soften.

‘The third is obvious.’

He held his hand out to her. Automatically she took it, feeling its warmth, its cherishing. A lump rose in her throat.

‘He will make a good husband for you, pethi mou. Truly he will. To him, you are a prize in yourself—not just because you are my daughter! He values you as a man should value the woman he marries.’

He shut his eyes for a moment, then opened them again. Naked longing was clear in them for her to see.

‘It’s all I want for you, my darling, dearest daughter. To see you settled and happy. With a man who is worthy of you.’

She heard his words. Felt ice pool in her stomach.

Worthy.

Nikos Kavadis was ‘worthy’ of her...

The ice in her stomach chilled even more.

She felt her father squeeze her hand, then release it. He looked tired suddenly, and weary, and ill. The lump in her throat thickened, and fear clutched at her. What if he never recovered from his bypass? What if his ailing heart failed again? This time for ever...

Ice pooled in her again—but not because of Nikos.

‘I just long to see you settled,’ her father said again, and in his voice there was longing and hope—and fear. Fear that she might not, not even now, when he was lying there, stricken and frail, his brush with death narrowly escaped.

Heaviness filled her, and a sense of the room closing in on her. It left nothing but herself, sitting on her father’s bed, looking at his face filled with all that he wanted for her.

Slowly, she got to her feet. ‘I know, Papa, I know,’ she said softly.

Love was in her eyes, and pity too—and anguish.

She bent to kiss his cheek, to murmur goodnight to him. But as she turned and left the room there was something else in her eyes.

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