by Olivia Gates
She rounded on him, expression mirroring the same upheaval roiling inside him. “I told you to leave me alone! I told you—”
“You didn’t tell me.” Her eyes jerked wider at his ragged groan, fury draining to be replaced by wariness. And the shock and disbelief bled out of him. “You didn’t tell me you had my son.”
The truth blared on her face, blazed in her eyes. He could feel the knowledge of irrevocable exposure jolting through her, see her wrestling with a hundred reactions in succession, from shock to dismay to fear to resignation to resentment and back to fury in the space it took for his heart to punch his ribs a dozen times.
But Selene Louvardis wasn’t the effective attorney she was for nothing. She could weather any shock and deal with any situation on the fly.
She straightened, presented him with her court face, collected, inscrutable, table-turning. “Why should I have told you? What does it have to do with you?”
“You made sure it had nothing to do with me.” His voice sounded alien in his ears, the rumble of a bewildered beast.
A tremor shook her lips before she contained it, pressed her lips into firm defiance. She wasn’t as in control as she’d like him to think.
Next second he thought he might have imagined it as she shrugged, her expression implacable again, her gaze dripping icy nonchalance. “Listen, Sarantos, if you’re worrying this might have repercussions for you, don’t. We had consolation sex, after I assured you it was safe. It wasn’t. I didn’t factor in the hormonal mess losing my father would cause. You didn’t think to check just to make sure, and I wasn’t about to check with you to make sure it was okay with you if I had Alex. I’m sure if you’d known, you wouldn’t have wanted him. I’m the one who did, who decided to have him. So, he’s mine, and mine alone. End of story.”
At that moment the nanny appeared in the distance, rushing back with a still-fussing Alex in a stroller.
Selene looked at Sarantos with the impatience of someone dying to conclude a most unpleasant topic, to guarantee no follow-up hassles. “I’m sorry you saw Alex and sorrier you recognized him as yours on sight. But really, nothing has changed. I always thought I’d end up having a baby on my own, anyway, from a sperm donor. It worked out differently, but don’t think of yourself as more than that. You can go back to your life as if you didn’t see this. You can also strike me off your list of available woman. Wanting me for that affair was incidental to your trip anyway, an impulse I’m sure my resistance amplified. You came to address contract terms and that has been concluded. My agreement to take you up on your business offer stands.”
She turned around, making him feel she’d already left him far behind in her mind. “Goodbye, Sarantos. I really hope our personal paths won’t cross again.”
This time, Aris couldn’t move a muscle to stop her.
He watched her take the stroller from the nanny, steer her tiny procession out of his sight in a barely subdued hurry.
He stood there, riddled in the barrage of harsh truths she’d just bombarded him with.
She was right.
In every word she’d said.
If she’d “checked” with him, he would have said a baby was literally the last thing he wanted. Until he’d followed her here and seen Alex, the very idea of having a child had filled him with terror. But he had seen Alex.
And he’d seen her again.
How would anything he’d ever believed about himself apply anymore?
Selene held on until she’d put Alex to bed, sent Eleni away after apologizing to her for barking at her for Aristedes’s intrusion. Then she let chaos consume her.
She collapsed on her bed fully clothed, a mass of tremors.
Aristedes hadn’t only found out Alex existed, he’d realized he was his.
She still couldn’t believe he had from just a look.
Alex didn’t resemble him that much, did he? If he did, why had no one else noticed? Her brothers were in the dark about the identity of Alex’s father, and not for lack of guessing. They’d tried everything, from cajoling to tantrums to detective work. They’d resorted to making a list of every man she’d ever crossed paths with, then going through systematic eliminations. Aristedes was probably the only man it hadn’t crossed their minds to consider.
So was it because Alex’s looks could be attributed to them, since they shared physical characteristics with Aristedes? Or was it their hatred of him, their belief that she wouldn’t be so stupid as to sleep with the enemy that made them unable to acknowledge the similarities? Alex did have Aristedes’s hair and eyes and chin and dimple….
Her heart twisted in her chest. Seeing the two of them together tonight had been…devastating.
Since she’d discovered her pregnancy, she’d been unable to stop herself from wondering what it would have been like if things had been…different with Aristedes.
But things were what they were. And there was no changing them. As she’d known for twelve years now.
She’d always told herself her severe crush on him was a dead end because of her family’s hatred of him. But she’d faced the truth of late—that the unfeasibility had been on account of his never expressing any interest in her. When he’d seemed so…prolific in his—cruelly fleeting and impersonal—interest in any unattached female who had thrown herself at his feet. That was why she’d always called herself every kind of fool for being besotted with him, not because he’d been the worst man possible to have a crush on.
Then that fateful day had come when he’d suddenly taken an interest in her, shown her that her fantasies of him had been lukewarm and pathetic. Her condition had gone from severe to distressing after those two transfiguring days in his bed.
But she hadn’t been able to face waking up with him as real life reasserted itself, to await in person his verdict of how they would carry on from there.
Underneath the assured businesswoman she presented to the world was an only-and-youngest daughter of a patriarchal family. With her mother dying when she was only two, all the males in her life had thought they were compensating her by being overprotective. They’d ended up being restrictive and patronizing, even if unintentionally. She’d grown up fighting for every inch of independence she’d gained, every iota of self-confidence she’d developed.
When it came to men, after her one attempt at commitment, to escape the futility of her infatuation with Aristedes, she’d always kept her interactions with them light and distant. She’d been resigned by then that no man would ever approach her solely for her own charms, but mostly for her family’s wealth and clout. Complicating her situation was Aristedes’s very existence. Anyone faded to nothing in any comparison with him.
So, after the uninhibited intimacies they’d drowned in together, she’d walked away, her old self-consciousness taking hold. She’d needed him to reassure her, this man in a class of his own, that he could want her for more than a two-night stand.
But he hadn’t even spared her a phone call.
Still, after her initial humiliation, she’d made excuses for him. Even after he’d eliminated Louvardis Enterprises from the contended contract only a week after her father’s death, she’d been stupid enough to think that had nothing to do with them, that he’d had to do what was in his business’s best interests. She’d kept telling herself that she couldn’t have imagined the power of what they’d shared, that he’d been with her every step of the way, that he’d want to take up where they’d left off.
She’d burned for any contact from him for months before she’d been forced to face it. He was exactly what everyone said he was. An unfeeling, power-addicted, moneymaking machine. And what she’d thought so powerful had been another forgettable sexual encounter to him and she another interchangeable lay.
She’d also been unable to blame him for taking what she’d insisted on offering. There hadn’t been the slightest implication of anything more, and she’d been stupid for having illusions, especially when she’d always known the truth.
She’d grown up knowing what fast and hard players were, from her brothers’ example. She knew there was a subspecies of men who were all for intense but ephemeral flings, but who considered any kind of real intimacy a terminal disease. And Aristedes was worse than all of them combined. Their fling hadn’t been ephemeral. It had been dizzying, devastating. And it had ended. End of story.
At least, it had been for him. For her, the story had just begun and would never end.
After coming to grips with the emotional upheaval of discovering her pregnancy, she’d told her brothers. After being stunned that their ultraresponsible, cerebral Selene was accidentally pregnant, they reverted to typical Greek male mode, demanded to know who the father was. She’d told them it was none of their business, just like it wasn’t the father’s. The baby was hers. And she was keeping him. Period.
And she’d had Alex. Even with all the hardships being a single parent entailed, he was the best thing that had ever happened to her. There had been times when she’d been worn-out enough to wish that she could have a partner in this, that Alex could have a father—Aristedes—not just his uncles for father figures. But each time reality had reasserted itself as soon as the weakness wiled those impossible wishes into her exhausted psyche. And after the first trying months passed, forging her into someone capable of weathering the daily trials of motherhood, she’d gotten more certain by the day that Aristedes would never impinge on their lives. He was gone, and he’d stay gone.
Then she’d walked in the Louvardis mansion foyer hours ago, and there he was.
Her heart lurched again at the memory of her first sight of him after all this time.
Even with his back to her, even just hearing his voice locked in a testosterone-driven verbal brawl with Nikolas, he’d brought the tempest of longings and insecurities crashing back through her, scattering her stability and self-assurance.
Only the need to drive him away—before his presence caused a ripple effect that would mess up her orderly existence—had made her announce herself and attempt to speed up his departure.
It had turned out to be the worst thing she could have done.
Was it any wonder? She seemed unable to make one decision, take one action, have one thought that didn’t end in catastrophe where Aristedes Sarantos was concerned.
Instead of walking away, she’d confronted him. Instead of playing along, she’d defied him. Instead of clawing his eyes out, she’d almost succumbed to the ecstasy only he wielded.
And her challenge had reignited his interest. He’d even offered to make her his Stateside mistress. Another flavor in the assortment of eager bodies he no doubt had in every port.
And the worst part? She’d been outraged, disappointed, insulted. But she’d also been tempted.
She could no longer even attempt to deny it.
She still wanted him. Still craved him.
Well, so what if she did. She was only a woman. And there was no way any female with a pulse wouldn’t want that hunk of premium virility.
Her predictability made no difference. Just as she didn’t devour every piece of chocolate fudge cake that cast its spell on her, she wouldn’t have him. She wouldn’t come near him, or let him come near her. Or Alex.
Not that he’d want to do either now.
He’d probably grope for his walking papers, her absolution, and disappear into the sunset, this time never to return.
Selene had a newly minted conviction.
Whoever had dreamed up Greek gods had evidently had no idea someone like Aristedes Sarantos would one day exist and far surpass their imaginings.
And contrary to her expectations, he hadn’t disappeared.
Worse. He’d returned.
She watched Dina flutter as she led him in, almost flooding Selene’s spacious office in drool.
Selene barely held back from rolling her eyes when she had to gesture for her smart, savvy and searingly sarcastic PA to stop panting over Aristedes and leave them alone.
Not that she was in any better condition herself. She’d just had much more practice in hiding the chaos this man caused inside her. Though chaos was too harmless and peaceful a word to describe what his presence here was kicking up.
The one thing that helped keep it unmanifested was rationalizing said presence. He had business details to negotiate.
She didn’t rise from her desk. She doubted her legs would support her. And before he came closer, drew her deeper into his field of influence, she had to abort his mission.
“You should have called before coming,” she said. “I’ll text you when I draft the new terms. It’ll be at least a week.”
That failed to stop him. He didn’t even stop when he reached her desk. He came around it. Then he was towering over her, the raw power and masculinity barely harnessed within the deceptively civilized trapping of immaculate darkest gray silk pants searing her flesh through her own flimsy protective layer.
She couldn’t even swing away, trapped as she was in that heavy-lidded and -lashed gaze capable of slicing through steel.
Heat surged from that place inside her that she kept under tight containment, a furious fountain of excitement, of life, which she’d been keeping on an even trickle of steadiness and coping.
He made it worse, drawled, “I’m not here to talk business.”
That something in the center of her being crackled, snapped.
She didn’t resist this time. She should just give in. Just one more time. Capitulate, negate her challenge, break his thrall.
She’d let them have this release, this closure, here, now.
The words of her one-shot surrender trembled on her lips.
He quelled them. With his next words.
“I’m here to offer a new proposition. Marry me.”
Four
Marry me.
Aris had believed he’d live and die without ever uttering those two words.
But even if his wildest fantasies could have painted this impossible scenario, they wouldn’t have expanded to imagining the reaction the offer would elicit.
After gaping at him for minutes on end, stupefaction a frozen mask on her face, Selene now seemed to be choking.
But she wasn’t choking.
Selene was laughing. So hard she could barely breathe.
Every crystalline peal fell on him like a resounding slap.
Not that he could even blame her.
If anyone had asked him yesterday what would be the most ridiculous thing he could think of, considering marriage as even a theoretical option for him, let alone proposing in practice, would have been at the top of his list.
It evidently ranked way up there on the echelons of the absurd to her, too.
He exhaled in resignation, braced his legs apart, shoved his hands deep in his pants’ pockets and brooded down on a sight he’d never thought to see. Selene Louvardis, helpless in the grip of a fit of laughter.
He wondered how he would have felt if this was fueled by delighted mirth, not stunned ridicule.
He found his teeth gritting tighter as he watched her every nuance and waited for her amusement to die down. At last, she reached across her desk for a tissue to wipe away tears, shaking her head as if she still couldn’t credit that she’d heard him say what he’d said.
Then she finally looked up at him, disbelieving mockery staining her gaze and twisting one corner of that edible mouth.
He sighed. “I bet you wouldn’t have laughed that hard if I’d proposed that you adopt me.”
Another chuckle burst out of her. “I would have actually found that a more feasible proposition.” She shook her head again. “That’s the one thing I have to give you, Sarantos. You’re so totally, predictably unpredictable, you thwart all those who analyze you to chart what you’ll do next. Conglomerates have bet their futures on you jumping one way then you always go and do something this…ridiculously outrageous, and leave everyone staring in your wake in incomprehension. Marry you, huh? Phew. Wow. I didn’t see that
one coming.” Suddenly the shrewdness in her eyes rose to overshadow everything else. “I bet even you are wondering what the hell you think you’re doing.”
He gazed down into those mocking eyes. They reminded him of the pristine moonlit skies of his childhood where the stars had twinkled secret communications of consolation and wisdom to him. He felt their gaze penetrate down to his bones, seeing right through his apparent certainty to his turmoil.
He might act as if he’d worked out all the ramifications of this proposal, knew what he was asking. But he hadn’t. He didn’t.
Did anyone, who ever proposed something so irreversibly life-changing? He had been dreading her reaction. And he didn’t know which of the possibilities he’d dreaded more. Shock, suspicion, anger, hesitation, elation, coyness, rejection, acceptance, a combination of some or a sequence of all. Each one opened a gateway to a hellish realm he would have done anything to step clear of.
But he shouldn’t have worried. She’d defied them all.
He shook his head, too, holding that gaze that asked for no quarter and gave none. “You should talk about unpredictability.”
“You mean you didn’t see this…fit coming in answer to your imperative demand? If you didn’t, I’ve either gravely underestimated your arrogance, or you’re losing your infallible insight and preternatural powers of prediction.”
Now that he thought about it, with his growing knowledge of her, outright ridicule—the one reaction he’d left out of the possibilities—should have been the only one he expected. And he should be relieved.
He wasn’t.
He had no idea why he wasn’t. He no longer knew anything. Not how he felt, or how to deal with the discoveries that had decimated his every meticulously constructed concept of himself, uprooted every ironed-out-to-the-last-detail strategy of his life.
So here he was, doing what he hadn’t done since he was twelve. Jumping without a plan, let alone a backup. Improvising. Because for the first time, he could see no other viable option.
He finally exhaled. “It’s probably a mixture of both.”