by Jane Porter
This was no way to live. This was not a healthy marriage. Damen was destroying her but Kassiani had been through too much to just wither away and die. Her survival instinct was too strong. She had too much of the fighting Greek spirit to just self-destruct without trying to save herself.
On Adras she’d told Damen that he needed help, but maybe she was the one who needed help. Maybe she was the one who needed a therapist to help her come to terms with her past, so that she could have a future. Right now there was no future.
If she wanted a future, she had to go. She had to leave him. It was the only way. They weren’t good together. They just inflicted pain.
Tears stung her eyes but she drew a slightly deeper breath and felt some of the terrible pressure in her chest ease.
Leaving was the right answer. She needed to go. She needed to return home.
Kassiani sat up and stared out the window to the sea. Clouds obscured the moon but she could see a gleam of light from Adras’s lighthouse on the water and it calmed her.
She wouldn’t go back to her father’s house. She’d find a place of her own. She had money of her own now and she’d use the money to start over in San Francisco and from now on, she would be smarter and braver and more self-aware.
It had been a brutal week, but she would feel better once she was back in California. Damen could initiate the divorce proceedings, citing her for desertion. As long as she was the reason for the marriage failing, the marriage contracts would hold. Damen would retain control over Dukas Shipping. She didn’t feel guilty. Dukas Shipping needed proper management. Dukas Shipping was in shambles, and it’d be far better to have Damen step in and save what he could than allow the family business to end up in bankruptcy.
She didn’t feel sorry for her father, either. He had pursued this relationship with Damen, offering up his daughters as if they were bargaining chips. He’d wanted the merger and the marriage for purely selfish reasons—he didn’t want to be poor. He didn’t want to be a failure. Damen Alexopoulos would save him, and his company, and so he brokered a deal that was a travesty in hindsight.
Elexis hadn’t wanted to marry Damen.
Kassiani had married Damen to earn her father’s approval.
But how could her self-esteem have been so bad that she thought marrying a stranger, much less marrying a man with a reputation like Damen’s, would be a good thing?
She felt stupid and pathetic. But now she’d be wise. She was returning to California smarter and stronger, and more self-aware. She didn’t care what others would say, or think. She didn’t care that people would talk about her, or gossip that she’d gotten divorced just weeks after the wedding. She had tried. She’d truly tried. But she was no match for Damen. She never had been.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IT WAS STRANGE being back in California.
She’d been gone only a couple of weeks and yet once back in San Francisco, it felt like months since she’d flown to Athens for Elexis’s May wedding.
Kassiani didn’t even feel like the same person. Maybe because she had married and lost her innocence. Maybe because she’d fallen in love and had her heart broken. Maybe because she missed Damen even though he was not the right man for her.
She knew when Damen was in San Francisco because her father told her. The first time he was in the city, she prepared herself for his visit, getting a blowout to make her hair silky and gleaming, and having another one of those excruciating waxes that left her completely bare down there. She paced her house, anticipating his arrival, hoping he’d come to say he missed her, anticipating his words, wanting desperately to hear him say he’d made a mistake...that he’d made many mistakes...and he was sorry and wanted to try again. He wanted a fresh start.
But Damen never came to her house.
Damen never tried to see her. He didn’t even attempt to contact her.
He did whatever business he needed to do and returned to Athens.
Kassiani was crushed when she discovered Damen had gone, and she hardened her heart so that the next time, four weeks later, when he was back, she didn’t have such high hopes. She still had her hair done, but that was all, and she didn’t walk around in a state of anxious anticipation. But she did hope because she wanted him to miss her because she did miss him.
All she wanted was to hear him say that he’d realized he’d made mistakes and he wanted to try again with her, and then they could discuss the marriage each of them wanted, and how they could meet in the middle.
Or something like that.
But he didn’t see her on his second visit, either.
She wasn’t in town for his third visit or any others. It was deliberate. As August drew to an end, she told herself she no longer wanted to see him. She wanted nothing to do with him. Kassiani prayed the divorce papers would come soon.
* * *
The divorce papers weren’t the only thing she was waiting for.
Her period hadn’t come. In months.
At first, she’d thought she was merely late—it happened a lot with her—and then she thought maybe it was stress that was playing havoc with her system since she’d lost a lot of weight since the wedding, but when the weeks became months and she was fully settled into her lovely house in the Presidio, she couldn’t ignore facts any longer.
Something was wrong. And she suspected she knew what was wrong, and once she took a test and discovered, yes, she was pregnant, her dread turned to horror. Kassiani was so horrified she took the test three times at home before going to a doctor.
She didn’t want to be pregnant. It felt like such a betrayal to even admit such a thing, but being pregnant would change everything. Pregnant, she would be forever tied to Damen.
Pregnant, she’d given him what he wanted, an heir.
He would be happy. It was what dynasties required...children. Another generation to carry on the family name, to continue the legacy.
Even as September drew to a close, she found it hard to wrap her head around the pregnancy. She’d always wanted to be a mother but this wasn’t how she wanted to be a mother.
Single, alone.
Unless she reunited with Damen, but everything in her recoiled at the thought because if they reunited now, it would be only for the child’s sake. Damen had made it clear he didn’t want her, and while being together might be good for the baby, it would destroy her. Her soul would shrivel up into nothing.
During the long nights when Kassiani couldn’t sleep, she didn’t doubt that Damen would be a good father, at least, he’d be a good father until the child was a teenager and began to defy his father. Damen didn’t like being challenged. Damen didn’t like anything that made him feel. Children would make him feel. But there was nothing she could do about that. The baby had been conceived.
Kassiani spent many long, sleepless nights trying to figure out when and how to tell Damen about the pregnancy. Obviously, she would have to tell him. Eventually, he’d need to know and she’d never keep something like this from him, but she had months to go before the baby was born. She was only just entering her second trimester. In clothes you couldn’t even tell she was pregnant, her ripe curves overshadowing everything else.
Still no divorce papers arrived.
Why?
What was he thinking? No contact, no communication, no nothing. What did he want from her? Was he trying to intimidate her, or force her hand? Was this just another power play at his end?
And then suddenly, on the last day of September, he was there, on her doorstep, in a dark suit, looking gorgeous and polished and hard, because Damen Alexopoulos was nothing if not hard.
She was shocked to see him and her legs wobbled but she was never going to let him know he still could rock her world simply by standing in front of her, being himself. It was worse feeling her heart race. How could she still love him so much?
“Are you going to
invite me in?” he said quietly.
Her anger returned, fueled by love and pain. Who did he think he was, just showing up four months later and demanding privileges? He should have been here weeks—months—ago. “I don’t know yet.”
One of his black eyebrows lifted. “Whatever makes you the happiest—”
Outrage rushed through her. “You are so wrong, and so unfair, on so many levels,” she choked, spotting the large leather folder in his hand. The divorce papers. He’d brought them to her himself. Her heart tumbled to her feet. Hot tears prickled her eyes. “Just give me what you have come to give me, and go.”
“No. Not until we talk.”
“But I don’t want to talk anymore. You’ve made me wait for months—”
“I was still...working...on things.” His lips twisted. “Working on...me.”
She stilled, caught off guard by the very American-sounding expression. Greeks didn’t work on themselves. “What do you mean?”
“Could we please do this inside? Somewhere more private than Vallejo Street?”
She turned away and walked to the living room, where she took a seat, determined to be calm, and cool, and as unemotional as possible, which wouldn’t be easy because everything inside her was going haywire. She’d missed the arrogant bastard so very much, and she was only now realizing just how much she wanted him to still want her. How much she wanted him to fight for her. And how devastated she’d be when he gave her the divorce papers. “What have you brought with you?” she asked tightly, when he joined her in the living room.
“These are for later. I’ll leave them with you when I leave.”
“You don’t want to discuss them now?”
“No.” He took a breath. “I want to discuss us, and our marriage.”
“Which means, you’ve come with another lecture on how I disappointed you, and how I wasn’t a proper Greek wife.”
The corner of his mouth curved, and yet there was no hint of a smile in his cool gray eyes. “No lecture today, sorry.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“But I am. I’m here to apologize. I’m here to ask for a second chance. I’m here to fight for us—”
“Why? When all I’ve done is disappoint you? I can’t count the number of times you told me you didn’t even want me...that I’d forced myself on you.” Tears filled her eyes and she swiped them away furiously. Pregnancy hormones weren’t helping her resolve to be calm and collected. “You were constantly lecturing me and trying to change me—”
“I was wrong. Forgive me. Who am I to teach you anything? How could I possibly teach you about being a proper wife, when I haven’t been a proper husband?”
The air caught in her throat. She blinked hard, scrubbing away the remaining tears, even as hope warred against hope. Did he know what he was saying? Did he mean what he was saying? “Then what are those papers?”
“Ignore the papers, please. The papers don’t matter right now. The only thing that matters is you understanding that I was an ass, and wrong, and hurtful because I was scared. You were making me feel and feelings confuse me. I didn’t want feelings, but I did want you.”
“No, you wanted the best daughter, the one my father promised you.”
He reached out and lightly touched her knee. “I was promised the best daughter and I was given the best daughter.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said, and it wasn’t true. I was hurt and angry and lashing out at you. I’m sorry about that and ashamed. I’ve spent months—” he broke off, drew a short, sharp breath “—talking, trying to work through my anger and I’ve come to you, finally, to say that I have never, ever been disappointed by the Dukas I married. Any disappointment I have felt, and continue to feel, is disappointment in myself. I loathe myself for the pain I have caused you, and I am deeply sorry for behavior, and the choices I have made.”
She’d found it hard to focus on anything after he’d said that he’d spent months talking. Her forehead furrowed as she looked at him. “Who have you been talking to?”
“A therapist. You said I needed help, and so I got help.”
“You did?”
He nodded, expression somber.
“Why?” she breathed.
“I hoped that if I changed, you’d come home. I’d like you to come back. It’s not home without you.”
She held her breath as he spoke, afraid that if she made a sound, he’d disappear, and this would all be just a dream because Damen was saying everything she’d wanted to hear. He was saying exactly the words she needed. Was this a trick? Was this real? “You never came to see me on your other trips to San Francisco.”
“I was trying to let you be in charge. I was trying to let you control the relationship, but as weeks turned to months, I became increasingly fearful that you truly wanted out of our marriage, and the thought was unbearable.”
“I was waiting for the divorce papers.”
“You would have been waiting forever. I had no intention to ever file for divorce. You are the only wife I will ever have because you are the only woman I love. I couldn’t imagine ever being with anyone else. You are mine. You are absolutely who I want and need at my side, for the rest of my life.”
She felt a tremor course through her. His words were powerful and overwhelming. “I don’t know what to say. You are so different. It’s almost as if you are a different man.”
“Words are still not easy for me, but trying to live without you was far more difficult than learning how to be a better husband and a better communicator.” He hesitated. “But I’m not here today to try to force you into making a decision that you might regret later. I’d rather we take this slow so that you can be confident and comfortable that I really am the husband you want. I have had months to think about what I need, but it’s important we make sure you have what you need. With that in mind, I prepared papers that I will leave with you to read after I go, as you don’t need me to read anything to you—” He broke off, and a flicker of a smile warmed his eyes. “Because you’re quite a good reader. Just know that there are a number of different documents and agreements in the envelope, and each of them have been created with you in mind, so that no matter what you eventually choose—to come home with me, or to remain here, independent of me—you are secure, and protected, and taken care of.”
She rose, and he did, too. “I don’t want your money, Damen. I only ever wanted you.”
The smile faded from his eyes and a shadow crossed his features. “I realize that now. And it might be too late for us. I hope it’s not too late for us. I have no intention of letting you go, but at the same time, I won’t force you to stay married to me if it’s not the right thing for you. And saying that, I also recognize that you deserve more than what you’ve ever been given and while I can’t right all the wrongs, I can make an attempt to correct the balance of power, so the future is nothing like the past.”
He closed the distance between them and pressed a kiss to her temple and then another to her cheek. “I love you, my heart,” he murmured, his fingers brushing lightly across her jaw, “but I want you happy. You deserve to be happy. You deserve all the joy and the love in the world.”
And then he walked out, leaving the leather folder on the chair where he’d been sitting.
Kassiani sank back down and stared at the folder. She’d waited four months for this conversation, and it had been even more wonderful than she could have imagined, except—was it too good to be true?
She hated her doubts, but she was terrified to hope and open herself to love, only to be crushed when he reverted to the same cold, brusque behavior again.
Hands shaking, she reached for the folder and pulled out the various documents. There were three different sets of documents, each with an original cover letter.
As Kassiani read through each of the letters, she discovered
Damen hadn’t given her money. There was no allowance or settlement on her per se. Instead, he’d given her three different options—all included a hefty stake in his businesses, and none of the options was contingent on her remaining married to him. All three options were still hers, even if she chose to divorce him.
Option 1: Live independently in San Francisco and join Dukas Shipping’s Board of Directors, taking an active leadership role in Dukas Shipping.
Kassiani paused, her gaze riveted to the words Dukas Shipping. Was he not going to change the company’s name? Had he possibly changed his mind?
Option 2: Take a management position at Dukas Shipping, and provide management and leadership for the company, living in either San Francisco or Athens.
Option 3: Work at Alexopoulos’s corporate office in Athens in a management capacity, providing leadership for both Dukas Shipping and Aegean Shipping.
Kassiani sat back in shock. He wasn’t giving her money. He was inviting her to become part of the shipping industry. He was giving her an opportunity to do what she’d always dreamed of.
She skimmed one of the cover letters until she found what she was looking for. Damen’s mobile number. She called him immediately. He picked up immediately.
“It’s Kassiani,” she said.
“I know,” he answered.
“How?”
“I have you saved in my Favorites. You’re number one.”
“Stop.”
“It’s true. You are my favorite.”
She went hot all over, and it was hard to focus when her heart was racing so. “Those options,” she said breathlessly. “They’re...amazing.”
“If anyone should head up Dukas Shipping in the future, it’s you.”
“When you say Dukas Shipping, do you mean to leave the name in place?”
“It all depends.”
