by Tara Pammi
She felt like an insect being examined under an industrial microscope. “I told you. I want to make something of myself.”
His silver eyes pinned her to the spot. “What I’m asking is why you want to make something of yourself? What is this sudden need to prove yourself? Why all this hardship when before you couldn’t even be bothered to understand anything beyond the little circle you were queen of?”
She couldn’t tell him that he was the reason.
That she wanted his respect, his regard more than anything else in the world. That she wanted him to be proud of her. That she wanted him to regret—at length and at great pain—what he had lost by letting her go. Of course, she hadn’t shed her vindictiveness.
“It’s high time I took responsibility for myself. For my happiness, for my life,” Tina repeated the lines she’d remembered Sophia spouting at her when she had been at her lowest.
All those things had significance, yes, but not in comparison to what she wanted to see in Kairos’s eyes.
“So now that you have seen what I have done so far—” she opened her notepad and drew a couple of bullet points “—tell me the different ways you can help me. I know we talked about you putting word out to different friends of yours. But even if you succeeded in letting them hire me as their personal stylist, I would still need this portfolio to impress them, to gain their business. Now, with Nikolai and Marissa, I have a photographer and model lined up. All I need—”
“You’re not working with that Russian joker anymore.”
“You don’t get to dictate who I talk to or not. You’re not my husband anymore.”
He pulled her left hand into his and awareness exploded through her. Callused fingers gripped hers, the pad of his thumb wiggling her wedding ring. “Officially, I am.”
She pulled her hand away. “Nikolai’s talented and he’s proved that he has my best—”
“He wants to get in your pants, Valentina.”
“I know he does. It doesn’t mean he’ll get there. Or that I want him there.”
“You’re not attracted to him.”
The statement, which was really a question, arrested the millions of neurons firing away in her brain. Like complex machinery coming to a screeching halt.
Was that doubt in his question? A minute fracture in his arrogant confidence?
She wanted to lie and say she was attracted to Nikolai, to give him a taste of that uncertainty that had been her companion all during their marriage.
No games, Tina!
“I’ve never been interested in Nikolai. Not even before I met you.” She cringed. “But I... I don’t think I was kind in my rejection of him.”
“What if he had attacked you that night on the yacht?”
The flippant response that rose to her lips arrested as Tina saw the whiteness of his knuckles. “I know him, Kairos. He’s all bluster, and believe me, he has punished me enough with innuendoes and insults over the last few months. He’s had his petty revenge. I have confidence that he’ll be here when I ask him.”
“I will not tolerate his sniffing around about you. You will entertain only me.”
If her outrage could have been given action, Valentina would have had smoke coming out of her ears. She picked up her laptop and stood up. “I was a fool to think you’d take me seriously.”
He gripped her arm and arrested her. “Even if I let you work with him, you still have no access to all the designer clothes and accessories you need. Unless you were thinking of asking me to buy them for you. As long as you—”
She covered his mouth with her palm. And instantly realized the foolishness of the move. His breath was warm against her palm, sending a rush of heat to her breasts and lower belly. As if he was touching his sensuous mouth to those places.
“No,” she said and then cleared her throat. “I don’t want you to buy anything for me. I only agreed to have my wardrobe back because my role as your loving wife demands it.”
Was she never going to solve this Catch-22? What would she show prospective clients if she didn’t have a portfolio to interest them, and how would she develop a portfolio if she never had clients?
Kairos pulled her hand away from his mouth but held it against his chest. His heart thundered against her fingertips. “You could join Theseus’s company and try to achieve it that way. Go at your goal in a different way.”
“Theseus’s company?”
“He owns an advertising agency among the group. They put together a lot of shoots here and abroad to design the catalog for the luxury boutiques the Markos group holds all over Greece. A styling internship with such a company could get you valuable experience and contracts.”
“And you can get me a position at his company just like that?”
“The woman who runs that department is a friend of mine. It’ll be unpaid. Chiara’s a no-nonsense go-getter who will only hold it against you that I got you the position.”
“I’m willing to do any kind of work if it means I’m a step closer, Kairos. Being here with you when I’d rather mop floors at the fashion agency should prove that.”
He ignored her petty barb. “But... Helena is in charge of that division. The moment she figures out you’re there, she’ll interfere.”
“No!” Refusal escaped her lips even before she could process his words.
One thing she’d realized in the last week in his company was that she’d always be vulnerable when it came to Kairos. This proximity was bad enough without adding a woman who wanted him. A woman who shared history with him.
A woman who provoked every one of Valentina’s baser, jealous instincts to the fore.
He tilted her chin up. “You do not have to be afraid of her, Valentina. She will not harm you, not while I’m here.”
“That you have to reassure me of that speaks volumes.”
“It’s me she’s after.”
“I know that,” she said, her voice going to that whiny octave she hated so much. That Helena wanted Kairos had been written in every malicious smile, every cruel remark of the past few days.
The whole situation twisted her gut. “I’ll ask only this one question. Please, Kairos, answer it honestly.”
He scowled, his fingers inching into the hair behind her ear tightly. The pad of his thumb pressed at her lower lip roughly. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Is this—” she waved her hand between them “—some elaborate ploy to make her jealous or to prove your power over her? To make her want you even more?”
At least, that was what Helena had hinted at over last night’s dinner. That this thing between her and Kairos was a minor lovers’ tiff. That he was using Valentina for any number of purposes.
“I have never played those kinds of games. With anyone.”
No, those stupid games had been her forte. Observing Helena’s antics was seeing a mirror version of her worst self.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t want Helena.”
“You never—”
“Oxhi! I wouldn’t dishonor Theseus and Maria like that.”
The depth of relief that spread in her chest scared the hell out of Tina. This was so not the time to discover Kairos’s honorable streak or any other fine qualities. Dio mio, he was not for her. “But Theseus and Maria...they want you for their daughter. They think of you as their son. It was clear they—”
“Thinking of me as their son and being their son is different, Valentina. In the end, blood wins.” His nostrils flared, the topic clearly hitting a nerve. “At least, that’s been my experience.”
Because Theseus had chosen Helena to head the company over him the last time? Tina had gathered that much from the hints Helena had dropped over the last few days. And from the obvious tension between Theseus and Kairos every time the discussion shifted to the companies.
She pushed out of his hold, needing to think clearly. “I can’t work with Helena.”
“Opportunities like this internship won’t c
ome your way often.”
“I’ll somehow—”
“You won’t. If it’s not this job, it will be a troublesome client. If not Helena, someone else to whom you would have to grovel. The fashion industry, whether here or in Milan, is cutthroat. Full of pitfalls and backstabbing men and women. There’s no shame in knowing your shortcomings. No shame in giving up.”
Tina stared at him. “Giving up?”
“Aren’t you? You’ll be here for at least three months, and you’re turning down a position in the field you want to work in. Not that I’m surprised.”
“Your pride—which is a monumental thing—got bruised because I left you. And for that, you’re punishing me by making me work for her.”
His mouth twitched. “Actually, I have always thought you and Helena were cast from the same mold. All glitter and no substance.”
She’d thought the same, yet the laughingly delivered comment punched Tina hard. Her chest tightened. Did he think so little of her? Still?
All glitter and no substance.
No words could encompass her so well. No one had ever stripped all pretense, all her armor, and laid her bare like that.
This intimacy, his admission that their marriage had been sacred to him, it was making her forget what kind of a man he was. Making her forget that there was no place in his life for anything but ambition.
“You know, from the moment you told me you ‘needed’ your wife, I’ve been wondering why.” She stilled at the wide doors to the courtyard, the sun caressing her bare arms. The villa, the grounds, everything was paradise. Sharing a room with the man she’d given her body and soul to, pretending that they adored each other, was incredibly seductive.
A thin line of tension appeared between his brows. “I told you why.”
“But not all of it.”
Silence stretched. She waited, wanting him to offer to tell her. Wanting him to want her to know the truth about his present, his past. About the ruthless choices that seemed to define his life.
To want to make her understand him.
“And what did you figure out?” Pure steel in his voice.
“Maria said that you flew to Theseus’s side the moment you heard of his heart attack. That you held off a hostile takeover on his board that would’ve wrenched control from Theseus. And Helena mentioned that you had almost been engaged. She clearly adores you still. But there’s tension between all of you. It’s clear that you had a falling out, something that prevented you and Helena from being together the last time around. You saved his life and his company...”
A brow rose on his face, his hip cocked out at a jaunty angle, but still he waited. Ruthlessness dripped from his very pores. “Make your point, pethi mou.”
“I think you saw an opportunity.”
Any hint of charm disappeared from his eyes. “What opportunity would that be, Valentina?”
Even as he asked the question, there was a warning in his words.
Not to voice it. Not to give form to her thoughts. But she wanted to fracture that icy control, that smooth, uncaring facade. Bloodthirsty by nature, she wanted him to tell her the whole truth. To admit that her accusations hurt.
“You want to take over Theseus’s company but not his daughter, so you produced me to pretend we have a perfect marriage. I haven’t quite figured out why you can’t get rid of me and marry her, and then you would have everything you want. But what I know is that when you have the company in hand, you’ll discard me, leash Helena and become the CEO. What else would motivate you to put your life on hold except the fact that you can gain power by this move?”
A cold smile sliced his cruel mouth upwards. “And here I worried that Helena would twist your mind with lies.”
There was such a wealth of emotion in his tone that Tina’s heart pounded. “Will you deny that at the end of all this you’ll own Theseus’s company?”
“No.”
“That you brought me here to deceive that sweet couple, to avoid Helena’s attentions?”
“No.”
“Then where is the lie in what I said, Kairos?” She waited for him to deny her accusation, to give her another reason. Anything for her to hold onto, a chance for them.
“Everything you do, every decision you make, it’s to acquire more wealth. More power. More connections.” She thought she was over the worst but it only hurt to see the coldness in his eyes. “Why should this be any different, when all that ever motivates you is ambition?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
EVERYTHING YOU DO is motivated by ambition.
Valentina’s words played like a broken record through his mind even after a month. Taking another sip of his throat-burning Scotch, Kairos admitted it grated still.
For years after he had walked away from Theseus, all he had been able to think of was how to advance, how to prove to Theseus—and himself—that he could make it work without his former mentor’s help. And without Theseus’s legacy.
In that blind drive, he had developed a reputation for ruthless deals and an expertise in getting rid of broken parts of a company. He had forgotten that there was more to life than business deals and the next takeover. A fact Leandro had pointed out when he had first met him.
He smiled. The man was a master strategist if ever there was one. But his words had sunk in. And once he had seen Valentina, he had wanted her. The idea of marriage, settling down, making a family of his own...had held appeal.
He’d seen it as another forward move in his life, not an adjustment.
Or maybe his mistake had been to let his libido choose the wrong wife. Maybe if he hadn’t been so obsessed with winning Valentina, hadn’t reveled in how artlessly she had fallen for him, he would have said no to Leandro’s offer.
Leaning back into his seat, he swept his gaze around the nightclub. His tension deflated a little when he found Helena dancing with one of the younger board members on Markos’s board of directors.
Valentina’s accusation had been correct...and yet also not correct at the same time. It rankled that she thought so little of him, that he would take advantage of Theseus in his feeble state. And yet he had balked at explaining himself.
The more she delved beneath his surface, the more he wanted to hide himself away.
Why did it feel like giving Valentina a piece of the past was giving her a part of his soul? Why didn’t the damn woman revert to what he had considered her default?
Restlessness slithered in his blood. Even the brutal three-hour-a-day training he had been pushing on his body, in preparation for a triathlon, was still not enough to rid his body of that simmering energy.
And his sweet, little wife was the cause.
It was close to a month now since she had accepted that position in the ad agency. A month of waiting to receive a call from Chiara that Valentina had slapped someone, or fought with someone, or that she had stormed out because she had had to work too hard.
Not a peep from his wife’s boss or Helena or Valentina about her job. Not a single complaint.
They had sort of fallen into a routine as husband and wife far too easily—they had started running together in the morning, breakfasting together, and then he gave her a lift to work and they parted ways. Most evenings, they dined with Theseus and Maria until either he or she went back to work again.
And then came the long torturous nights.
His balls, he was afraid, were permanently going to shrivel if he had to take one more cold shower, if he had to untangle Valentina from himself in the middle of one more night.
She thought him a ruthless bastard anyway. So what stopped him from taking what he wanted like he’d always done?
If he waited on some twisted notion of honor, he’d have had nothing in life. He’d have still been foraging through some dumpster in the back alleys of Athens, ended up either dead or pimping some poor prostitute to make a life. It was only by taking what he wanted he’d gotten this far in life.
He wanted sex—Christos, it was all he could
think of—and he had a wife who matched him in his fervor for sex if nothing else. So what the hell was he feeling guilty about?
She was changing how he saw her, and she was changing him from the inside out.
Why else did his gut clench when he saw the shadows under her eyes, when he saw her weave tiredly through dinner? Why else did he want that adoration, that love back in her eyes?
Was celibacy making him sentimental?
Andaxi!
He ordered another glass of Scotch—his second, which was one more than he ever allowed himself, when he heard the soft hush around his table. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.
Desire came at him in that same visceral punch when his gaze found her. But with that ever-present hum came a bubble of laughter bursting out of his throat. The shocked silence around the table was enough proof that he rarely laughed like that.
He should have known she would do something like that. Knew the subdued shadow she was making herself into was...unnatural for her.
Thrown into brilliance by the multicolored strobe lights from the bar, her copper-colored sheath dress with a million metallic chips contrasted dazzlingly against her golden skin tone. The material clung to her chest and waist like a lover’s hands and then ended just below the thin flare of her hips.
His mouth dried. Her gaze swept through the club, landed on him.
The long, toned muscles of her thighs when she moved...it was pure sensuality in motion. Five-inch stiletto heels made her legs go on for miles. Her hair was in its usual braid.
Only he knew how the silky mass would caress a man’s face or how it provided an anchor to hold on to when he was driving into her wet heat. She wore no jewelry except those plain diamond studs at her ears that were a gift from Luca, and the pendant he’d given her. A foolish piece of sentimentality he’d indulged in.
His knuckles gripped the seat as she reached their table and every man’s gaze in the vicinity devoured her.
A subtle thread of her fragrance wafted over him as she bent and kissed his cheek.
“Hello, Kairos,” she said, wrapping her arms around him from behind. Her breasts pressed against his neck. Sensations assaulted him, his muscles curling with the control it took not to clamp his mouth over hers.