The Greek's Green Card Bride - A Billionaire Romance

by Holly Rayner

  Eva frowned. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I should have. I can see that now.”

  “But why didn’t you?” he asked.

  “Look—after I started using the documents that Bobby gave me, I started to feel safer. They worked, every single time. I took out credit cards, I opened up bank accounts, I registered my car… I did everything I needed to do. I thought that the marriage license would be just the same.”

  They sped past an exit, and Eva gestured. “That was it,” she said. “That was my exit.”

  “I’ll take the next one,” Dimitris said curtly.

  She sighed. “I know you’re mad that I didn’t tell you about my identity—and you have every right to be. But you have to admit that you have some fault in this as well.”

  He clenched his jaw again, and she saw him grip the wheel tighter.

  “You could have been up-front about why you wanted citizenship,” Eva said. “We kissed the night before you asked me to go in on the whole marriage thing with you. You must have known that I had feelings for you. I think you didn’t give me details because you felt bad.”

  She looked over at him and saw his gaze soften, just slightly.

  She continued. “This was all just for one contract. You wanted to use me as part of a strategic maneuver to seal the deal with one of your work clients. You used me.”

  “I was up-front about what I needed,” Dimitris said. “I said I wanted to be a US citizen.”

  “Yes, but you didn’t tell me why. If you’d mentioned that this was all about a deal you were working out with the US government, I never would have agreed to it.”

  Dimitris steered the car down an exit ramp. The pace of traffic slowed. He made a sharp right at the bottom of the ramp, onto a side street that would take them back toward Eva’s neighborhood.

  Eva remained silent for the remainder of the ride.

  A few minutes later, they arrived at Eva’s apartment complex to find that the parking spots out front were all taken. Dimitris had to circle the block and then turn onto a side street before finding one. He parked, and then got out. The moonless night sky was a muted black. The faint, hazy glow of light pollution created a layer of pale peach near the base of the sky, near the rooftops.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Dimitris said.

  Eva didn’t object. She gathered from Dimitris’s wording that he didn’t plan on coming in or spending the night.

  She walked by his side in silence. When they reached the front door of her apartment complex, she spoke in a flat tone. “This is fine, I can make it upstairs on my own.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay,” he said.

  She turned and walked away from him, toward the doors that would lead her into the complex.

  “Eva, wait,” Dimitris said.

  She stopped walking and turned slowly to face him.

  His face was cast in shadows, which accentuated his handsome features. He pushed a hand into the front pocket of his jeans as he studied her.

  “You’re right,” he said. “About how this whole thing got started. I kept some details from you, and I shouldn’t have done that. I knew we had a connection… and I didn’t want you to feel like you were just a pawn in a game I was playing with regards to my work. I figured if I made it sound more casual, it would soften the whole thing, somehow.”

  She nodded. “I get that, Dimitris, but where does it leave us? We’re both worse off than when we met.”

  “That’s not true,” he said without hesitation.

  “No?” she said. “I’m out on bail, facing years of jail time. You’re going to have to face the blowback of marrying a felon. Who is the winner in this situation?”

  He was silent.

  She took a step backward. “I’ve got to go,” she said. “I have to take a shower and get into bed. I’m exhausted.” With that she turned and walked into her apartment building.

  Chapter 18

  Eva

  Eva climbed the stairs to her unit with heavy steps, feeling as though she was walking through molasses. She could hear two women talking in the stairwell above her. She couldn’t help but listen as she climbed.

  A woman with the raspy voice of a chain-smoker was speaking. “…always use the washing machine that’s second to the end. The others run too hot or too cold.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” a second woman with a high, nasal voice responded. “Did you see Marge today? She saw that young woman Eva Sharpe being taken away, you know.”

  “Oh, did she?” the smoker said.

  Eva’s ears perked at the sound of her own name. She’d always heard neighbors around the complex gossiping about this or that, but until now she’d never been the subject of such gossip.

  The nasal-sounding woman went on. “Yes, it was early this morning, I heard. Two FBI agents carted her off in cuffs.”

  “I heard they were with homeland security.” The raspy-voiced woman punctuated her sentence with a loud cough that echoed through the stairwell.

  “What’s the difference?” the second woman said. “Oh! And that handsome boyfriend of hers was shouting from the apartment. He’d spent the night.”

  “Really?” The raspy-voiced woman sounded interested in this.

  This is none of their business! Eva thought.

  The smoker cleared her throat and then went on. “Now, how about that. They haven’t been seeing each other for long. Nancy, in apartment two—you know, the new woman, with the Chihuahua—”

  “That thing barks to beat the band.”

  “I know… keeps me up sometimes, and my husband, too. Drives him crazy. Anyway, Nancy saw the boyfriend fellow get in yesterday afternoon. Nancy was sitting on her balcony until late at night, and she said she didn’t ever see him leave. Then, he’s there in the morning.”

  “I heard Eva married him,” the nasally voiced woman said with barely restrained glee.

  They’re really getting some good entertainment out of all of this, Eva thought bitterly.

  “Now that’s a load of BS, don’t you think?” said the raspy speaker. “They just met! Who’d you hear that from? That must have just been gossip.”

  “No, it’s true. They had a quick ceremony at the courthouse like some of these young couples do these days.”

  “Do you think he’s got something to do with her arrest?”

  Eva reached the top of the staircase but lingered to hear the nasally voiced woman’s response.

  “I do think so,” she said after a brief pause. “He must be a drug dealer. Maybe that’s what Eva Sharpe’s been involved with. Selling them, buying them… Who knows? Maybe that’s how they fell in love.”

  Eva rolled her eyes and left the stairwell. She walked down her hallway, thinking how mistaken her neighbors’ judgments were. What did they know about Dimitris? Nothing, yet they felt comfortable spinning tales and making conjectures.

  This is only the beginning, Eva realized.

  For her whole life, she’d been surrounded by sensationalized news stories in various formats: television segments, blog posts, newspaper articles, and videos on the internet. The headlines were always attention-grabbing, made to get the consumer to tune in, click the link, or buy the paper. She’d never considered the possibility that one day her life might be the subject for such dramatic media content.

  Once the press gets wind of this story, there’s no telling how far they will take it, she thought as she opened the door to her apartment and stepped inside.

  The media loved to write about handsome, wealthy men. She’d found that out as soon as Nikki had first searched for Dimitris’s name on the web. Countless photographs had popped up, along with hundreds of articles and posts. His sudden marriage and then the arrest of the woman he’d married was sure to be splashed around online until the public tired of it—which could take years.

  She dreaded her trial, which would be open to the public. Of course, reporters would spice it up as much as they could
for the purpose of getting more eyes on their stories. How would she be portrayed? And what about Dimitris?

  We’ll be vilified, she thought as she walked, zombie-like, toward her bedroom. People love scandals, and every good scandal has an immoral villain at the heart of it—or two.

  She stripped down and left her clothing in a pile on the tile bathroom floor. Once the shower was steamy hot, she stepped inside and tried to scrub all remnants of the day from her skin. After a half an hour under the stream of water, she finally felt clean.

  She wrapped up in a bathrobe and made her way to the kitchen. Two plates were still out on the kitchen counter, and the remains of a blueberry muffin sat on each. The butter was still out, along with the cream, sugar, and two half-full mugs of coffee.

  She looked at the mug Dimitris had used. The cream had separated from the coffee, and it floated on the top in white clumps. She remembered so vividly what it had felt like to add just a teaspoon of it to Dimitris’s coffee. He’d looked at her with so much appreciation, as if no one had ever put cream in his coffee for him before.

  She’d imagined, after pouring it, how good it would feel to repeat that simple act of kindness many more times in the future. She’d even imagined that one day soon, they might be living together as a genuine married couple.

  She’d let her imagination run wild, and now she was paying for it. As she poured the leftover coffee down the drain, she felt as though her heart was breaking.

  It wasn’t until she reached for the dishwasher’s handle that she realized she was crying. She could see only blurry forms in front of her, and she couldn’t locate the handle.

  Shoot. I told myself I wouldn’t do this, she thought. She reached into a drawer for a clean dishrag and used it to wipe her eyes. Her phone, which rested on the countertop, caught her eye. She loaded the mug into the dishwasher, then walked over to her phone.

  She had five missed calls from Nikki.

  With a tap of her finger, Eva called her best friend back. She sniffled and walked to the living room to get a tissue while she listened to the phone ring.

  When Nikki picked up, she sounded annoyed. “Finally!” she said. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you all day. I know you’re totally caught up with Dimitris, but I really have to talk to you about…”

  Eva finished blowing her nose, and then sniffled again.

  “Eva? You okay?” Nikki asked. “Are you getting sick?”

  “I’m not sick,” Eva said miserably.

  “Is Dimitris there? What happened?” Nikki asked anxiously.

  “I was arrested,” Eva said. “For identity fraud.”

  Nikki gasped. “You’re kidding me!”

  “I wish I was,” Eva said. She lowered herself onto the floor and sat with her back against the wall. She tilted her chin, and the back of her head hit the wall with a soft thud. With unfocused eyes, she looked up at the pale ceiling. “I don’t know what to do, Nikki. All I keep thinking is that maybe this is a nightmare, and I’m going to wake up.”

  “Oh, honey,” Nikki murmured.

  “Dimitris met me at the detention center,” Eva said. She turned her gaze to the floor and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if the memory of being there was a nosebleed that she could stop if she just applied enough pressure. It didn’t work. She recalled vividly how ashamed she’d felt when Dimitris saw her in that setting. “He bailed me out. I just got done telling him everything.”

  “Everything?” Nikki asked. “You mean about the…” She lowered her voice, “forged papers? You told him about that?”

  “I had to,” Eva said. “What else could I do? It’s all going to be exposed soon enough. Nik, the FBI came to my door this morning while Dimitris and I were having coffee. The FBI! They cuffed me and brought me in. It was mortifying… No, that’s not even the right word.”

  Nikki was quiet, her shock evident.

  Eva searched her mind for words to put to her experience. “It was terrifying, to be honest… and it made me feel so helpless. There was nothing I could do but let them take me away. It was like my worst fear coming to life.”

  “That sounds awful,” Nikki said. “I’m so sorry, Eva.”

  Eva took a shaky breath. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I did all this to get away from criminal activity, and now I’m being accused of it.”

  “You’re not a criminal,” Nikki said passionately. “You’re a good person.”

  “But I broke the law,” Eva said. “My initial hearing is on Wednesday, and I’ll get a trial date then. I told Dimitris about my forged paperwork because I figured it would be best to give him the details before he had to learn it all from someone else—or through the news.” She shuddered at the thought of that.

  “Oh, you poor thing,” Nikki murmured sympathetically. “He just got here from Greece yesterday afternoon, right? To visit you?”

  “He didn’t just visit, Nik. He stayed the night.”

  Eva closed her eyes as she remembered how it had felt to fall asleep in Dimitris’s arms. She’d felt so safe, and so happy.

  She bit her lip, and her chin quivered as she tried to control her voice. She wanted to talk to Nikki, not spend the entire conversation sobbing into the phone’s receiver.

  “We talked about so many things,” she said, her voice quivery. “We decided to actually try having a real relationship—regardless of the whole fake marriage thing. We were going to try being a real couple. I fell so fast for him… so hard…” She couldn’t help it. She started to cry again.

  “I know you did,” Nikki said. Her soothing voice poured over the line. “I think you are in love with him, Eva. I’m not just throwing around the word, either. True love isn’t casual. It’s intense. I saw it happening to you.”

  Eva felt in her heart that what Nikki was saying was true. The intensity of emotion that she felt for Dimitris was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before.

  I fell in love with him, she realized.

  Nikki went on. “Eva, honey, that’s exactly how it felt when I fell for Clint. It happened fast. Sure, it took me months to admit that I loved him, but when I really think back on it, I can see that it happened the first time I met him.”

  Eva felt grief settle into the pit of her stomach. “I fell in love with a guy that I’m never going to get to be with,” she murmured.

  “Oh, honey,” Nikki said softly. “There’s always hope.”

  “I’ve made one mistake after another, and now it’s all ruined,” Eva said. “I should never have agreed to enter into a sham marriage, given my situation with my identity paperwork. Come to think of it, I never should have asked Bobby to make me those fraudulent documents to begin with. I’m sure Dimitris will want nothing to do with me now, and I don’t blame him.”

  “You were only doing what you had to do to stay safe,” Nikki said.

  “Ugh.” Eva placed her head in her hands, her thumbs rubbing her temples. “The crazy thing is, I think I’m more upset about losing Dimitris than I am about facing this trial. Is that insane?”

  “I don’t think so,” Nikki said, her voice gentle. “Hon, you love him. Of course you feel sad. But you should also think about practical concerns. If what you and Dimitris had is really over, then we need to think about your next steps. Are you absolutely sure that it’s over?”

  Eva thought about the way she and Dimitris had parted ways. There were no more kisses, no more sweet words. He’d kept his distance.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” she said. “I think he regrets that I ever came into his life. He probably can’t wait to put all of this—and me—behind him. This is going to be a horrific ordeal, and he’ll be lucky if he survives it with his company’s reputation intact.”

  She tried to think about the day from Dimitris’s perspective. “The only reason he wanted to risk the fake marriage was so that he could close on a multi-million-dollar deal with the government. Now, that deal won’t go through. I think he’s upset, and he has every right to be.”

  “
Okay, so you and Dimitris are no longer together…”

  “Not at all,” Eva said.

  “Then we have to think about your hearing,” Nikki said. “You’re going to hire a lawyer, right?”

  “I guess I have to,” Eva said. “After paying down my debt, I had a few thousand left over. I have another few grand from some painting sales.”

  “You sold some of your paintings?”

  “Yeah, I ran into Tahj Cutler a few days ago and he asked to show some of my new pieces. He’s had good luck selling them… I think all told I have about nine grand in the bank.”

  “That’s a good start, I think,” Nikki said. “Though, to be honest, I have no idea what lawyers charge these days. I’ll start looking into it tomorrow, okay? Want me to come over now, to keep you company?”

  “No, that’s okay,” Eva said. “To be honest, I’m so exhausted I could fall asleep right here on the floor. I’m just going to make it to my bed and then pass out. I’ll call you in the morning when I get up, okay?”

  “Sure, hon,” Nikki said. “I’ll do a little research online, and then we’ll start calling lawyers when you’re up.”

  Eva hung up. She really did feel like sleeping right there on the floor. Despite this, she managed to get up and make it to bed.

  As she laid her head down on the pillow, her phone rang. The incoming call lit up her phone, casting an eerie glow over the room. She reached out to check the caller ID and saw that it was Dimitris.

  Why is he calling? she wondered warily.

  A tiny little ray of hope entered her interior world, but her inner critic quickly dimmed it.

  He’s probably starting to think about how all of this will affect his company, she thought. Maybe he needs information to give the PR team, so they can begin to do damage control.

  Whatever it is, I don’t have the energy to deal with it.

  She closed her eyes as the final ringtone sounded.

  Then she welcomed sleep. She could not wait for the day to be over.