She put the book down. “What happened?”
He threw his phone on the table. “He backed out.”
“Why?”
“He said the gestation time of his investment was too long given the political situation in Akathinia.”
“But that might change soon.”
“He doesn’t care.”
“He won’t change his mind?”
“No.” He pinned his gaze on her. “Did you say you didn’t like his business practices?”
A flush stained her cheeks. “He backed me into a corner, Aristos. You saw the games he was playing tonight.”
“Which is why you should have said nothing.” His voice rose. “Did you also tell him his business dealings with me reflected badly on the royal family?”
“No. He intimated that. I told him your business dealings were your affair.”
“After you told him you didn’t approve of his business practices!” He was yelling now and he didn’t care. “How could you be so stupid?”
Her face lost all its color. She sat there for a moment, silent, then pushed the sheets aside, got out of bed and walked over to him. “You need to calm down. They’ll hear you. I didn’t say that. He did.”
“After you said it at dinner the other night. Don’t tell me it wasn’t in your head.”
“Yes, because I care about you. Because I don’t think he’s the type of man you should be doing business with. Because I worry about him being your downfall, not because it has anything to do with my family.”
“If you cared about me, you would have said nothing.” He threw his hands up. “All I asked you to do was entertain him, Alex, but you spent the night being the ice queen.”
Her eyes widened. “Is that what I’m supposed to do? Keep my mouth shut? Perhaps I was not enough of a political asset to you tonight, then?”
He blinked. “What?”
“A political asset. Like you said to your lawyer on the phone today.”
“You were eavesdropping on my conversation?”
“I came to ask about the wine.”
“It was a throwaway comment.” He turned and paced to the other side of the room, his head too full, too hazy with the alcohol he’d consumed to think clearly.
Alex watched him quietly. “I understand you are upset. I understand how important this night was for you. But this has been coming with Dimitri. You knew he was iffy. So perhaps it was meant to be. You are meant to find a better fit.”
Blood swirled in his head, making him feel as if it would blow off. He swung to face her, giving her a scathing look. “Oh, that’s right. I’ll just go round up another hundred-million-dollar investor. Give me a sec.”
She bit her lip. “Do you know he employs underage girls in his clubs? Lord knows what they do beyond serving customers.”
“Now you’re letting your imagination go wild.”
“And you’re not seeing what’s right in front of you. Or do you just not want to see it?”
“Alex,” he growled. “I’ve never pretended to be a Boy Scout. I told you my world is full of gray areas.”
“But you aren’t.” She shook her head. “You forget I know you now. You are a good man, Aristos, an honorable one. But if you don’t watch it, this obsession with proving yourself is going to make you spiritually bankrupt.”
His mouth twisted. “That happened a long time ago.”
“No,” she said. “It didn’t. You did what you had to do to survive in the world. But now you have choices. Power. You need to decide which road to take.”
Silence reigned between them. Lifting a shoulder, he went to the sideboard and poured himself a glass of water. When he turned around Alex was gathering up her things.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to my room. I think we could both do with some space.”
“Running away, Princess?”
“No,” she said, lifting her chin. “Walking away is your specialty. I’m calling a time-out.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ALEX’S TIME-OUT WITH Aristos lasted for two days. She was too angry with him for insinuating she was responsible for Dimitri’s desertion to offer an olive branch, Aristos too busy working day and night to replace the Russian’s investment to do so, either, apparently. Which had left them in a standoff that couldn’t go on.
He had shut her out completely, rebuffed any attempt to talk as he made phone call after phone call to his contacts around the world. If she didn’t break the impasse, she was worried he would build his walls back up completely before they worked this out, and she was far too invested in him for that.
She ate dinner alone for a second day, then decided enough was enough. Picking up the sandwich she’d asked the chef to make, she headed for Aristos’s office. She found him standing at the window, hands braced on the sill, gaze trained on the remnants of the spectacular sunset.
She stood there for a moment, struck by what a solitary figure he cut. It clung to him like a second skin, as though he’d been wearing it so long it was his permanent finish. The lone wolf.
Her heart throbbed in her chest. For a while she thought she’d stripped it away, but now it was back.
She cleared her throat. “Any luck today?”
He turned to face her, his dark, fathomless gaze taking her in. “No. A couple of potential leads, but nothing substantial.”
She put the sandwich on the desk. “You need to eat if you’re going to function.”
He didn’t even glance at it. She leaned against the desk. “Are there other solutions to the loss of Dimitri? Can you scale the project back?”
An emotion she couldn’t read flickered in his gaze. “I would have to withdraw the plans, make major adjustments, something I don’t want to do when I’ve been so public about my vision for it.”
His reputation would suffer. He would lose face. His big gamble to prove he had conquered the casino world a failure... “You would still be first,” she pointed out. “The first to build a casino on Akathinia. Isn’t that enough?”
His lashes lowered, framing the dark circles that rimmed his eyes. It would never be enough. He would constantly be chasing after the next big thing until he destroyed himself. The realization sent a chill through her.
“The industry is about vision,” he said finally. “About convincing the entertainment world you have the biggest and the brightest offering. You lose that cachet and you’re done.”
“Or you lose everything because you need to save face. You don’t need to prove yourself anymore, Aristos. You have achieved a success beyond most men’s wildest imaginations. Perhaps part of a dream is better than none.”
“I will find another investor,” he rasped.
“Or you will destroy yourself trying.”
He lifted his chin, his gaze a smoky, dark cauldron of antagonism. “Is your lecture almost done?”
“Not quite.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You’re still angry with me about Dimitri.”
He shook his head. “You were right. He was already lost.”
And he hadn’t bothered to convey that to her? To apologize? A wave of antipathy washed through her. “You can be a real jerk, you know that?”
He lifted a shoulder. “I come as advertised.”
Wow. She shook her head. “You’re shutting me out.”
“I’m working, not shutting you out.”
“Funny, it feels as if you are. If you weren’t, you would have apologized. We’d be talking, working through this together like a normal couple. Maybe I can’t solve it for you, but I can be here for you.”
“I told you I don’t do this well.”
“Oh, that’s right, your convenient no-promises excuse, yours to pull out of the bag whenever you don’t feel like communicating. You’d rather tune me out than be in a real relationship.”
His gaze narrowed. “My company is on the brink. Cut me some slack.”
“You did it before the poker game, too. This is your routine, Aristo
s. Your MO.” She shook her head. “I want to be that person you can trust. I want to be the other half of us. But if you can’t let me in, this is never going to work.”
A dark glitter entered his eyes. “Maybe it isn’t. I’ve been clear about who I am, Alex, and you refuse to see it. You keep pushing your sanitized Hollywood version of me.”
Her chin lifted. “It’s not a Hollywood version. It’s you.”
“It’s not.” He clenched his hands by his sides. “You want to know who I am? Who I really am? I’m the man who can’t stick. Ever. I’m the man who walked out on his family not once, but twice, because he couldn’t stick. The one whose father told him his family was better off without him. And guess what? He was right.”
“No.” She shook her head, heart clenching. “No, he wasn’t.”
“Yes.” His olive skin was ashen, drained of color. “When my mother kicked my father out, my older brother, Vasili, came to me and asked me to come home, pleaded with me to help because he couldn’t handle all the responsibility he’d been given, and what did I do? I said no. I told him my mother had already made her decision. That I was done with them.”
Her heart fractured, a million tiny shards scattering in every direction, piercing her with their jagged edges. “You were hurt. You expected your parents to put you first.”
“I was a piece of dirt, that’s what I was. A street kid who didn’t care, and I haven’t much changed.” He wiped a hand across his mouth. “So do yourself a favor and walk in the opposite direction.”
“Aristos—” She put out a hand to touch him, but he shrugged it off.
“I have a call coming.”
In other words, leave.
“Kala.” She held his gaze, its bleakness chilling her. “But you’re wrong. You are wrong about who you are. You’re trying to give yourself adult decision-making skills when you were a child. You were acting on emotion, hurt, and the people who loved you should have known better. Done better.”
Turning on her heel, she left before he broke her heart.
* * *
Aristos did the conference call with California, with little hope that lead would go anywhere. Everything he could accomplish done, every avenue exhausted, he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. He’d slept maybe six hours over the past forty-eight, his body felt as if it had lead weights attached to it, yet still he sat there, racking his brain for alternate possibilities.
There were none. If his Los Angeles–based investor didn’t bite, he was done. He would need to scale the casino back or pull the project entirely. Either way, his reputation would be in tatters, everything he’d built subject to the whims of an industry that would call you old news before the year was out.
He wanted to believe everything Alex had said, to absolve himself of the responsibilities he’d had toward his family, but the guilt went too deep. At sixteen, he’d been old enough to know what he was doing when Vasili had come to him, and still he’d made the wrong choice, a choice he knew would haunt him forever.
He rubbed his burning eyes, attempted to think past the haze consuming his brain. He knew he should go apologize to Alex, but he was afraid of what he’d say in this state of mind...afraid of saying things he’d regret.
Being around her made it impossible not to look at himself, at what he’d become, because she was the good, the lightness in this world. She made him feel better than he’d ever felt in his life, so close to that magical happiness quotient he thought it might actually be attainable. But the more he allowed his need for her to rule, the more vulnerable he became; the more out of control he felt.
She had the power to hurt him. To twist his brain into so many directions he didn’t know what he wanted anymore. Who he was. And that terrified him, took him back to a place and time where that was all he’d felt, to a chaos he never wanted to experience again. Had sworn he never would.
He stumbled to bed at midnight, his head no clearer. Sure he would pass out, he lay staring at the wall instead. When he could resist no longer, he got up, went to Alex’s room, scooped her into his arms and carried her back to his suite.
She looked disoriented, confused, her big blue eyes searching for his as he tucked her into his bed. He couldn’t have her there without touching her. Sliding his hands over her curves, he rediscovered her, memorized her. With a low moan, Alex sank into his touch.
Exhausted and sated, he fell asleep with her in his arms.
* * *
Alex woke by herself after a night wrapped in Aristos’s arms, a night in which everything had felt right again and she’d thought she might have gotten through to him.
When dinner passed and he was still holed up in his office, she told herself she couldn’t expect massive change overnight. She slept in his suite that night, hoping he would come to her when he was done. She was asleep before he came in, and he was gone before she woke the next morning. The pattern went on for two days before the ache in her stomach began to make her feel physically ill.
A phone call from Nik interrupted her ruminations. Kostas had taken over in Carnelia and declared peace with the region. It was over. They were free to come home.
She was deluged with a mix of feelings—happiness she could finally return home, anxiety about what this would mean for her and Aristos.
When he deigned to make an appearance at dinner that night, she told him of her conversation with Nik.
He nodded. “He called me earlier this afternoon. I’ve asked the pilot to be ready to take us at noon tomorrow.”
Just like that. Her fingers tightened around her wineglass. “What are we going to do?”
He gave her a quizzical look. “We fly home. Resume our lives.”
Her heart, breaking piece by piece this week, fell apart a little further. “No,” she said deliberately, “I mean what are we going to do about us?”
He frowned. “I need to get the financing for the casino sorted out.”
“I think you need to get us sorted out while you’re at it.” She pushed her glass away. “You have to decide whether you’re going to give me a meaningful place in your life or let me go, Aristos. It’s as simple as that.”
“It’s not as simple as that,” he growled.
“It is. I don’t want to be a convenient wife, nor do I want to be a politically advantageous one. I want to be your partner. I want to be the one you come to when you’re happy or sad. The one who licks your wounds for you.”
The silence that followed was deafening. Hot tears pooled at the backs of her eyes. “Do you know the tabloids are making bets about how long we last? How long you can stay married?”
His eyes flashed. “They are garbage.”
“Yes, but the funny thing about them is there’s always a vein of truth there. It’s how they survive.”
She threw her napkin on the table and rose. “Tonight it’s me who doesn’t seem to have an appetite. If you’ll excuse me.”
* * *
Alex stepped into the helicopter behind Aristos the next morning with nothing between them resolved. She steadfastly refused to look down as they took off, bound for Akathinia. At all the memories the island held for her...the terrace where Aristos had held her through that wicked storm...the beach where he’d finally opened up and broken her heart...the beautiful, magical suite where she’d given him all of her, sure they were different.
She had no idea if they’d ever be back here together. If they’d even make it.
The journey was painfully silent, Aristos with his face in his laptop, her staring out the window. When the white Maltese stone Akathinian palace came into view, she knew what she had to do. She didn’t want to live with a husband who cared about her the way her father had her mother, only commanding a piece of his heart; she wanted, needed, all of him.
The helicopter touched down. Aristos planned to continue on to his home on the outskirts of the city, then to his office, so the pilot kept the helicopter idling as her fiancé helped her out and onto the cement landing pad.
Stella and Nik appeared on the steps. Desperate to keep her emotions in check, she turned to Aristos. His expression was hidden by dark sunglasses, but what did it matter? He’d been emotionally unavailable all week.
He lifted a hand to run a finger down her cheek. “I’ll call you later.”
“Don’t.”
His head snapped back. She bit her lip, summoning a composure she wasn’t sure she had. “We need some space, Aristos. Time to figure out how we feel about this. Us.”
“Alex—”
She put a finger to his lips. “I know how I feel about you. You know I love you. Now you have to figure out how you feel.”
She kissed him. A brief touch of her lips to his. When he would have pulled her closer, she stepped out of his arms, turned and walked away, fighting back the tears that blinded her path.
He had taught her to grab hold of her future. Now she had. She wondered where it would take them.
* * *
Aristos stepped onto the helicopter after Alex threw those three loaded words at him and flew home. He spent the next week working the same insane hours, rattling around his too-big estate on the cliffs of Akathinia when he finally came home, its soaring ceilings and twenty-five rooms empty and without soul. They always had been, but it struck him now how utterly barren the place was.
He knew the difference was Alex, the effervescent presence she was, the spirit in her that reached out and surrounded him, refused to allow him to retreat into himself. But she had just walked out of his life.
It had been on the tip of his tongue to call her back, to rectify the mistake he knew he was making. But he’d known he wasn’t ready. He had ghosts to exorcise, a future to shape. Wanting something, even as badly as he wanted Alex, wasn’t proving you could stick. And that he had to do.
When word came that his final hope for an investor to replace Dimitri had fallen through, it was like being handed a life sentence he’d known was coming. All you could do was slide your hands into the shackles and admit your mistakes. Your failings.
Claiming the Royal Innocent (Kingdoms & Crowns) Page 16
