Kitabı oku: «To Catch A Bride», sayfa 3

CHAPTER THREE

THAT stinging insult hadn’t been Niko’s most shining hour. He watched his ex-fiancée wince. Odd, he didn’t feel quite the surge of satisfaction he’d thought he would.

She opened her mouth, but before she could respond, he grasped her elbow and steered her up the steps into the mansion’s foyer.

“But, Mr. Var—”

“By the way,” he cut in, uncompromising in his plan to teach his fickle ex-fiancée a lesson about breaking pledges. “Regarding your gushing thanks earlier—you’re quite welcome. It’s my pleasure.” He knew his forbidding expression would underscore the lie.

She startled him when she yanked from his hold and spun to confront him. “Will you be here the whole time?” Her eyes, a captivating lavender-gray, sparked with animosity and distress. Though her face was the perfect oval he’d admired in her picture, he was becoming acquainted with her chin of iron determination. At the moment, it jutted accusingly. Her jet-black hair flowed out in soft waves from a center part. Disheveled from the convertible ride, the thick mane gleamed, a dusky aura around her flushed face.

She looked a little crazed, in an engaging way. His heated reaction to a mass of glossy hair and a blush made him furious with himself. He didn’t like this woman. She might be attractive but she was flighty and couldn’t be trusted to keep important promises. This flaw in her character had caused him no end of embarrassment. He hadn’t been able to go anywhere in the city without being ribbed that he’d been “left at the altar,” not to mention all the pointing and staring from strangers.

“Well,” she demanded, aiming that lethal little chin at his heart. “Are you planning to be here?”

With a studied nonchalance he didn’t feel, Niko shrugged his hands into his jeans pockets. “If you’ll recall, I’m on vacation.”

“Don’t you have a place in town?” Her voice had gone high-pitched and shrill. She was truly alarmed about this turn of events. That knowledge sent a rush of malevolent pleasure through him. “My place in town needs repair work,” he said. “I’ll be staying here for the duration.”

“Duration?” she squeaked.

“Three weeks.”

Her horrified expression almost made him smile.

“But—but that’s how long…” Her voice broke and she didn’t finish. They both knew she needed to be there that long. He watched her swallow several times, obviously trying to get her voice under control. “You lied to me,” she whispered at last.

“Did I?” He challenged her with his most innocent expression.

“Yes!” She glared, clearly attempting to kill him with that look. “When you said you wouldn’t be here. You lied!”

“Charles told you he wouldn’t be here.”

“But he—you—allowed me to assume—”

“What you assume, Miss Angelis, is hardly my fault.”

She blinked, then her stare grew wider, as though she’d had a distasteful thought. “Do you think you need to keep an eye on me? Is that why you’re staying? You don’t trust me to get the job done?”

That wasn’t the reason, but the idea had merit. “Why would I need to do that?” he asked. “When have I ever known you to break your word?”

She opened her lips, but plainly shaken by his direct shot, couldn’t seem to form words. Niko gave her no time to recoup and dropped a bomb. “The fact is, this is a beautiful piece of property. I own it, so why shouldn’t I stay? After all, this was supposed to be my honeymoon.”

He heard her guttural moan and knew he’d drawn blood. “This is—this is bad!” She rubbed her temples as though trying to ward off a headache. “I can’t take your insults for three weeks. I can’t even take them for three minutes.” The butler came down the steps. At the sound of his approach, she whirled. “Excuse me, sir.” She waved frantically. “Please, get my bags. I’m leaving.”

“I thought you’d bail out, again,” Niko said, baiting her.

“Bail out?” She whirled, giving him another direct shot with that lethal chin. “How dare you say I’m bailing out! It’s nothing of the sort! I simply won’t subject myself to your mocking and insulting, and if you even thought I might, you’re—you’re demented!”

“I never thought you would,” he lied. He knew damn well what she would do, and stared her down as she blustered and stammered, trying to convince herself she wasn’t a quitter. She might have been able to bail out on him and their marriage, but she had never met him. Her job was another thing entirely. She knew her job, and was passionate about her work. He’d done enough research on her to be sure of that. She would stay, or Niko Varos wasn’t the hotshot international financial consultant people thought he was.

“N-nothing—” she stammered, “not this house, not any house—is worth—” she indicated the faded grandeur of an entry hall, decorated in retro-fifties camp “—worth putting up with your—with your…”

Her glance trailed her broad gesture. Before she completed her sweep, she stilled. Her lips sagged and her distressed expression changed into one of abject horror, as though she only now absorbed the scandalous violation done to this mansion and its proud Victorian roots.

The fine old wood floor had been painted in a green-and-yellow checkerboard pattern. The wallpaper bore a splashy, modern art look Niko assumed were supposed to be untidy piles of pipe. The dangling light fixture consisted of three beach-ball-size yellow, plastic orbs. Beneath them sat a sprawling amoeba-shaped table with a marbled mirror top, supported by spindly metal legs.

She covered her mouth with both hands and strangled a gasp as she staggered around in a circle. Niko watched as her glance fell to a side wall. A round, molded plywood table stood between two doors. Atop its indented surface squatted a funky lamp made to resemble a big lightbulb. Kalli bit her lip, her glance skidding to another wall where a yellow, rectangular clock, the size of a breakfast tray dominated.

The clock’s hands were disconcertingly off-center. An oversize, red secondhand tick-tick-ticked as she stared, wide-eyed. Niko had the sense each jerk of that red, mechanical arm boomed in her head as she suffered, second by painful second. He had to fight a knowing grin as he observed her sluggish, stumbling body language. Only seeing her scream and collapse in a traumatized heap would have made it more obvious she was experiencing a gut-wrenching ache to rescue the place from its gross defilement.

“Cute, isn’t it?” he taunted, well aware he was being cruel. “I especially like the lead-pipe motif in the wallpaper.”

“Oh—dear heaven…” she whimpered, shaking her head. “It’s so—so wrong. It’s dreadful.”

“But is it dreadful enough to endure a brief captivity in a hell-on-earth?”

She stood with her back to him, her shoulders slightly drooped. He sensed her turmoil and gave her a moment to agonize over the knowledge that beneath layers of wrong-headed embellishments a masterpiece cried out to be liberated. He could almost hear her thinking, I could save this house. I must save it! He pursed his lips to suppress a shrewd grin.

The thud of his butler’s footsteps drew his gaze once again to the central staircase. The liveried man descended, carrying a suitcase and shoulder tote.

Niko’s attention slid to his angsting ex. She, too, had heard the butler and looked up. Niko waited, silent. At the moment, it would be unwise to remind her of his unwelcome presence. In order for her to make the decision that fit with his ploy, she needed to think of the house and only the house.

“I—uh…”

Niko watched her straighten her shoulders. “I’m sorry.” She moved toward the stairs, addressing the butler. “I’m staying, after all.” She rushed up the steps and took the bags. “Please show me to my room.”

Belkin glanced at his employer, his expression pinched with confusion.

Niko nodded, experiencing a rush of satisfaction. He allowed himself a crafty grin as he watched her trudge, stiff-backed and squeamish, into the lion’s den.

Kalli unpacked her bag in a bizarre trancelike state. She walked back and forth from her suitcase to the chartreuse dresser with its aluminum top and side trim and cane inset drawers.

As she put her belongings away her brain screamed, Three weeks? You’ve agreed to stay under the same roof with a man who obviously hates you for three whole weeks? What are you using your brain for, Kalli? To keep your skull from imploding?

After a sound tongue-lashing from the logical section of her cranium, the artistic quarter leaped into the fray and lashed back. But he was right when he said three weeks in a hell-on-earth would be worth the opportunity to transform this abused Victorian treasure into the monument to American history it should be.

Reality check, Kalli! The man hates you, and intends to make your life miserable. Are you ready for that?

I don’t know! I don’t know! Leave me alone! She plunked down on the bed and grabbed handfuls of hair. Closing her fingers into fists, she muttered, “I know he hates me and wants me to suffer for running out on the wedding. But…”

She scanned the bedroom with its sublime fourteen-foot ceiling. Once, long ago it had been lovely. The original casement windows still held their quaint bull’s-eye panes. And she’d seen a glimpse of the original parquet planking, visible in the closet. Green and burnt-umber carpeting, sporting a haphazard hoop-and-cube design, hid the wonderful old floor from view. The room’s deep, simply molded baseboards were classically Victorian. The ornate cornices were exemplary, too; but painted the same gray-green as the walls, their splendor was so camouflaged it was all but lost.

Kalli knew the fifties had been a decade of budding space exploration. America’s love affair with aeronautical technology brought with it decorating schemes of unornamental flatness, geometric forms and daring color combinations. Kalli had always considered the look airy, sleek, clean and bright. Unfortunately, in the case of this home, someone had heavy-handedly inflicted the retro-fifties veneer on beautiful old Victorian architecture. Rather than sleek and pleasing, the effect was not only criminally inappropriate but erratic and unnerving.

Could restoring this sleeping goddess to her virginal glory be worth three weeks of guaranteed hell, tormented and badgered by a vindictive male? She inhaled, her gaze roving over the bedchamber. Her heart swelled as she envisioned all it could be. It would be a sin to run away. The house needed her. On both an emotional level and a professional level, she would regret leaving for the rest of her life. “Yes,” she breathed, experiencing a renewed flow of courage. “Yes! It’s worth anything Mr. Varos might choose to put me through.”

She shoved off the bed, glaring toward the room’s chartreuse door. “If insulting me and making me squirm is your idea of a vacation, Mr. Varos, then do your worst. Go ahead and watch me like a hawk, but you won’t find my work wanting. And I won’t run away!” She threw back her head and placed her hands on her hips. “Because Kalli Angelis is made of sterner stuff than you know. I’ll turn this Bitterweed into an American Beauty Rose, no matter how much grief you pile on my head. And you can take that to your precious bank!”

Kalli didn’t want to waste a minute under Nikolos Varos’s roof, so that afternoon she got started, trekking from magnificent room to magnificent room snapping photographs and scribbling copious notes. With each new encounter, she was simultaneously awed and appalled. Obviously Mr. Varos had purchased the place with the furniture included. She couldn’t believe he would have recently acquired it, furnished it to match the misguided decor, only to immediately commission someone to have it completely redone. Not unless he had more money than sense. Which was a possibility, she supposed. Somebody had inflicted this travesty on the lovely old home.

Though she worked with dogged single-mindedness, she could always tell when Niko was near. So much for her reputed single-mindedness. Even his momentary loitering in a neighboring hallway short-circuited her ability to think, let alone be creative.

Every time she heard the distinctive rap of his step or sniffed his woodsy aftershave, her focus grew hazy. Architectural details became nondescript and peculiarly irrelevant. What was her problem? Why couldn’t she concentrate when he happened by? Was it anxiety? Was she waiting for the other shoe to drop and wondering exactly how deafening the explosion would be? Did she expect him to leap out at her and shout “boo”? Or douse her with a water hose?

Working to shut her mind to everything but her note-taking, she peeled away a corner of silvered wallpaper to discover the faded remnants of a stunning handmade woodblock design. Even as agitated as she was, Kalli managed an appreciative smile and jotted the information in her workbook. Once again the wondrous reality of her good luck gave her a fleeting reprieve from thoughts of Nikolos Varos and his lurking glower.

The afternoon passed without any shoes dropping or massive explosions. As a matter of fact, he’d said nothing at all to her. He didn’t even join her at dinner, so she ate alone in a room that could have housed a double-decker bus. In the overpowering silence she picked at something tasty, exotic and crab-meaty, but she hardly noticed it.

Her interest lay in scanning the dining room. Walls, paneled up to the dado rail, had once been stained a rich walnut, but were now painted a nasty orange. Coordinating wallpaper depicted a psychedelic skirmish of color and design that would have sent Kalli scurrying under the table if the structure hadn’t been such a scary, stainless-steel monstrosity. Its brushed serpentine surface was so cold to the touch, Kalli found herself holding her utensils by their extreme ends to keep from making contact.

Twenty molded fiberglass chairs, thinly upholstered in lemon vinyl with skinny metal legs, surrounded the table like half-starved munchkins attempting to hold the slithering beast at bay. She experienced an ironic giggle and mumbled, “Kalli, you’re not in Kansas anymore. You’re definitely in Oz.”

She glanced up. Where crystal chandeliers once sparkled in the lofty space between the paneled ceiling and table, tract lighting now dominated. Fuzzy fiberglass cones angled hither and yon, illuminated random snippets of space. Kalli shivered at the chilly severity the room generated. “If you want my opinion, Mr. Varos,” she muttered, “the decor suits you perfectly.”

“Thank you.”

She squealed and jerked. When she turned toward the deep voice, she pressed her hands to her chest. “What are you trying to do, give me a heart attack?”

He ambled through the arched entry, still clad in his jeans, looking more like a hunky handyman who’d arrived to do a repair weld on the table than to play host. “Enjoying the Crab Chantilly?”

She eyed him critically. “Why? Is it poisoned?”

He grinned and took a seat opposite her. “How did we get off to such a poor start, Miss Angelis?”

She lay her forearms on the table and leaned in his direction. “Maybe, because you hate me, and you’re having trouble hiding it?”

He sat forward, mimicking her belligerent pose, though his lips remained curved in a grin. “I’m not trying to hide it, Miss Angelis.”

She sat back, giving up her attempt at intimidation. No matter how she might try, she knew she couldn’t outbelligerent Nikolos Varos. Especially when he could do it so masterfully—and still smile. The look in his smoky eyes was cool and treacherous. A tremor raced along her spine as she recalled thinking the room generated a chilly severity. How naive she’d been only moments ago. The place seemed grandly welcoming, now, compared to the man with the calculating grin, watching her silently from across the table.

“So,” he began, after a nerve-shredding pause. “Beside the fact that the decor suits me, what is your initial impression of my home?”

She didn’t like the fact that he’d joined her. Didn’t like the cynical half smile that screamed his contempt. But she was a professional, and he was—at least on the surface—asking a business question. Shoring up the cracks in her emotions, she opted to rise above sniping level. She cleared her throat and placed her hands in her lap. That way she could squeeze them into fists and he wouldn’t know. “Actually,” she began, then swallowed to clear the nervous wobble from her tone. “Actually, Mr. Varos, I have no—”

“Niko,” he said, lounging back.

She blinked, startled. “What?”

“I said, Niko.” He looked away for a moment and motioned someone forward. She followed his gaze. A servant approached holding a plate of steaming food and she experienced a spike of agitation. Was Mr. Varos joining her? Had he planned his arrival to make sure he was insultingly late? Another server followed close behind the first, carrying a tray of miscellany. Her host’s gaze returned to snag hers. “Call me Niko, Miss Angelis. I insist.”

She felt an uncomfortable certainty that he expected her to extend him the same privilege, but she couldn’t bring herself to offer it. The emotional distance of calling him Mr. Varos was more in keeping with how she wanted their relationship to be.

She’d thought of him as Niko when she’d had visions of them—married. Her fantasies had included such phrases as, “I’d like you to meet Niko, my husband,” and “Niko, darling, thank you for the roses,” or “Niko, dear, please pass me the cream.” How ridiculous and adolescent all that seemed now—now that she’d met the man. Not the kind and fun-loving person her grandfather had described, but a vengeful, smirking brute.

Calling him Niko seemed too intimate, considering the way they’d become unengaged, and his offensive attitude toward her. She didn’t like to think about it, but the very sound of his given name sent a shaft of renewed guilt charging through her.

Maybe she’d brought out the vengeful brute in him. Maybe he was relatively nice to people who didn’t jilt him on his wedding day. She swallowed, trying to dislodge a lump in her throat. But there was nothing to be done about that, now. She’d dumped him flat and she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t want to—except the way she’d dumped him. That had been rash and thoughtless, even taking into consideration her grief over Grandpa Chris’s death.

She felt uneasy and angry, too—both at herself and at him, for ever considering an arranged marriage. No! She could never call him Niko. Not in a million years. The very idea conjured up too much emotional baggage, too many guilty, uncomfortable memories. It was out of the question.

When his dinner had been set before him along with silverware, cup and saucer and silver coffeepot, he took up his fork and glanced her way. “And what would you like me to call you?”

“Uh—look…” She experienced a stab of panic. “There’s nothing wrong with retro-fifties decor.” She had no idea how her mind hopped and skidded to that topic. Still, the change of subject was as good a way as any to stall until she had her refusal to call him Niko worked out in businesslike, noninflammatory words.

“I’ve seen lovely homes done in that style. But mid-twentieth century modernism and Victorian don’t mix. At least I don’t think they do, but I’m a purist. That’s why—” her brain worked a mile a minute, struggling to phrase this properly, at the same time groping for a polite way to reject him…again “—when I said the decor was perfect for you, I didn’t necessarily mean—”

“Yes, you did, Miss Angelis,” he interrupted, pouring himself a cup of coffee. With a questioning lift of an eyebrow he asked, “Would you care for a refill?”

She shook her head, her cheeks fiery with mortification. He was right, of course. She had meant to be insulting. But darn the man, when she’d said it she didn’t know he could hear her. Skulking at the door was unfair. Why was it that the one time she hadn’t detected his nearness was the time she had to open her big mouth?

“Why don’t I call you Kalli?” he suggested, his expression inquisitive, in a sly way. “No need to be formal.”

She scooped up a forkful of her food and took a bite. Another delaying tactic, but not nearly long enough. What if she set the curtains on fire? That would be a better stall. Ultimately, the problem of whether he called her Kalli or Miss Angelis would be solved, since she would be rotting away in some prison on an arson conviction, and he would have no need to call her anything, ever again.

“After all,” he went on, seeming not to notice her continued silence, “if we had actually married, I’d be calling you Kalli.”

She felt another swift jab to her solar plexus. That did it! Flinching, she slammed down her fork, incensed at his continued harassment. “Look, Mr. Varos, I know you’re mad at me, and you have every right. I shouldn’t have broken my promise the way I did. Feel free to be as furious as you care to be, for as long as you like. I apologize! I apologize with ever fiber of my being. If I could take it back, I would. But we both know I can’t.”

She leaned forward, the flats of her hands on the cold table. Tears welled and she blinked them back, struggling to keep her voice even. “Mr. Varos, considering your feelings about me—well, to put it bluntly, you and I are not friends. We both know you don’t like me or trust me. So harass and belittle me to your heart’s content if it will salve your wounded pride, but don’t expect me to call you Niko.”

She shoved up to stand, almost upending her chair in the process. “As for what you may call me, I prefer Miss Angelis.” She had a hard time holding eye contact, but she made herself. “If you’ll excuse me, I intend to go to my room and get some sleep so I can start bright and early tomorrow. I’m going to get this job done—and done well—as quickly as humanly possible. The sooner I never see you again, Mr. Varos, the happier we’ll both be,” she sucked in a much-needed breath, then added gravely, “Are we clear?”

He lounged there, watching her for the longest moment of Kalli’s life. His expression was contemplative, with only the slightest downturn of his lips. Finally he nodded. “You’ve made yourself very clear,” he said quietly.

She crash-landed off her adrenaline high and felt sick to her stomach and mushy in the knees. What had she just done? Was there one single word in that shrewish outburst that had been businesslike and noninflammatory? She would eat the stainless-steel table if there was. She’d gladly eat it. Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. And had any apology in the history of apologies been shouted less apologetically? Was that any way to make amends? What was wrong with her? She never shouted at people, especially when she was apologizing. Why did this man drive her to the brink of insanity?

Not only had her apology been unforgivably rude, but what of her work? Refurbishing this mansion was the chance of a lifetime and in a fit of temper she’d thrown it out the window.

Fighting a need to burst into tears over her rashness, she crossed her arms before her, hoping her bravado would hide her misery. “So—so I’m fired, right?” It’s better this way, she told herself. I might miss out on a career-making opportunity, but I won’t have to put up with Nikolos Varos’s tyranny!

Placing an arm across the back of an adjacent chair, Niko motioned toward the door with the casual wag of his fingers. It was the most trifling dismissal she’d ever witnessed. “Sweet dreams, Miss Angelis.”

She hesitated, blinking in bafflement. “So—so, I am fired?”

He watched her with a critical squint. “Is that what your employers usually say when they fire you?”

She recoiled at his sarcasm. “I’ve never been fired in my life!”

He pursed his lips, continuing to hold her prisoner with his narrowed stare. “Well,” he said at last, “just so you’ll know, sweet dreams is not code for you’re fired.” His lips quirked suspiciously. “But deep down, you want me to fire you, don’t you, Miss Angelis?”

She was so torn she didn’t know what she wanted, deep down or otherwise. But she had to admit, her life would be instantly easier if he did. She canted her head this way and that, trying to form an answer that was even vaguely sensible.

After what seemed like an hour in the distressing stillness, he leaned forward and took up his fork. “Go to bed, Miss Angelis.” Focusing on his cooling meal, he added, “I don’t intend to make it that easy for you.” He flicked her a quick, accusing glance. “Remember, you can always quit,” he said, thinly. “You’re good at that.”