“When Savas came to pick us up, he had specific conditions. If I was to live in his house, if I wanted Venetia to have everything she needed, I had to do anything and everything he asked of me.”
“What did he ask you to do?” Her question was instantaneous.
He leaned against the car, his hands folded. “He told me to never expect anything that I hadn’t earned. That I was his grandson meant nothing in the scheme of things. I was forbidden to mention my father or mother. Within a week, I started in his factory.”
She shot up, his matter-of-fact tone riling her own anger. “But that was...unnecessarily cruel of him.”
“He saved Venetia and me from a life of starvation and desperation. Only he refused to give it to us for free. It was not an unfair condition.”
Holding his gaze took everything Lexi had when she was shaking with fury inside. “Yes, if he was only your employer. But this is your grandfather, your family we are talking about.”
“Savas hated that my father walked out on all this. He wanted to ensure I didn’t end up another fool like him.”
Lexi wanted to argue some more, but the resolve etched into Nikos’s face stopped her. Now she understood why he had been so ready to blackmail her or pay her, how everything was a transaction, how everything had a price in his mind.
How could he be any different when that’s what he had been taught?
A thirteen-year-old boy, mourning his parents, dealing with his sister’s shock, fighting for survival, and the price for it had been that he show no weakness. Could she blame him when she knew the depths to which the need for survival could push a person?
“He messed you up, Nikos.” She said the words softly, slowly, burdened under a wave of sadness. Her childhood had been empty, her strongest memory was of craving for someone who would hold her, kiss her, hug her, love her unconditionally.
All she had ever wanted was to have a family.
Nikos, he had had one. And yet he had known less kindness than she had.
She heard Nikos’s laugh through the filter of her own teetering emotions. It was fire in his eyes, curving that sinful mouth. It mocked her for feeling sorry for him. “Everything Savas has done has been to my advantage. Have you seen where I’m in my life right now? I will be the CEO of Demakis International in a few months, will have everything my father didn’t have. Do you think I will ever be hungry again? We both know what that desperation feels like, agape mou. Admit it. Admit that any price is worth paying for it.”
“I have seen your place in the world. I almost drowned in that glorious bathtub. Are you truly blind to what price you’re paying for all this? Even sex is a transaction for you.”
He hulked over her in an ever so gentle way. But his gentility, his concern, they were all lost on her. “You can dish it out, Lexi, but can you take it? Do you want to hear some truths, as well?”
Her stomach dipped and dived, her nerves pinging with a thrilling excitement that spread through her like a fever. Now she knew why she had drawn him with that look in his eyes. Being near Nikos, feeling everything she did in his presence, she couldn’t spend another moment fooling herself.
She suddenly knew why her relationship with Tyler had failed on so many levels. Tyler and she had never meant to be more than friends. Ever. It was as if an invisible portal had been opened. Now she couldn’t unbelieve its existence whatever she did. “You’re right, I can’t,” she said, opting for cowardice. She wanted to run away before she betrayed herself, if he didn’t know already. “I can, however, tell you that Venetia and Tyler...whatever they share is not so weak as you imagine. There’s a fire between them. I’ve never...” She paused, the heat of his gaze lighting the very fire she had thought herself unaware of.