Page 11 of Modern Romance July 2025 #4-8

CHAPTER THREE

‘I S THIS YOUR version of inarticulate rage?’

Lizzie expelled the breath she’d been holding and slung him a killer look. ‘That is me thinking,’ she snapped, pointing at her face.

He arched a brow. ‘I hardly dare ask.’ She looked at him blankly. ‘What you were thinking,’ he elaborated.

‘You really don’t want to know,’ she snapped.

He threw back his head and laughed.

‘Even if what you said about Dad is true, and I don’t believe you…he would never trade me.’

Studying her set expression, he let it pass, feeling a pang of sympathy for how she was going to feel when she realised the truth. Her parent was willing to use her—a lesson he had learnt early in life.

‘I’m willing to hear any alternative theories.’

‘I can see your situation is difficult but if you speak to your grandfather I’m sure he will understand everyone grieves in a different way. Grieving is… There can’t be a timetable for such things, and Deb was so very beautiful.’

‘Do you still believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny too?’ he drawled.

‘There is no well of human understanding. My grandfather has always lived by his own rules, and now he has been robbed of that by a disease that doesn’t care he is Spyros Aetos.

He has no control over the disease, but there are things he still does have control over. ’

‘You, you mean. Then I feel sorry for you, but my dad would have no part in something so mad, so crazy.’

‘Being in financial difficulties makes the crazy seem perfectly legitimate. I do understand his position…the fait accompli is all my grandfather though.’

‘My dad doesn’t have financial difficulties.’

‘Your father has had money problems for some time. He overextended himself after Deb died. He made some reckless moves. Some very ill-judged decisions that could have paid off, but they didn’t. He was greedy.’ He acknowledged her angry little squeak of protest with a sardonic lift of one dark brow.

‘I would know.’

‘The banks have refused to give him another extension.’

‘What are you saying?’ She shook her head, not leaving him space to answer. She knew exactly what he was saying. ‘I can’t believe that he would not have told me.’

‘You can believe it, though, can’t you?’ he said, studying her face. He had rarely seen anyone who was less able to hide their feelings. ‘Of course, you know him better than me.’

‘My dad is very proud of what he has achieved.’

‘And how do you think he’d react to losing it?’

Her chin lifted at the sly insertion. ‘He’d never, never sell me…’

‘Well, let’s be honest, that is exactly what he is doing. I have some knowledge of your father and he has never struck me as a man who would admit his own failings, especially to a woman, and a woman who is his daughter.

‘But he is… A lot of people work for him. What will happen to them?’

‘I’m impressed you are thinking about others,’ he said, not sounding at all impressed. ‘But you’ve never been poor.’

She flashed him an impatient look. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘You planning on getting a paid job at the stables? That might involve getting your pretty hands dirty mucking out. Wouldn’t you miss your pretty cottage, your allowance?’

Her laugh cut off his taunts and she had the satisfaction of seeing a puzzled expression flicker across his lean face. She had surprised Adonis Aetos, and she was willing to bet that not many people managed that.

‘You think you know me, but actually you know nothing about me.’

‘Then educate me.’

She hesitated and then shrugged. ‘Fine. I don’t have an allowance. The cottage is mine.’

He shrugged, assuming that she had received an inheritance from her mother’s estate. It didn’t really change the essentials. She didn’t possess the skill or the will to earn her own living.

‘As for getting my hands dirty?’ She extended her hands palm upwards and turned them over, displaying her neatly trimmed, short, unpolished nails. ‘I have no problem with that, no problem at all.’

She paused, her eyes widening. ‘How much money does Dad need, do you think?’ she wondered out loud. Her brief flare of hope faded. The investment that she’d only last week signed off on meant that she had no access to her money for four years. Money she had thought she could not possibly need.

‘How much do you suppose my cottage is worth?’

Her first instincts appeared to be shockingly selfless. A day-old chick probably had more self-protective instincts than this woman.

‘It would not make a dent in what your father owes the bank.’

‘There must be some way,’ she murmured under her breath.

‘There is…’ He paused, clicking his tongue as he leaned forwards and removed her white-knuckled hands from the arms of the chair and laid them on her lap.

Her blue eyes flew to his face.

‘You’ll cut off the circulation,’ he said, unable to take his eyes off the specks of blood on her full lower lip where she had worriedly gnawed at the soft flesh. She had a mouth that fantasies were made of.

‘Don’t worry. I think your father has found his own way—’

‘You can’t say that,’ she tossed back angrily. ‘This is guesswork. You’re just—’

‘Not exactly,’ he interrupted. ‘I have an inside source in my grandfather’s office who—’

She launched to her feet. ‘Spies for you! That’s disgusting. You spy on your own family!’

‘I do not spy on my family,’ he contradicted, looking irritated by her emotional response.

‘I have someone close to my grandfather who has his best interests at heart. He did not reveal any secrets, but when I suggested a hypothetical scenario that involved your father pocketing cash and us walking dutifully up the aisle he did not deny it.’

‘That sounds like spying to me,’ she countered, clinging to her denial as she started restlessly pacing the room, pausing to finger a lamp or stroke a cold marble surface tinged to a warm glow by the sun shining through the tinted plate-glass wall.

He watched her, able to feel the tension emanating from her as he got to his feet in one lithe motion. ‘So you accept we have been set up.’

She paused and turned. Her height advantage had only ever been an illusion and as he uncoiled to his full height with lazy elegance she recognised it as such.

She nodded, pressing a hand to her forehead as the words filled with pent-up emotion burst from her. ‘I know I’m not the son, or even the daughter, especially the daughter, he wanted, but how…how could Dad have put me in this position?’

‘Desperation makes men do reckless things.’

‘Crazy things!’ she contradicted.

‘Semantics and your moral outrage aside, you say this is a crazy action?’ He shrugged. ‘And yes, but it is fuelled by desperation. Will you listen for a moment?’ he snapped, cutting off her imminent protest and grabbing both her wrists before she could continue her agitated pacing.

He loomed over her, capturing her eyes with his.

‘Will you listen?’

After a moment she nodded, mainly because she couldn’t escape his dark stare.

‘My grandfather knew about the seriousness of his condition for six months before he informed anyone in the family, which was when I approached someone who is loyal to him.’

‘Your spy?’

‘He agreed to inform me if there were things pertaining to his health that I…we as a family needed to know. Last month he was given the news that he only had weeks to live.’

The muscles quivering along his taut jaw gave a lie to his emotionless delivery. Despite the situation, Lizzie’s tender heart ached for him, though she was aware he was not interested in her heart, tender or otherwise.

He cleared his throat. ‘The latest scans show there are more secondary tumours, this time in his brain.’

‘Your family—’

‘This is not news I have shared except with you. My father would have him declared unfit if he got wind of it. They have never…got on.’

‘You think this explains…’ she spread her hands wide and shook her head ‘…this…today.’

‘Who knows?’ He held her eyes in a stranglehold grip, the message in his dark-lashed compelling stare grave and sombre. ‘I’d like my grandfather to die a happy man.’

She didn’t pretend not to understand what he was saying.

‘Would you being engaged…? Would it really make that much of a difference to him?’

‘Me being married, the idea that I would produce the heir he longs for, but I think it wise to keep a closer eye on things, which is why I was making arrangements to go home, but events have moved on. Now I think the best way to deal with this is… Well, cut out the middleman.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I’m sure that the matchmakers have their next move planned. Your father will appeal to your better nature. You clearly have one,’ he observed, making it sound like a flaw. ‘My grandfather will… Well, let’s face it, he has the winning hand. He is dying.’

‘Not really a winning hand… Sorry, I didn’t mean to be flippant.’

‘You’re just being factual, but I’m assuming you get my drift?’ he said, as though it was obvious.

‘Not really.’

‘I think we should get married!’