Her heart twisted at that. His words, and his vision of her. It was so warming, so uplifting, she found herself almost forgetting the nightmare of her situation, simply so she could revel in the way he saw her.
‘The cabin with you was really no hardship,’ she felt compelled to say.
He squeezed her legs. ‘Either you face up to him, and suffer the consequences. On your own, if you insist,’ he said, before she could argue. ‘Or you let me help you.’
Her heart twisted as she shook her head. ‘I can’t, Nikos. We barely know each other.’
His expression darkened. ‘That is not how I would characterise our relationship.’
‘That’s because you’re a hermit,’ she muttered. ‘And help me how? I don’t want your money.’
‘I willloanyou the money,’ he said. ‘And you can pay me back whenever you’re ready. I cannot see it’s any worse than owing him.’
She shook her head. How could she make him understand? She didn’t want to owe anyone anything. ‘Even if you did, he’d still go to the press about Dad. Don’t you get it? He’s got me over a barrel. He always did.’
A muscle ticced in his jaw. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a beat. ‘Which is why we’ll get engaged.’
If she’d been drinking, she would have spat it out. She spluttered her surprise, coughing because then she lost her breath.
‘I amnotmarrying you. Or anyone. Ever. No way.’
‘I have no intention of getting married either.’
She blinked at him through the tears her shortness of breath had produced. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Being engaged is not the same thing as getting married. We’ll enter into a fake engagement, so your husband knows that if he messes with you, he gets me, too.’
She stared at him with total shock. It was not, in fact, the worst plan she’d heard. Knowing James, the misogynistic jackass, as she did, only the presence of someone bigger, stronger and richer would ever have a chance in hell of cowering him. While she absolutely despised the reality of that, she knew it to be the case. If she took option A, and confronted him alone, she had no doubt James would let all hell break loose. Including humiliating her father’s memory, for the sake of it.
But with Nikos apparently in her life and by her side, she doubted James would be stupid enough to do anything.
‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ she said, shaking her head, even as the possibility spread through her.
‘You are not asking. I am suggesting it. If I thought it appropriate, I would insist upon it, but it would be better for both of us if you came to the decision yourself.’
She narrowed her eyes at that, ignoring the feeling she might be getting out of the frying pan and into the fire, moving from one dictatorial man to another. Nikos wasnotlike James. He was commanding and in control, but he was also respectful and fair.
Hadn’t she thought the same thing about James though, at first? Hadn’t she believed him to be all that was good and decent?
What if she was wrong about Nikos? She needed an insurance policy, something to protect her. ‘This could be a very bad idea.’
‘Why?’
‘Honestly? Because I’m scared. I’m scared of letting my guard down, especially with someone like you.’
‘That makes sense. You don’t want to get hurt again.’
She nodded.
‘Will it placate you if I promise that, from this point on, I will do everything in my power to ensure that doesn’t happen?’
She pulled her lips to the side. ‘I don’t know.’
‘This does not need to last long. A few weeks of being photographed together, and, at some point, the inevitable confrontation with your ex, and then we can quietly go back to our normal lives. If he approaches you, you can contact me through my business manager, Theo, and I will reappear, to make sure he doesn’t step out of line.’
It was tempting. Tempting because the idea of having someone like Nikos to throw in James’s face made her battered and bruised heart lift with pleasure.
But this was Nikos’s life. ‘Surely this is your worst nightmare.’
