by Lucy Monroe
“And yet, here you are again.”
“Two years older and hopefully wiser.”
“Did you know your father’s health is not what it once was?” Ariston asked, realizing that if she hadn’t spoken to the man in such a long while, she might not.
He couldn’t be sure how far Rhea’s honesty extended when dealing with Chloe.
“We’ve already established he’s no longer at the helm of Dioletis Industries.”
“That is not my point.”
Chloe pushed her dinner away, having eaten about half of it. “What is your point?”
“I merely wished to make certain you knew of his ill health.” Ariston frowned at the unfinished plate.
But Chloe didn’t seem to notice. She was too busy looking askance at Ariston, her mouth twisted in confusion. “Why would you care?”
“Family is family.”
“Which is why you see your parents so often.” As digs went in the present circumstances, it was a good one.
“Neither of my parents are interested in relationships conducted on anything but their own terms.” And Ariston was not a man to let others dictate the circumstances of his life.
He hadn’t been since long before reaching his majority when he’d put a stop to the visitations with both parents in favor of attending boarding school in New York and spending holidays with his grandfather in Greece.
“So you should understand my estrangement with my father.”
“I merely enquired as to whether you knew he was ill.”
“Rhea told me as much. She said that was why he’d put her in charge of the company.”
“But you were not sure whether or not to believe her.”
“It was entirely possible Rhea was simply playing to my heartstrings. I’m not so naive that I don’t realize my own sister has a good dose of business shark in herself as well. And she wants to save Dioletis Industries badly.”
Chloe’s expression turned troubled. “And I don’t know how much of my father’s illness is real and how much is contrived to manipulate Rhea into doing what he wanted. He felt a younger and more appealing face at the head of the company would have a positive effect on share prices.”
Ariston let out a derisive sound.
“You know, there’s something I don’t understand.”
“What is that?”
“Why you wouldn’t speak to Rhea.”
“I would think that would be obvious.”
“You wanted to see me again,” Chloe said with some resignation.
“Yes.” He ate another bite of steak, but this time she didn’t mirror his actions and he gave up, pushing his own plate away. “It is dangerously high blood pressure, I believe.”
“What?”
“Your father’s health issue.”
Chloe’s expression hardened. “I didn’t ask.”
“In light of his health, you do not feel the time has come to mend fences?”
“No.”
“That is unlike you.”
“As we established earlier, I’ve changed.”
“Not in every way. You still find me irresistible.”
“The feeling is mutual, it seemed to me,” she said with some asperity.
He didn’t deny it, but part of him would have liked to. Even if it would have been a lie. “Tell me what you want for Dioletis Industries.”
“For hundreds of people to keep their jobs. For my sister not to end up having a heart attack before she’s thirty.”
“And you do not care how that happens?”
“Of course I care. What do you mean?”
He waved at her meal. “Eat. I didn’t mean anything offensive. I merely wondered if maintaining the Dioletis name was important to you. I would guess not.”
“Not for me, no.” She made no move to eat.
Ah, but maybe it was for her sister, whom Chloe still spoke to and made no bones about loving despite their many differences. “What about Rhea?”
“She’s willing to offer up enough stock to make you majority shareholder, if that’s what you’re asking,” Chloe said after they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes. “Frankly, I can’t imagine a better outcome.”
He kept his surprise at that pronouncement off his face. “In exchange for how large an infusion of cash?”
Rhea had been right to assume he would insist on being made a majority shareholder before he gave the Dioletis empire another fifty cents. Those shares would preferably come from Eber, but Ariston wouldn’t quibble about the source, merely the final outcome.
He was pleasantly surprised that Rhea was already in the right headspace for the deal he meant to propose though.
“I don’t know.”
“You do not know?”
“No. I told you, I don’t have anything to do with the company now. Rhea said you would know what needed doing and if you were willing to do it, would set the terms.”
“Rhea’s a smart woman.”
“Yes.”
“And if my terms included taking most or all of your sister’s stock?” he asked, giving no indication whether her answer would make any difference to him.
“That sounds more like a hostile takeover than a bailout or a merger, but I don’t have any doubts Rhea would go for it,” Chloe said, making no effort to hide how desperate Rhea was to save the company.
“No doubts at all?”
“No. She’s willing to have the company absorbed by SSE if that’s what it takes to keep people employed, and anything that gets my sister out from under the two-ton weight she’s got on her shoulders right now is a good idea to me.”
“I doubt Rhea would thank you for telling me either of those things.” Not that knowing them made any difference to the outcome.
He had already decided what was going to happen.
“Right now, my sister is fighting to save her marriage and a company that’s going down the drain faster than water. She’s not going to quibble how she manages either.”
“Her marriage?” He knew Eber had not approved of Samuel, but Rhea had always seemed smitten.
“Samuel is sick of coming second to the company and Rhea’s had two miscarriages already. The doctor said if she continues working under such stressful conditions, her chances of a viable pregnancy are almost nil.”
“She could have allowed someone else to take over the chairmanship.”
“Not according to my father.” Chloe’s tone was laced with a more intense form of the same anger she’d shown toward Eber Dioletis every time his name was mentioned.
“Rhea is an adult. She makes her own choices,” Ariston pointed out.
“Some choices are harder to make than others.”
“Like moving across the country and starting a new life.”
“That one wasn’t so hard.”
“I think perhaps you have a streak of ruthlessness.”
Chloe’s lovely green eyes widened and she shook her head. “No.”
“You left Greece without looking back.”
Her face spasmed with emotion. “We aren’t discussing the end of our marriage.”
“No, apparently you’re more interested in seeing that your sister’s marriage doesn’t suffer a similar fate.”
“Yes.” This time Chloe’s tone was filled with a wealth of emotion. Her shoulders slumped. “I hate seeing her so stressed. Samuel makes her happy, he makes her feel loved and wanted, but she’s going to lose him for the sake of my father’s approval and the company.’’
“It’s a pity you didn’t take our marriage as seriously as you take your sister’s.”
“It was an entirely different circumstance.”
“Really? You certainly maintained a happy facade during our marriage. I would not have considered you an actress capable of keeping up that kind of subterfuge for three years.”
“I … that’s not important any longer.”
“No, your sister’s happiness is all that matters.”
“Hundreds of employees
and their families matter, too,” Chloe said with complete earnestness.
“Once again, you are not thinking of yourself.” Which was something his plans counted on, so he wasn’t complaining. Merely observing.
“I’m not important in this.”
“You’d be surprised.” He asked, “Do you want your sister to maintain a directorial position with the company?”
He didn’t see Rhea happy as a homemaker and Chloe had stated her sister’s happiness was at the forefront of her priorities.
“She’s willing to step down completely, but is hoping you’ll keep her on in a managerial capacity. I’m hoping it will be a position with more normal hours and stress levels.” Chloe gave him a beseeching look. “Rhea’s smart. You know that. She’s got her MBA from Harvard. She has impressive contacts and if our father had stepped down five years ago, maybe the company wouldn’t be where it is today.”
Perhaps, but then again, perhaps not. Chloe was wholly unaware of Ariston’s moves behind the scenes and for now, he was content to keep it that way.
“She has more in common with your father than with you, Chloe, no matter what you’d like to think.”
Chloe surprised him by nodding in quick agreement. “But she’s not just like him, and for her sake as well as the people who love her, I don’t want to see Rhea become any more like Eber Dioletis than she is.”
“I think you are seeing a softness that isn’t there.” The woman had refused to leave her job despite the fact that the stress levels and long work hours had resulted in multiple miscarriages.
“No. It’s there. She cares about people. Samuel. Me. She saved my life.”
“What do you mean?”
Chloe looked away, an expression of shame flitting across her features. “It doesn’t matter—all that matters is that I’m here because she deserves for me to be.”
“And if you want me to listen to your pleas on her behalf, you’ll tell me why I should.”
“My reasons won’t matter to you.”
“I’ll be the judge of that, Chloe.”
“I stopped eating after I left Greece. Not on purpose, or anything, but food just didn’t appeal.”
“Why?”
Chloe shrugged. “Reaction to ending our marriage, I guess.”
“It was your choice.” But it certainly didn’t seem as if she’d enjoyed making it.
“Like I said before, some choices are harder than others.”
“And yet you made it.”
“I did.”
“But you stopped eating,” he prompted, wanting to understand how that could have gotten life-threatening.
Though looking at how thin she was two years on, maybe he already had his answer.
“Yes. I didn’t even really notice when I started losing weight. Rhea did and she went ballistic on me, insisting I see a nutritional counselor. She wanted me to go to the therapist, but relented when I changed my eating habits and gained back a bit of weight.”
“This is you after gaining some weight back?” he asked in shock. “How much had you lost?”
“More than I could afford and maintain my health.” The stubborn tilt to his ex-wife’s chin said she wasn’t going into more detail.
“What did your father think of all this?”
“I have no idea. Rhea respected my decision to cut ties with him.”
“Even though that must have caused problems between the two of them.”
“I’m sure it did, but Rhea never taxed me with it.”
“You’re very loyal to each other.”
“Yes.” Chloe’s eyes shone with unmistakable emotion.
He understood that sort of loyalty, probably better than most. He would do anything for his grandfather.
“You are saying you grieved the end of our marriage.”
“Of course I did.”
There was no of course, but they would get to that in due time.
“I find it hard to believe that you do not care if Dioletis Industries ceases to exist.” He knew Chloe wasn’t as enamored of the business as her father and sister, but no matter what she said, it was her heritage.
“As long as people stay employed? No.” Sincerity rang in Chloe’s voice. “One way or another, Dioletis Industries has taken more from me than I could afford to give.”
“What do you mean?” He was learning things about his ex-wife he’d had no clue about in the three years of their marriage.
“It always had all of my father’s attention. Though I truly believed he loved my mother, he neglected her. I was only eleven when she died, but I was old enough to have seen the impact my father’s priorities had on Mom. He hurt her time and again. And she always forgave him.”
“He hurt you, too, the daughter more interested in art than business, unlike Rhea,” he surmised.
Chloe nodded and then sighed. “That’s water under the bridge, just like my degree in fine arts. I’m really not interested in discussing my father, his company, or the past. Since Rhea holds voting privileges for majority stock in Dioletis Industries, whatever she wants to happen to the company is what is going to happen.”
Eber could still kick up a fuss by revoking his proxy from his daughter, but by the time the paperwork cleared, Ariston’s acquisition of his company would already have gone through. Possession was considered nine-tenths of the law by most people. For a Spiridakou? It was the law.
He wasn’t giving up what was his. Not even his ex-wife.
“You do not expect to get anything out of this deal personally?” he asked, knowing the answer even as he did so.
“No.”
It was so damn Chloe, and so not a woman who would enter a contract with the intent to defraud the other party. He’d allowed himself to forget the woman he had spent three years living with and replaced her in his mind with a caricature that did not fit Chloe Spiridakou at all.
Even the Chloe Spiridakou who had lied and used birth control to circumvent their original contract. There were motivations here he still did not understand, but he would.
It was in his nature to keep at a problem until he had it solved. Something told him he’d just begun to scratch the surface of the problem of the woman he’d married.
His plans would give him all the time he needed to dig deeper.
“And if I want something personal?” he asked smoothly.
For several long seconds, Chloe could do nothing but gape at her ex-husband. This is what all the questions were leading to, and the sex, and probably even the specially flavored coffee! He’d been setting her up.
Because he wanted something from her. He’d already gotten the sex. What else could it be? Maybe he wanted more?
“You’re saying you want something personally, for you?” she asked, clarifying.
“I’m saying I want something personal for me from you.”
Well, there could be no mistaking his intention with those words. “But what exactly?”
She still couldn’t fathom anything he could possibly want from her that he couldn’t get with a lot less effort and money than it would take to save Dioletis Industries.
“What if I were to tell you that I want something similar to the agreement five years ago?”
“Is that what you’re telling me?” she asked, not sure she could believe what her ears were telling her.
He’d had the divorce papers drawn up and ready for use, not her. And he’d made absolutely zero effort to contact her after she walked out of their apartment in Athens. She might have left him, but he’d shown no interest in getting her back.
And she was just now realizing how much she’d been hoping he would.
“Ne.” Definite. Affirmative. And in Greek.
He meant business. Literally.
“You want to marry me again?” Shock coursed through her and made her voice break.
It was quickly followed by sick dread as her imagination ran wild. Maybe he wanted to try the business-arrangement marriage again, but this time with her sister
? And he needed Chloe to help him convince Rhea.
Only, hadn’t she made it clear that she was meeting him in the first place because ultimately Chloe wanted to see her sister’s marriage saved? Not destroyed by another business deal meant to save Dioletis Industries.
Ariston had said he knew everything about his business interests; perhaps he’d known about the cracks in Rhea’s marriage before even Chloe. And was counting on them?
They’d always gotten along, Rhea and Ariston. They had so much in common. More than she and Ariston had ever had.
Would Rhea do it? Marry Chloe’s ex, if it meant saving their father’s empire? She wouldn’t give Samuel up for the company, would she? Only a sinking feeling in Chloe’s gut said that Rhea just might.
She’d darn near done it already.
“Chloe … yineka mou … are you well?” Suddenly Ariston was there. Squatting in his sharply tailored suit and fresh shirt beside her dining chair.
His hand cupped her cheek oh so carefully, his cerulean eyes filled with a concern she knew she couldn’t let herself believe in.
“What is the matter?” he demanded.
She almost laughed, but was afraid if she started, she wouldn’t stop until the tears came. “You said … marry …”
And her brain had taken wing to a dark, ugly place, Chloe never, ever, ever wanted to live.
“Not marriage … not exactly.”
“Not exactly.” Not with Rhea? “What then, exactly?”
His hand dropped, but he remained where he was, his gaze boring into hers. “I want you in my bed.”
It didn’t even surprise her that he’d said it out loud in the middle of the restaurant. He wasn’t speaking loud enough for his voice to carry far, but she didn’t think it would matter to him if he had been.
Ariston didn’t live by normal people’s rules.
“I … that …” He wanted a mistress? A lover? What?
“Without the birth control,” he said with intense conviction. “I want the baby you withheld from me.”
“You knew.” Shock upon shock. She’d been so sure he wasn’t aware.
She couldn’t even begin to deal with his comment about a baby just that second.
“I told you.” He stood and returned to his seat. Still close, but a vast gulf of emotion and understanding between them. “There is very little about my business interests that I do not know.”