A Deal with Demakis

by Tara Pammi

  How? How could anyone see so much hard life and still retain that kindness as she did, that boundless goodwill? What did she possess that he didn’t?

  Lexi Nelson, despite everything, was full of heart. Whereas he...the pain he had seen had somehow become a cold, hard part of him. He embraced it for it had driven him toward everything he had now. “Don’t worry,” he said, feeling an intense dislike of her stricken expression, “I survived. And I made sure that Venetia survived, too.”

  Curiosity flared in her gaze again, but she clamped her mouth with obvious effort. Standing up from the couch, she waited, with folded arms, for him to move.

  He grinned, and didn’t pull his legs back. Muttering something he couldn’t quite hear, she stepped over him. The scent of her soap and skin combined wafted over him. His muscles tightened at the hard tug of want in his gut.

  Why had he sent away Emmanuelle instead of taking up what she offered—easy, uncomplicated sex?

  Leaning back against the couch, he slid lower and closed his eyes. Much as he tried, instead of Emmanuelle’s sexy body and the pleasure she was so good at giving, his mind kept remembering stunning blue eyes and a slender body with barely there curves.

  Lexi Nelson was definitely an interesting distraction. He gave her that. But nothing more.

  Little Ms. Pushover, with her endless affection and her trusting heart, had no place in his life. With ruthlessness he had honed to perfection over the years, he shoved away the image.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  KNOWING THAT HIDING inside her bedroom was like inviting Nikos to mock and taunt her some more, Lexi dressed in denim shorts and a worn T-shirt that hung loose and ventured back to the sitting room.

  She froze at the hubbub of activity. The sleek coffee table was gone and in its place stood a rack of clothes, designer if she was seeing the weightless fabric and the expensive cuts right. A tall woman, impeccably dressed in a silk pantsuit, stood next to it with a pad in hand, while another woman, probably assistant to the first, unwrapped a red dress from its tissue.

  Even the sound of soft tissue sounded filthily expensive to Lexi’s ears. Her heart raced in her chest, shameful and excited.

  “You’re practically drooling.”

  His lazy drawl pulled her gaze to Nikos. He was sitting in a leather recliner, his hands folded, his long legs extended in front of him. Latent energy rolled off him.

  Sliding past the clothes with a longing glance, she reached him. “What’s going on?”

  “A little gift for you.”

  “A gift?” she said dully. One thing she had learned, and he had hammered it home, was that nothing he did was without calculation. “Like a ‘give the poor little orphan a makeover’ gift? Are my friends behind that glass waiting to jump up and down and shed tears at my transformation?”

  He wrapped his fingers around her arm and tugged her close. “You’ve never seen your parents then?”

  There was such an uncharacteristic gentling note in his tone that it took her a few seconds to respond. “No, I haven’t.”

  “Do you think about them, wonder why—”

  “I used to, endlessly.” After all these years, she could talk about it almost normally, without crumpling into a heap of tears. “The first comic I ever had sketched had a little orphan who goes on a galactic journey and discovers that her parents are cosmic travelers trapped on the other side of the galaxy. One day I realized that as stories went it was fantastic. But reality, sadly, stayed the same.” She jerked her hand away from him. “Now will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  His gaze stayed on her a few more seconds before he cleared his throat. “Venetia’s life is a constant roller coaster of parties and clubs, and I’m providing you with armor so that she doesn’t crush you. Think of me as your fairy godmother.”

  She burst out laughing. “Ple-e-e-ase. More like a rampaging space pirate.”

  “Like the one in the comic book you’re working on now? That’s what you called me that first day, didn’t you?”

  Shock reverberated through her at how clearly he remembered what she had uttered in a daze. He stood up and turned to the right, striking a pose with an imaginary pistol in hand. With his tall body, he should have looked awkward. Instead, he looked perfectly gorgeous.

  “Spike, wasn’t it? Did you model your hero after me, Ms. Nelson?”

  She shook her head slowly from left to right, unable to tear her gaze away from the perfection of his profile. Wishing she had a camera in hand, she studied him greedily. “Spike is the villain who kidnaps Ms. Havisham. You’re not a hero, Nikos.”

  “Ahh...” His gaze moved over her face lazily, sliding past her chin to the shirt that hung loose on her, the vee of it, to her bare legs. “Is this Ms. Havisham a fragile little beauty that conquers his heart and teaches him how to love?”

  Her heart came to a stuttering halt. Cursing herself for her runaway imagination, she smiled. There was nothing but mockery in his words. “Wrong again.”

  “Is the whole book done? Tell me what’s involved.”

  A spurt of warmth filled her at his interest. “I am still doing the preliminary sketching and have written down the plot. Once I finalize the characters and the story, I’ll do the model sheets for each character and the final step will be to begin inking.”

  “Hmm...so you do it all by hand, not software.”

  “Yes, mostly I’m a penciler. I like doing it by hand, getting all the expressions right and haven’t really decided on an inking method for sure, mostly I’m just playing with all the techniques. Sometimes I will color, sometimes I...” She caught herself at his smile. “Sorry, I tend to get carried away on this topic.”

  “No explanation needed. Vintage cars give me a hard-on like that.” He laughed as furious color rose through her cheeks. “It sounds really interesting. Do you have all the supplies you need?”

  The small spurt grew into a gush of warmth. She nodded.

  “When can I see them?”

  “What?”

  “Your sketches. I want to see them.”

  “Maybe when you learn to say please,” she said, and he made a disappointed noise.

  She almost liked him at that moment, almost. Which only proved how right he was in calling her a pushover.

  He grinned in that sardonic way. “Now please, humor your boss and try that red dress on. I know you want to.”

  She took a couple of cocktail dresses from the woman and sneaked back to her bedroom. She wasn’t going to accept any of it. But there was no harm in indulging herself, was there?

  In her bedroom, she pulled off her shorts and T-shirt, and instead of the red one, pulled on a strapless sheath dress exactly the color of her eyes. It fit her as if it was made for her. Sliding the side zipper up, Lexi turned toward the full-length mirror.

  Her breath lodged somewhere in her throat. Simply cut, the designer dress showed off her slender shoulders and slight build to maximum advantage, ending with a small flare just above her knees that contrasted with the severe cut.

  She didn’t look sophisticated as he had claimed. Maybe she never would. But better than that, for the first time since she had realized she was never going to have any curves, she looked like a woman.

  A knock at the door meant she had to stop admiring herself. She stepped into the sitting area.

  Nikos stood leaning against the open door, his dark gaze eating her up. A stillness came over him. The flash of purely male appraisal in his gaze knocked the breath out of her. That look...she had imagined Tyler looking at her like that so many times. It had never happened. But seeing that look in Nikos’s eyes, it was as unwelcome as it was shocking.

  She blinked as a sliver of tension suddenly arced between them.

  “You look stunning, Ms. Nelson.” He delivered those words with
the same silky smoothness as when he insulted her. As if it had no effect on him. Had she imagined that look? “Your ex won’t know what hit him when he sees you in it. If that doesn’t bring him back to his senses...”

  She didn’t hear the rest of his sentence as something nauseating neatly slotted into place. The silky slide of the dress chafed her.

  Her heart thumping in her chest, she followed him into the lounge and stood in front of him. “What is this really about, Nikos? Why do you care so much how Tyler sees me? Tell me the truth or I’ll walk out right now.”

  With a nod of that arrogant head, he dismissed the stylist and her assistant. The prickly humor was gone. The man staring at her with a cold look in his eyes was pure predator. “Don’t threaten me, Lexi.”

  Even his use of her name, given he usually patronized her with Ms. Nelson, was pure calculation to intimidate her. She was intimidated by everything about this man, but she refused to show it. Had she really thought him kind just because he had listened to her sob story, asked her about her little hobby? He had manipulated her from day one. “Don’t lie to me, Nikos.”

  His silence was enough to convince Lexi of the truth that had been staring her in the face all this time. Her stomach felt as if it was falling through an abyss. “You mean to use me to separate Tyler from Venetia.”

  She reached for the zipper on the side, feeling as dirty as she had felt the day she had broken into that house. But her fingers shook, fumbled over the zipper. She grunted, impatient to get it off.

  Nikos looked down at her, frowning. “Calm down.”

  “No, I won’t calm down. And take this zipper off.”

  He did it. Silently and without fumbling like her, with his hands around her body, but not touching her. She felt enveloped by him, her heart skidding all over the place. This was wrong. Everything about this situation, everything about what he made her feel, everything about what he was using her for, they were all horribly wrong and quickly sliding out of her control. Cold sweat gathered over her skin.

  The minute the zipper came down, she rushed into her bedroom, took the dress off and donned her usual shorts and T-shirt. Marching back into the room, she threw the dress at him.

  “Drama, Ms. Nelson?” he said, bunching the expensive fabric in his hands and throwing it aside. “Finally, something Venetia and you have in common, other than Tyler.”

  “I’ll scream if you call me Ms. Nelson again in that patronizing tone. You have manipulated me, lied to me and picked me up like I was a bag of potatoes. You will call me Lexi and tell me why you are doing this.”

  He took in her rant without so much as a flicker of his eyelid. “Tyler is a manipulative jerk who doesn’t deserve Venetia. I want him out of her life.”

  “Tyler isn’t—”

  “Your opinion of him means nothing to me.”

  She flinched. “Why?”

  “You’re—” She had the distinct impression that he was choosing his words carefully, which was a surprise in itself. Because usually he didn’t mince his words, cutting through her with his sharply acerbic opinions. “Blind when it comes to him.”

  Confusion spiraled through her, coated with a sharp fear. What had she signed up for? “Then why let her see him? Why pretend as though you support them?”

  “Venetia, for all her outward drama, is very vulnerable and volatile. She never recovered from our parents’ death. I’m the only one in the world who hasn’t hurt her until now. I will not change that.”

  “So you’re having me do the dirty work for you? And what do you think is going to happen to your precious sister if, heaven forbid, everything goes according to your plan?”

  Distinct unease settled over his features. Granite would have more give than his jaw. “She will cry over him. I will explain it to her that you and he—” utter distaste coated his words now “—you always go back to each other, whatever transpires in between. Not unbelievable with your long history.” He rubbed his jaw with his palm, his movements shaky. “I hate that I can’t prevent this. But I will accept a few of her tears now than something more dangerous that she could do later when she realizes that Tyler never really loved her.”

  The emotion in his tone was unmistakable. His every word, his manipulations—everything had been to this end. And Lexi understood it, could almost admire him for it if it wasn’t also highly misguided. “You can’t protect her from everything in the world, Nikos.”

  “She saw my father shoot himself in the head. I failed long ago to protect her.”

  Lexi froze, her thoughts jumbling on top of each other. And she had thought she had been unfortunate. “Your father killed himself?”

  “Because he couldn’t bear to live without my mother.” Ice coated his words. “Venetia was ten. She didn’t even understand our mother’s death. The worst part is she’s exactly like him—emotional, volatile and prone to mood swings. With everything I know about your friend, I know he will walk out on my sister one day. I’m just expediting it so that the damage to her is limited.”

  His heart might be in the right place, but it was so twisted. Lexi walked back and forth, the gleaming marble floor dizzying her, her stomach churning with a viciousness she couldn’t curb. “You can’t just arrange her life to be without sorrow. It doesn’t work that way. I won’t do this.”

  “You will get your precious Tyler back. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about that.”

  “Yes. That thought crossed my mind, but not like this.” Disbelief rang in his eyes. “I don’t care what it might mean for me. I’m out.”

  She turned around to do just that, but suddenly there he was, a terrifying prospect she couldn’t escape. The tension in him was palpable, the rigid set of his mouth an unmistakable warning. “If something happens to my sister because of Tyler, I will hold you personally responsible. Knowing that you could have prevented it, can you handle that guilt, Lexi?”

  She stilled as she saw that same guilt cast a dark shadow on his face.

  There was nothing cold about Nikos. He was just incredibly good at pushing it all away, and tailoring his life to follow the same strategy. He’d put himself behind an invisible wall of will where nothing could touch him. And he wanted his sister next to him.

  Her throat felt raw, her chest tight. So many people could be hurt by the path he was pushing her on. Tyler, Venetia, Lexi herself and Nikos, most of all. Nikos, whom she had thought impervious to any feeling, whom she had assumed ruthless to a fault. Only all he wanted was to protect his sister. From what? Another truth slammed into her. “Is this about getting Tyler out of Venetia’s life or love out of it, Nikos?”

  His head reared back in the tiniest of movements, his eyes cold and hard. A cold chill permeated her skin and she almost wished the words unsaid. “I’m not paying you to analyze me.” His tone was low, thrumming with emotion he refused to give outlet. “I failed my sister once. And it broke her in so many ways. I will do whatever it takes to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

  “Call me a villain, like your space pirate. Tell yourself I’m forcing you into this if it helps you sleep better.”

  “My skin crawls to even think about manipulating him like that. But I just can’t. If I could be some kind of femme fatale as you’re plotting, Tyler and I would still have been together. But I’m not the kind of woman that men lose their minds over. So all this,” she said, pointing to the designer clothes, “it’s an utter waste. Because Tyler will never leave Venetia for me, of all people.”

  He looked at her with none of the resolve diminished. It was like banging her head against an invisible wall. “Don’t underestimate yourself.” A spark of something came alive in his gaze and was gone before she could blink. “I know how much you can mess with a man’s head, and that’s when you’re not trying. Think of how easy your real job is now. All you have to do is convince Tyler that he belongs wi
th you, as always.”

  He was not going to budge from this path.

  Just thinking about what he suggested, the fact that he had paid for it, made her nauseous. But he would not rest until Tyler was out of Venetia’s life. And she didn’t doubt for a second the lengths he would go to. She had already seen proof of that. He would also do it in a way that caused his sister minimum pain. Which meant Tyler would suffer. And she just couldn’t leave her friend at Nikos’s mercy.

  She would have to go with Nikos, play the part he wanted her to play. At least that way, she could find a way to protect Tyler in the meantime. Tucking her knees together, she kept her gaze studiously away from his. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

  He stilled. She could almost hear the gears in his head turning. “You will?”

  “You’ve left me no choice, have you?” she said, blustering through it. It was the only way to stop from going into full-on panic. “You’re the manipulative jerk for doing this to them, but yes, I’ll be your evil sidekick. And it’s a NO to the sex clothes.”

  His gaze thoughtful, he walked away from her.

  Lexi sagged into the couch, shivering. Lying had never been her strong suit. But she had pulled it off for now, managed to fool Nikos. A Machiavellian feat in itself.

  She was playing a dangerous game, but she could see no way out of it.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LEXI WOKE UP with a start and jerked upright. The feel of the softest Egyptian cotton against her fingers, the high ceiling as her gaze flew open and the pleasant scent of roses, and curiously basil, only intensified her confusion.

  Usually, all she could smell was old pizza and smoke.

  The view through the French doors onto a vast island set her bearings straight. The water was an intense blue; the sand, burnished gold, a striking contrast against it. It stretched for miles, as far as she could see. And other than the lapping of the waves, silence reigned.