He couldn’t say he completely regretted becoming Gideon Vozaras. At sixteen—nineteen according to the fresh ink on his ID—he’d sunk every penny he had into a rusting sieve of a tugboat. He repaired it, ran it, licensed it out to another boatman and bought another. Seven years later, he leveraged his fleet of thirty to buy an ailing shipyard. When that started to show a profit, he established his first shipping route. He barely slept or ate, but people started to call him, rather than the other way around.
Fully accepted as an established business by then, he’d still possessed some of his less than stellar morals. When he was ready to expand and needed an injection of capital, he started with a man known to let his ego rule his investment decisions. Gideon had walked into the Makricosta headquarters wearing his best suit and had his salesman’s patter ready. He’d been willing to say whatever he needed to get to the next level.
He’d been pulled up by an hourglass figure in a sweater set and pencil skirt, her heels modest yet fashionable, her black hair gathered in a clasp so the straight dark tresses fell like a plumb line down her spine. She turned around as he announced himself to the receptionist.
He was used to prompting a bit of eye-widening and a flush of awareness in a woman. If the receptionist gave him the flirty head tilt and smooth of a tendril of hair, he missed it. His mouth had dried and his skin had felt too tight.
Adara’s serene expression had given nothing away, but even though her demeanor had been cool, his internal temperature had climbed. She had escorted him down the hall to her father’s office, her polish and grace utterly fascinating and so completely out of his league he might as well still have had dirt under his nails and the stink of diesel on his skin.
Three lengthy meetings later, he had been shut down. Her father had refused and Gideon had mentally said goodbye to any excuse to see her again. No use asking her to dinner. By then he had her full background. Adara didn’t date and was reputed to be holding on to her virginity until she married.
When she had unexpectedly asked to see him a few weeks later, he’d been surprised, curious and unaccountably hopeful. She’d shown up in a jade dress with an ivory jacket that had been sleek and cool and infuriatingly modest, not the sort of thing a woman wore if she was encouraging an afternoon tryst.
“I didn’t expect to see you again,” he’d said with an edge of frustration.
“I...” She’d seemed very briefly discomfited, then said with grave sincerity, “I have a proposal for you, which may persuade my father to change his mind, if you’re still interested in having him as a backer. May I have ten minutes of your time?”
Behind the closed doors of his office, she had laid out what was, indeed, a proposal. She had done her homework. She had information on his financials and future projects that weren’t public knowledge.
“I apologize for that. I don’t intend to make a habit of it.”
“Of what?” he’d asked. “Snooping into my business or running background checks on prospective grooms?”
“Well, both,” she’d said with a guileless look. “If you say yes.”
He’d been self-serving enough to go along with the plan. The upside had been too good, offering access to her business and social circles along with a leap in his standing on the financial pages. And Adara had made it so easy. She had not only scripted their engagement and wedding, she’d known her lines. Their marriage had been perfect.
To the untrained eye.
He could look back now and see what a performance it had been on both their parts. From the reception to country clubs to rubbing shoulders with international bankers, they had set each other up like improv specialists, him feeding Adara lines and her staying on message.
And she’d conformed to brand like a pro, elevating her modest style to a timeless sophistication that had put both the hotels and his shipyard in a new class. She’d delivered exactly what she’d promised in terms of networking, opportunities and sheer hard work, putting in the late hours to attain the goals he’d laid out.
She had probably thought that’s all he’d wanted from her, he realized, heart clenching. It had been, initially, but somewhere along the line he’d begun to care—about a lot of things. She was an excellent cook and she bought him shirts he liked. Whenever they were about to leave for work or an evening event, she invariably smoothed his hair or straightened his tie and said, “You look nice.”
Part of him had stood back and called her actions patronizing, but a needier part had soaked up her approval. It was all the more powerful because he had admired her so much.