Old Enough to Know Better [The Corsakis Hotel 2] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour)

by Serena Akeroyd

  Every event had been bittersweet. A known recluse on the island, Alexa rarely left her hotel. Everyone who knew anything about the VIPs on Cyprus knew Alexa was not sociable. Even if he could have not attended the parties, he would have done, just to look at her. To be close.

  His gut clenched at the knowledge that was no longer necessary.

  She was here, in his arms, his to touch and to love.

  He wasn’t ashamed to admit he could cry at such a realization.

  No more looking but not touching. She was his, and he was hers. And, equally, she belonged to the other loves of his life. Could this evening be any more perfect?

  He didn’t think so.

  Well, maybe surviving the party without Alexa’s father, Elias, killing him.

  Agathe’s eyes were astute as she pressed two kisses to Alexa’s cheeks. The embrace between mother and daughter was a true one even though Alexa practically vibrated with anger at what she believed to be her mother’s deception.

  Among the elite, such closeness was a rarity. Even in his own family, and with Leon’s and Aaron’s. Men, bizarrely enough, were effusive. His father kissed him, felt no shame in the act, and he in turn found nothing odd in such a gesture. Affection between the women, on the other hand, was strained. Air kisses were more the norm rather than an out-and-out hug, but Agathe was a sweetheart. She was kind and gentle, sweet but not too sweet. For a woman in her position, she was surprisingly bawdy, and it was that streak, he felt sure, that had helped her come to terms with the feelings the three of them had for her daughter.

  “Thank you for this party, Mum,” Alexa unbent enough to say.

  Agathe shrugged a shoulder. “This is the fluff. The real thing is happening tomorrow. I’m going to assume that I need to add three more to the table setting?”

  Alexa blushed. “Yes. If you don’t mind.”

  “Mind? It’s the first time I’ve seen that look in your eye for the last ten years.” She cupped Alexa’s shoulders, then leaned back to study her a little more. With a nod, she apparently read something on her daughter’s features that put her mind at rest. Her hand slid up to touch Alexa’s cheek, and she murmured, “I didn’t know everything. I just knew Antonis had involved himself where he had no business to. Your papa was always under his thumb, and Antonis wouldn’t have listened to me anyway. The details weren’t mine to know, but even if I had, I couldn’t have done anything. I did my best to give the boys hope, and I never let you talk about them without defending them.” Agathe sighed. “I tried my best. That was all I could do.”

  Alexa’s tight mouth relaxed at her mother’s words. There was a faint tremor as she whispered, “You—I’m sorry about shouting at you today, Mum.”

  She shrugged. “Your grandfather wasn’t here, your papa wouldn’t understand, so who else was there to shout at?”

  “That doesn’t make it right.”

  “I’m strong enough to take it.” She let her gaze drift between the pair of them. “I just want you to be happy.” Agathe turned to him then, not letting Alexa reply, and in a cloud of Chanel No. 5 hugged him.

  He bent down to press a kiss to her cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”

  Another nod, then came a murmured, “Just love her. Love her like she needs to be loved.”

  “On my life.”

  She smiled at the vow, then left him to reach for Leon and Aaron.

  Because of her closeness to their mothers, she’d never blanked them, even though she’d known of the strain in their relationship with Alexa, but it was the first real time she’d approached them publicly.

  It felt good, like the first step to making this more real. More permanent.

  “I need a drink,” Alexa declared and strode off in search of a waiter. He trailed after her, content to watch her wiggling ass as she moved ahead. The front view was even better. While the tailored pants clung to her butt and showed off the pert mounds to perfection, the vest top she wore, with the lace insert, played peekaboo with her breasts. He was almost 100 percent certain she wasn’t wearing a bra.

  His cock twitched at the thought, and he accepted the glass of champagne she gave him upon her return. “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” She eyed their lovers, who were still talking to her mother. “She’s right. She never did let me talk smack about you. And when I wanted to bitch, she’d always defend you.”

  Loukas held her close. “She did what she could.”

  Alexa nodded, but when she looked up at him, the thousands of fairy lights swathing the yacht were reflected in the tears gathering in her eyes. “She approves.”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “I’m lucky,” she whispered. “Aren’t I?”

  “Very lucky.”

  Another nod, and she sucked in a quivery breath. “What are they talking about?”

  “If you wanted to know, you shouldn’t have moved away.”

  She snorted. “It’s hard to believe that she knows about us.”

  “She’s an ally. A much-needed one. While I intend to keep the real nature of our relationship quiet, it’s inevitable that some of the people close to us will discover the truth. Some will shun us, Alexa. I hope you’re ready for that.”

  Rather than be impressed by the somberness of his tone, she burst out laughing. Her amusement tinkled over the party, bringing all eyes on them. She grimaced at the realization. “Dammit, we’ll have all the well-wishers now. But, before we do, let me tell you this. If I’d cared what people thought, today wouldn’t be the first time I’ve left my hotel in the last four weeks.” She cocked a brow. “People can talk. I don’t care.”

  She had just enough time to make the declaration before, as predicted, friends and family flowed around them. Congratulations and air kisses rained down on her, as well as curious looks at his stance by her side.

  As agreed earlier, before Alexa had woken up this afternoon, Leon and Aaron were staying close but also keeping their distance. They didn’t want to raise too many eyebrows.

  While Agathe had invited them to tonight’s bash, not a one of them had expected they’d be attending with Alexa at their side. As it was, they’d hastily agreed that they might as well start as they meant to go on. Which, he assumed, was why Leon had thrown caution to the wind and started talking about the future.

  That reminded him. He needed to deck his lover later on.

  The jackass might be an artist, and he might have railed at Loukas that he was the one who wasn’t in touch with his emotions, but Leon had been completely blind to the semi-panic in Alexa’s voice this evening.

  It was all happening so quickly, too quickly probably, but he wasn’t going to throw on the brakes. No fucking way.

  Not after ten wasted years.

  So, he brushed off the curious glances, the questioning looks, and gently peppered comments that revolved around his presence at Alexa’s side.

  When the three-hundred-strong crowd eventually dissipated, Alexa blew out a breath. “Thank Christ that’s over,” she remarked, sinking back her third champagne with relish.

  She’d always been unsociable, but he was surprised at her relief and the alcohol she’d had to consume to handle the bubble of attention. He shouldn’t have been. Alexa was a complex creature, full of contrasts. While she exuded competent confidence, he remembered how intrinsically shy she was with everyone apart from family and Loukas, Leon, and Aaron.

  While he wished she didn’t need liquid reinforcement, he was glad to be in her inner circle once more.

  “You’re lucky. At my last birthday, I didn’t escape for a good hour.”

  She grinned. “That’s what happens when you take over as head of a corporation. Notice, I’m quite content with just the one hotel. I won’t be expanding, thank you very much.”

  He could have told her that technically, as his partner, she’d have to stand by his side at the next birthday party while he was congratulated on nothing more than letting time pass, but deflating her buzz wasn’t his intention ton
ight.

  If anything, he wanted to see her sparkle.

  And sparkle, she did.

  She kept close to him and the other two, and her other friends, although there weren’t exactly many of them, came and went.

  Surprisingly, her dad was the last one to arrive at the party. Elias boarded looking out of breath and disgruntled, but Loukas watched as he shrugged off his funk, plastered a false smile on his face, and approached his daughter with arms wide open.

  Alexa immediately settled within his embrace, was hugged roughly by her father, and had two wet and noisy kisses pressed to her cheeks. She protested the exuberance with a grin, but her eyes sparkled, disproving her words.

  “What’s wrong with Elias?” Aaron murmured the words into his ear as he carefully, and for a handful of seconds, rested his hand against the small of Loukas’s back.

  It was the most they were able to touch at these kinds of events. It sucked, but then, so did a lot in life.

  Loukas was the one who had the most to lose if the charade they were all living was to become public knowledge, but he enjoyed the balancing act. At times, it felt as though he were walking on a tightrope, and he knew that sensation would only increase by adding Alexa to the mix. He could handle the burden, though, and she was more than worth it. As were Leon and Aaron.

  His life was complicated, more complicated than it ought to have been, but he wouldn’t change it. He couldn’t. Not many people were lucky enough to love and be loved in their lives. In his instance, he had three lovers who would move heaven and earth for him, something that he’d be willing to do in return.

  Nothing in this world came easy. He’d learned that a long time ago. At twenty-one, discovering he liked men in a society that was still behind the times had been hard going. It had come as a relief when Alexa had bloomed into a woman and he’d been as turned on by her as he had been by his best friends.

  He was old and wise enough to have pushed aside the guilt he felt every time his mother asked him why he hadn’t married a good Greek girl and why she wasn’t a grandmother yet.

  He was determined enough on his course to refuse to feel any shame for loving and being loved by two men.

  Leon and Aaron were his life. Without them, having to endure the time without Alexa would have been hell. As it was, those first few years where they’d had to learn to live without her in their lives, without her snooping, had been incredibly difficult. But from the ashes of that time, they’d all grown stronger, and they’d all grown closer.

  The hardest part of their relationship was the public side to their lives. Hiding from the love they shared caused a wrenching pain every time they had to do it. Lying, sneaking around, having to pretend to be something they weren’t was harder than running the family corporation.

  Did it piss him off that he couldn’t kiss Aaron at the party?

  Yeah.

  Did it infuriate him that he couldn’t hold Leon close?

  Yeah, it did.

  But at the same time, that balancing act was key to keeping their world together. And as the only son in a family of six daughters, he had no other choice but to protect his lifestyle choices from prying eyes. His father was ill, his heart weak. He’d already had two heart attacks, one a warning that he’d ignored, the second powerful enough for the doctors to urge Loukas into signing him into a convalescent home.

  The family was traditional and old-fashioned enough for his father to be horrified at the idea of his sisters actually working for a living. They were all bored wives, killing themselves with their apathy, but to his dad, that was the way of it. That was how it should be.

  In the face of that, keeping the truth from his parents and the world was a small, if painful, decision to have made.

  When Aaron prodded him in the back, Loukas was jerked from his thoughts. “What’s wrong with Elias?” Aaron prompted, repeating his earlier and still unanswered question.

  “How should I know?” he replied. “But he does look pissed off, doesn’t he?”

  “Yeah. And he was late. That’s unheard of.”

  Loukas studied Alexa, who was talking to an American friend, Rebekah, and Leon, who was listening to the pair of them with a smile on his face. The satisfaction written into his features made Loukas’s belly flutter, and he wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

  Seeing Leon so happy fulfilled Loukas in a way that told him, if there had ever been a doubt, how deeply in love he was with the other man.

  His eyes lingered for a second on his lover and then wandered over to Elias. “Looks like they’re having a row.”

  Aaron snorted. “That’s you, master of the understatement.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s no looks about it! Agathe doesn’t look too happy either.”

  “Well, she won’t if he’s lecturing her.”

  “Agathe doesn’t listen to lectures. Where do you think Alexa got it from? She might be old-school, but you know what she’s like. A rebel without a cause.”

  Loukas grinned at that, as it perfectly described his soon-to-be mother-in-law. Well, as soon as he could wrangle it, anyway.

  “Do you think we could ask?”

  He shook his head. “No. Of course not. Elias doesn't even know Alexa’s talking to us again.”

  “Shit. I hate being out of the loop.”

  “That’s because you’re nosy.”

  It was Aaron’s turn to grin because only Loukas could make that sound like a compliment rather than an insult. He pressed his hand into the small of his lover’s back again, wishing like hell he could do more but knowing that such a wish was futile. “I’m interested,” he corrected, for the hell of it.

  “Alexa’s noticed,” Loukas pointed out, seeing their woman—Christ, how right that sounded—peer at her parents, a frown marring her brow. “Damn, I wanted her to sparkle. Not scowl.”

  “She’s not a Christmas bauble, Loukas,” Aaron chided, only to hide a smile when Loukas shrugged that off.

  “Don’t be stupid. You know what I mean.” He looked at Aaron from the corner of his eye. “Don’t lie. You wanted the same as I did.”

  “Well, of course. But still, we can’t protect her from everything. We lost that right ten bloody years ago.”

  “Don’t remind me. When she started talking about sleeping with other men this afternoon, I could have gone out hunting.”

  “You’re a corporate shark, not a real one,” Aaron reminded him.

  “You know how thin a veneer that is,” came the slick retort. “She’s going over to them. Fuck, how long do we have to wait until we have the right to go over there and butt in?”

  “I don’t know. A few months?”

  “Screw that,” Loukas stated and immediately strode off in Alexa’s direction.

  * * * *

  Knowing that he really had no right to go over there, Aaron hung back, watching as Leon made his polite farewells to Rebekah, Alexa's friend, and moved over to his side.

  “What’s made Loukas start stomping? I swear, he’s worse than a toddler with all his tantrums.”

  Aaron snorted. “Like you’re not just as bad.”

  “I’m an artist. I can get away with it.”

  That had him grinning. “At least we can fuck Loukas out of his bad moods. You go all blue on us. You’d probably threaten to lop off our balls if we even came close to suggesting such a thing.”

  “Of course, I paint some of my best stuff when I’m depressed.”

  Only to an artist could that make sense. While to many, Aaron was considered to be in the same profession, he was night to Leon’s highly emotive day. Instead, he rolled his eyes and finally answered, “You were busy talking to Alexa, but when Elias came on board, he looked furious. Then, he headed over to Agathe, and they’re arguing over something.”

  As the two hovered, watching from a distance the scene that was occurring, Aaron sighed. “This sucks.”

  “It more than sucks,” Leon replied instantly.

  “Sitting on t
he sidelines when we should be there, helping, smoothing everything out…it’s not fair.”

  “No, but it’s our lot. It’s the choice we made.”

  “What happens if, when they get married, we have to move out?”

  “That won’t happen,” Leon soothed.

  “What if it does?”

  “Where’s this come from? We’ve always known where this has been heading. We’ve always known we’d have to stay in the background.”

  Aaron frowned, absentmindedly rubbing a hand over his chest.

  “Hey, come on, love. It’ll be okay. It has to be.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just, I didn’t expect to see this so quickly.”

  “There aren’t many events like this, and we can back out of them now. We only went before so we could catch a glimpse of her. When she’s at home with us, we’ll only have to look up from whatever it is we’re doing to see her.”

  Aaron nodded. “What is the island going to say when they get married? They’ll expect us to move out.” Where the words came from, he didn’t know, but he needed to ask, just so that Leon could reassure him.

  “If it comes to it, we’ll build two houses on the plot. People don’t have to know we’re not living in them.”

  “Fucking hell, Leon. You want to perpetuate the lie to that extent?”

  “What other choice do we have?”

  “We could tell the truth.”

  “And be banished from Cyprus?”

  “They couldn’t really do that.”

  “No, but they could make it hard for us. You know that. And it’s Loukas who will suffer. You know his family is screwed without him.”

  “Only as long as his dad lives.”

  Leon shook his head. “Even then. The board won’t like it, and what the board wants is how it goes.”

  “It shouldn’t have to be like this. In America, we could all do whatever the hell we wanted.”

  “You’re delusional if you think that’s the case. Why do you think Alexa built the Corsakis?”

  “You can’t ask that, because you don’t know yourself.”