by Marian Tee
“How was your day?”
Clearing her throat, she lied, “I just stayed here all day.” There was no point telling him about Stavros over the phone. It was the kind of conversation better done in person, where she’d have a chance to make sure he would see on her face that she was telling the truth.
“I see.”
An awkward silence followed, and again she had to press her hand to her mouth. In the past, she would have no problem filling the gap and chatting the night away. In the past, she would eagerly ask him questions but…it wasn’t the same between them now.
Her bright tone as false as her words, she said, “I gotta go, Damen. My aunts are trying to call me via Skype – I hadn’t been able to reach them all day.”
She was lying, Damen thought. But could he blame her? She might have changed, but she had not changed towards him. It was him who had changed towards her, and he didn’t know how to find his way back to what they once were.
“I’ll let you go then. Have a good night’s sleep. I will be back tomorrow as early as I can.”
“Thanks.” She ended the call, feeling like she had ended it as if she had only been talking to her boss and not the man she was supposed to marry.
When Damen put the phone down, he didn’t let himself think. He simply reached for the envelope and started to read.
By the time he finished reading the entire blog that had exposed Mairi’s childhood diary, he was sick to his stomach.
He called Mairi’s bodyguard, asking for a report for the first time. “Did she leave the house today?”
“Yes, sir.”
She had lied.
She had lied.
“And where did she go? Who was she with?”
The bodyguard answered in an inflectionless voice, “She had dinner with Stavros Manolis.”
****
“You must wake, Ms. Tanner.”
It took a while for the housekeeper’s voice to rouse her from a deep and heavy sleep, and a few more moments for Mairi to sit up and realize that something was wrong. The woman could not look at her straight in the eye. Why?
“Ms. Tanner, you are requested to leave the premises immediately.”
Mairi stared at her blankly.
The housekeeper’s voice became more strained. “The order came from Mr. Leventis himself.”
“W-what? I don’t understand.”
“I’m sorry about this, Ms. Tanner. But you really have to leave now. I heard him…” The housekeeper wringed her hands. “I heard him talk to the head of the house’s security. If you are not out of here in ten minutes, he would have you escorted out of the premises even if it means you would be abandoned on the street in your bedclothes.”
She shook her head, feeling like she had woken in a horrible alternate reality. “What’s going on?”
“You must go now, Ms. Tanner. He’s in a very bad mood. Your possessions will be sent to whichever address you provide us with. But now, Ms. Tanner…please. It is for your own good I tell you to leave now.”
Shocked and disoriented, Mairi found herself following the anxious-looking housekeeper’s words. She changed hastily, grabbed her phone, and headed to the front door, bumping into the head of security as she stepped out of the house.
Mairi wanted to throw up, realizing that what the housekeeper said was true. He had been about to throw her out. She could see in his face that he wouldn’t like doing it but he would do it because—
Because Damen Leventis had ordered it.
She shook her head. No. There was a mistake. There had to be. It might be another of Esther Leventis’ ploys to get to her, to make her leave Damen.
She stood her ground and lifted her chin. “I won’t leave.”
Her bodyguard – rather, her former bodyguard – looked at her with a horrified expression on his face. “It’s Master Damen’s order.”
Mairi whitened a little at the words, but she said doggedly, “I won’t believe you until I hear it from—”
A figure emerged from the shadows.
Damen.
“Get out of this house.” His face was hard and cold. “Is that clear enough for you?”
She whispered, “What?”
“GET OUT OF MY FUCKING HOUSE, YOU GOLD-DIGGING BITCH!”
Mairi stumbled back at the fury in his voice. “Damen, what are you—”
“What I am is a fucking fool to think you loved me!” He laughed bitterly. “And now, because you think I might not remain rich with my business struggling—” Damen cursed. “Problems that you have caused – you think you need to find yourself another Greek billionaire?”
The look in his eyes made Mairi want to die.
Damen despised her.
Damen found her vile.
The tears fell fast and furious, leaving her half-blind. She caught sight of movement, Damen stalking towards her. And then he was right in front of her.
The smell of liquor hit her.
He was drunk.
And then he was snarling at her, “I know everything now! I know that you’re a fucking psychotic bitch who’s always wanted to marry a Greek billionaire.”
She wiped the tears away. “Damen…” Her voice cracked when, behind Damen, she saw that a crowd had formed inside his house and all of them could hear everything he was saying.
“Please, Damen—”
“I can’t believe I chose you over a real lady like Alina.”
His words didn’t slash her heart like a knife stab.
Instead, his hateful words worked like a hammer that crushed her heart into pieces, the pain spreading to her lungs like wildfire and preventing her from breathing.
She hurt so much she could not breathe through the pain.
“Go back to Manolis. He can have my leftovers. I had you in every way—”
Mairi slapped him. “STOP. Please, please, please stop.”
The force of Mairi’s slap somehow made the haze of liquor-induced rage disappear, and Damen stiffened, feeling like something had possessed him in the past few minutes.
Mairi was sobbing.
The sound tore through him, but Damen steeled himself from being conned by Mairi again. It was an act. It was just a fucking act. “I won’t give you another warning. If you’re not out of here in five minutes, I will have you charged for trespassing.”
And yet she stayed there, crying. God, she was still crying, like he had broken her heart when he knew now that she never had a heart.
“Four minutes.”
He walked away.
She was still crying.
He got into his car, slamming his door shut.
He shouldn’t hear her anymore, but why was it that he was still surrounded with the sound of her tears?
Damen called the head of his security. “If the five minutes are up and she’s still not gone, get the police to arrest her.” Ending the call, he looked at his chauffeur and snapped, “Drive.”
“Where to, sir?”
“Just fucking drive.” It didn’t matter where. His heart had found its home in Mairi, and now that the truth was out, he didn’t fucking care where he’d end up. Her betrayal had left him lost forever.
Chapter Fifteen
“You have one phone call, Ms. Tanner.” Even though the police officer was talking to her, his face was averted. So was everyone else’s in the precinct, affording her the chance to pretend that they had not all been a part of the most painfully humiliating incident in her life.
When she didn’t answer, the police officer pressed gently, “Surely there is someone you would like to call to aid you?”
It was so hard to think.
She couldn’t call her aunts. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to let her dream.
She couldn’t call her friends. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to believe she was with a man who loved her.
She couldn’t call Ioniko. She didn’t want him to think he had been wrong to trust her when she said that her love would
never die.
None of them deserved to be embroiled in her troubles, caused by her own naiveté.
Ms. Tanner?”
A name slipped past her lips.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before she became dimly aware of a commotion, police officers hastily getting to their feet as their chorus of greetings filled the spacious station, made humid by the night’s weather.
And then a familiar voice.
“Where is she?”
At last. Someone who could let herself just forget she existed.
****
The police officer pointed to where Mairi supposedly was, and upon following the other man’s directions, bitter rage burned inside Stavros Manolis when his gaze found Mairi.
She sat alone on a row of seats, her back straight. She wore a shirt and jeans and mismatched shoes. Somehow, those mismatched shoes hurt like the fucking devil, telling him wordlessly about what Mairi had to have gone through in the past hour.
When he reached her side, Stavros crouched down on one knee, placing him at eye level with her. “Mairi?” He kept his voice gentle. She looked so damn breakable, like one wrong word would have her shatter and there would be no way to piece her together again.
Her eyes were dry now, but they were red and swollen, like she had been crying until there were no tears left to spare. Her voice was wobbly and high-pitched when she looked at him and said, “You were the only one I could ask for help.”
Once, this girl had been as bright as the sun, as interesting as life’s most beautiful secret.
But now she was dead inside, and Stavros knew he would not rest until he made the man who broke her heart pay.
He said tautly, “I’m here for you, Mairi. Tell me what you need and it will be done.”
Her voice was almost inaudible when she spoke.
“Consider it done.”
He was true to his word, and when his promise to Mairi was fulfilled, Stavros worked on being true to his other vow, the one he made to himself.
It took him mere minutes to find out where Damen Leventis was, a club lounge in one of Athens’ most exclusive hotels.
The moment he was near enough to swing at Damen, Stavros did so, taking the other man by surprise with a right hook.
****
One moment Damen was in a discussion with his solicitor, and the next he was on the floor, his jaw aching. But his reflexes kicked in and Damen lunged, tackling his attacker and managing to land a blow on the other man’s face.
Stavros.
“You will pay for what you did to Mairi,” Stavros growled before he maneuvered the two of them around, with him on top of Damen and breaking his ribs with one hard punch.
The blow threw him off momentarily, but Damen recovered right away, punching Stavros on the side and at the other man’s drawn breath, Damen knew that Stavros now had his own cracked rib or two as well.
They rolled away and got to their feet. But before they could tackle each other again, the hotel’s guards were already there, pinning their arms behind their backs as they were escorted into the back of a police car.
Neither of them spoke during the ride, and after being booked, they were thrown into an empty cell together, Stavros and Damen standing at opposite sides.
Being in prison caused memories of Mairi to flay his mind, and Stavros demanded hoarsely, “Why? You said you love her so why would you hurt her like that?”
“Are you still under her spell? Wake up, Stavros! She has fooled us both! She’s nothing but a gold digger who first targeted you and then me—”
Damen’s words worked like the missing piece in a puzzle, and Stavros slowly shook his head. “You are the goddamn fool here.” He looked at the other man, rage now mixed with pity. For Damen.
“Are you talking about what happened between us in high school?”
“What else?” he said bitterly. “I still can’t believe everything was based on a fucking catch-a-billionaire strategy a teenager—”
Stavros snapped, “It isn’t like that.” Not waiting for Damen to argue with him, Stavros told the man who was once his close friend everything he knew of Mairi and the childhood she had.
Gnawing dread ate Damen as Stavros’ words eventually painted the picture of a young girl who had dared to dream and had not let anyone’s malicious jealousy stop her from viewing the world with rose-colored glasses.
“It was never about the money,” Stavros grated. “If she only wanted a Greek billionaire, don’t you think she would have continued to pursue me? Or Vlahos? It was about a dream…a fucking dream of true love and she thought you were the embodiment of that dream.”
Damen said rawly, “Where is she now?”
“She took a flight home.”
Everything in him demanded that he say no more, but Stavros was a fair man. Damen had been an idiot, but he had lashed out in his pain. Only a man who was so in love could be that vengeful. He said reluctantly, “It will not be simple finding her if she does not want to be found.”
“I won’t stop—”
“That’s exactly what you have to do if Mairi chooses to disappear. I searched for her for years, and I am no poor man without resources. Her aunts have connections and they’re…good. I only recently learned that they had studied my every movement and by doing so, they were able to prevent me from uncovering any lead that would take me to Mairi.”
“But you found her—”
“Because they let me,” Stavros finished. “So you must pray to all the gods that they would want you to find her, even if it’s only for Mairi to shoot you in the head for what you did to her.”
Damen whispered, “Even if she did, it would not be enough to undo the harm I have caused her.”
Chapter Sixteen
It was late morning the next day when their solicitors succeeded in getting Stavros and Damen released. The two Greek billionaires shook hands, a mutual understanding having formed between them. Damen would grovel, and Stavros would be there watching.
“Drive me home.”
It was a good half hour before they reached his home. As he retraced his steps to the front door, his heart began to beat faster and faster – and it was not doing so in a good way.
With every beat of his heart, he felt like he was suffocating.
By the time he reached the front door, Damen was on his knees.
In his mind, the picture of the last time he had seen Mairi was complete, tortuously vivid and inescapable.
The remembered sound of her sobs rang in Damen’s mind, growing in volume until it was all he could hear.
Mairi was begging.
Please, Damen—
A choking gasp came out of Damen’s throat, the memory tearing him open.
The front door flew open. “Sir!”
Damen pushed past the surprised-looking housekeeper, his breaths coming out in erratic gasps as he practically ran to the bedroom he once shared with Mairi.
I love you. A vision of a happy Mairi danced in his mind.
Please, Damen—
I miss you. Mairi on the bed, a loving look on her face.
Please, Damen—
He threw the door open, his gaze falling dumbly to the sight of mismatched shoes on the floor.
In his mind, he could see Mairi, being woken up in the middle of the night, exactly as he had planned. He had wanted her flustered, Damen thought with vicious self-hatred, and she had been flustered, so much so she had ended up wearing mismatched shoes.
Please, Damen—
Damen groaned out loud. “I’m sorry.”
Please, Damen—
His hand shook as he reached for his phone and called the man he had assigned to tail Mairi incognito since the day he had declared his love for her at GAYL.
“Tell me everything, what she has been doing, who she was with – every fucking thing you know.” He still could not explain why Mairi had seemed to act like she had been happy with the role of an idle woman of luxury, but Damen knew now that whateve
r the reason was, it would be a good one.
His employer’s words were an answered prayer.
All the time he had been following Ms. Tanner, Christophe had wrestled with his guilt, wondering when it was the right time to intrude. Mr. Artini had been clear – he was not to let Mairi Tanner know he was around unless her life was under threat.
But what if she’s being disrespected?
Then we pray that she will be able to handle it.
Mr. Leventis’ orders had also been as ruthless and explicit.
You are not to let me know anything unless it is about her life in danger in any way.
Mairi Tanner’s life had never been in danger, but her heart had been dying since the very first day.
“No school, no business – no one in Greece was willing to hire her in fear of retaliation from the Kokinos clan or your mother. In the end, Ms. Tanner accepted a virtual job.”
The amount that Christophe named as Mairi’s wages made Damen flinch, and the hours that such work entailed made Damen hate himself even more.
“She used the money she earned to buy a fish spa setup. It should be in your bedroom.”
His gaze swiftly scanned the room.
There.
Damen slowly crossed the room. A fish spa. In an aquarium that seemed to have been designed by a man with a fetish for an alien’s breasts. On the armchair near it was a card, and he picked it up.
Happy First Month Anniversary, my love!
I wanted to give you a gift that no one else would have thought of giving you – did I succeed?
I want you to know that you’re my dream come true and you’ll always be so.
There is nothing I won’t do for you, so please, lean on me – I am here to share not only in your success but your troubles, too.
I’m stronger than you think, you know.
I love you.
Your precious,
Mairi
The letter fell from his fingers.
His eyes closed.
He saw himself, no better than the lowliest bastard as he exploited her weakness. I can’t believe I chose you over a real lady like Alina.
He saw Mairi, her heart shredded by his words, her dream ripped apart by his cruel actions.