“Doesn’t that put you off?”
“Put me off what, exactly?”He turned to face her.“My bride?My wedding night?Or are you thinking about one-way helicopter rides?”
He felt guilty when she winced.He never felt guilty.Was some sort of change underway?If that was happening it could only be due to the deepening hurt in his new wife’s eyes.“Aren’t helicopter rides your father’s favorite method of disposal?”he asked in a gentler tone.
Pulling herself together, Karolina firmed her jaw.“He trialed it on my mother and found it efficient, yes.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“I was an unfortunate accident, according to my father, who also told me that my mother was an incurable nag.I imagine by that he meant that she cared as I do for the women he kept chained up in the cellars—”
“Wow.”Applying the brake, he released his seat belt and sat back.This might take a moment.“Now it’s all coming out.Your father keeps women in the basement?”
“You didn’t know?”
He refused to answer.
Karolina glanced down at his basement windows.
“Don’t waste your time scanning my cellars.There’s a gym, pool, and a wine cellar.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Go on with your story.Karolina?”he prompted.
She paused a moment, and then went on.“The ambassador kept me alive to sell when I was ‘ripe for sale,’ as he put it, so let’s not pretend this wedding is anything more than the transaction my father has been anticipating for years.”
His butler had started down the steps to open the passenger door, while his valet was waiting on the sidewalk to take the car and park it in Conor’s underground garage.He would have liked more time to listen to Karolina while she was still in the mood for talking, but he’d have to wait for another opportunity.“We’ll talk again,” he promised.“Welcome to your new home, Mrs.Murphy.”She couldn’t know he was very different to her father.They hardly knew each other.“I hope you’re not disappointed?”He preferred the clean lines of his London house to the shadows at the embassy, and found himself hoping that Karolina did too.
“I had hoped to become a princess when I married,” she said dryly.
“Rather than plain Mrs.Murphy?Did you imagine the princess thing when you were a child?”
Karolina’s closed expression told its own story.Imagination could be an escape route from evil for a child, or for anyone, for that matter.“Sorry to disappoint, but I’m a rough man at heart,banprhionsa.That means princess,” he translated from the Irish.“Take me as I am, or don’t take me at all.”
“Bit late for that,” Karolina observed in the same dry tone.
“Would it help if I told you that my only shared interest with your father is polo?”He didn’t wait to hear her answer and climbed out of the car.Did she believe him?Only time would tell.Karolina’s life up to now hadn’t led her to trust easily or at all.
A glance at his butler ensured that Sanderson took over, launching into the reassuring patter he employed with all Conor’s guests.“Six beds, seven bathrooms, a swimming pool, cinema, and elevator access to every floor, should you need it,” Sanderson told Karolina smoothly as he escorted her and the wretched gown up the steps, “as well as a sauna and a steam room.Games room, gym, and media room—”
“What?No orangery?”Karolina’s gaze landed on him.
“Did Sanderson forget to mention the orangery and two-acre garden?”
“Almost unheard of in central London,” Sanderson confirmed.
“Indoor and outdoor pools,” Conor added, starting to laugh at the excesses he had accumulated without even realizing it.If Karolina continued to put his life under a microscope, goodness knew what they’d find.She made him see things he took for granted in clear focus, and he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad.
“You’re a very lucky man,” she commented.
“I work hard,” he dismissed.“I take it I’m allowed to carry you over the threshold?”He didn’t wait for Karolina’s reply.
Everything about Karolina screamed vulnerable.She’d seen too many terrible things not to be suspicious of his motives.This arrangement might have started out as a route into the ambassador’s organization, but in a short space of time, he had started to care about this woman, and whatever it took to bring the ambassador down, he had no intention of crushing yet another human being on the way.
“This is your suite of rooms,” Conor informed her brusquely.“I hope you like it.I’m off to take a shower.”
Mumbling something in reply, she wanted to believe that his house was different from the one she’d come from.All basements did not contain slaves.She had to remind herself of that several times before she could even begin to look around.
