King's Price. Jackie Ashenden

       CHAPTER TWO

      Vita

      ‘YOU’VE GOT TO be kidding.’ I stared at my father in shock. ‘You want me to marry who?’

      Dad had that hard expression on his face, the one he always got when he wanted his own way. ‘Leon King, of King Enterprises. The one who—’

      ‘I know who he is,’ I interrupted, folding my hands in my lap so he wouldn’t see them shake. ‘The whole city knows the King brothers.’

      Property developers who’d made a lot of money in a very short space of time. Ex-criminals, some would say. Still criminals, said others.

      I had no opinion on the subject since it didn’t interest me. At least, it hadn’t interested me. Not until my father had called me—a shock in itself since I hadn’t had contact with either of my parents for about six months—and asked me to come to his downtown office for a meeting.

      I hadn’t wanted to—I had a report I had to write for my job as a research assistant at Sydney University and the last thing I felt like doing was trying to pretend I still had a relationship with my family. But he’d insisted. Told me it was important. That it concerned my sister.

      That I owed them.

      He wasn’t wrong. I did owe them. In fact, I’d been waiting ten years for him to call in that debt, because I’d had no doubt at all that he would. And now he had it was a relief in many ways.

      Except that he wanted me to marry some total stranger in place of my sister.

      ‘Why me?’ I tried to keep my voice calm and level because there was no point getting emotional. I’d learned that the hard way. ‘Did Clara say no?’

      Dad moved around behind his massive oak desk and sat down, giving me the cold judgemental look he’d perfected over the years. ‘Not exactly. I haven’t told her about it.’

      I blinked. This whole thing was getting weirder and weirder.

      Odd enough that Dad had called me out of the blue to ask me to take Clara’s place and marry some criminal, but that he hadn’t even told Clara about it...?

      ‘You’re going to have to explain,’ I said carefully. ‘Because I don’t understand how you can not tell Clara. Or even why you’re asking me, for that matter.’

      Dad was silent, staring at me as if weighing up what he wanted to say.

      I stared back. If he thought I was going to fall in line, like Mum and Clara always did, he could think again. Years ago, he’d sent me away to an aunt up north and I’d gone without protest, finishing my schooling away from Sydney society and its far-too-bright lights, burying myself in the relative obscurity of a tiny town and concerning myself only with my studies.

      But I wasn’t the same person now as I’d been back then. I wasn’t seventeen for a start, and I was happy out of the spotlight. In fact, out of the spotlight was where I wanted to stay.

      I had a nice, quiet, comfortable life in the labs at the university, completely separate from my family. A life I didn’t particularly want to change.

      ‘Fine,’ he said after a moment. ‘I have some...debts that need to be paid and King has offered to pay them for me. In return, he wants my help with legitimising the King name.’ Dad paused. ‘And to do that he wants to marry Clara.’

      Debts? I shoved that question aside for the moment.

      ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘How is marrying Clara going to legitimise the King name?’

      Anger burned in my father’s blue eyes. ‘He and his brothers are looking to break into the luxury apartment market and they need investors. So he wants me to get the business community on his side—allay fears about their past, that kind of thing.’ Dad said the words as if they tasted bad in his mouth. ‘He thinks marrying Clara will help.’

      I understood. Though their father had been imprisoned for his crimes years ago, the association still followed his sons around. Not that I knew much about them, aside from the fact that they were notorious for their cut-throat business practices as property developers.

      The business world wasn’t my world anyway. I preferred science, the quiet atmosphere of the lab I worked in and the comparatively small power plays that were university politics. Not that I involved myself with those either. I kept to myself and I liked it that way.

      ‘I see,’ I said carefully. ‘It seems an extreme move to marry Clara in order to get a few investors. You can’t refuse?’

      ‘No.’ The word was flat. ‘I need that bastard’s money.’ He paused. ‘It’s either that or bankruptcy.’

      I stared, shocked. ‘Bankruptcy? Seriously? Dad, what did you—?’

      ‘That’s not important,’ he interrupted. ‘The important thing is that he’s not going to get his dirty hands on Clara.’

      The implication bolted like a small pulse of electricity down my spine, reactivating old hurts, making them echo.

      Of course he’d never give up his precious Clara. He’s going to sacrifice you instead, the less important one...

      I ignored the thoughts. I was over that now. My older sister led a life of parties and social gatherings and shopping, all funded by Dad, but it wasn’t a life I wanted. I’d found my place in the lab and I was perfectly happy there. I didn’t need him or anyone else to validate me.

      ‘Yet you’re okay with him getting his dirty hands all over me,’ I commented dryly.

      Dad’s gaze flickered. ‘You’re stronger than she is, Vita. You always have been. You’ll be able to handle him. She won’t.’

      Ten years ago I would have lapped up his praise. Nowadays, I knew better. He wasn’t praising me—he was manipulating me.

      ‘You’re assuming I’m going to say yes.’

      His expression hardened. ‘You are. These debts must be paid. Including yours.’

      It stung, no point in pretending otherwise. He’d always blamed me for what had happened all those years ago, even though, at seventeen, I’d had no idea what I was doing. I’d thought Simon had loved me. I hadn’t known he would film himself taking my virginity and put it up on the Internet, with commentary, for his friends to laugh at.

      I hadn’t known that it would go viral and that soon everyone in the entire world would see it too—including my parents. There had been a media storm and some of the charities Dad did fundraising for and who sponsored Dad’s various business activities had withdrawn their sponsorship. Our family had been shamed and embarrassed socially, and it had taken at least six months before people had moved on to the next scandal.

      The damage had been done, though. Dad’s business empire had teetered on the brink of bankruptcy and it had taken years for him to drag it back.

      All because I’d been a seventeen-year-old girl who’d stupidly thought she was in love.

      My fault. And Dad never let me forget it.

      I looked down at my hands, clasped tightly in my lap. I had no answer to that and he knew it.

      ‘He won’t touch you,’ Dad said when I stayed quiet. ‘All you have to do is go through with the ceremony and live in his Darling