by Tara Pammi
Another part of him cringed at the very idea, his self-preservation instinct coming to the fore. His subconscious had known even back then.
Valentina was dangerous to him. She would send him down a path where only pain waited.
And soon he was going to have to make a decision. For he had no doubt that she would leave him when their deal was up if he didn’t reach for her.
The idea of Valentina forever walking out on him this time...he couldn’t bear it.
CHAPTER TEN
TINA HAD PLANNED on escaping the party Kairos and Helena had arranged to celebrate Theseus and Maria’s fiftieth wedding anniversary by hiding behind her workaholic boss.
The truth was that she was afraid to face what was happening between her and Kairos. To face what was happening to her.
After he had told her how Helena was the one who had messed up the purchase orders—something Chiara had realized from the beginning—she had returned to work. Despite Kairos’s worry that Helena’s antics were escalating and against his wishes.
Of course, he hadn’t let her confront Helena.
Loath to disturb the truce they seemed to have achieved, she had quietly gone back to work.
Seeing him night after night stretched her nerves to the end. They couldn’t look at each other without plunging into sexual tension. It was like waiting for a rumbling volcano to erupt. She sensed his hesitation, too, the way he studied her as if he wanted to devour her, the way he barely even touched her, as if his control were hanging by a thread.
The way he talked about everything but the future.
There was a friendship of sorts between them, however much he didn’t like the label. They talked about her job, his work, about mutual friends. About their livelihoods.
She wanted to hide tonight. From him, from Theseus and Maria and Helena and from every board member that wanted to meet Valentina Constantinou.
She wanted the world to disappear and leave her alone with Kairos so that she could...
She could what? Figure out where it was that they were heading? Figure out if she wanted to take a step toward him again?
Was she willing to put herself through all that heartache again? Was she prepared to wait forever if she wanted him to take that step toward her?
Kairos had, of course, in his usual commanding tone ordered Tina’s presence at the party. She was, he’d decreed this morning over breakfast, required as his wife.
Keep up your side of the bargain, Valentina, were his parting words without so much as a look in her direction. He hadn’t even taken her calls the rest of the day so she couldn’t offer him excuses.
In the end, she’d decided she didn’t want another argument with him. She didn’t want to push him for she had a feeling they were both treading a fine line.
* * *
She arrived at Markos Villa with the dress and shoes she’d purchased with his credit card on her lunch break, to find a mass of activity in the huge acreage behind the villa.
Sunset was still a couple of hours away but the orange light lent a golden glow to the white silk marquees being put up. Tables were being dressed with lanterns and orchids in little glass jars. An extensive wine bar was set up on one end while a small wooden dance floor had been erected in the middle of all the small tents.
Fifty years! Theseus and Maria were celebrating fifty years of marriage. Of being together, of knowing one another inside out. Of belonging to one another.
Something she still wanted with the Kairos she was slowly discovering.
With a sigh, she made her way up the stairs outside the villa.
An eerie calm dwelled inside the high-ceilinged walls, in contrast to the hubbub of activity outside. A line of sweat poured down between her shoulder blades. Something felt wrong. As she walked through the airy villa, poured herself a glass of water in the kitchen, the sense of unease only got stronger.
Where were Theseus and Maria and Helena?
Apprehension sitting like lead in her gut, Tina took the stairs up. Suddenly, all she wanted was to see Kairos. To reassure herself that he was okay. On the first-floor landing, she was walking past the main master suite—Theseus and Maria’s rooms—when she heard the argument.
She hadn’t meant to pause and overhear, but over the last month, she had only become more and more attached to the older couple. Whatever the tension between their daughter, Kairos and them, there was a bond of steel between the husband and wife. An unshakeable love that Tina wanted in her own life. A bond made of respect, humor and utter affection. She’d even wondered how such a lovely couple could have given birth to such a brittle woman like Helena. She wouldn’t have dreamed of eavesdropping but it was Maria’s voice raised, close to breaking, and uttering Kairos’s name that halted her steps.
She had a good grasp of Greek now and yet Maria’s impassioned argument was hard to follow. She was imploring Theseus not to cut their own daughter out. To give Helena one more chance to prove the truth? To come to see the proof of it with his own eyes.
Kairos’s true nature? Proof?
Wait, Theseus was going to cut Helena out of the company? How could he do that to his own daughter? Had Kairos persuaded him to it finally?
Tina’s thoughts whirled and collided, a cold chill sweeping over her skin. What kind of proof was Maria talking about? What did Helena mean to prove to her parents?
She had tried to fill Valentina’s mind with the supposed love between Kairos and her. It hadn’t worked. She had tried to get her to leave by ruining her work. It hadn’t worked.
What new scheme was she cooking now?
Heart racing a thousand miles a minute, Tina reached the vast bedroom she’d been sharing with Kairos. She dropped the bags on the floor, her gaze sweeping over the furniture and contents.
Kairos’s huge desk was littered with papers, as was customary, but nothing seemed out of place. She could hear the shower running. And then she saw it—a flash of blue silk from the connecting door that led to the shared veranda. The other door from the veranda, she’d discovered the first evening, led to Helena’s bedroom.
When she’d laughingly inquired of Theseus, he had told her that the house had been originally designed for a husband and a wife to share different bedrooms. With a wink at Kairos, the older man had gruffly announced he’d never want Maria to sleep in a separate bedroom. Maria had charmingly blushed.
Tina knew who would walk in to their bedroom in a few seconds. She could already hear the gruff baritone of Theseus’s voice and Maria’s pleading one—still close to tears. She didn’t wait to see who would emerge from the veranda.
Unbuttoning her dress shirt, she pushed it off her shoulders. Next her trousers. By the time she reached the huge, rectangular glass-enclosed shower, she was in matching black bra and lace panties. The shape of a muscular flank made her hesitate.
With a deep breath, she pulled off her bra, then pushed down her panties and entered the shower.
To say her husband was stunned would have been the understatement of the year. To say she had forgotten how the sight of his naked body made her feel would be the understatement of the century.
All she could do was stare at him.
Water poured down Kairos’s muscular body in rivulets. His dark hair pasted to his scalp made his rugged features harsher. His nose was broken and bent. His mouth a wide, cruel line. His neck was corded and muscled. Every inch of him was a feast to her starving senses.
Sparse hair covered a broad chest. His skin was like rough velvet—a sharp contrast to her own soft skin.
A line of hair arrowed down over his ridged abdomen, becoming thicker near his hips and then his pelvis. Legs built like a gladiator’s clenched at her leisurely perusal.
Then, and only then, did she let her gaze drift to his arousal. He lengthened and hardened until it was curved up toward his belly.
A soft moan flitted from her mouth as she remembered the sensation of him moving inside her. For a man who didn’t dance, he made love wi
th a sensuality that made her eyes roll.
“If you don’t stop looking at me like that, I will be inside you in two seconds. I will not give a damn if it is harmful or a weakness or what promises you drew from me.” He sounded ragged, at the end of his rope. “I’m but a man, Valentina.”
Her skin prickling, she pulled her gaze to his. The heat she saw there blasted through her meager defenses. Her nipples tightened into painful points, her breasts ached to be cupped.
Her breath came in serrated puffs as his gaze took in the plump points of her nipples, down her midriff to the junction of her thighs where wetness suddenly rushed, the scent coating the moisture-laden air around them.
Legs trembling, Tina turned away.
One more second of his gaze traveling down her length and she would have begged him to take her.
From the moment he’d slowly peeled off her wedding dress on that night, she’d realized she loved sex. That she had an appetite to match his own voracious one. And yet today, enclosed in the glass cubicle with his hard body mere fingertips away, all she felt was a longing. To belong to him. To possess him in equal measure—mind, body and soul.
To love him for the rest of their lives.
She touched her forehead to the glass wall, hoping to cool off. Willing her body to find a thread of reason as to why this wasn’t a good idea.
She felt him move in the small space. He didn’t touch her yet the heat radiating from his body was like a blanket over her skin.
“Valentina?” In his husky voice, her name was both an order and a request. He touched her then, his palm around her neck, while his other hand traveled down her bare back to her spine. To her hips.
With a deep groan, he pulled her closer, until his erection settled against her buttocks. Their guttural gasps rent the air.
“Wait,” she managed, the scrape of his chest against her tightening her hunger.
“Now who’s punishing whom, pethi mou?”
“I would never tease you like that,” she whispered hurriedly. “She...planned something, Kairos. I don’t know what. I just couldn’t... I couldn’t let them think that of you.”
Instantly, she felt the change in the air. He was still warm and hard but it was as if he had turned off a switch. “Who planned what?”
She didn’t have to answer the question. They could hear voices just outside the bathroom—Maria urging Theseus.
The silence raging behind her had such a dangerous quality to it that she turned.
Rage filled Kairos’s face, making it so harsh that Valentina instantly clasped his cheeks. What could she say? What platitude could she offer when she had willfully believed the worst of him? Wouldn’t she have believed her own eyes, too, if she’d been but a few minutes late?
He pushed her palms away as if they burned him. Cold dawned into his silver eyes, making them into a winter wasteland. “Did you see her?”
Valentina shook her head. “Only a flash of her dress. That turquoise blue silk she’d chosen for tonight.”
He said nothing in reply.
Valentina shut the shower off and grabbed the towel from behind her. “I will go out first,” she said softly, afraid of touching him.
He wouldn’t harm Helena however angry he got, but she was also aware of his struggle to control his temper. She’d never seen him like this, so ragged at the edges.
What Helena had attempted to do, what Theseus and Maria would have seen if Valentina hadn’t acted quickly...it was dirty, disgusting. And it had shaken him to the core.
She could see his frustration, his anger, but also for the first time since she’d met him, the depth of his affection for Theseus. He loved that old man and his wife. It was written in the torment on his face.
Becoming the company’s CEO meant nothing to him. Only Theseus’s love, his good opinion of him mattered.
It would have hurt him immeasurably if Theseus and Maria had found him in the shower with Helena. Finally—a true glimpse of the man she had married. A deeply caring man beneath the hard shell, the ruthless ambition.
All she felt were his emotions—raw and bleeding in that moment. And her own answering ones—desperate and potent. Everything to do with him and not her.
It was the first time in her life Tina felt someone else’s pain. The first time she felt this overwhelming urge to reach out. To do anything she could to take that pain from him.
She wanted to hold him and never let go. But she understood him now. He would reject any comfort she offered. “Don’t...do not embarrass them,” he said between gritted teeth.
Confused for a few seconds, she stared at him. Then nodded, another realization hurtling through her.
He would do anything to protect them from embarrassment, from hurt. Even if it was heaped upon them by their own daughter. He would go to any lengths to hide Helena’s reality from Theseus, to protect Theseus.
Even pretending to love the impulsive, juvenile wife that had walked out on him without doing the courtesy of telling him face to face.
She wrapped the towel around herself, pasted a smile to her face and stepped out. The pristine marble tiles were cold beneath her feet, jerking her into this moment.
Grabbing a smaller towel, she wiped the water dripping from her hair. Took a few deep breaths to clear the lump from her throat. Forced a cheery tone into her voice and said loudly, “Wait until you see my dress, Kairos. You’re not going to want to leave the bedroom.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALL THROUGH THE party Tina waited for the explosion of Kairos’s temper to come.
Maybe not in front of Theseus and Maria. It was after all their wedding anniversary celebration.
Maybe not in front of the guests who were extended family and board members from the Markos company and even employees and their families.
But in private maybe. Just between them? Would he confront Helena at least to see if what they’d assumed was right?
No!
Her husband acted as if nothing untoward had happened.
Helena appeared a few minutes after her parents and Kairos and Valentina had started welcoming the guests together.
Like a queen finally drifting down to meet her citizens. Like she hadn’t tried to spread poison among people who cared about her.
Kairos’s fingers clamped tight around her bare arm. “Stay out of this, Valentina.”
Her hackles rose at his whispered warning. “But she—”
His fingers drifted to her hips, his grip so tight as he turned her that she had to smother a pained gasp. Instantly, he released her, a flash of something in the silvery gaze. “It doesn’t concern you.”
“How can you say that? If I hadn’t—”
“You played the role I brought you here for, ne? You went out of your way to keep up your side of the bargain. For that I thank you. But Helena is my business and mine alone.”
Hurt festered like an unhealed wound but for once in her life, Tina tried to put her own hurt aside for a moment and think of him.
He was in pain and he was lashing out at her. But she wouldn’t let him. She wouldn’t let him shut her out again. With all the guests’ gazes on them, she clasped his jaw and pulled him until his mouth was a bare inch from her. Until he was all she saw, all she felt. Until everything she felt was mirrored in her gaze.
Until there was no escape from the truth in her eyes. “I did it because I care about you, because I couldn’t bear to see you hurt. Don’t shut me out tonight, not after everything we have shared the last couple of months. Please, Kairos. Don’t turn away from me. From us.”
She didn’t wait for his reply. She had said what she meant to say, what she meant to do.
Helena was dressed in an exquisite blue, knee-length cocktail dress that made her look like a voluptuous baby doll. A diamond choker glittered at her throat. She looked innocent, beautiful—a façade.
Tina smoothed a hand down her own emerald green dress that left her shoulders bare and fell to her ankles, with a slit on one s
ide. Her hair—since she hadn’t even washed it properly in that shower—was neatly tied into a French braid.
Much as she tried to separate herself from the occasion and the people, Tina was drawn into the warmth of the celebration. She danced with Theseus, another older man with a bulbous face and kind eyes, a younger man who told her in Greek she was beautiful and that Kairos didn’t deserve two beautiful women drifting about him.
Kairos had danced with Maria first, and then he’d twirled Helena around the dance floor. Which had lasted four minutes and fifty-two seconds, too.
But he hadn’t asked her. He’d watched her all evening with that consuming gaze—until Tina had felt as if she were standing naked in front of him again. As if he was testing her words, as if he didn’t trust them. As if he loathed believing her.
Defiant and resolved, she met his gaze every time he looked at her. Let him see that this time she wasn’t backing out, let him see the decision she had already made. The awareness between them was underscored by something heavier, darker.
Soon, she was surrounded by both men and women as she regaled them with the stories of growing up around her powerful brothers.
Unlike Conti Luxury Goods, however—which was a much more powerful and bigger conglomerate than the Markos Group, thanks to Leandro—Theseus’s company was smaller and possessed a close-knit community feeling. Most of the board members and employees had been with the company for over twenty or even thirty years. And intensely loyal to Theseus, which made the attempted hostile takeover that much worse.
Even after a gap of seven years—Kairos had left when he’d been twenty-one—their trust and confidence in him was absolute. That he would naturally succeed Theseus as the CEO a foregone conclusion. She heard tales of Kairos’s kindness, his leadership, his work ethic as he’d learned the ropes of the business under Theseus’s guidance. Something she had learned herself in the last few weeks.