A Deal with Demakis

by Tara Pammi

  “Basics,” she finished, smiling widely.

  She trailed after Nikos while he checked a few things, loving the idea more and more. There were no more than three suites in the whole building. Again, whitewashed walls created a cocoonlike environment. Each suite was open plan, divided into sleeping and living areas. Handcrafted accessories and bleached wood furniture was everywhere. A large veranda offered a beautiful view of the Cycladic landscape.

  A hammock made of the softest cotton hung in the veranda.

  She went back down the steps and found the pool. Having finished his phone call, Nikos’s gaze was back on her.

  “I don’t know the standard procedure for the morning after,” she said, finding his silence unbearable. It weighed on her, poking holes in every comforting thought she came up with. “Do we shake hands and pat each other on the back for a job well done? Or is it beyond crass to mention it at all? Did I break the code by falling asleep on you in the car? I swear, I didn’t see it coming. I mean, the only thing I can think of is that my body caved in at the influx of pheromones. You know, because what we did was...fantastic.”

  She grimaced at how idiotic she sounded as soon as the words left her mouth.

  He turned toward her in the blink of an eye and clasped her cheek. “This is as new to me as it is to you,” he said in a quiet growl.

  The irises of his eyes widened as though he hadn’t been aware of what he was going to say. He ran a hand through his hair.

  “Then you better start thinking about answers. Are you done with me? Do you want me to leave and stay somewhere in the village? Was this a onetime deal? Because if it was, I would have liked some notice because there’s a lot of stuff I wanted to do and I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t get to do anything.”

  “Overwhelmed?” A curse fell from his lips, and he turned toward her. If any more hardness inched into his face, he would be a concrete bust. “Did I hurt you last night?”

  “What? Of course not,” she said, heat gathering like a storm under her skin.

  “You were very—”

  Hitching on her toes, she covered his mouth with her hand. The velvety edge of his lips was a sinuous whisper against her skin, the stubble on his cheeks making her wonder how it would feel against other places. Every little thing about the man sent her senses tingling. “I enjoyed every minute of what we did last night. The question is, did you?”

  This time, a slow smile curved his mouth. “You couldn’t tell?”

  “Honestly? I can’t remember anything except thinking I could die happily. And today, I’m drawing my clues from the fact that you’ve been gone all morning and now you’re staring at me as though you wish I were invisible. With your wealth, you can probably make me. I did see an ad for an invisibility cloak on eBay last week, so—”

  “You are talking nonsense.”

  “I think something in my brain got warped last night. Your presence now makes me think of nothing but sex, and I’m trying to cover that up—”

  “With nonsense.” He nodded. He pushed her against the wall, his jaw tight. “I had the hottest, most intense orgasm of my entire life last night. It took every ounce of self-control I possess to not wake you up just so I could have you again and again. Knowing that you had no panties on under that skirt...I don’t know how I resisted you at all.” The words hummed on the air around them, the feral intensity of it sending warmth stealing into places she didn’t want to think of right then. His mouth took on a rueful twist. “Every time I closed my eyes since this morning, I can hear those long whimpers you make just before you come, taste you on my fingers.

  “Is that clear enough for you?” He flicked his tongue over the rim of her ear, his softly whispered words stroking her need hotter and higher.

  Lexi would have crumpled to the ground if he hadn’t been holding her upright. A rush of wetness gathered at her sex. And all he had done was talk. “Now if you’d just looked like a man who got laid last night and enjoyed it, then I wouldn’t—”

  “It was glorious sex, agape mou.” He let her go, his mouth narrowed into a straight line. “And I feel better than fantastic given that my sister is still missing, and my grandfather is using it as an excuse to deny me what I want.”

  The fever he incited instantly cooled, and Lexi took a staggering step back. Of course, Venetia. Her mouth felt clammy, her stomach tying itself in knots.

  I’m so sorry, Lex. Just give me a few days and I’ll bring Venetia back.

  The small note that had been left on her side table under a cup of dark Greek coffee fluttered in front of her eyes. The shock of finding it, especially in Tyler’s almost illegible handwriting, still pulsed through her.

  Having read it close to fifty times in two minutes, Lexi had torn it up into small pieces, her heart in her throat. It was obvious Venetia didn’t want to return and Tyler didn’t want to hurt her.

  Lexi felt a flare of anger at the both of them for doing this, for deceiving Nikos and for dragging her in between. This thing between her and Nikos, it was a temporary madness, she knew that. Still, she wanted to do nothing that would hurt him.

  And she had a sinking feeling that that’s what was going to happen in the end.

  Pushing her hair back from her forehead, she caught the sigh escaping her lips. There was nothing to do but wait. “What is your grandfather refusing you?” she said, her dislike of Savas Demakis a bad taste in her mouth.

  “He and his cronies are refusing to vote me in as the CEO. The fact that I didn’t protect Venetia is a weapon Savas is wielding to its full extent.”

  “I don’t understand. Venetia and your company are entirely different things. How does he propose you stop your twenty-four-year-old sister from living her life, short of locking her up and throwing away the key?”

  His pointed gaze told her she nailed the truth on its ugly head. “He must know you would never do that to Venetia.”

  Nikos shrugged. “What he knows for sure is how much I want to be in the CEO’s chair.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. I would do anything to be there finally. Except hurt my sister. Although really, Savas’s suggestions are beginning to make more and more sense. In my desire to not hurt her, I brought you into this, and probably drove her even deeper into Tyler’s arms.”

  She felt a shiver settle deep in her bones. “So he is pitting the two things you want above everything else against each other? Hoping that you are heartless enough to hurt your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  Anxiety rampant in her veins, she came to a stop in front of him. “Are his... Do his assumptions have basis, Nikos?”

  He traced his knuckles over her lower lip, and Lexi trembled for more than one reason. “You’re trembling, yineka mou.” She tucked her forehead into his shoulder, willing herself to let it go. She was courting nothing but trouble by asking, by digging herself in. Whenever this issue with Tyler and Venetia was resolved, she would walk away. She had to.

  His long fingers gripped her nape, the pad of his thumb moving up and down. “What is it that you want to know but are so afraid to hear, Lexi?”

  She looked up. “I think...no, I know that you will never hurt Venetia willingly. It’s a different thing altogether that, with your twisted anger toward Tyler, you are doing just that.... But for your grandfather to blackmail you like this, to pit you against your own sister, to...see if you will take the suggestion and run with it...it means you—”

  “It means that I have done things to remove any obstacles from my way before, yes.”

  She exhaled on a long breath, bracing herself. Whatever Nikos did, beneath the uncaring facade, she knew he had paid a price. “Like what?”

  “My aunt’s son, Spyros, he is a few years older than me and he was my grandfather’s favorite when I first met him. He was everything I was not. Well-ed
ucated, smart and best of all, obedient. More than that, Savas had been grooming him, ever since my father walked out, to take over the reins of Demakis International.

  “But it was not his right. It was mine. I had already slogged for a decade with little notice or returns for it. I realized following Savas’s rigid instructions wasn’t going to get me anything but the bare minimums. It was time to make him take notice of me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Are you sure you want to hear this, Lexi?”

  Say no, walk away. “Yes.”

  “I went digging and discovered Spyros, beneath his perfect exterior, had a little secret. He had a wife hidden away that no one knew about, and he was struggling to get out of his engagement to one of Savas’s oldest friend’s granddaughters. I arranged for his wife to come to his engagement party. And despite Spyros’s pleas asking for forgiveness, Savas kicked him off the board.”

  The quiet, matter-of-fact tone in his words only amplified the chill they caused. “You knew what your grandfather would do.”

  His gaze narrowed into an unflinching hardness, Nikos stared at her. “Everyone knew what he would do, including Spyros. He had made his choice. I just hurried along the consequences.”

  “I don’t get it. It’s not like you don’t have money of your own.” She pushed off from the wall, and walked the perimeter of the pool. “That yacht, the private jet, this new real-estate deal you have with Nathan Ramirez...you have nothing to want.

  “Why is becoming the CEO so important to you, Nikos?”

  He gave her a long look that said he wasn’t dignifying her question with an answer. “It just is.”

  “Why can’t you be happy with what you have? Why let your grandfather push you into anything?”

  “Savas didn’t push me into anything. I started on this path with one goal in sight. The moment I walked in through those electronic gates, clutching my sister to me, the poor little bastard that everyone pitied, I made a promise to myself. That I would do everything I can to become the master of it all. Do you realize what odds I have surmounted to get to this stage? I started with nothing, Lexi. And I won’t settle for everything that he walked away from, until I’m everything he was not.”

  “Until you’re everything he...” Her heart sinking to her shoes, Lexi finally realized who he meant. The bitterness in his words, it was only a superficial cover on a deeper cut. “Your father? Nikos, what he did was awful, but you have to forgive him. He may have started this, but it’s your grandfather that brought you to his point. With every little thing you tell me about your grandfather, have you never wondered why your father might have turned his back on all this?”

  “I don’t care why he did it. Even before he died, we never had anything. He struggled in that garage, he barely provided for us and he stood by like a useless fool while my mother’s health degraded and she eventually died. All he had needed was to call Savas, ask for help.”

  That garage, those cars, didn’t he realize why it comforted him so much? “Do you believe Savas would have helped him? Without conditions? Would he have welcomed your father with open arms without a price?”

  Not even a little of his anger waned. “Any price would have been worth it. It was his duty to look after her, to take care of Venetia. He not only failed in that, he then went and killed himself, breaking Venetia forever.”

  “And you.”

  Nikos shook his head, despising the glimpse of pity in her eyes. “He taught me a very valuable lesson early on. Love is a luxury only fools want and can afford.”

  His pointed look wasn’t lost on her. “I’m not saying he was right, Nikos. But Savas never even gave you a proper chance to grieve.”

  “There was nothing to grieve. My father was a weak man all his life. He couldn’t stand up to Savas—he couldn’t live without my mother. He couldn’t even keep himself alive for Venetia and I. I refuse to be like him. Becoming the CEO of Demakis International is the last step in that journey. And Savas can’t stop me. I will find a way to that chair.”

  Lexi had no chance to answer, because the sound of a chopper slicing through the wind around them reached them.

  Pushing the hair away from her face, she hung back as a man of about seventy stepped out of the chopper, followed by a young woman.

  Nikos shook hands with the man, and offered a polite smile to the woman.

  Lexi turned away and walked toward the hotel. Judging by the jealous rage that took hold of her insides, it was better that she stay away. Leaving her backpack in one of the smaller bedrooms, she climbed the stairs to the next floor. The corridor was whitewashed with dark gleaming wood floors, with simple handmade crafts here and there. Among all the places she had visited with Nikos, she loved this hotel the most. And under the ambition and jet-setting lifestyle, she had a feeling he did, too.

  She walked out into the huge veranda of one of the suites. Her breath hitched at the beauty of the Cycladic heaven. Orange bloodied the dusky sky, casting an ethereal glow over the strip of beach and the whitewashed hotel walls.

  Intensely glad that Nikos had asked her to join him, she climbed into the hammock, her mind running over what he had said to her. One way or another, she needed to bring a resolution to this thing between Tyler and Venetia. And she had to do it without hurting anyone in the process, least of all, Nikos.

  It was an impossible task, but she had to do it. Even with the childhood she’d had, she had known kindness, even if it had been in snatches.

  Nikos had known none. She was damned if she had to see those shadows of despair in his eyes ever again.

  She would do anything to keep them at bay. Anything.

  * * *

  Darkness fell by the time Nikos bade goodbye to Theo Katrakis. Savage satisfaction fueled through him. Finally, things were falling into their right place. The older man had, however, surprised Nikos by bringing his daughter to the meeting.

  And one look at Eleni Katrakis had sent the blood rushing from Lexi’s face. Did she really think he would be interested in Eleni after last night?

  He found Lexi in the hammock, the quiet rasp of her pencil against the paper in her hand the only sound for miles. The feeble light from the adjoining bedroom was nowhere near enough for her.

  Shaking his head, he plucked the sheet from her hands and walked back inside. With a huff, she rolled out of the hammock and followed him in.

  He stuck out a hand to ward her off and studied the sketch. Surprise flooded him, and he laughed, the sound tearing out of him. A lightness, an amazement he had never known before filled him inside and out.

  The sketch was extraordinarily detailed for something created with a pencil and paper. It shimmered with life, with the unique essence of the woman who drew it.

  The drawing was of a woman, almost Amazonian in her build, big-breasted with a tiny waist, her long legs muscular and lithe, her dark long hair flying around her face a striking anchor of femininity. She wore a leather sheath kind of dress, a pistol hanging from the belt. The same sketch he had seen on Lexi’s T-shirt the first time she had met him, a direct contrast to the beautiful, delicate woman who had drawn her, but just as dangerous.

  Her legs planted apart, the woman was staring at something, a mischievous little smile curving her lips.

  Here he had assumed that he had Lexi Nelson all figured out. But he couldn’t learn everything about her if he spent ten lifetimes with her. A tightness emerged in his gut and he fought to dispel it.

  “That’s very insulting, Nikos.”

  He turned toward her, leaning against the huge bed. Her arms around her waist, she braced herself.

  “This sketch...” He took a deep breath, the expectant wariness in her gaze causing him to choose his words carefully. “It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen,” he said, opting for unvarnished truth.

&n
bsp; Her mouth curved in a wide smile. “Then why were you laughing?”

  He waved the paper in her direction. “This is Ms. Havisham, isn’t it? Your heroine? The one the space pirate kidnapped?”

  She nodded, her gaze shining with a brilliant radiance. “She is a mousy little woman when he snatches her. But this is her true form. It comes out only when she or someone she loves comes under threat.”

  “And the space pirate has no idea what he has taken on,” he said, frowning. He had a feeling he knew exactly what the pirate was going through.

  Lexi Nelson didn’t have to change into anything to send a shiver up and down Nikos’s spine. Warning bells clanged inside his head and he kept the sound at bay. For now.

  “Yep.”

  Nodding, he grasped her wrist and tugged her along with him. He settled her in his lap on a wicker armchair. His curiosity was far more feral than anything else he felt right now. “So tell me. Why does he kidnap her?”

  She wrapped her arm around his neck and smiled. And again, Nikos braced himself. Desire and something entirely alien descended on him. It had to be the intimacy of their positions. He had never spent more than a few minutes with a woman outside of a bed or an office.

  “He learns that she has the key to a time portal. And he needs it to turn back time. But she’s not exactly what he had imagined. Nor is the key so simple.”

  Nikos stared at the picture again and caught the hint of sadness in Lexi’s tone. “She is the key, isn’t she?”

  Shock spiraling in her gaze, she stared at him. “How did you guess that?” She didn’t know what she saw in his eyes as she continued. “She is the key. Sacrificing her life will give him the power to turn back time, go to three different times in the past once.”

  “What is he going to do?”

  She shrugged. “Right now, he’s just learned the truth and is staggering under the weight of what he has to do. Because, you see, the space pirate—”