Mediterranean Mavericks: Greeks

“You’re not?” she whispered, her heart falling.

With a little smile, he shook his head. He took her hand in his larger one. “Now I know the truth is that love never ends. Not real love. The love your father has for you and my father had for me. The love your parents had for each other.” His hand tightened over hers as he said softly, “And even if you divorce me, Letty, even if you never want to see me again after tonight, I can still love you. And it won’t bring me pain, but joy, because of everything you’ve brought to my life. You saved me. Made me feel again. Taught me to love again. Gave me a son.” Stroking her cheek, he whispered, “No matter what happens, I will always be grateful. And love you.”

His hand was warm over hers. With him so close, she didn’t even feel the snow. Trembling, she whispered, “Darius…what are you saying?”

His jaw tightened. “If you still want to divorce me, you won’t need a lawyer.” He reached into his shirt pocket, where a single page was folded in quarters. “Here.”

Opening the paper, she looked down at it numbly. She tried to read it, but the words jumbled together. “What’s this?”

“Everything,” he said quietly. “Fairholme. The jets. My stocks, bonds, bank accounts. It’s all been transferred to your name. Everything I possess.”

She gasped, then shook her head. “But you know money doesn’t mean anything to me!”

“Yes, I know that.” He looked at her. “But you know what it means to me.”

Letty’s eyes went wide.

Because she did know what Darius’s fortune meant to him. It meant ten years of twenty-hour workdays and sleeping in basements. It meant working till he collapsed, day after day, with no time to relax or see friends. No time to even have friends. It meant borrowing money that he knew he’d have to pay back, even if his business failed. It meant taking terrifying risks and praying they would somehow pay off.

Those dreams had been fulfilled. Through work and will and luck, a poverty-stricken boy whose mother had abandoned him as a baby had built a multibillion-dollar empire.

This was what she now held in her hand.

“But I’m not just offering you my fortune, Letty,” he said quietly. “I’m offering everything. My whole life. Everything I’ve been. Everything I am.” Lifting her hand, he pressed it against his rough cheek and whispered, “I offer you my heart.”

Letty realized she was crying.

“I love you, Letitia Spencer Kyrillos,” he said hoarsely. “I know I’ve lost your love, your trust. But I’ll do everything I can to regain your devotion. Even if it takes me a hundred years, I’ll never…”

“Stop.” Violently, she pushed the paper against his chest. When he wouldn’t take it, it fell to the snow.

“Letty,” he choked out, his dark eyes filled with misery.

“I don’t want it.” She lifted her hand to his scratchy cheek, rough and unshaven. Reaching her other arm around his shoulders, she whispered, “I just want you, Darius.”

The joy that lit up his dark eyes was brighter than the sun.

“I don’t deserve you.”

“I’m not exactly perfect myself.”

He immediately began protesting that she was, in fact, perfect in every way.

“It doesn’t matter.” Smiling, she reached up on her toes to kiss him, whispering, “We can just love each other, flaws and all.”

Holding her tight, he kissed her passionately against the greenhouse, with the hot wet jungle behind the glass, as they embraced in the snow-swept bare garden. They kissed each other in a private vow that would endure all the future days of sunshine and snow, good times and bad, all the laughter and anger and pleasure and forgiveness until death.

Their love was meant to be. It was fate. Moíra.

They clung to each other until he broke apart with a guilty laugh.

“Ah, Letty, I’ll never be perfect, that’s for sure,” Darius murmured, smiling down at her through his tears. “But there’s one thing you should know…” Cupping her cheek, lightly drawing away the cold wet tendrils of her hair that had stuck to her skin, he whispered, “For you, I intend to spend the rest of my life trying.”

Spring came early to Fairholme.

Darius had a bounce in his step as he came into the house that afternoon with a bouquet of flowers. He’d had to work on a Saturday because it was crunch time developing the new website. But he was hoping the flowers would make her forgive the fact that he’d missed their new Saturday morning family tradition of waffles and bacon.

Darius had started that tradition himself, in the weeks he’d taken to focus only on Letty and their beloved son, whom they’d nicknamed Howie. After that, encouraged by Letty, he’d sheepishly called Mildred and apologized, then asked if there was any way she could try to reassemble his team at the office.

“The office is still in fine fettle,” she’d replied crisply. “I’ve been running everything just as you requested. I knew whatever you were going through you’d soon come to your senses. I haven’t worked for you all these years for nothing.”

He choked out a laugh, then said with real gratitude, “What would I do without you?”

“You’ll find out next summer,” she’d said firmly, “when you send my husband and me on a four-week first-class cruise through Asia. It’s already booked.”

Darius grinned to himself, remembering. He was grateful to Mildred. Grateful to all the people around him, his employees and most of all his family, who saw through all his flaws but were somehow willing to put up with him anyway.

Money didn’t make the man. He knew that now. What made a man was what he did with his life. With his time. With his heart.

His father-in-law had died in January, surrounded by family, with a smile on his drawn face. Right before he died, his eyes suddenly glowed with joy as he breathed, “Oh. There you are…”

“He saw my mother before he died,” Letty told Darius afterward, her beautiful face sparkling with tears. “How can I even be sad, when I know they’re together?”

Darius wasn’t so sure, but who was he to say? Love could work miracles. He was living proof of that.

Now he looked around his home with deep contentment. The oak floors gleamed and fresh-cut flowers from the greenhouse filled all the vases.

Fairholme was about to be invaded by more of the Kyrillos family. He’d sent his private plane to Heraklios, and tomorrow, Theia Ioanna, along with a few cousins, would arrive for a monthlong visit. His great-aunt’s desire to meet her great-great-nephew had finally overcome her fear of flying.

He relished the thought of having his extended family here. Heaven knew Fairholme had plenty of room.

Love was everywhere. Love was everything. His son was only five months old, but he’d already collected toys from all the people who loved him around the globe. His wife did that, he thought. With her great heart, she brought everyone together with her kindness and loyalty. She was the center of Darius’s world.

“Letty!” he called, holding the flowers tightly.

“She’s outside, Mr. Kyrillos,” the housekeeper called from the kitchen. “The weather’s so fine, she and the baby went for a picnic in the meadow.”

Dropping his computer bag, he went outside, past the garden, where even though the air was cool beneath the sunshine, tulips and daffodils were starting to bloom. He walked the path through the softly waving grass until he reached the meadow where he’d first taught his wife to dance. Where she’d first taught him to dream.

He stopped.

The sky was a vivid blue, the meadow the rich gold-green of spring, and in the distance, he could see the ocean. He saw Letty’s beautiful face, alight with joy, as she sang their five-month-old baby a song in Greek, swinging him gently in her arms as he giggled and shrieked with happiness. Behind them on the hillside, a blanket was covered with a picnic basket, teething toys and that well-worn book about the bunny rabbit. But now, as always, Letty was dancing. Letty was singing.

Letty was love.

Darius stared at them, and for a moment the image caught at his heart, as he wondered what he’d ever done to deserve such happiness.

Then, quickening his steps, he raced to join them.

Claimed for His Duty

Tara Pammi

CHAPTER ONE

LEAH HUNTINGTON COLLAPSED onto the plastic chair behind her small desk, her knees buckling out from under her. The red stamp spelling out “REJECTED” on the application form blurred in front of her eyes. Her heart squeezed painfully as she fingered the flat sketches on her drawing board, the possibility of seeing her creation take form now evaporating like a puff of smoke.

Sweat ran down her back, the slow whir of the ceiling fan scraping against her nerves. She ran cramped up fingers over her neck, feeling the muscles tighten with tension.

Mrs. DuPont, the buying manager for a retail store, had given Leah only two months to create her first collection and all Leah had now were flat sketches. And as she had to do everything herself instead of contacting a factory like she did for the fashion house, every minute was important.

The most important of it being the funds she required to source raw materials… There were a hundred things she needed and it was all sitting in that bank.

She dialed the number for the bank manager she had spoken to just two days ago.

Her heart hammered painfully, thudding faster and faster, an ominous pounding she couldn’t breathe past. There could be only one man behind this. Her stomach twisted as the bank manager coughed on the other end of the phone. His answer was curt, immediate as though he had been rehearsing the explanation, waiting for Leah to call.

They couldn’t use the trust fund as security to approve her loan because—Leah could hear the hushed reverence in the manager’s voice as he uttered the name—the trustee overseeing her fund had denied the use of the trust fund, her trust fund, as security.

Stavros.

Leah threw the handset across the room, every inch of her shaking. She kicked the chair aside, the impact of it jarring up her leg, every nerve cell in her humming with outrage.

How much more was he going to punish her? How long was she going to let him?

She picked up the phone again, her vision blurry now with unchecked tears. Her throat burned as she took a deep breath, her thumb hovering over the numbers on the handset.

She wanted to demand an explanation, she wanted to…

But what was the point? His secretary would politely tell her that he was not available. It was the same answer she had received over the last year every time she had tried to contact him. Even though they both lived in Athens, they might as well have been living on the opposite ends of the planet.

She bit her lower lip, her nails digging into her skin. A sob built inside her chest, fury rising through her like a storm that could swallow her in its clutches.

She had to put an end to this. She had to break free of the leash he bound her with, controlling her every step, every choice, while he enjoyed his life. She had let him do it for five years.

Five years of a sterile life, five years of being his prisoner—that she had accepted out of guilt and fear.

Scrubbing the tears from her cheeks, she pulled up the society feature she had purposely clicked away from this morning on her laptop.

Stavros’s business partner and her grandfather’s second godson, Dmitri Karegas, was throwing a party aboard his yacht.

Stavros and Dmitri were cut from the same cloth—breathtakingly gorgeous, built their empires from nothing under her grandfather Giannis’s guidance, and considered themselves gods, their will law for the normal mortals they walked amongst.

Stavros hated parties with an intensity Leah had never been able to understand, but Dmitri would be there.

She just had to make sure the decadent playboy, who apparently was always surrounded by a group of willing women, noticed her presence aboard his latest toy.

Had to, somehow, gain his attention.

Her stomach clenched as she shoved the bedroom door open and walked toward the closet.

Every step toward it, every thought in this direction—was like walking to her own doom.

But Stavros had left her no choice…left her with no way out.

She dialed another number on her phone and booked a taxi. A shiver traveled over her spine as she viciously pushed the cotton tops and skirts in her closet away until she reached the end.

She pulled the gold silk dress, the one designer label she had kept, her fingers shaking violently as she realized how little fabric there was of the dress. Her back would be totally bare, which meant she had to go without a bra.

And it would leave most of her legs, her thighs bare too. So no underwear either.

Five years ago, she hadn’t even blinked when she had worn it. Had thought it nothing to parade around with Alex and Calista, showing every bit of skin she could expose, barely looking decent…

And she had been almost twenty pounds heavier…

Just thinking of how she must have looked then made her cringe.

What the hell had the designer been thinking? What the hell had she been thinking?

She had been trying to please Calista, who had decreed she wear it that night… That’s what she had been thinking.

Yet nothing else in her closet would do for tonight.

Of all the things to think about when her life was eternally stuck in this rut, when the very walls of this apartment were closing in on her…

Her palms were sweating as she pulled the dress to herself. The dress would fall scandalously above her knees, just about covering her buttocks.

It was the most outrageous dress she owned, the sartorial equivalent of a tramp and she had worn it the night Stavros had decided her fate. Fitting then that it was the one that would at least get her an audience with the man who was her jailor.

Every muscle in her trembled, and her mouth was coated with bitter fear as she walked into the bathroom and splashed water on her face.

He was going to explode, he was going to despise her even more, if that was possible. But she couldn’t bear this…this isolation anymore.

She couldn’t bear to continue like this. Something had to give.

Leah clutched the leather seat of the taxi, holding onto it a like a lifeline, the curious glances the cabbie threw her way doing nothing to propel her out.

She took a deep breath and looked out the dirty window. The marina was busy, a few of the yachts moored there highlighted by the setting sun. But even amidst the loud luxury, one yacht stood out, its gleaming white exterior splendid in the setting sun’s light.

She took the bills out of her gold-lined clutch and handed it over. This was it.

She didn’t let herself think, she didn’t let herself even look around over the next few minutes. Keeping her shoulders straight, head held high, she reached the security personnel guarding the planked entrance. Except for the glimpse of recognition in his gaze, the six-footer didn’t budge a muscle.

Leah raised a brow haughtily, the gesture taking everything she had.

Yes, she had spent the past five years working as an apprentice in a mid-level fashion house, away from the spotlight, locked up in a bubble where no one knew who she was, where no one cared except that she didn’t put a toe out of line.

She slept, she woke up, went to work, went back to her apartment, ate dinner and fell into bed again, while Stavros’s minion, Mrs. Kovlakis, her housekeeper, watched her, made sure she didn’t comit any further scandalous acts. But that didn’t mean anyone had forgotten what she had done, or what Stavros had done to her as punishment.

Especially in this crowd that hung on to every word from Stavros’s lips as if it was the Holy Bible. It felt like an eternity but only a few seconds passed before the man stepped aside. Taking his proffered hand, Leah stepped onto the deck, her guts twisting into a gooey mess.

For a few dazzling minutes, she forgot why she was there as she ventured further. Uniformed waiters passed around champagne. The party was in full swing on the deck, inebriated, sweaty bodies pressing against each other…

Excitement and an electric energy touched the air, and she swayed automatically to the music.

So everything she had heard of Dmitri’s parties was true…and strangely the antithesis of everything Stavros was. So he wouldn’t be here. But she needed to be recognized, which meant she had to grab Dmitri’s attention, especially if he was busy ravishing his latest arm candy.

Smiling for the first time since this afternoon, she walked toward the glittering glass bar that she had read about, planted herself on one barstool, ordered a cosmo and proceeded to get drunk.

Stavros Sporades frowned as his cell phone beeped for the tenth time in the last five minutes. He picked up the phone and smiled at Helene, loath to ruin their private dinner. It was the first time he was relaxing in a month and he guarded his downtime as fiercely as he did his work time.

He picked up his champagne flute and took a sip before clicking Yes.

Dmitri’s drawling tone reverberated in his ears. “She’s here. Aboard my yacht.”

Stavros fell back against the seat in silent shock. Only one woman being aboard Dmitri’s yacht would cause him to call.

Leah.

His blood pumped furiously through his veins. “Are you sure it’s her?”

A mocking laugh met his ears. “It took me a few minutes to recognize her, but yes, it’s her. She’s drunk and dancing.”

Drunk and dancing…

Instead of seeing Leah’s face, he saw his sister Calista, unmoving and pale in death. He had tried so hard to find some kind of closure from Calista’s untimely death, and yet, the anger and the powerlessness were just as raw, just as fresh.

Gritting his jaw, Stavros calmly pocketed his phone. Fury reverberated within, leaving his chest perversely cold. He made his apologies to Helene and exited the rooftop restaurant.

She’s doing very well, Mr. Sporades, Mrs. Kovlakis had said about Leah, in her nasal voice on his weekly phone call. Almost a changed personality, if you can believe.

Had the woman been just telling him what he had wanted to hear?

Within minutes, his pilot landed them on Dmitri’s luxury yacht.

He stepped onto the helipad, a corrosive anger roped with heart-pounding fear running through him. “Where is she?”

His gaze deceptively calm, Dmitri pointed to the dance floor on the lower deck. “I could have had the security personnel grab her, but I think that would have made the situation worse.”

Stavros nodded, unwilling to meet his oldest friend’s eyes.

His control was barely teetering on the edge as it was. He didn’t want to be thankful for the fact that it could have been worse, much worse than Dmitri’s yacht.

He didn’t want to feel grateful that it was just alcohol, not drugs.

Cristos, he didn’t want to set eyes on the woman he had married as punishment and penance.

He didn’t want to set eyes on Leah.

Even in the drunken haze caused by the three cosmos she had consumed, Leah knew the exact moment Stavros had reached the dimly lighted dance floor.

The hairs on her neck shot up, her stomach plummeted. An unbearable cold claimed her skin even though the breeze from the sea was warm. She shook her head slowly to clear the fog and looked up.

The famous, specially commissioned, glittering glass bar that was the prize of Dmitri’s yacht showed a hundred reflections of Stavros. Narrowly sculpted face as if a sculptor had been asked to keep austerity at the front of his mind, the sharp, long bridge of his nose that was arrogance embodied, the cruel slash of his wide mouth that instantly reminded her of that one punishing kiss, and the tawny, long-lashed eyes…

And the hatred blazing in them when he met her gaze in the glass—a hundred flickers of fire that could scorch her in so many ways.

Nausea bubbled through her and Leah stumbled.

Shaking uncontrollably, she wrapped her fingers around the nape of the twenty-something guy she had been dancing with for the last quarter of an hour. Although it was more him holding her boneless body up.

Thankfully, the stranger’s face was blurry to her. She didn’t want to remember anything from this night tomorrow. She moved her feet slowly in rhythm with the beat of hip-hop blaring around them. His hands moved over her hips, hesitated, then moved back up over her back, before embracing her.

Her stomach quivered, the faint whisper of something as mundane as comfort warming her insides.

How pathetic had her life become if the man’s thin body comforted her?

Willing herself to ignore the cloud of black thunder she could sense around her, she dragged in a raspy breath. Softly ominous whispers emerged through the din and music, the sweaty, swaying bodies parting without his uttering a word. It was as if even the air in that lower deck was suspended in the face of the thundering storm.

She pulled herself up and kissed her companion’s smooth, almost boyish jaw and whispered sorry.

It wasn’t the poor guy’s fault that he had no knowledge of who she was or he wouldn’t have dared to touch her. Would have sidled away from her, treating her like a pariah as the rest of the crowd had done once Dmitri had walked by, his gray gaze devouring her with unhurried interest. Once they had all realized she was Leah Huntington Sporades, prisoner and possession of Stavros Sporades, not to be looked at or even spoken to, especially by another man.

Because, Alex, her one friend who hadn’t turned away from her, who had tried to contact her even after Calista’s death and her marriage, had ended up in jail on some trumped-up charges Stavros and that equally arrogant Dmitri had fabricated out of thin air.

The depth of her hatred for Stavros left her shaking uncontrollably.

A steel band wound around her waist and jerked her away from the stranger. Maybe he was even a teenager, she thought, feeling old and tired at just twenty-four.

She fell against a solid, hard frame with a soft thud that knocked the breath out of her.

Unlike the man she had been dancing with, Stavros was all hard, unforgiving muscle that sent her body into shock at the contact.

Long fingers held her arms in a grip this short of hurting and turned her, the heat emanating from his body hitting her like a wave of the sea.

Blinking, Leah raised her gaze and then shied away immediately.

Coward, a voice mocked her inside but she didn’t care.

The soporific effect of the alcohol she had consumed stunting the hatred that buzzed her blood, she went like a doll incapable of independent motion as he picked her up and threw her over his shoulder.

The jutting bones of his shoulders dug into her rib cage, her breasts crushed by his muscular back but Leah refused to let even a whimper emerge.

The world tilted upside down and a tear seeped through despite her efforts. The quiet hush that preceded them was like the calm before the storm…