Xenakis's Convenient Bride(11)

"That won't be necessary." There was a possessive edge to Stavros's  tone. "Calli will be coming to New York with me. As my wife."

"What?!" Calli didn't realize she'd been holding a champagne flute until  it hit the tiles and smashed, leaving a wet stain spreading on the  fancy new tiles Stavros had laid and now possessed. She swore under her  breath and shot an abashed look around.

"Let's take this somewhere private." Stavros took her elbow. "Clean that  up, would you?" he ordered one of the servers who came hurrying toward  them.

Calli jolted under the impact of his light touch and wanted to pull  away, but she'd already made enough of a scene. Takis was drilling holes  into her with his gaze, and the weight of the crowd's attention made  her even hotter with embarrassment.

Rather than tightening his grip when he felt her stiffen, Stavros  gentled his touch, so it became a caress that sent furls of disarming  heat into her belly.

"I don't want to talk to you," she told him as he crowded close, urging  her toward the house. "What are you even doing here? Why were you here,  pretending to be a pool man, if you're actually some kind of drug  tycoon?"

"Now, see? That sounds like you do want to talk. Come. All will be revealed."

She quickly moved ahead of him, folding her arms and trying to rub away  the lingering sensation of his touch as she entered the den that served  as a home office for Takis.

Stavros closed the door firmly behind them.

She swung around, her entire body prickling with fight or flight. "Explain, then."

He lifted one brow at her tone, but only shrugged.

"It was a bet." His attention shifted to assess the spare decor of his  new workspace. "My friend has a sense of humor. He challenged a few of  us to go two weeks without our credit cards, claiming we couldn't  survive it. I did. Thanks to you." He shifted his weight onto one leg  and flexed his foot to indicate where he'd had stitches.

"Congratulations," she bit out, watching him move to the liquor cabinet  and help himself to the ouzo. "Why do you want this house?"

He didn't answer until he had poured and brought the small glasses  across to her. She remembered thinking he would make an excellent poker  player and thought it again as she tried to read his shuttered  expression.

"Yamas." He clinked his glass to hers before throwing back his drink.  "This was my home as a child. When my father died, my grandfather moved  us to New York and sold it. I want it back."

His father. She recalled his anguish that day on the peninsula and knew  it was his father he was still searching for, lost in that unforgiving  water. Shadows of that old grief moved behind the shuttered stare he  offered her now.

Her heart began to tilt toward him, like a flower reaching out to the  sun, but she gave it a quick yank back. She couldn't afford to soften  toward him.

"Must be nice to simply write a check and get what you want. You realize  that means I'm shoved off without a job or a home? Thanks."

"Your job will be 'wife of a drug tycoon.' I'll admit that 'heir to a  multinational pharmaceutical research and manufacturing conglomerate' is  a mouthful, but let's try to find some middle ground. What do you say?"

"I say you're a dishonest person, Steve. And I'm not going to marry you. What on earth makes you think I would?"

Stavros lifted a scathing brow. "Shall I remind you what we left unfinished between us?"

A flood of heat washed over her. It was a mix of embarrassment and  memory, pleasure and the pain of rejection. She set aside her untasted  ouzo and folded her arms.

"Key word. You left," she stated flatly. "I've moved on."         

     



 

Something hard and bright flashed in his gaze. "With whom?"

"Takis." She lifted her chin to deliver the outrageous lie.

"Nice try, but I already know you didn't marry him when you had the  chance. He's a bit of a fool, asking when you were already living a fine  life without putting out or getting pregnant in exchange for it."

She fell back a step. "What a horrible thing to say!"

He shrugged. "True, though. Isn't it?"

"No!" Takis had been kind to her in a thousand ways. She deserved none  of it, but she had never felt anything toward him except gratitude and  affection. "Well, it's true I didn't want to get pregnant. But I also  said no because I didn't love him. Not the way a wife should love her  husband anyway. Which is why I won't marry you."

"That's good news. The part where you don't love either of us." He  poured a fresh ouzo for himself. "As is the fact you don't want  children."

She hadn't said that. She just wanted to find the child she'd already  had before she thought about having more. She swallowed the lump that  came into her throat and shifted her stance. "Look, buy the house. I  can't stop you. But why on earth would you suggest we marry?"

"My grandfather has been pressuring me to find a wife. He's holding off  stepping down as director until I do. All the women I know would demand a  real marriage. By that I mean years of my life. Children. Half of my  assets if we divorce."

"You don't like children?" It suddenly became a pivotal sticking point  in a conversation that was too outlandish to be happening, but she  couldn't help jumping to a vision of finding her son and watching  Stavros reject him. Her heart began to thud in painful tromps.

"I'm told I need an heir, but I'm in no hurry." He swirled the clear  liquid in the bottom of his glass. "In fact, I plan to leave that up to  my sisters, but I'm impatient to take the reins of the company. I need a  wife to present to my grandfather. One who will act the part but leave  on cue. Why do you want to move to New York?"

"How do you know that? Have you had me investigated?" She paled as she wondered what he'd found.

"I overheard you and Takis one day. Why? Do you have a deep dark secret  you want to stay buried?" He narrowed his gaze. "Tell me now. I don't  want a scandal popping up to smudge the family name."

She knew people whispered on the island that she'd had a teen pregnancy.  They all thought the baby had died and Stavros might hear that same  rumor if he sent someone to snoop, but he wouldn't find a headstone for  the boy. Her father had refused to pay for one. Because her son wasn't  dead.

He was somewhere in New York. At least, his father, Brandon Underwood,  was in New York and he knew where the infant had been placed.

"I have a normal desire for privacy," she said, glossing over her alarm.  "I don't like the idea you're prying." But it was starting to hit her  that Stavros had the means to pry. That she would have the means.

With Stavros's name and social standing behind her, she would have the  power to confront Brandon. The cache to meet him on a level playing  field, face-to-face.

The thought made her dizzy.

"You live in New York? That's where you want to take me?" she confirmed,  trying to keep from hoping. It was too big, too fast. Too easy.

"Manhattan, yes. Why do you want to go?"

She touched her neck where it felt as though her pulse would burst the  skin. Takis had tried to help, taking her to a lawyer who had written a  couple of letters on her behalf, but Brandon's family had been too rich  and influential, exactly as her mother had warned her. There was a death  certificate on file, so she'd been dismissed as everything from an  opportunist to a loony. Brandon claimed to have no recollection of her.  As far as he was concerned, their affair had never even happened, let  alone the birth of a boy his family had stolen.

Paid for, they might argue, if they ever admitted he'd been conceived at all.

"It's just always been a dream of mine," she prevaricated, folding her  arms again and feeling the spike of her fingernails into her upper arms.  Could she do this? Pretend to be a society wife and confront an old  lover to find her son?

"Surely you could have managed a holiday if you wanted one?" The deep  timbre of Stavros's voice seemed to come through water, hollow and  barely penetrating her swimming thoughts.

"I want to live there. I've started the paperwork, but..." She shook  herself out of becoming too attached to this crazy idea. It would  devastate her if it didn't pan out. "It would be a green-card marriage,"  she warned. "Is that the sort of scandal you'd like to avoid?"         

     



 

"You won't be working. Even after we separate, I'll support you. My lawyers can handle all of that very easily."

Must. Be. Nice.

"I still don't understand why you would ask me." A lowly nanny maid with  no skills. No worth to society beyond what Takis and his daughter had  bestowed upon her.

"As I said. You'll agree to something temporary and not clean me out as  you leave. There will be a prenup and a suitable settlement. That's all.  You realize that's what you're agreeing to? Six months should be enough  time to transition my grandfather out."