A huge smile broke out on her face. “Ahh.” She looked at Akis and said something in Greek, poking him in the chest.
After she went back inside he pulled some bills out of his wallet and put them on the table. His black brows lifted. “Are you ready to leave?”
“If I can get up. I ate so much, I’m afraid I’m nailed to the chair.”
He came around to help her. By the lack of animation on his face, she couldn’t tell if he’d understood the expression or not. The whole time more people were taking pictures of them with their phones. Akis was a celebrity. A lot of people had seen pictures of the Milonis wedding on TV, but he and his brother had been in the news long before that because of what they’d achieved in business.
The sun had grown hotter. When they boarded the cabin cruiser and took off for Anti Paxos, Raina welcomed the breeze on her skin. She stood at the railing all the way to the smaller island, wondering what he thought about her comment to Elpis. It appeared to have caught Akis off guard. That had been her intention. She needed him to know how she felt. But his silence had unnerved her. By the time they’d made it back to his house, she’d started to be afraid.
After setting down her suitcase, he put the sack of donuts on the counter and stared at her. “Do you have any idea what you said to Elpis?” His voice sounded unsteady.
She clung to one of the chair backs. “Yes. I’m in love with you, Akis. I couldn’t hold it in any longer. It was evident how deeply Elpis cares for you, and I didn’t want her to think that I just sleep with you. If I embarrassed you I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “The fault’s on me.”
He cocked his dark head to the side. “What if I were to take you up on it?” His eyes were slits. “Aren’t you afraid I might be your third mistake?”
The question produced a moan from her. “No. For once in my life I know clear through to my soul that you’re the real thing.” Her voice shook. “The only fear I have is that you don’t have that same profound feeling for me. I saw the expression in your eyes when I blurted that I wanted to be your fiancée. I could read it so clearly.
“It was as if you’d said to me, ‘Raina? We’ve been having a heavenly time together, but to take it to the next step is a completely different matter.’ Deep in your heart of hearts you yearn to find a woman who’s like the woman your father married—someone sweet and innocent with no divorce in her background.”
“That’s not true!”
“Oh, yes, it is. I understand why your brother was concerned enough to find out what he could about me. Some foreign woman with scandal in her past flies into Athens and disrupts the tenor of your lives. I never had a sibling. But knowing the story of you and Vasso, any woman either of you chooses will impact both your lives because you’re family. I envy you that.”
He moved closer, putting his hands on his hips in that potent male way. Her heart thudded mercilessly in response. “Let’s talk about what I bring to your life. As I told you the night of the reception, my brother and I are in business together. That’s the sum total of our existence.”
Her eyes misted over. “You bring so much, I don’t know where to start.”
“Why not start with the obvious. You run an empire.”
She shook her head. “I don’t do anything. My grandfather put people in place who do all the work. Since his death I’ve been the titular head. If I walked away from it tonight, there wouldn’t be as much as a ripple. As for my job in the lab, there are dozens of scientists who’d fill my spot in a heartbeat.”
His jaw hardened. “You’re telling me you could leave it all behind? Just like that?”
Raina tried to swallow. “That’s what I’m telling you. My parents and grandparents are gone. There’s nothing to hold me.” She couldn’t control the throb in her voice. “To put it all in the hands of the capable people already in place and come to you would be my greatest joy.”
His eyes closed tightly for a moment. “We couldn’t even have a baby that could grow up to run the Maywood Corporation one day.”
“We could have several babies through adoption who could one day head the Giannopoulos Company. You could call it Giannopoulos and Sons, or Daughters.”
A strange, anguished sound came out of him. “I could swear the gods are playing a monstrous trick on me.”
Her spirits sank. “In other words, Aphrodite is a monster in disguise.”
“No, Raina. Your grandfather left you a legacy you can’t ignore.”
“I won’t ignore it, but you’re making an erroneous assumption. The difference between you and me is this... I didn’t create the Maywood Corporation with my bare hands. I didn’t do one thing to build it from scratch a hundred years ago. I’m a recipient of all the hard work that my great-great-grandfather started. That’s all.
“But you and your brother started your company from scratch. You poured blood, sweat and tears into it every day, all day for years. It’s your monument to your parents who gave you life and a father who taught you what was the most important thing in life.”
“So what are you saying?” he ground out.
“That you can’t leave your brother to live with me in California. You wouldn’t want to and I wouldn’t want you to. Furthermore I hate the idea of flying back and forth so we can see each other for a weekend here and there. It would be ludicrous.
“Since I don’t want an affair, either, the simple solution is to live here with you for as long as you want me. I’d rather be married to you, but if you can’t bring yourself to do that, then I’ll be your lover and deal with it. As long as I know where I stand with you, no one else’s opinion matters to me.”
“It does matter.” He sounded exasperated.
“Then what you’re saying is nothing will fix our problem, so I should plan to go back to California? If that’s the case then so be it.” She wheeled around and grabbed her suitcase.
“Where are you going?”
“To change into my swimming suit and enjoy your pool. I need to work off the calories from our delicious lunch. Thank you for allowing me a glimpse of your early beginnings. It meant the world to me. Let me know when you’re ready to pack in this vacation and get back to work. I can be ready in no time at all.”
He followed her down the hall to the bedroom. “Will you stay until Chloe gets back?”
So he was anxious to get back to Athens. “Where else?” she said over her shoulder and plopped her suitcase on the bed. “I don’t want to disappoint her parents.”
“Do you want to leave in the morning? I’ll send for the helicopter.”
Her back was still to him. “That’s entirely up to you.” She opened the lid and pulled out her bathing suit.
“Don’t be like this, Raina.”
She whirled around. “Like what?”
“You’re not thinking with your head. No one with a background like yours just walks away from everything because the man she loves lives on another continent.”
She drew in a quick breath. “This one does, but you don’t know me well enough to understand. If I leave California for good, money will continue to pour into my personal account Grandpa set up for me. Most of that money will be used to do research for a cure for stomach cancer and heart disease.
“As for everything else, I’ll be available over the phone whenever one of the heads of the various departments wants to discuss a problem. I’ll step down as CEO but remain on the board. If there’s a vote to be cast that requires my physical presence, then I’ll fly over. That’s it. Not at all complicated.”
He stood in the doorway unconsciously forming his hands into fists. “What about the estate? How could you contemplate leaving your home?”
Her chin lifted. “Before I ever heard from Chloe that she was getting married, I’d decided to move to a condo and turn the mansion and estate into a hospital. One wing for heart failure patients and the other for stomach cancer patients who can’t afford health care. When I fly back to Carmel, I’ll get the process going.”
“You’d get rid of everything and live in a condo?” He was clearly incredulous.
“I already told my grandpa what I was going to do when he was gone. He gave me his blessing. I don’t need an estate. To live one day in every room would take me a year.”
She hoped he’d laugh, but his expression was inscrutable. “Look at this villa—it’s the perfect size for you. That’s why I love it so much. When you took me to the penthouse, I couldn’t see you in it.”
“Vasso and I use it out of necessity when we do business and have to stay on site in Athens.”
“Ah, that explains it. Where does he live?”
“In a villa about this size on Loggos. But it’s a beach house on the other side of the village.”
She blinked. “You see? He doesn’t need masses of square footage to be happy, either. Why do you think I would be any different?”
“But to come here and live isn’t you.”
His arguments were getting to her. “Because I’m a lousy linguist? I know I only know twelve words and don’t pronounce them well, but I can learn. Just like you learned English!”