by Kit Tunstall
Leah went to the study, turning on the PC to check her email, which she had neglected. Most was spam, but she had a long email from Arianna. The girl seemed to be settling in happily and was about to pledge to a sorority.
With a smile, she propped her feet on the desk and continued sorting through the correspondences. She responded to an email from the advisor at City College, inviting her to register online. She had already decided to enroll there, due to the proximity to their apartment. It was silly to go halfway across the city for another college, with an equally good program, when she could walk to City College. Leah knew registering there was another little step to committing herself to remaining with Nikos, but she experienced only a few doubts.
Afterward, Leah turned her attention to the pile of mail stacked in the basket on his desk. Most of the correspondences were for Nikos, or Andrakis Corporation. There were a few invitations from people in their social circle, and she set those aside to discuss attending with Nikos. Leah had a few letters from various charities, thanking her for her dedicated service. She smiled, pleased to be acknowledged, but even happier that Nikos had hired someone to assume the duties.
The last envelope was thickly padded, with her name printed in neat block letters. Leah used the letter opener to slice open the flap and extract a stack of papers. In shock, Leah read through them, finding several emails addressed to her husband, from Maia. All were extremely intimate, if not pornographic, and spoke of when they would be together again. Soon, apparently.
She searched for a hint of who had sent the envelope, but found nothing besides a postmark from New York. It didn’t take a genius to determine Maia was the sender. Her stomach clenched with the realization that the other woman was in New York.
For a moment, she sat in the chair, paralyzed with anger. How dare Maia come here? She and Nikos were on the cusp of a real marriage. That scheming hussy would only be trouble.
Her anger grew with the realization Nikos hadn’t bothered to inform her of the emails. If they had been unwanted, why hadn’t he told her? It was akin to lying, and she refused to put up with more lies.
Spurred into action, Leah stuffed the pages back into the envelope and carried it upstairs with her. She dressed in slacks and a nice blouse, not wanting to look out of place at the Andrakis Corporation’s headquarters. The sensible approach was to wait until Nikos came home this evening to have a discussion, but she couldn’t wait that long.
Leah took the limousine, deciding she was too angry to focus on driving herself and not wanting to wait for a taxi. The driver negotiated through the heavy traffic, finally reaching the building shortly before lunchtime.
He parked in the parking garage, and she demurred when he would have followed her. She had no need for his protection in the safety of the Andrakis Corporation.
A fuchsia Lamborghini, with a plate from a national car rental agency, caught her attention as she neared the elevator. It bothered her, though she couldn’t pinpoint why until she had stepped into the elevator and pressed the button to take her to the top floor. It was such a flashy, sexy car and seemed like the kind Maia would rent. Was she already here? Had she been in New York for a while? Was Nikos keeping her a secret until he knew if Leah was staying? It wasn’t just the sudden stop of the elevator that made her stomach turn when she reached the top floor.
Leah tried to look confident as she strode to the reception desk. She hadn’t needed to deal with security before now, because the driver had the code to the employee parking garage. What if the receptionist refused to let her see Nikos? What could she do, besides cause a scene and hope he heard?
The blonde had silvery hair, high cheekbones, and bright green eyes. She was svelte and made the perfect ornament for Nikos’s inner sanctum. Had he slept with this woman?
The friendly smile she gave Leah changed her demeanor from one of an ice princess to a normal person. “Hello, Mrs. Andrakis.”
Leah blinked. She hadn’t been to the building in years, since before this woman had started working here. “Do I know you?” Had they met at a company function, and she’d forgotten?
The blonde shook her head. “No, ma’am. I recognized you from the pictures in Mr. Andrakis’s office.”
“Oh.” Leah didn’t know how to respond to that. He kept pictures of her? Why? Upon learning the receptionist’s name was Kelly, she asked, “May I pop in for a moment, Kelly?”
Kelly frowned slightly. “He’s with someone, Mrs. Andrakis.”
Her tone set the hairs on Leah’s neck upright. “Who?”
The other girl hesitated, which spoke volumes. Leah didn’t wait for her reply. She ignored Kelly calling after her as she turned and strode toward Nikos’s office. With more force than she’d intended, Leah twisted the knob and pushed, slamming the door against the wall. Family pictures of Nikos, Arianna, and herself caught her attention momentarily. Focusing her gaze on Nikos, she was unsurprised to find Maia standing beside him. The other woman leaned against Nikos, her lips near enough his that they could have been kissing just a millisecond earlier.
Nikos looked up, going pale. Maia turned toward her, smirking with satisfaction as she trailed a finger down his chest. Her husband’s chest.
“You whore.” Leah tossed the envelope full of emails in their direction. “That is my husband you’re pawing.”
“Not for long,” cooed Maia.
“Maia.” Nikos sounded angry. No doubt he was—angry that she’d caught him with his mistress.
“I agree,” said Leah with surprising calm. She turned to Nikos. “I don’t know what you’re doing, Nikos, and I really don’t care. If this is about the stock, you can keep it. You can have everything, including the settlement stipulated in the marriage contract.”
“Leah…” He finally stepped away from Maia, reaching toward her.
She jerked away, hissing vehemently, “Don’t touch me. I don’t want your filthy, lying, cheating hands on me.” Leah turned on her heel, almost colliding with a shocked Kelly, but sidestepping her at the last moment. “Excuse me,” she said with ridiculous politeness and walked around the other woman.
“Wait, Leah,” Nikos shouted behind her. She sped up, in no mood to face him right now. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes, and the sodden ball in her lump wouldn’t allow her to talk. She refused to cry in front of him. He’d seen enough of her tears. He had caused enough of them, and she’d wasted too many on him.
Leah reached the elevator with Nikos still following. She stabbed the “Close” button repeatedly, and it shut before he made it to the lift. The ride down seemed to take forever, and she rushed out as soon as the doors opened. In a run, she made it to the limousine and climbed inside before the driver had even realized she was back. “Drive,” she said breathlessly.
“Where, Mrs. Andrakis?”
“Anywhere,” she snapped. “Except Nikos’s apartment,” she added through gritted teeth. On edge, she surveyed the garage, relieved to find no trace of Nikos as they exited the parking garage and joined the flow of traffic. Once safely away from Andrakis Corporation, Leah put up the privacy panel and had a good cry. As she wiped her eyes, she vowed it was the last time she would cry over Nikos Andrakis.
Leah had the chauffeur drive aimlessly through the city for several hours, before finally facing the reality that she had to return to the apartment for her belongings. A confrontation with Nikos was likely inevitable. As they pulled into the parking garage, she took a deep breath, bracing herself. With determination, she walked to the elevator and rode it to the penthouse, refusing to carry on or betray any emotions to Nikos. She would handle this calmly, maturely, and with distant politeness.
Leah’s heart thudded in her ears when she opened the door with her key, but she was pleased to see a composed young woman staring back at her when she looked at herself in the mirror hanging on the wall near the entrance.
No sense in delaying the inevitable. Emotions firmly in check, Leah walked through the house, heading toward the
study. She entered with a light knock, finding Nikos at his desk, as she had expected.
She hadn’t expected him to look so disheveled. A half-empty decanter was on the desk near his crystal glass, and he looked like he’d had a few. Perhaps he’d been bracing himself too. It must be difficult to tell your wife you wanted a divorce so you could marry your mistress—especially when ten percent of your company was at stake, she thought scathingly.
“Where have you been?” he asked in a slurred voice.
Leah blinked at the realization he was intoxicated. She had never seen him drink too much. Other than when she’d miscarried, she had never seen Nikos appear less than fully in control of everything. “Out.”
“’Out’,” he mocked, tossing back the rest of the liquid in his glass.
“I was thinking.”
Nikos slammed the glass onto the desk. “You have no idea how relieved I am to hear you’re capable of the action, agapi mou.” The endearment sounded more like an aspersion. “I have seen little evidence in the time we’ve been married.”
Anger stirred, but she forced it away. “We should talk.”
“Damn well right.” Nikos started to stand, knocking his hand against the opened decanter and sloshing the alcohol everywhere. He collapsed back into the chair.
With a deep breath, she said, “I meant what I said earlier. I don’t want anything from you. The stock in your company was never mine, even if I inherited it from my father.” She shook her head. “If you had just asked me not to sell the shares until the company could afford to buy them back, I wouldn’t have. There was no need to force us both into a marriage just to maintain control of the corporation.”
He glared at her. “I don’t know how many other ways to say this. I did not marry you for those damn shares. I married you for Arianna, and I am trying to stay married to you because—” Nikos trailed off, running a hand through his hair roughly. “Sit down.” He gestured to the chair across from his desk.
She wanted to refuse, but decided not to with his mood so volatile. As Leah perched on the edge of the chair, she was eerily reminded of the night when she had sat here more than three years ago, when Nikos had first suggested the preposterous idea of them marrying.
“Here.” Nikos lifted a stack of papers from a drawer and slid them across to her.
“What’s this?”
“Read it.”
Leah scanned the first few paragraphs, eyes widening as the words sank in. “What…”
“And this.” With a flourish, he produced another stack of paper and fed it into the shredder.
“What’s that?”
“The damned marriage contract. The gesture is mostly symbolic, I suppose, but I wanted to make a point.”
“Which is?” she asked huskily.
Nikos dropped into his chair. “That there’s nothing binding you to me. No legal agreement keeping us together. There is no requirement for you to stay.”
She flinched at his words as her gaze dropped to the papers. More confused than ever, she said, “If you don’t want to stay married, why are you giving back my shares?”
Nikos looked at her through bloodshot eyes. “I want to stay married, Leah, but I don’t want to have trapped you. I got you pregnant with the intention of making you stay married to me.”
She gasped. “That’s not true.”
He nodded, looking miserable. “It is. The night you made that offhanded comment at the party, the idea took seed. I knew if I could get you pregnant, you would have to stay with me. I deliberately didn’t use protection whenever you were too engrossed to notice.” His shoulders drooped. “I had no idea that I would give you a baby that wouldn’t live.”
Leah reached out automatically, but drew her hand back. “I hope you aren’t blaming yourself for the miscarriage. We’ll never know why he didn’t live, but it could have been a genetic mistake contributed by either one of us, or my body might have failed him.”
He swallowed but didn’t reply.
Once more, she looked down at the papers. “I really don’t want ten percent of your company, Nikos.”
He snorted. “I guess it’s a good thing I gave you one hundred percent then.”
She blinked, scanning the pages more thoroughly. “What? This is crazy.”
A harsh laugh exploded from him. “That’s what the attorneys said—especially when I insisted they draw up all the necessary paperwork within hours.”
“Why are you doing this?”
Nikos seemed defeated, and the lack of spark in his gaze was alarming. “It’s all I can think of to prove to you that I want you as my wife because I love you, not because of that damned company.”
She jerked in surprise. “What did you say?”
He sighed. “I want you to stay with me, but only because you want to. I love you, Leah. I tried trapping you and forcing you to stay, thinking having you even under duress was better than a life without you.” Nikos’s lips thinned. “I still think that, but I have no right to keep you. I have behaved boorishly, and the only way I can make up for it is to offer you your freedom.” He leaned forward, bringing his hand near hers. “With the caveat that I want you to stay, with all my heart.”
She shook her head, unable to believe what he had said. “How can you love me? I’m not the kind of woman who should be your wife.” Her calm façade slipped, making her voice crack. “And there’s Maia. If you love me, how can you still be with her?”
Nikos swore. “For an intelligent woman, you can be an idiot sometimes, agapi mou.”
She gasped, but he continued before she could retort.
“I am not with Maia. I haven’t been in years, and I do not wish to be. She has done everything in her power to make you think we are together, because she wants you out of the picture.” He laughed harshly. “The fool actually thinks I could ever love someone else if you left me.”
Leah bit her lip, wanting to believe him, but unable to summon the necessary level of trust. “What has she done?”
“She sent you those emails, for one.” He lifted a finger, as though counting off her deeds. “Speaking of, perhaps you noticed there wasn’t one reply from me in the pile? I ignored her. I should have responded bluntly, telling her I do not want her, but I didn’t know how to deal with it.” He shrugged. “You have had me so tangled inside that I could not think logically about anything.”
She frowned at the accusation, but prompted him to continue. “What else?”
“She tricked my assistant into giving her information about us, including the miscarriage. He thought she was a friend of the family in Greece. Marco thought it was sweet that she called to discreetly check on us, because she didn’t want to intrude at such a private time.” Nikos rolled his eyes.
A sinking feeling hit her stomach, and she forced herself to ask, “When we got married, was Andrakis Corporation in trouble, capital-wise?”
Nikos frowned. “No. There were some financial difficulties years before I ever had anything to do with the company, but Dmitri had straightened it all out by the time he died.” His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“I really am an idiot.” She closed her eyes, unable to bear looking at him. How could she have believed Maia without even asking Nikos?
“What? Why?”
Haltingly, Leah relayed the conversation she’d had with Maia. “She had all the paperwork pertaining to the stocks.” Leah ran a hand through her hair, mussing it similarly to Nikos’s in the process. “She just sounded so believable.”
He cursed again, but his anger seemed to be directed at Maia. “She is a scheming, conniving piece of work, Leah. Only one thing motivates Maia and that is self-interest. I was too young to realize it when we were engaged, but maturity brought perspective and wisdom. I got over her a long time ago, even before I married you. I would not take her back under any circumstances.”
She couldn’t doubt the sincerity in his tone, or the genuine emotion in his gaze. Leah was numb with shock at her own stupidity. Why had s
he been so quick to believe Maia, having already ascertained what kind of woman she was?
The answer took her breath away as it came to her. She had been so quick to believe Maia because she couldn’t understand why Nikos had wanted to continue the marriage. It had seemed beyond belief that he had wanted her. In her incredulity, she had managed to find all sorts of signs and clues pointing to his ulterior motives. Still, she did have reason not to trust him….
“Why didn’t you tell me about my father’s stock, and that I had inherited it?”
He paused, seeming to be looking for an answer. Finally, Nikos said, “I would like to say it was something incredibly romantic—like my need to have you as my wife at all costs—that kept me from telling you. The truth is, I didn’t love you when we got married. I barely knew you. As for the stock, I really didn’t think about it until we were about to be married. Arianna was so excited about the marriage and living with both of us. I was afraid of the setback to her recovery if you changed your mind.”
Leah nodded, knowing he was right. After telling Arianna of the forthcoming marriage, along with the white lie of leading her to believe they had been dating for a while, the other girl had seemed reenergized and determined to get out of the hospital before the ceremony. “You might not believe it, but I would have gone through with the marriage, even if you had told me about the shares at the last minute.”
He nodded. “I know that now. You love Arianna as much as I do, and you wouldn’t have let her down.”
Leah licked her lips. “Well, I’ll admit my reasons for agreeing weren’t completely altruistic, nor prompted by the need for financial security.” She locked eyes with him. “I’d had a crush on you since I was a teenager. When you offered me the chance to be your wife, a small part of me jumped at it, convinced I could make you love me." She sighed. “I let go of that illusion after our wedding night. When you rejected me, I figured out you would never see me in any way besides your convenient, temporary wife.”