The Antonides Marriage Deal

by Anne McAllister

  He’d made a success of his business and of his life—on his own terms.

  Elias wished he could have done the same. He’d longed to make his mark the way Nikos had—to build boats the way Nikos had—and then come into the family business when he was ready.

  If he were given to envy, Elias could have envied Nikos Costanides. For his fiscally healthy, financially sound Costanides empire. For his thriving custom-boat business. For his whole life.

  Because Nikos had one.

  His smiling dark-haired wife, Mari, and his three little stair-step sons came by the boatyard that afternoon on their way home from the dentist.

  “I promised them if they were brave we’d come see Daddy,” Mari told Elias and Dyson, watching with undisguised adoration as the three little boys clambered all over Nikos who clearly doted on them.

  It was the life Elias had once envisioned he would have with Millicent. But when he’d had to drop out of school to take over at Antonides Marine, things had changed. Even then, he’d have been happy to have a child.

  “Why not?” he’d said to Millicent. “It will give me someone to work for. It won’t be just for the past. It will be for the future.”

  But Millicent had been horrified. “Bring a child into this chaos? Absolutely not!”

  “Chaos?” Elias hadn’t seen it that way. He’d seen it as a challenge, a whole hell of a lot of work, to be sure, but also as an opportunity, a way to do something important for his family.

  “Everything’s about your family,” Millicent had complained.

  Yes, it was. But she was a part of his family. It wasn’t just about his parents and siblings. It was about making a future for her and their children, as well.

  But Millicent didn’t want anything to do with that. She hadn’t, in very short order, wanted anything to do with him.

  Antonides Marine, in its faltering state, wasn’t the shining company she’d thought it was. So Elias wasn’t the man she’d hoped he would be. No matter that he was doing his damnedest to bring it back, to make it work.

  She didn’t want it. She didn’t want him.

  She wanted a divorce.

  He hadn’t believed it when she’d told him. He’d argued passionately that it wasn’t too late to work things out. “We can get counseling. We can make it work,” he’d told her.

  But she’d said no. Just no. She’d left him. Gone to California where her parents lived. And when he’d finally found her again, she’d still refused to come back to him.

  “It’s too late,” she said. She didn’t love him anymore. There was someone else.

  And she was going to have his child.

  His child. She’d been willing to bring a child into that, but not into her marriage to Elias!

  The memory still had the power to cut him to the core.

  So he didn’t think about it. He’d moved on. And for the most part he forgot about it. But sometimes it came back to haunt him—like today when he’d seen Nikos and Mari and their boys.

  And last Friday night in Tallie Savas’s bedroom.

  He shoved the thought away.

  They got back into the city shortly before eight. Dyson dropped him off and went to pick up a date and tell her all about his beautiful boat.

  Elias went back to the office and did what he did every night. He went to work.

  The place was totally quiet. Everyone else had long since gone home. There were half a dozen messages on his desk and another dozen on his answering machine. He ran through them quickly, relieved that none was from Tallie complaining about his idiot sister.

  None was from Cristina, either, also a good thing. It meant that Tallie had taken her duties as president seriously and had sent Cristina and her boat-racing, job-seeking boyfriend packing with enough firmness that Cristina now knew that calling him wasn’t going to get her anywhere.

  Hallelujah.

  Instinctively he reached for the phone to call Tallie and thank her, then changed his mind. He wasn’t contacting Tallie outside of business hours. But since he had the phone in his hand, he rang one of the sail suppliers in San Diego instead.

  All the workaholics on the West Coast were still in their offices. He spent two hours on the phone with one after another. He got a lot of work done.

  What else did he have to do with his life?

  It was almost ten when he finally quit. The muscles in his neck were knotted. His back ached. He flicked off the light in his office and headed for the door. On his way out, he spied a single piece of Tallie’s apple strudel sitting on the plate by the break room.

  He hadn’t eaten any this morning. It had been a matter of self-control. He wasn’t going to be seduced by Tallie Savas in any way, shape or form.

  Tonight he was hungry. He hadn’t had any dinner. Mari Costanides had invited them to the house for a meal, but they’d declined.

  Now he stared at the pastry and his stomach growled, tempted. He glared at it. It wasn’t the apple in the Garden of Eden, for heaven’s sake! Just a simple piece of pastry. He was making way too much of it.

  Screw it, he thought, grabbed the strudel and took a savage bite, then stomped up the stairs.

  When he’d bought the old warehouse, it had seemed like a terrific idea—renovate it, use part of it for the Antonides Marine offices, rent out enough of the rest to other businesses to pay the mortgage, and keep a loft apartment for himself upstairs. Very neat, very efficient.

  He couldn’t get away from work even if he tried.

  He unlocked the door to his apartment and pushed it open.

  When Elias had started renovations, he’d had great plans for his own space. Working with wood had always reminded him of boyhood days spent working with his grandfather on Santorini. It was as close to doing what he’d always wanted to do as he was ever going to get. So the first thing he’d done, once the walls were up, plastered and painted, was to order the wood and build a bar of quarter-sawn oak between the living room and kitchen. Then he’d built matching oak cabinets and installed them, as well.

  The rest of the furnishings—the sofa, armchair, two bar stools and a bed—were utilitarian. But he’d begun to put up a wall of bookshelves when business had demanded more attention again a few months ago.

  Five months later a lot of his belongings were still in boxes stacked in the shadows against the walls. Other than the mural of Santorini and the sea that he’d hired his sister Martha to paint on one wall, nothing else had been done.

  It wasn’t a home. It was a camping spot.

  And he wasn’t in it alone.

  Someone was sitting in the shadows on the sofa. It was a woman—slowly starting to get up.

  “Martha?”

  “No, it’s Tallie.” She settled her crutches under her arms and crossed the room into the light.

  Elias stared in disbelief. “Tallie?”

  She put a finger to her lips and almost lost a crutch. “Shh. Not so loud. You’ll wake her.”

  “What?” He stared. “Wake who?”

  “Cristina.” She tipped her head in the direction of his bedroom. “Your sister.”

  As if there were another one.

  “What the hell is Cristina doing here? Why’s she in my bedroom?”

  “Shh!” Tallie hissed. “I told you—” she grabbed his arm hard enough to make him wince “—you have to be quiet. You’ll wake her up.”

  “You’re damned right I’ll wake her up! What’s she doing in my apartment? In my bed?”

  Tallie didn’t answer. She began pulling him into the kitchen—or trying to. She wasn’t having much luck with doing anything but banging his shins with her crutches as she made the attempt.

  “For God’s sake, stop that! All right.” He turned her and got her balanced on her crutches again, standing right in front of him. “I’m not shouting. What’s going on? Is she sick?”

  “No, she’s not sick.”

  “Then what—?”

  Tallie looked at him nervously. “It’s…complicated. We
ll—” she balanced on one crutch and shoved a hand through her cloud of dark hair “—maybe it’s not that complicated, but…would you like a cup of tea or something?”

  “Tea?” He gaped. “What you talking about?”

  “Tea is good in crises.”

  That this was a crisis seemed to go without saying. “I don’t have tea.”

  “You do now,” Tallie informed him, nodding at the box on the counter. She turned her back to hobble to the stove and put on a kettle he’d never seen before, either. There were two mugs there, as well. Those he recognized. Obviously already used. As he watched, she opened the door to one of his cupboards and got out another mug.

  “Made yourself at home, did you?”

  “I didn’t think you’d mind,” she said, then turned and gave him an arch look, “since you did the same at my place.”

  Elias scowled, then stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Okay, fine. We’ll have a cup of tea. And then you can tell me what the hell is going on and what my bloody sister is doing here.”

  “Well, that part’s easy. She’s waiting for Mark.”

  “Mark?” Elias practically shouted. “What’s he coming for?”

  Tallie made shushing gestures again. “He’s coming to get her. But he’s out in Greenport. Or he was. I didn’t reach him until seven.”

  Why she’d bothered to reach him at all was a mystery to Elias. One of many, apparently. He waited until the water boiled and then he picked up the kettle before she could, so she didn’t scald herself by trying to stand up on crutches and pour boiling water at the same time.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It’s a little awkward.”

  “As I’m sure you know. You poured for Cristina, didn’t you?”

  Tallie looked away. “She was upset. She wasn’t feeling well—”

  “I thought you said she wasn’t sick?”

  “Upset and sick are not the same thing. Don’t worry. She’s going to be fine.”

  “Terrific,” he said sarcastically. Elias picked up the two mugs and jerked his head toward the sofa in the living room. “Come on.”

  He set the steaming mugs on the packing box he was currently using for a coffee table, then waited until Tallie sat down clumsily on the sofa. For a brief moment he debated picking up his own mug again and going to sit far away from her in the chair. It would be the sane, sensible thing to do.

  But sane and sensible had pretty much gone out the door when he’d come in and found Tallie in his apartment. So he deliberately sat down on the sofa and turned toward her. “All right. Let’s hear it.”

  Tallie took a deep breath. “Well, as you know, we went out for lunch. To this place in the East Village Cristina knew. Very funky. New. Trendy. Like her.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And we got to know each other a bit. I like Cristina. She’s very funny, your sister.”

  “A laugh a minute,” Elias said drily.

  Tallie shot him a disapproving look. “She thinks you don’t like her.”

  “I love her. She just drives me crazy. She doesn’t have a practical bone in her body. She flits from one thing to the next. And she always expects me to fund whatever stupid scheme she’s got lined up next.”

  “Yes, that’s what she said.” Tallie leaned back against the sofa and wrapped her hands around the mug of tea.

  Elias raised his brows. “She did?”

  “Yes. But now she has to stop. She’s determined to be staid and responsible.”

  “Cristina? What about Mark?”

  “What about him?”

  “I thought she was supposed to be telling you how wonderful he was.”

  “Oh, yes. She did. They’re both going to be staid and responsible.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Don’t be so cynical. You’re not giving her much of a chance!”

  “It’s not my fault she’s an impractical airhead.”

  “No, of course it’s not. It’s hers. I mean, she’s not really an airhead. She’s—” Tallie seemed to grope for the suitable word.

  Elias waited, wondering what it would be.

  Finally Tallie shrugged helplessly. “An airhead,” she admitted, stifling a laugh.

  And suddenly Elias felt the tension between his shoulders ease. He smiled wryly but felt an odd sort of relief that someone—even Tallie Savas—actually understood.

  “But a sweet airhead,” Tallie added quickly.

  “A sweet airhead who is in my bed. Why? For that matter how?” He certainly hadn’t given Cristina a key.

  “She got…upset at lunch. We were talking…she was talking,” Tallie corrected herself, “and she got a little, um…hysterical.”

  “Hysterical?” The tension came back with a vengeance.

  “Pretty much. So I didn’t think I ought to leave her there or send her home by herself. So I brought her with me. But having her in the office didn’t seem like a very good idea either—”

  Elias could believe that. Cristina’s behavior had been every bit as bad as he’d feared.

  “I considered taking her to my place. But Rosie said I should just bring her up here. To your place. I didn’t even know you lived here,” she added. “Rosie said she had a key and she got it for me. So I did. It wasn’t Cristina’s idea,” she added firmly. “She said you’d be furious. But, well—” Tallie shrugged “—I didn’t give her any choice.”

  Elias accepted that. He didn’t like it—the Cristina part anyway—but he could deal with it. Once he had the whole story, at least. Which he knew he didn’t have yet.

  “Go on,” he said.

  Tallie twisted a lock of her hair around her finger. “I was afraid you’d say that.” She smiled wryly. “This is the tricky bit.”

  Elias felt the tension in his neck tighten further.

  “I’m not the one who should be telling you this. I shouldn’t be involved at all.” She stopped and stared at him, as if she could will him to tell her not to go on.

  “But you are. So go on,” he said implacably.

  “Fine. All right.” She took a deep breath. “Cristina’s pregnant.”

  “What!” So, all right, it was a bellow. He couldn’t help it.

  Tallie strangled her mug. “Please! Hush. You’ll wake her up.”

  “Damn right I will. Pregnant? That idiot! What the hell did she do that for?”

  “I gather it wasn’t, um, planned.”

  Elias’s jaw clenched. “She can’t be that stupid.” But evidently she could be. He raked a hand through his hair. “I suppose it’s Mark’s?” He didn’t want to think she might not know.

  “It’s Mark’s. No question.”

  Apparently Cristina had been at pains to make sure Tallie understood that. But knowing it didn’t make Elias much happier. He leaped up and paced around the room, raking his fingers through his hair. “The last thing Cristina needs is a boy toy for the father of her child.”

  “It would probably be better if you didn’t mention that to her,” Tallie said mildly.

  Elias snorted. “It would be better if the child had any other parents on earth!”

  “You don’t know that,” Tallie argued. “Sometimes parenthood is the making of people.”

  “Didn’t do much for my old man,” Elias muttered.

  He had never in his life commented on the mathematical impossibility of his own conception having occurred after his parents’ wedding day. Still, he shouldn’t have mentioned it. “Forget I said that,” he muttered, feeling disloyal.

  “Of course.” Tallie nodded and, thank God, didn’t pursue it. “They’re getting married.”

  Elias rolled his eyes. “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I don’t think it has much to do with your feelings at all,” Tallie said frankly. “You’re her brother, not her father or the father of her child.”

  “I’m the bank,” Elias said grimly.

  “No, you just run the bank. Or you did,” she said reflecti
vely.

  Elias’s brows snapped down. His gaze met hers. “You think you have more to say about this than I do?”

  “No.” Tallie shook her head. “I don’t think either one of us has anything to say about it ultimately. We can be a stumbling block. Or not.”

  There was a quiet—but distinct—challenge in her words.

  Elias mulled them over. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to come to terms with what she had just told him. It rankled a bit that his sister had confided in Tallie when she hadn’t been willing to talk to him.

  Of course, Cristina might be an airhead, but she did have some instincts of self-preservation, and there was no doubt she knew what he’d say.

  But Tallie was right. The child wasn’t his. The decisions weren’t his. He rubbed the back of his neck. “So when are they getting married?”

  Tallie beamed. “I knew you’d be sensible.”

  Yeah, well, everyone knew that. When in his life hadn’t Elias been sensible? It was what he was, while all the rest of his family went crazy around him. He just stared at her in stony silence.

  “They’re getting married tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Well, what point is there in waiting?” Tallie asked. She didn’t expect him to answer, though. She went right on. “I told Cristina you’d stand up for them.”

  “You did what?” Elias was appalled.

  But Tallie flabbergasted him further by continuing, “I knew you’d want to. It’s what you do. You love her. And you take care of your family.”

  The words were simple, but she made them sound like a truth carved in stone. And then, just when he was about to protest, damned if she didn’t reach out and take hold of his hand, squeezing it gently, then hanging on.

  Elias stared at her, at her dark eyes so wide and intense, pleading with him. Then he dropped his gaze to her hand wrapped around his, her warm soft fingers curving around his hard cold ones.