“Yes. Definitely.” I turn to him. “Thank you for helping me off the ship,” I say. God, I sound like a nerd.
He grins and slides a pair of Oakleys on his face. “Anytime, princess.”
I grit my teeth. I’ve known him for all of three minutes and he’s given me a nickname. Who does that?
“Let’s go,” I say to Cass without opening my mouth.
She stares at me and blinks. “Oh-kay then.”
I lift my bags higher on my shoulders and look at perfection one last time. Too bad he’s so annoying. “Nice to have met you,” I say as I step away to follow Cass.
“You never actually met me,” he says, still lounging against the railing. “You never got my name,” he calls as I walk further away.
“There’s a reason for that,” I call back without turning around.
The last sound I hear is him laughing as we leave the dock and make our way to Cass’s little car.
The streets of Georgios are narrow and the Toyota Aygo we’re driving in is too. Cass maneuvers it like a grand prix driver, and we lurch around street corners, through tunnels that go underneath buildings, and even onto a curb or two.
“Whoa,” I say as she cuts across the corner of a sidewalk at an intersection so that she can get around a delivery truck that’s stopped in the dead center of the road. My eyes scan the area for police. “Aren’t you worried you’ll get a ticket?”
She laughs. “Driving here is a lot different than driving back home.”
Cass’s been here since the middle of last school year, so she knows what’s going on. She’s from Chicago University too but I don’t remember ever seeing her around campus. She’ll be staying until the Christmas holiday then going back home to finish up her final semester.
“But surely they have traffic laws.”
“Yeah, but they don’t enforce them much. It all works out fine.” She brakes as a kid on a bike pulls out into the road without even looking.
I grip the edge of the seat underneath me. What is with everyone here? Has the sun addled all their brains?
“Oh yeah?” I ask. “Like that kid nearly getting killed?”
“Eh, he’s fine,” she scoffs. As we pull up next to him she leans out the window and says something to him in Greek. The kid grins and shouts something back as he takes off on the bike again.
“So welcome to Greece!” she says out of the blue.
“Thanks.” I give her a grateful smile.
“And how did you end up with Niko?” she asks.
“Who?”
“Niko. The guy you were talking to at the dock?”
“Oh. He caught me when this little old woman plowed into me coming down the gangplank of the ship. With my suitcases hanging off of my shoulders I’m like a weeble about to topple over.”
“Nicely done,” she purrs.
“What do you mean?”
She shakes her head like I’m hopeless. “Niko is the hottest guy on the island. If you ask me, he’s the hottest guy for like five islands in any direction. And he doesn’t go around helping people for the hell of it. He must have liked you.”
The car veers to the left and we start on a winding road that goes up the side of a steep hill.
I snort. “I don’t think so. I sort of fell into him, he didn’t really have a choice.”
“Oh, there’s always a choice for Niko. Life is full of choices when your dad is a billionaire.”
“Really? Wow. That must be…just wow.”
“Right?” She pulls up to the front of a tall, narrow stucco building with a darling little Juliet balcony draped in red carnations. She turns to me as she switches off the ignition. “Ari Stephanos is the wealthiest man in Greece, and Niko is the only heir. All the looks, all the money. He was even a star soccer player at the University of Miami when he went there.”
My heart stutters for a moment. “That guy is Ari Stephanos’s son? Like Stephanos Shipping?”
“Yep. That’s where the billions come from.”
I groan. “Ugh. This is so my luck.”
Cass gets out of the car and I follow. “What’s the problem?” she asks, opening the tiny hatch so I can get my luggage. I hoist one bag out and she wiggles her fingers for me to hand it to her.
“I’ve got an internship with Stephanos Shipping. I’m supposed to start in their accounting section on Monday.”
Cass laughs as she helps me arrange my other bag on my shoulder. “Well, you’ve already made an impression on your new boss then.”
“The boss’s son, you mean,” I correct. “And I’ll probably never see either of them anyway. I’m sure the CEO’s office wing is nowhere near my intern desk.”
Cass looks at me with sympathy. “Oh, you poor thing. You’re right that Niko’s high up in the company, but he’s not in the CEO’s offices. He’s the CFO, the head of finance. He really is your new boss.”
Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
Get THE HEIR exclusively on Amazon.
Also by Selena Laurence
A Lush Betrayal (Lush 1)
Loving a Lush (Lush 2)
Lowdown and Lush (Lush 3)
A Lush Reunion (Lush 4)
A Lush Rhapsody (Rhapsody 1)
Racing to Rhapsody (Rhapsody 2)
Addicted to Rhapsody (Rhapsody 3)
Dreaming of Rhapsody (A Rhapsody Novella)
Camouflaged (Hiding From Love 1)
Hidden (Hiding From Love 2)
Concealed (Hiding From Love 3)
Buried (Hiding From Love 4)
Prince of the Press (A Powerplay Novella)
The Kingmaker (Powerplay 1)
POTUS (Powerplay 2)
SCOTUS (Powerplay 3)
The Darkhorse (A Powerplay Novella)
Cade’s Loss (California Cowboys 1)
Vaughn’s Pride (California Cowboys 2)
Ty’s Heart (California Cowboys 3)
Breath of Deceit (Dublin Devils 1)
Brush of Despair (Dublin Devils 2)
The Czar (A Standalone Hockey Billionaire romance)
The Heir (A Standalone Billionaire romance)
About the Author
Selena is an award-winning, USA TODAY bestselling author of Thrillingly Ever Afters and a teacher of English as a second language to students around the world. She writes outside of romance as SE Reed. She’s a coffee lover, community builder, and world changer who lives in the mountains of Colorado with her family and her goldendoodle. Her favorite city is Edinburgh, her favorite color is purple, and her favorite shoes are Converse.
Selena’s books have won the national Reader’s Crown award and the Bookseller’s Best award, and finaled in the Award of Excellence, the Holt Medallion award, the I Heart Indie award, the Kindle Book Review award, and the InD’tale awards.
When not writing or teaching, Selena volunteers with preschool children at her local refugee assistance center, and dreams of new ways to change the world one word at a time.
The easiest way to find out about Selena’s newest releases: Follow her on BookBub HERE.
The Czar: A Standalone Hockey Billionaire Novel Page 19
