by Tee, Marian
So many questions she wanted to ask but didn’t. If she did, Mairi knew it would make her look like she still cared.
He took a step forward, and she backed up a step, too.
Damen stilled. “I’m not playing this game with you.”
“Good.” And then she turned around and started to run again.
What the fuck—
He gave her one, two, three seconds, but when it was clear she really did intend to run away like a child, he swore under his breath and went after her.
“Stop!”
“No!”
“Stop!”
“NO!”
They had covered about ten meters of distance by then, and he did not care to cover another ten. Stopping, Damen said hardly, “If you do not stop running away from me, I shall let the school know about us.”
Mairi forced herself to stop, blanching at the threat. Spinning around to face him, she hissed, “Bastard!”
Damen stalked towards her. Everything inside her told Mairi to run away again, but she didn’t, gritting her teeth as she fought against her fears. She didn’t really even understand what was making her so terrified right now. All she knew was that if he came closer—
Three feet.
She couldn’t think.
Two feet.
Oh God, if he came near her—
One foot away now—
Oh.
Mairi choked on an unexpected sob.
This was what she had been unconsciously afraid of, Mairi realized. That she would break down in his presence – again.
“Mairi—” He reached out for her but stopped when she raised a trembling hand, doing it in a way that made it seem like she saw him as someone who could harm her.
His arm fell to his side, his chest constricting. He wanted to shake her, to shout that this was him, Damen – the man whose bed she belonged to. He would never hurt her, dammit. Never!
But of course that would be a lie.
“Tell me,” he said hoarsely.
Her stricken gaze lifted up to meet his.
“Tell me where you’re coming from, dammit. How could you think I’d ever believe that you’ve fallen in love with me in the span of a day—”
Damen stopped speaking when a strange sound came from Mairi’s lips. An instant later, he realized she was close to being hysterical, her tears mingling with her laughter.
“Oh God, tell you?” She repeated his words with a choked, tear-stained laugh. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did.”
“I won’t believe you because it’s not true.” He wanted to force Mairi to see the truth in his words, but instead of shaming her into confessing that it was all a lie or a game to her, Mairi only sobbed harder.
“Tell you,” she repeated again. “Tell you where I'm coming from, you say. Fine – I’ll tell you.” Wiping the tears from her gaze, Mairi said, “I was young when my parents died and my mom’s older sisters took me in. They were both career-driven and childless and they didn’t know what to do with me. But because they loved me, they tried their best. And because I was used to being lulled to sleep with bedtime stories, they gave me that – only, their version of bedtime stories were found in drugstore paperbacks, where the heroes were almost always Greek billionaires and the girls were ordinary and nice and simple. Girls like me,” she said bitterly, “—and guys like you, in other words.”
When Mairi looked at Damen, her face was ravaged with tears but her eyes were completely clear – completely transparent. “That’s why I fell in love with you so quickly. I thought you were like those guys from the books, but…you’re not. You’re not.”
The way she looked at him stung. The way she spoke about him hurt. Again, he felt himself becoming defensive and he snapped, “Of course I’m not like them – I’m goddamn real and they’re not!”
But she only shook her head.
“Do you know how crazy you sound?” he demanded, furious at the way she was still looking at him and furious at the way she made him feel wrong for not believing in her bat-crazy story.
“If you think I’m—”
“I don’t care what you think! It’s the truth! I’m a crazy girl for taking one look at you and thinking that you’re the Greek billionaire I’ve been waiting for my whole life. I take one look at you and forget about the other Greek billionaire I met. I took one look at you and I fell in love with you! I’m that kind of crazy girl so please—” Her voice broke.
Her head dropped. “Please,” she choked out. “Please just leave me alone and let me cure myself out of my insanity.”
The words destroyed him. As she cried in front of him, Damen tried to think of a way to make it better again for her – for him – for them. There was something to fix – but what? He wished he goddamn knew what exactly was wrong between them so he could do something.
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” he gritted out. He ached to hold her, to have her back in his arms, but he knew he would kill any remaining pride in her if he did. The way she looked at him told Damen that she would give in if he did touch her – and if she did, she would hate herself for it.
“It has to be,” she whispered, still not looking at him. “You’re right, Damen. I know you’re right. I’m crazy for falling in love with you just like that, and believe me – believe me when I tell you that I’m doing my best to stop.” She stopped, needing a moment to just breathe through the suffocating pain inside her.
Right now, all she could think of was how Damen was so close but she could never hold him now, could never touch him or kiss him because he had never been hers.
Oh God, oh God, he had taken her to his bed, had made her bleed with his cock inside her but all the time he had not been hers.
A great racking sob shook her body and she felt faint, nearly light-headed with the pain. “Please, Damen,” Mairi whispered. “I have no pride left. I’ll beg if I have to. Please…please leave me alone.”
Chapter Four
To trust a Greek billionaire, one must remember that their pride will make them more willing to listen to their rival than the woman they love.
She said (with a gasp): Is this true?
He said (with a tight-lipped look): The editor must have misinterpreted my Greek.
He said: Note to editor – I told you to reword this and make it sound more reasonable and less emotional, dammit!
Damen was half-slouched on the luxurious leather couch next to the thirty-foot-tall windows of the gentlemen’s club he belonged to. It was an old and old-fashioned establishment, with membership “inherited” rather than purchased. In keeping with tradition, women – with absolutely no exceptions – were forbidden entry. All those employed by the club were also men.
With the mood he was in, it was the best place for Damen to be.
As Damen drank the rest of his whiskey, the alert waiter standing behind him immediately came forward to pour him another shot the moment he set the glass on the table.
Nodding his thanks, he gazed at the blurry reflection that the cubes of ice inside the glass created. It was not his image he saw, though. All he saw right now – all he saw during the past few days was her.
If he closed his eyes, all he could see was her shining face with its sweet dreamy expression – the one she had every time he surprised her with a kiss. He vividly remembered the way she said ‘hi’ in a breathless daze after each surprising kiss, like he was kissing her for the very first time and she was blown away by it.
Whenever she looked at him like that, whenever she said ‘hi’ like that, he felt like a teenager who had scored his first kiss, too – the sweetest and hottest kiss of his life.
A shadow fell over him, and by the time he looked up Ioniko Vlahos had taken the other leather armchair across him. A new glass was immediately placed before the other man, followed by a shot of vodka. The club’s waiters were not only trained to be courteous and quick to serve, but they were also expected to memorize each and every preference of the club’s esteemed members
, from their choice of liquor to their favorite brand of cigar.
“Trouble in paradise this early?” Ioniko asked mockingly and was rewarded with a darkened expression on the other man’s face.
“Fuck you.”
“I would rather fuck—”
Damen’s fist slammed into the table. “Don’t,” he bit out. “Or I swear to God, I’ll thrash you—”
Ioniko’s laugh cut him off. “Do you think that scares me?”
“Mairi is mine, Vlahos. Don’t make the mistake of forgetting it.”
He looked at Damen Leventis, whose face was inscrutable. His instincts told him that something had gone wrong between Leventis and Mairi, thus giving him the chance that he had long been waiting for.
With every second that passed and Vlahos still hadn’t spoken, Damen became tenser and tenser. “She’s mine.” Damen felt like he needed to repeat the words.
After a beat, Ioniko only raised a brow as he questioned, “Is she?”
It was clearly meant to goad Damen into a temper, and his teeth clamped together at the effort it took him not to rise to the bait.
“Don’t forget that I, too, have a sister studying in the school she teaches. When you ask the right questions, you get the right answers, Leventis. And I do know what to ask.” Ioniko leaned forward, wanting the other man to see the determination and ruthlessness in his eyes.
“Mairi is no longer yours and this time, I will not take no for an answer.”
****
“Aren’t you going to answer your phone?” Mandy finally demanded in exasperation, her ears already on fire after hearing her friend’s phone ring nonstop during the past hour. It had been a tiring day for the entire faculty, with the requisite meeting with the school board and the interview-slash-interrogation that came with it emotionally draining.
It was only eight in the evening but all Mandy wanted to do was sleep – and she would, right after she figured out how to silence Mairi’s incessantly ringing phone.
The ringing stopped.
Just as Mandy started to sigh with relief, the ringing started again. “Mairi! Answer it!”
“No.”
Mandy blinked at the curt tone, which surprised her enough to make her sit up on the bed. She gazed at Mairi worriedly, who was lying on her back, her eyes on the ceiling. “Are you okay?”
The ringing stopped then resumed again for another series.
“Dammit!” Velvet, whose bed was next to the windows, jumped to her feet and stalked to Mairi’s bed. She grabbed the phone from the bedside table.
Mairi whitened. “Don’t—”
Velvet’s jaw dropped. “Damen Leventis is calling you?”
“Yes,” she managed to say, fighting back the urge to cover her ears and make Velvet take the words back. The name alone had her swallowing convulsively as she tried to stop the hurtful memories from once again attacking her mind.
“You don’t want to speak to him?”
She shook her head.
“Really don’t want to speak to him?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” And then to her shock, Velvet answered the phone. “Hello?”
It took a moment for Mairi to recover. “Velvet!”
“Oh? You’re looking for Mairi? Well, she’s not here. She’s dead and you fucking killed her by being the world’s greatest asshole. So, Mr. World’s Greatest Asshole, don’t ever call her again!”
She was still gaping by the time Velvet returned the phone on the bedside table with a satisfied look on her face.
“Velvet…” Her voice trailed off. Mairi didn’t know what to say.
Velvet gave her a dry look. “You’re supposed to thank me.”
Mairi flushed. Sometimes, it just wasn’t good to have really smart friends.
“Thank you.”
Padding back to her bed, Velvet said over her shoulder, “Even though you don’t sound like it – you’re welcome.” She switched her night light off, plunging the bedroom into darkness.
The softest sound reached Velvet, and she knew that Mandy also knew it was Mairi, doing her best not to cry.
Shit. She hated men. She really hated them. They were all jerks – how could they be anything but jerks when they had the gall to hurt someone as sweet and, well, childish and gullible as Mairi?
“You cry too much,” she said gruffly and heard Mandy groan. She knew that it meant Mandy was very close to killing her for being her usual tough-girl self.
Mairi didn’t answer.
Velvet wanted to punch someone. The silence was even more awful, somehow making Mairi’s pain more intense, like a wound that bled so much they could smell the metallic scent of blood emanating from it.
Should she give Mairi stupid false words of hope just to make her feel better? She wanted to. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Men like Damen Leventis were just…
“Mairi, he’s not worth crying over.”
It took her friend so long to answer that by the time she did, Velvet was halfway asleep.
“I know, Velvet,” Mairi whispered, closing her eyes, and when she did all she could see was him. “I know, but I just can’t stop.”
Chapter Five
To trust a Greek billionaire, you must remember that he also gets hurt and because he’s hurt, he may want to hurt you, too.
She said: I mean emotionally.
He said (groaning): Can’t you let readers think that it’s a macho thing instead? You make me sound so soft, matakia mou.
She said: But you are! I just want to—
He said: Note to editor – Please consult me privately about this. This is not good for my image.
Had Ioniko made his move yet?
It was a question that had been bothering him for three nights now, increasingly so since Mairi had not yet returned any of his calls or messages. Frustration, edginess, and impatience created a furor inside him, making Damen unable to concentrate on the millions of things that demanded his time.
Someone knocked on his door. “Enter,” Damen rapped out abruptly, his temper igniting for no reason at the intrusion. He had a very short fuse these days, and he knew it was only a matter of time before something had to give.
Bart nervously came inside his employer’s office. He was in his early twenties, a little heavy-set and dorky-looking. Thousands of individuals had applied for the job as the billionaire’s PA-slash-secretary, many of them with more impressive work experience and better academic credentials than him. And yet Bart had beaten all of them, simply because he had been the only one with the courage – which his mother termed as stupidity at the time – to tell the billionaire that he had miscomputed a certain account and had provided the correct formula for it.
The memory was something Bart desperately clung to now as he made his way further inside. Mr. Leventis is a fair man, he reminded himself. He will not fire me for what I’m about to say.
“Bart?”
It was softly voiced, but Damen’s voice still had him jumping nervously.
“S-sir?”
Damen leaned back in his chair, which was custom-designed and handcrafted as was all the other furniture in his spectacularly designed office. It was a symbol of his success, but he took no pleasure in it. At present, all it reminded him was what he did not have – and what Ioniko might already have.
The thought was ruthlessly squashed, but its effect lingered and his tone was positively biting when he refocused on his secretary. “Say what you have to say or leave the office, Bart.”
Swallowing, Bart said, “Your mother, ah, learned of your plans to reward Ms. Diana with her own car and has canceled your purchase.”
In seconds, he was across the hall and inside his mother’s office, not bothering to knock. His mother was in the middle of a meeting, but he didn’t fucking care. Without taking his gaze off Esther Leventis, he said, “Out.”
Everyone scrambled to do his bidding, leaving the office empty except for mother and son. “How melodramatic,” Esther said disdai
nfully, “—especially since I assume this is about your ill-advised idea for Diana’s gift?”
“You had no right to do that, Mother.”
“I have every right,” she snapped. “I’m her mother and she is yet under aged. If I say a gift is inappropriate, then it is so!”
“She is about to turn seventeen – most young wealthy Greek girls her age have their first cars at the age of fifteen – and that’s two years ago!”
“I do not need my daughter to be like other Greek girls. I do not need my daughter to have any silly ideas about being independent and following silly dreams or marrying for true love.”
“You want her to grow up without knowing her own mind?” Damen wanted to say more, but honor kept him from giving his mother a real piece of his mind.
“At least I can make sure that she will not follow in your footsteps and give a foreigner upstart the time of day!” The moment the words slipped out, Esther knew immediately that she had said the wrong thing.
Even though she knew it was too late, she was not the type to give up so easily and she began, “Damen—”
“Do not say another word, Mother.” He tried to keep a lid on his temper but after everything that had happened, it was impossible. “You dare say such words about her after what you and Father have done with your lives?”
Color suffused her cheeks. She despised the fact that only Damen, her own flesh and blood, was able to say such things to her face. And because he was her son and he had been there throughout that dark part of her life, she was not able to lie or deny the truth.
She knew the better thing to do was not to say another word, but again affronted pride got the better of her and she demanded shrewishly, “Why do you care what I say about her? She is a nobody – a nobody! And you are engaged to the Kokinos heiress! What would their family say if they learned you are crazy over a lowly teacher—”
“At least I can say she was a virgin when I had her, Mother.”
Sheer shock at the indirect barb had Esther stiffening. But a second later she recovered, completely losing her mind. “You ungrateful son, how dare you speak to me like that?”
