by Olivia Gates
That was, until he’d realized she’d gone. The same numbness that had assailed him at that discovery spread through him again now.
It had simulated bewilderment, loss, even anger. But he’d at last decided what it was. Relief.
She’d saved him the trouble of finding a resolution to their interlude of temporary insanity. Their plunge into abandoned intimacies had been unforeseen and uncharacteristic, not to mention fraught with consequences. But they’d rushed into it like one would into danger to escape unmanageable pain.
But she’d clearly thought it better to have no morning-after, to have a clean break, resume their leashed hostilities and forget the two days they’d been all-out lovers.
He’d grappled with the need to contest that decision for hours. He’d ended up deciding it was for the best.
Respecting that unspoken treaty of avoidance had kept him away from the States since. He’d been loath to end up face-to-face with her, had feared he’d end up doing something unpredictable again.
But just as it was she who’d kept him away, now it was she—and her brothers—who’d brought him back.
He was about to crash another Louvardis function. This time, a party instead of a funeral.
His negotiators, emissaries and go-betweens had failed to resolve this current situation, the most potentially catastrophic of their business interactions. The Louvardises were no longer trying to wring him dry in negotiations. They were trying to take an ax to his throne in the shipping world. They’d left him no doubt that they would go kamikaze if it meant taking him down with them.
So he was here as a last measure. To find out just what had instigated this extreme stance. He owed it to their father—and to Selene—to give them a chance to reach a compromise, to back off, before he employed his heaviest artillery and gunned them down.
The emotional ferocity, the lack of a logical core at this last attack had made him wonder if it was Selene’s doing. But he’d dismissed that wishful thought. She wasn’t a woman scorned. She was the one who’d walked out.
Whatever it was, it had to end now. One way or another.
He moved at last, passing through the gates. Good thing the man who asked for his invitation recognized him and decided to not make an issue of it. He wasn’t sure how he’d have dealt with anyone coming between him and his objective, which he had to achieve with as much economy of time and hassle as possible before getting the hell out of there. This time he fully intended never to return.
He strode to the mansion’s open massive oak double doors, feeling bombarded by the curiosity of those who were wandering out, cocktails in hand, to enjoy the beauty of the immaculate grounds. His ire rose with every intrusive glance. He was in worse condition than he’d thought if the violation of privacy he’d long grown an impervious shield against could rile him, and this much.
He’d better find one of the Louvardis clan, and quickly—
“I can kick you out this time, Sarantos.”
Nikolas Louvardis. The one now steering the Louvardis ship, so to speak. Probably the one responsible for the current escalation in hostilities. Good. He always dealt with problems at the source.
He turned to the man the media called the “other” Greek god in the shipping business.
“Louvardis.” Aris met Nikolas’s brilliant blue glare head-on, not even thinking of extending a hand he knew wouldn’t be taken. Not now. But he would end this confrontation by forcing Nikolas Louvardis to put his hand in his. “It’s nice to see you, too.”
Nikolas’s eyes filled with feral challenge. “Turn around and walk out under your own power, Sarantos. If you don’t, I’m sure plenty of the attendees will capture what will happen on video and sell it to the highest bidders.”
Aris huffed a mirthless chuckle. “I wouldn’t mind a bit of propaganda, Louvardis. But I hear you’re a piano player. Surely you won’t risk your precious hands.”
“Only for your jaw, Sarantos.” Nikolas raised him a taunting smile. “But then again, maybe not. Your being here speaks volumes. It’s actually priceless. You’re scared.”
Aris gave him a serene look. “Go ahead. Revel in spelling out this fascinating theory.”
“Who am I to disappoint the great Aristedes Sarantos?” Nikolas bared his teeth in a smile Aris was sure would have had lesser men cringing. “So here it is. You’re at the level where you have to become the biggest shipping mogul around, not one of a handful of kingpins, or you risk losing everything to mergers or worse. Only one thing is standing in the way of realizing your goal. Louvardis Enterprises.”
“You’re not the only technological-outfitting empire around, Louvardis.”
“But we’re the best,” Nikolas countered. “With a capital B. If we weren’t, if you had an alternative, you wouldn’t be here.”
“This is a two-way street,” Aris said. “Now more than ever, it’s vital to team up with only the best. You may be the best ship-and-port outfitters, but I’m the best ship-and-port builder.”
Nikolas shrugged. “We’re looking to give someone else the chance to take that position. Want to bet whomever we choose will soon become the best?”
“Still a two-way street, Louvardis. Whomever I back, I can also make the best.” Aris suddenly let the seriousness of this situation reflect in his expression. “But I’d rather not look for new collaborators. I didn’t get where I am by fixing what isn’t broken. Any reason you’re trying to break it? Even your father, who cited ‘irreconcilable differences’ in business practices and moral standings as his reason for fighting me every step of the way, never went so far as to make it a stipulation that I be out of the picture before he agreed to sign a contract. We always managed to reach agreements that satisfied both sides. So what brought on your sudden Samson tactics?”
Nikolas scowled. “My father always fought to oust you from every major contract that involved us both. That he ended up buckling wasn’t due to the power of your negotiations, but when your terrorist tactics scared his shareholders and board of directors into screaming for him to do it. And that’s something we intend to rectify. You’re done twisting Louvardis’s arm, Sarantos.”
Aris took a step closer, his stance echoing Nikolas’s confrontation. “You talk as if Hektor never twisted mine. It was a draw, with me losing to you as much as I won. Especially since you and your…siblings started to pop up in the picture.”
“Father recruited us—unwillingly and against his better judgment, I might add—when he felt he needed what he called ‘a multipronged retaliation fueled by the fervor of new blood, the zeal of youth and the creativity of the newer generation.’”
Aris’s eyes narrowed, his every sense prickling with Nikolas’s barely leashed bitterness. So not everything had been picture-perfect in the family that had seemed so to him. Nikolas held the same futile resentment toward Hektor as Aris did for not appreciating his abilities, for being loath to make use of them.
Who would have thought he and Nikolas Louvardis had anything in common? And something that…essential, too?
Aris felt something yield inside him, the aggression Nikolas’s baiting had ignited defusing.
His lips twitched. “But he did recruit you. And you did prove to be bigger headaches than even he ever was, taking the game to a whole new level and forcing me to be a far better player. But you, like him, know it’s not in your best interest to alienate me.”
“Alienate you?” Nikolas, back in top taunting form, barked a harsh laugh. “Try break you.”
“Don’t be foolish, Nikolas,” Aris muttered, needing to bring this to where he’d always wanted it to be with this family, to the personal level. “You think losing one contract, no matter how big, can break me?”
Nikolas shrugged his immaculate shoulders, the very picture of nonchalance. “It would be the beginning of a slow but sure end for you.”
Aris compressed his lips. The man seemed to be even more intractable than his father, and he hadn’t thought that was possible. “You hav
e my replacements in place? Does anyone have the resources, the experience and clout, not to mention the vision and flexibility to accommodate your needs, fulfill your demands and showcase your products? You’d end up in limbo without me, and we both know it.”
“We’ll worry about that when you’re out of the picture.”
“Don’t fool yourself into thinking your father worked with me only because he was forced to. He knew I was the only one who could do his work justice.”
“Maybe. But I have always despised the hell out of you, and I’ve never been an advocate of ‘the devil you know.’”
“Let’s get personal on our own time and dime, Nikolas. We have tens of thousands of futures and billions of dollars in stock riding on our decisions. You made your point, I got it. Now enough. You know you’ll end up putting your hands in mine.”
“Not as long as I have anything to say about it.”
Aris jumped on that. “Your…siblings aren’t on board on this?”
“You know what, Sarantos? You should be hailed as a miracle worker. You’re the only thing my siblings and I agree on.”
He should have known.
Aris exhaled. “If you force me, I’ll fight you. You won’t like it.”
Nikolas’s Adonis face radiated pure pleasure. “Ah, finally. The threats. That’s more like it.”
Aris exhaled again. “I’m not here to threaten you. I’m here to ask you not to force me to do that. You may believe I’m indiscriminate in my need to be the lone man on top, but if I were, I’d have crippled you and made an example of you. And even if destroying you also toppled me to the bottom rung, I would have clawed my way back to the top. I did that the first time, after all.”
Nikolas’s smile died and he held Aris’s gaze. Unmoved, immovable. But Aris knew. Nikolas had been working to establish an equal importance in their dealings, something his father, no matter how much Aris had needed his collaboration, hadn’t managed. Aris had just assured him of how much he valued Louvardis, implied his intention of granting them that equal standing in their future contracts. Nikolas wasn’t shaking his hand yet, but he could feel the first signs of relenting, of appeasement.
Aris pressed his advantage. “Let me talk to your legal advisor on this contract. I’m sure we can come to an agreement.”
Next second, Aris almost kicked himself.
He shouldn’t have brought her up. Suddenly his imperturbable adversary became the irrational Greek brother who’d rather not have any male know his kid sister existed, no matter that she was one of Louvardis Enterprises’ head legal strategists.
Nikolas all but grew scales and breathed fire. “You’ll talk to me, or to the counselors I assign to deal with yours. She’s not available.”
“She’s actually right here.”
That voice.
That velvet melody, that siren song that had replayed in Aris’s mind in its dizzying range of expressions. Prim in formality, ragged in emotion, abandoned in pleasure, frenzied in climax then drowsy in satisfaction. It now reverberated in his bones with the force of a nearby explosion.
She was here.
Aris swung around, Nikolas and the world disappearing as his awareness narrowed to a laserlike focus, seeking her.
And his hopes that his memories of her had been exaggerated disintegrated like a wisp of cloud under a tropical sun. For there she stood, far beyond what he’d been telling himself for a year and a half had been his wildly embellished recollections.
Even though she was walking toward them with the French door pouring sunlight at her back, she looked every inch the moon goddess she’d been named for. Tall and sure and commanding, serene and voluptuous and hypnotic, in a white pantsuit that hugged each of those curves he remembered with distressing clarity owning and exploiting, as if to taunt him that he no longer could. Her waterfall of ebony tresses undulated like pure darkness with the languid rhythm of her approach, and those moonlit-sky eyes shrouded in veil-of-night lashes poured royal-blue steadiness and indigo neutrality over him.
It was the challenge of her unaffectedness that managed what even his most dangerous enemies had not. They rattled the shackles of the beast he kept subjugated within him, inflamed him into unchecked frenzy, sent him roaring.
At that moment he knew.
He didn’t still want Selene Louvardis.
He craved her.
It had been slow starvation that had been eating away at him, at his ability to rest, to relax, to replenish. He’d kept hoping he’d fatigue the hunger’s choke hold on him until it released him. He’d been waiting to be cured. That was why he’d stayed away. Not to observe the logic of evasion, but from fear he’d get confirmation that what she’d aroused in him was unstoppable, unrepeatable. Indispensable.
And he’d gotten confirmation. With just one look.
That look was also enough to make him reach a resolution.
No matter the price, to anything or anyone, starting with himself, he would have Selene Louvardis again.
She stopped a few maddening steps away, a slight incline of her head sending the heavy waves of her hair cascading over her shoulder. The rich mass gleamed like a raven’s wing against the whiteness wrapping her. His hands itched to weave through its luxury, to twist it around his hands, to secure her proud head by its anchor, to bend back that elegant neck for his passion.
And he would. He’d made up his mind. She would be his again.
For now he savored the abrasion of her disregard. It would only heighten the pleasure of her capitulation.
Ignoring his presence, his gaze, she focused on her brother.
“You have no call deciding what I’m available or unavailable for, Nikolas,” she said, her voice even, her expression a flatline. “But the only agreement I’ll reach here is with you. Any more ‘talk’ with Mr. Sarantos will be done through our legal teams.”
Before Aris could rouse himself from the grip of fascination to think of an answer, Nikolas’s phone rang.
Aris was barely aware of him as he answered it, his senses captive to Selene, until a fed-up growl broke through his fugue.
Nikolas passed Selene as he strode out of the room, muttering, “I have to go, Selene. Leave our gate-crasher to conclude his unwelcome visit and go back to the party. There are plenty of important or at least bearable people to mingle with.”
Aris kept his eyes on Selene as Nikolas disappeared, monitoring her expression, trying to fathom her thoughts.
She was acting as a Louvardis, the professional whose family had decided to take him to war.
This had to be a facade. It wasn’t possible the hunger gnawing at him wasn’t in part in response to her own.
But she was turning away, taking her expression out of his scrutiny’s reach.
“You’re being an obedient kid sister and doing as your oldest brother told you?”
His words stopped her midturn, gained him her first direct look. Something quivered in his chest at the electric touch of her gaze, the exhilaration of capturing her attention, forcing her acknowledgment.
She huffed in ridicule. “You’re taunting me into staying?”
He shrugged as he began to eliminate the gap she’d widened. “Whatever works.”
Her lush lips twisted. “Yeah. That is your M.O.”
He came to a halt one step away, barely stopped himself from yanking her against his buzzing flesh. “Give me one reason you shouldn’t stay.”
“I can give you an alphabetized index.” He almost shivered with pleasure at the delicious sarcasm that roughened her voice, the deep blue fire that sparked in her eyes. “But one reason suffices. The first thing I advise my clients against is direct contact with an adversary.”
He felt his lids growing heavy, his lips tautening with the growing stimulation. “We’re not adversaries.”
That gained him a borderline snort. It revved his excitement to higher gear. “Right. A week after my father’s death, when you couldn’t get around his standing orders, you maneuver
ed everyone into opting for another outfitter. No doubt as a first step toward removing us from your path once and for all.”
“I didn’t want someone else.” Her eyes jerked wider at that. And he succumbed, wrapped aching fingers around the resilience of her arm. She lurched back a step, the look in her eyes zapping the current inside him to a higher voltage with the turbulence she could no longer disguise. He leaned closer. He wasn’t letting her get away. Not again. “I still don’t. But he—all of you—left me no choice. Leave me one now. I don’t want us to be enemies.”
And as she had that night she’d offered him solace, companionship, then mind-numbing passion, she did the unexpected again.
Instead of shaking him off, she stilled in his hold, then nodded as if to herself, before giving him a solemn glance.
“This needs to be settled.”
She stepped away and started walking, heading out of the foyer and deeper into the mansion.
In minutes, he followed her into her father’s old office.
It looked as if it had been kept as a shrine to Hektor. The older man’s presence permeated the place. He could imagine Hektor striding in like a lion into its den any moment now, flaying him over some new disappointment.
Next second, his senses reconverged on Selene.
She was turning to him. “My father’s will had something to do with you. Instructions about what to do with you.”
He approached her again, delighting in the way she didn’t let his encroachment intimidate her, met her defiance with his goading. “Is there an explanation for these instructions? Anything you agree with, or are you just following them blindly?”
She leaned back against her father’s desk as if she needed the support, shrugged those strong, elegant shoulders. “He wanted to stop you from getting too big. He believed that if you did, it would cause worldwide damage to the shipping business. We agreed with each of his detailed reasons.”
