by Tara Pammi
She flinched, her tight grip on the doorknob turning her knuckles white. He couldn’t contain the disdain that crept into his words nor did he want to. And the way she stared at him, focused, every muscle in her face stiff and tense, she heard it, too. “He called me a selfish bitch who couldn’t stand the fact that he had found love with someone else and moved on, that I couldn’t be happy for him,” she recited, as though she was reading lines from a play.
“He conveniently turned his head and walked away while you were thrown on the street,” he continued, refusing to lay off.
“And you thought no self-respecting woman would agree to help him after that.”
He nodded. “I thought I would need some additional...leverage to persuade you. Obviously I don’t.”
She raised an eyebrow, her chin tilting up. “No?”
“You’re here, aren’t you?” he said, standing up. Lexi Nelson was the epitome of everything that had gone wrong in his life in the name of love. He felt a tight churning in his stomach, a memory of the grief and rage that he had propelled into the need to survive, for his sister’s and his sake. “One call and barely an hour later, you come running back for him, your heart in your throat, and you walked up nineteen floors. Why ask so many questions, Ms. Nelson? Why pretend as though there’s even a doubt as to whether you will drop everything to take care of him?”
Lexi struggled to remind herself that Nikos Demakis didn’t know her, that his opinion didn’t matter. But the incredible arrogance in his words that she had fallen into his plans exactly as he had intended chafed her raw.
How she wished she could turn around, throw his disdain back in his face.
But this wasn’t about the infuriating man in front of her. This was about her friend, her family, the one person in the entire world who had always cared about her. After Tyler’s caustic words, after this last fight, she had finally accepted that whatever had been between them had never stood a chance. And she had no idea why.
It would hurt to see Venetia Demakis with him for sure. The young heiress was everything Lexi wasn’t. Rich, sophisticated and exceptionally beautiful.
But what if she was being given another chance to right things between her and Tyler, to have her friend back? He had been there every time she had needed him. Now it was her turn.
The scorn of the man in front of her, however, was a bitter pill to swallow. She was going to say yes, but it didn’t mean she had to do it on his conditions.
She leveled her gaze at him, stubbornly reminding herself that Nikos Demakis needed her just as much as she needed to see Tyler. And she couldn’t let him forget that, couldn’t let him think for one moment that he had the upper hand. “You have made a miscalculation, Mr. Demakis. I have no wish to help you or your sister.”
His dark brown gaze gleaming, he neared her before she could blink.
She stood her ground, but she was too much of a chicken to wait and hear what he would threaten her with. “Not without a price.”
“What is it that you want, Ms. Nelson?”
“Money,” she said, satisfaction pouring through her at the surprise in his eyes. She smiled for the first time in more than a month. Her heart thundering inside her chest, she closed the door and leaned back against it. “You have oodles of it and I have none.”
The dark browns of his eyes flared with something akin to admiration. Lexi frowned. She had meant to anger him, needle him, at least. She had uttered the first thing that had come to her mind. Instead, the edge of his contempt, which had been a tangible thing until now, was blunted.
“Quite the little opportunist, aren’t you?” he said, gazing at her with intense interest.
There was no rancor in his words. Struggling to keep her confusion out of her face, she smiled with as much fake confidence as she could muster. “I have to protect my interests, don’t I? You’re asking me to put my life here on hold and place my trust in someone like you.”
He laughed. “Someone like me?”
“Yes, by your own admission, you don’t have a conscience when it comes to what you want. What if things don’t go your way, what if something happens that you don’t like? You’ll blame me...”
“Like what?”
“Like Tyler regaining his memory and deciding he didn’t want to be with Venetia anymore.”
A feral light gleamed in his gaze. “That would not do.”
“I have no older brother to rescue me, no family to watch out for my welfare,” she said, swallowing the painful truth. “For all I know, you and your sister could do untold harm to me, so I’m being prepared.”
“Believe me, Ms. Nelson. Family is highly overrated. You grew up in foster care—doesn’t that tell you something?”
The vehemence in his tone gave her pause. She had wondered a million times why her parents might have given her up, wondered in the lowest times if there was anyone who thought of her, who wondered about her, too. Except for excruciating sadness and uncertainty, it had brought her nothing. “But you’re here, aren’t you? Taking every step to ensure Tyler remembers your sister, setting her world to rights. Making sure no one deprives her of her happily ever after.”
“What if I don’t agree to your condition?” He moved in that economic way of his and locked her in place against the door. His scent teased her nostrils, his size, the quiet hum of power packed into his large body, directed toward her making her tremble from head to toe. He had neatly sidestepped her question. “What if, instead, I alert your boss about your colorful teenage years?”
It took everything within her to stay unmoving, to meet his gaze when all she wanted was to skittle away from him. Don’t betray your fear, she reminded herself, even though she had no idea if it was his threatening words or his nearness that was causing it. “You will ruin me and it will be pointless, but it won’t go like that. Are you that heartless that you would wreck a perfect stranger’s life because she won’t suit your plans?”
“Yes, I will,” he whispered, moving even closer. His palm landed on the door, near her face, his breath feathering over her. The heat of his body coated her with an awareness she didn’t want. Every inch of her froze, and she struggled to pull air into her lungs. “Make no mistake about me. To ensure my sister’s happiness, I will do anything that is required of me, and not feel a moment’s regret about it.”
Her stomach tight, she forced herself to speak. She had no doubt that he was speaking the truth. “But it doesn’t really serve your purpose, does it? Ruining me won’t set your sister’s world right. You need me, and you don’t like it.” His mouth tightened an infinitesimal amount and she knew she had it right. “That’s why you collected all that information. Because you needed at least an illusion that you have the upper hand in the situation, to make sure you’re the one with control.”
Something dawned in his gaze and she knew she had hit the nail on its head. Her pulse jumped beneath her skin. “You have twisted something very straightforward into a game. I would have dropped everything to take care of Tyler. But now, I’ll only come if you agree to my condition,” she finished, every nerve ending in her stretched tight.
She was playing a dangerous game. But she would do this only on her terms, refused to let herself be bullied again. Even for Tyler.
His gaze swept over her. “Fine. Just remember one thing. I’m agreeing because this suits me. This way, you’re my employee. You do what I say. You can’t cry foul, can’t say I manipulated you.”
“Even if I did, it’s not like you’ll lose any sleep over it.”
His teeth bared in a surprisingly warm smile. “Good, you’re a fast learner. I’m the one who will be paying you. I’ll even have my lawyers draw a contract to that effect.”
“Isn’t that a little over-the-top? I’m there to help Tyler, not for any other reason.” His continued silence sent a shiver of warning thro
ugh her. “Am I?”
He didn’t answer her question and his expression was hidden by the thick sweep of his lashes. A knock sounded on an interconnecting door she hadn’t noticed. The brunette she had spied earlier walked in, her mouth set into a charming pout. Her long-legged gait brought her to the sitting area in mere seconds while her expertly made-up gaze took in Nikos and her with a frown.
She pulled him toward her, nothing subtle or ambiguous in her intentions. “I thought you wanted to celebrate, Nikos. Are you ever going to be free?”
Her mouth dry, Lexi watched, her thin T-shirt too warm.
His gaze didn’t waver from Lexi. A sly smile curved his mouth as he obviously noticed the heat she could feel flush her cheeks. He wrapped his hand around the woman’s waist, his long fingers splayed against the cream silk of her dress. “I believe Ms. Nelson and I have concluded our business to mutual satisfaction. So, yes, I’m free to celebrate, Nina.”
CHAPTER THREE
NIKOS CURSED LOUDLY and violently. The words swallowed up by the crowd around him didn’t relieve his temper one bit.
It had been three days since Lexi Nelson had come to see him and yet the sneaky minx had avoided his assistant’s phone calls. Exasperated, Nikos had been reduced to having Kane discover her shift times at the club. Thoroughly disgusted by his minions’—a word he couldn’t stop using ever since she had—failure to persuade the woman to leave for Greece, he had flown back to New York.
He had arrived at three in the morning, forced himself to stay awake and arrived at Vibe five minutes after five. Only to find her gone. So he had his chauffeur drive him to her apartment in Brooklyn.
But even after a ten-hour shift, the irritating woman still hadn’t returned. He had been ready to call the cops and report her missing. In the end, he had entered her apartment, barged into a bedroom and forced the naked couple in the bed to tell him where Ms. Nelson was. Her eyes eating him up, the redhead had finally informed him that Lexi had gone straight to another shift at a coffee shop around the corner.
So here he was standing on the sidewalk at nine in the morning outside the bustling café amidst jostling New Yorkers. He was tired, sleep-deprived and furious.
He understood the need for money. He was the epitome of hunger for wealth and power, but this woman was something else.
Ordering his chauffeur to come back in a few minutes, he entered the café. The strong smell of coffee made his head pound harder. With the hustle and bustle behind the busy counter, it took him a few moments to spot her behind the cash register.
His heartbeat slowed to a normal pace.
A brown paper bag in hand, she was smiling at a customer.
Her hair was combed back from her forehead in that poufy way. The three silver earrings on her left ear glinted in the morning sunlight as she turned this way and that. A green apron hung loosely on her slender frame.
She thanked the customer and ran her hands over her face. He could see the pink marks her fingers left on her skin even from the distance. And that was when Nikos noticed it—the tremble in her fingers, the slight sway of her body as she turned.
He tugged his gaze to her face and took in the dark shadows under her stunning blue eyes. She blinked slowly, as though struggling to keep her eyes open and smiled that dazzling smile at the next customer.
Memories pounded through him, a fierce knot clawing his gut tight. He didn’t want to remember, yet the sight of her, tired and ready to drop on her feet, punched him, knocking the breath out of him.
He hadn’t felt that bone-deep desolation in a long time, because as hard as Savas had made him work for the past fourteen years, Nikos had known there would be food at the end of it. But before Savas had plucked them both from their old house, every day after his mother had died had been a lesson in survival.
The memory of it—the smell of grease at the garage, combined with the clawing hunger in his gut while the lack of sleep threatened to knuckle him down—was as potent as though it was just yesterday.
The bitter memory on top of his present exhaustion tipped him over the edge.
A red haze descending on him, he stormed through the crowd and navigated around the counter.
With a gasp, Lexi stepped back, blinking furiously. “Mr. Demakis,” she said, sounding squeaky, “you can’t be back—”
He didn’t give her a chance to finish. Ignoring the gasps and audible whispers of the busy crowd, he moved closer, picked her up and walked out of the café.
Crimson rushed into her pale cheeks, and her mouth fell open. “What are you doing?”
She wriggled in his hold and he tightened his grip. “Seeing dots and shapes, Ms. Nelson? I’m carrying you out.”
Weighing next to nothing, she squirmed again. The nonexistent curves he had mocked her about rubbed against his chest, teasing shocking arousal out of his tired body.
For the first time in his life, he clamped down the sensation. It wasn’t easy. “Stop wiggling around, Lexi, or I will drop you.” To match his words, he slackened his hold on her.
With a gasp, she wrapped herself tighter around him. Her breath teased his neck. He let fly a curse. As rigid as a tightly tuned chassis in his arms, she glared at him. “Put me down, Nikos.”
His limo appeared at the curb and he waited while the chauffeur opened the door. Bending slightly, he rolled her onto the leather seat. She scrambled on her knees for a few seconds, giving him a perfect view of her pert bottom in denim shorts before scooting to the far side of the opposite seat.
He got into the limo, settled back into the seat and stretched his legs. Perverse anger flew hotly in his veins. He shouldn’t care but he couldn’t control it. “A bartender at night, a barista by day. Christos, are you trying to kill yourself?”
Lexi had never been more shocked in her entire life. And that was big, seeing that she had run away from a foster home when she was fifteen, had stolen by sixteen and had been working at a high-class bar in Manhattan, where shocking was the norm rather than the exception, since she had been nineteen.
She clumsily sat up from the leather seat. The jitteriness in her limbs intensified just as the limo pulled away from the curb. “I can’t just leave,” she said loudly, her words echoing around them. The arrogant man beside her didn’t even bat an eyelid. “Order your minion to turn around. Faith will lose her job and I can’t—”
He leaned forward and extended his arm. Her words froze on her lips and she pressed back into her seat. The scent of the leather and him morphed into something that teased her ragged senses. The intensity of his presence tugged at her as if he were extending a force field on some fundamental level. Outside the limo, the world was bustling with crazy New York energy, and inside...inside it felt as if time and space had come to a standstill.
He reached behind her neck and undid the knot of her apron. She dug her nails into the denim of her shorts, her heart stuck in her throat. The pad of his fingers dragged against her skin and she fought to remain still. The long sweep of his lashes hid his expression but that thrumming energy of his pervaded the interior. Bunching the apron in his hands, he threw it aside with a casual flick of his wrist.
Even in the semicomatose state she was functioning in, unfamiliar sensations skittered over her. She had never been more aware of her skin, her body than when he was near. Noting every little movement of hers, he handed her a bottle of water. “Who is Faith?”
The question rang with suppressed fury. Lexi undid the cap and took a sip. She was stalling, and he knew it.
“Why are you so angry?” she blurted out, unable to stop herself.
He pushed back the cuffs of his black dress shirt. The sight of those hair-roughened tanned arms sent her stomach into a dive. “Who is Faith?” he said again, his words spoken through gritted teeth.
She sighed. “My roommate, for whom I was
covering the shift. She’s been sick a few times recently, and if she misses any more shifts, she’ll lose her job. Which she will today, because of you.”
He leaned back, watching her like a hawk. His anger still simmered in the air but with exhaustion creeping back in, she didn’t care anymore. She let out a breath, and snuggled farther back into the plush leather. She was so tired. If only she could close her eyes for just a minute...
“What does this Faith look like?”
“Almost six feet tall, green eyes, blond.”
“But she’s a natural redhead, isn’t she?”
Heat crept up her neck at the way he slightly emphasized the word redhead. “How would you know something like that?” Tension gripped her. “Nikos, you barge into my work, behave like a caveman and now you’re asking me these strange questions without telling me what—”
“The last time I checked, which was an hour ago, your so-called ‘sick’ friend was lolling about in bed naked with a man, while you were killing yourself trying to do her job. From what I could see of her, which was a lot, she’s perfectly fine.”
Her cheeks heating, Lexi struggled to string a response. “Faith wouldn’t just lie...”
Faith would. And it wasn’t even the first time, either. Her chest tightened, her hands shook. But Faith was more than a mere roommate. She was her friend. If they didn’t look out for each other, who would?
Struggling not to show how much it pained her, she tucked her hands in her lap. “Maybe it wasn’t Faith,” she offered, just to get him off her back.
“She has a tattoo of a red rose on her left buttock and a dragon on her right shoulder. When it was clear no one would answer, I opened the door and went right in. Your friend, by the way, is also a screamer, which was how I knew there was someone inside that bedroom.”
Flushing, Lexi turned her gaze away from him. Even if she didn’t know about the tattoos, which she did, the last bit was enough to confirm that he was talking about Faith. “All right, so she lied to me,” she said, unable to fight the tidal wave of exhaustion that was coming at her fast. As long as she had felt that she was helping Faith, she’d been able to keep going. She pulled up her legs, uncaring of the expensive leather. “What I don’t get is why you felt the need in the first place to barge into our apartment and confront her.”