Forever and Ever, My Greek Billionaire(5)

“No more fucking games, Willow.”

It was the only warning she got before Stavros was cupping her face, forcing her to look at him. She panicked, gasping, “No—” but it was too late.

“I want you back, Willow—”

“No, shut up!” She couldn’t allow herself to hear him say that.

“In any way possible—”

“Let me go!” She struggled hard to be free from him, but it was impossible to go against his strength.

His face white at how hard she was trying to get away – from him – he continued doggedly, “So if you can’t love me—”

Her eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t say that,” she whispered brokenly. “Please don’t—”

“Then I’m going to buy you instead.”

Immeasurable pain lined his voice as he made his claim, and Willow’s teeth sank into her lip, knowing how much it had cost a proud man like Stavros to say the words.

Shiiiiiiiit.

She said the word over and over in her mind, and it was almost like a prayer as she sought for something to help her stay strong because it just wasn’t time yet. She could go to him now, but it would never be enough for either of them.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Bit by bit, it gave her the strength to wrench her wrist out of his hold. “I’m not for sale—”

He cut her off with a hollow laugh. “Not for sale?” he echoed derisively. “Who are you kidding, Willow?” His voice turned into a shout. “You betrayed me—”

“I wouldn’t have betrayed you if I had a choice!” She was shouting back at him. All the anger and the pain of the past few weeks had suddenly risen to the fore, and she couldn’t handle it any longer. She was so damn tired, so damn tired of playing the bad guy when all she wanted to do was throw herself into his arms and love him.

“You just don’t understand.” Tears clogged her voice even as she screamed the words.

“What don’t I understand?” Stavros gritted back. “Tell me! Do you think I haven’t realized the whole world’s already laughing at me? And I’m still here. Goddammit, I’m still here, and I’ve even sunk as low as wanting to buy you—”

“I don’t want you to buy me!” I want you to love me.

Her body shook at the effort to keep the words back – the words that her still-bleeding heart ached to say.

“Then what do you want me to do?” His hands clasped her shoulders hard, as if he wanted to shake the truth out of her.

She stared up at him, wanting to laugh and cry at the same time. A moment later, and she realized she already was, and it was uncontrollable. “If I could tell you, I would have.” She laughed and cried, and she just couldn’t stop.

Oh God, if she could only share the irony with him.

Stavros had whitened before her, and his hands on her shoulders tightened. “Stop laughing!”

“You’re so dense.” She laughed harder, cried harder. “No wonder your mother could run circles—”

Stavros’ hands fell from her shoulders.

And that was when she realized she had said the one thing she should never have said.

Her laughter died, her tears dried, but it was too late.

In front of her, Stavros was deathly pale, and his tone wasn’t quite even as he said, “I see.”

She tried to reach for him, anxious, but he shook his head and her anxiety turned into full-blown panic. “Stavros, I didn’t mean it that way—”

But she could see there was no reaching Stavros now.

He looked at her like he didn’t know her at all, and when he spoke it was as if she was dead to him. “I won’t ever bother you again.”

He turned and started walking away.

“Stavros, wait, please!” She tried running after him, but one of his bodyguards held her back. “Please, Stavros, I didn’t…” But Stavros was too far away to hear her now. Her voice died and her heart shattered anew.

Oh God.

Please just let him know how much I love him.

That’s all I ask.





Chapter Three





“You are sure this will do?” Willem de Konigh asked his friend skeptically.

The room that Stavros Manolis had chosen – and it was a room, not a suite, which the Greek billionaire was surely more used to – was one of the simplest in the palace, something ordinarily offered to visiting lower officials.

His friend smiled briefly. “It’s more than fine. I should be the one thanking you since I decided to attend the party without prior notice.”

“You know you’re always welcome here.” Willem’s tone was casual, but his gaze was keenly observant as he studied the way Stavros paced the length of the room. There was an unusual kind of tension about him, and Willem wondered if it had to do with the incident at the airport. His staff, trained to alert Willem about any major news concerning people in his life, had informed him about Stavros’ shouting match with the woman Willem himself had hired to work on his family’s autobiography.