Kostas's Convenient Bride: Kostas's Convenient Bride / Desert Prince's Stolen Bride

“How can you say that?” Nothing had changed. Except maybe he’d lost his mind. “I’m dreaming, right? That’s what’s happening here.”

He kissed her again. Seriously. His lips against hers were firm and strong and possessive and real. Very real.

He broke the kiss only to kiss the corner of her lips like he always used to do. “There, does that feel like a dream?”

“I’m not answering that.”

He made a pained sound. “I too have had dreams, but I have done my best to forget them in the morning.”

“Andreas! There are children around.” And avidly interested adults.

“As I said, a conversation for later.”

“I’m not dreaming.”

“No, Kay-love, you are not.”

“I never understood why you used that endearment when you don’t believe in that feeling.” And he hadn’t used it in six years. Now all of a sudden they’d had a mind-blowing kiss and he was using it again.

He shrugged. “It is just a word.”

It wasn’t to her, but maybe that was why he used it. Love was just a word to him, like honey or sweetheart. It meant nothing more, but maybe it meant nothing less either and that was what she should be focused on. Something was happening here.

Something weird.

Something he wasn’t going to discuss around others, which made her think it involved sex. Andreas wanted sex with her. Did she want sex with him? Knowing he planned to marry some paragon of perfection for a business mogul’s wife somewhere down the road?

Kayla deliberately turned her focus back to the view outside the boat and listened to the history behind the bridge off in the distance. Its architectural significance wasn’t enough to get her mind off the idea of sex with Andreas, but she tried.

What was she supposed to do?

Could she have a final hurrah with Andreas without breaking her own heart? He’d broken it once, six years ago, and she’d never mended. It was still too cracked to even consider falling for someone else.

Would giving in to him give her that illusive thing called closure or do her irreparable harm?

How hard would it be to turn him down? The warmth of his arm around her shoulder, the way her body responded to that simple touch told her extremely hard. Leaning toward impossible.

But did she have a choice?

Would she survive a night of casual sex with Andreas Kostas and watching him walk away after like nothing important had happened?

If six years ago had taught her anything, it had been that watching Andreas walk away after intimacy was more painful than losing any foster family. Because he felt like family. He felt like he was supposed to be hers. Only he wasn’t. Not really. They were friends. And that was all Andreas would ever allow her to be.

For him that was clearly an important role. Important enough for him to drop everything to follow her and stay with her until she returned where he considered she belonged, but he didn’t want the kind of belonging that she’d always craved. He didn’t want to be her family.

“New York is a beautiful city. If it was not so full of people, I could live here, I think.” Andreas’s words broke into her musings.

She gathered her thoughts and pressed them back into the recesses of her mind and heart, where they had to stay, just like they had for six years. “It is. I never realized how beautiful. I think I’ll always fit with Portland best, but I could visit New York again and stay longer.”

“Perhaps we will.”

She didn’t reply. They’d traveled together before. Maybe they would again. Maybe his wife wouldn’t care who traveled with the couple on their trips. Maybe Kayla would get to the point that seeing Andreas and his wife didn’t rip through her insides with all the pain of a serrated knife.

Maybe never.

CHAPTER SIX

DESPITE THE AMAZING scenery and the fascinating narration, the rest of the cruise passed in a blur for Kayla.

Andreas never let up on his affectionate touching, eliciting a reaction in her body she did her best to ignore. Because the longer it went on, the more convinced she was that she had to tell him no.

No sex. No last night together before he moved on to marry someone else.

“Do you want lunch?” he asked as they were led to early disembarkation ahead of the other passengers.

She was about to answer in the negative when her stomach growled.

He smiled. “It seems you do.”

“Let me guess. You’ve already got reservations.”

“Naturally.”

There was no car waiting for them, but a pedicab driver stepped forward. “Mr. Kostas?”

Andreas nodded.

“This way.” The man indicated a newer cab with red leather seats and a motorized bicycle attached.

“We’re taking a pedicab?” Kayla asked.

“I thought you would enjoy the experience.” Andreas handed her up into the cab, for all the world like they were on a date.

Not that he ever treated her with a lack of courtesy, but things were feeling distinctly personal and guy-girl in the guy-expecting-sex-at-the-end-of-the-date kind of way.

The pedicab driver started peddling, weaving in and out of traffic in a truly alarming way.

Kayla gasped at a close call and Andreas took her hand. “It is all right, pethi mou.”

“Greek endearments? Really?” He was pulling out all the stops.

Andreas laced their fingers. “This is one of the company’s best drivers. I made sure of it.”

“I have been driving cab here for two years,” the man said with a slight Eastern European accent.

Kayla asked about it and learned he was from a small village in Russia. He had his engineering degree, but had to take more schooling to qualify for the jobs he wanted here in the States.

Kayla was fascinated and asked more questions until Andreas interrupted, clearly annoyed. “I believe you know enough of his life story.”

“I do not mind your lady’s interest, Mr. Kostas.”

But for some reason Andreas did. It was almost as if he was jealous, which Kayla knew was ludicrous. He was not the jealous type.

“We should be at the restaurant soon,” Andreas said to her, ignoring the cabbie’s comment.

Kayla frowned. “Don’t be rude, Andreas. That is not like you.”

Which was not strictly true. He could actually be really rude when he wanted, but he tended not to be impolite to people in a position like the cabbie’s. Andreas didn’t throw his weight around with what his family might consider the servant class. He’d seen enough of that living in Greece, he’d confided to her once.

“I will tip him extra if that will make you happy,” Andreas replied grumpily.

She frowned. “You are being crass.”

“Nothing I say will please you, but you hang on his every word.” Oh, her ex-lover sounded seriously annoyed.

“I already know your history,” she tried to explain.

“So, now I bore you?”

Oh, man. He was determined to take offense, wasn’t he? “That is not what I said.”

The cabbie coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like he was covering a laugh.

Andreas gave him a suspicious look and Kayla knew things were going to go downhill fast if she didn’t do something.

“What restaurant are we going to?” she asked with desperate enthusiasm. “Is it another tourist attraction?”

“Not exactly.” Andreas turned his attention full on her.

She smiled up at him.

“I know when you’re faking your smiles, you know that, right?” he asked with a clear frown.

She rolled her eyes. “Give me points for trying and tell me about the restaurant.”

“I want your smiles to be real when they are pointed in my direction.”

“I cannot guarantee that.”

“That is not acceptable to me.”

“Get over it.”

“I will not get over it. You will stop giving me those fake smiles, Kayla. Save them for other people.”

“Andreas, you are not being reasonable.”

“I am eminently reasonable.”

She laughed. Loudly. She could not help herself. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Jacob thinks.”

“Jacob has no place in this discussion.”

“You do not get to tell me to just forget about someone like he never existed.”

“Watch me.”

“Watch me ignore you.”

This time the cabbie’s coughing could not hide his laughter.

Andreas glared at the hapless man and Kayla had never been as happy to arrive at her destination. The pedicab came to a stop in front of one of New York’s many tall buildings, the walls seemingly made of glass.

“You will love the view at this place. Men, they take their women here to impress them,” the cabbie said to her as he turned around to them.

Andreas grunted. It could have been agreement. It could have been Mind your own business.

“I’m sure you are right. Andreas is very good at guessing what I’ll like.” Except when it came to selling their company and uprooting her one certain sense of security.

* * *

The restaurant turned out to be on an upper floor with a view every bit as amazing as the cabbie had implied. Designed with the feel of Asian-modern fusion, the waitstaff were all dressed in crisp black and white and offered the kind of service found in only the most elite dining rooms.

They were perfectly solicitous, making sure she and Andreas had everything they needed. Kayla got the feeling that if they’d asked for something completely outside the restaurant’s purview, the smart maître d’ would have made it happen. The food was fantastic.

Andreas did his best to be an entertaining companion and that was doing nothing for Kayla’s determination to tell him no about the sex thing.

At one point she glared at him. “Would you just stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Being so nice.”

“You do not want me to be nice to you?” His brilliant green eyes widened with disbelief.

“No.” She let out a huff of frustration when his whole body got into the incredulity thing. “I know what you want and the answer is no.”

“Do not be so sure on either count, pethi mou.”

“Stop with the Greek endearments too. They aren’t going to work.”

“Work at what precisely?” he teased, his eyes glinting with devilment.

She humphed at him. “Whatever your plans are for later.”

“I assure you, you will like my plans.”

“You always think that. You are not always right.” The past forty-eight hours should attest to that definitively.

“I am almost always right.” The humor was there in his voice, right under the surface.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Maybe a little. Relax, Kayla. You are perfectly safe in this nice restaurant.”

“It is a nice place. Very nice. It’s a date kind of place, or the kind of place you take a client you want to impress. I’m neither.” Both of them needed the reminder. “I’m not even sure how you got reservations on such short notice.”

“Maybe you are simply a woman I care about, whom I would also like to impress, hmm?” he said, ignoring her comment about the reservations.

But that was a real thing, so he had to have exerted some kind of influence to get them. It made her feel more special than she wanted to. “Right. The day you care about impressing me, I’m going to eat my straw walking hat for breakfast with hot sauce.”

“I hope you like hot sauce because I have always cared about impressing you.”

“Don’t be dumb, of course you don’t.”

“You are the only living person I do.”

“That’s... I...” She just didn’t believe it.

“You know I do not care if I impress my Greek family.”

“And yet you have this elaborate plan designed to prove to them how great you are.”

“Or rather how much I do not need them.” He said it like she should know this. She supposed he’d said it often enough.

She shrugged. She simply didn’t believe him.

He raised his brows. “Who else do I care to impress?”

“Your future wife? Genevieve? Other billionaires? I don’t know.”

“None of the above.”

“Then why would you care what I think?”

“Because you are my friend.”

“You say that like you don’t have any others and we both know that isn’t true.” Well, sort of. He wasn’t a social guy.

Andreas Kostas was focused on his goals.

“Acquaintances, contacts, even casual friends maybe,” he listed. “But not people whose opinions will ever matter to me enough to change the course of my life.”

“Mine doesn’t either.”

He looked around them, then at her, his expression belying her words. “And yet here I am, in New York, when I am supposed to be in Portland having a makeover with the matchmaker.”

“I wonder if she’s going to give you hair extensions and a man bun. They’re pretty popular right now.”

Andreas shuddered. “Not going to happen.”

“Oh, I know, she’ll put you in jeans every day and those graphic tees that cling to your muscles and show off all the goodies.”

“You like to tease me.”

“Well, she’s not going to leave you in your perfectly tailored bespoke suits and an overpriced businessman’s haircut.”

“Why not?” Andreas demanded, aggrieved.

“How should I know? You’re the one who said she insisted on a makeover.” Kayla thought he was plenty devastating just the way he was.

“Genevieve believes I am not approachable enough for husband material.”

“What kind of husband does she think you need to be?”

“That is a good question and perhaps one I should have asked before paying her a twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“You think?” Kayla asked with heavy sarcasm.

Andreas frowned at her. “It is not as if I asked her nothing.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Kayla started ticking off on her fingers. “Can you find me a bride who will fit these requirements? Will she be an asset to my business? She must be of a certain age and come from an acceptable background.”

“You know I am not seeking to marry some wealthy socialite.”

“That’s not what I meant by acceptable background. I know you well enough to know your list of background attributes ran more to the lines of came from a stable home so she knows what good parenting looks like for when you have children.” Which left Kayla out of the running right there. “Has an education, but isn’t a PhD because you’re enough of a chauvinist it would bother you if your wife was more educated than you.”

“It doesn’t bother me that you are smarter than me.”

“I’m smarter at computers, not more intelligent and we have the same number of years in our degrees. Do not tell me if I had a PhD in engineering it wouldn’t bother you.”

“I would be proud of you. Do you wish to go back to school?”

Sometimes Kayla did. She loved learning, but more because she thought maybe someday she’d like to teach at the adult level. She didn’t say that now, though. She just stared at him.

“What?” he demanded.

“My future plans aren’t your concern.”

“I do not agree.”

“Andreas, you’re going to be way too busy with your new venture capital firm to worry about what I do on the daily with my life.”

“That is not true.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

He laughed. “Have you met yourself?”

“Seriously, Andreas. You have this picture of how everything is going to be and you assume everyone is going to fall into it. That’s not the way the world always works.”

“As you have proven. We are in New York.”

“So you have reminded me.”

“It is a fascinating city, but I had no plans to visit this week.”

“Neither did I before you dropped your bomb.”

“It was not my intention to explode your life.”

“Just move yours forward. I know.”

“In my defense, I believed I was moving both our lives forward.”

“Because you are arrogant and believe you know what is best for other people.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“No. Just not letting you get away with anything. It’s what I do.”

“It has been too long since we shared a meal like this.”

“You’ve been busy the past couple of months.” She looked at him as the pieces started to fall into place. “Getting ready for the sale to Sebastian Hawk, right?”

Andreas grimaced. “You make it sound like I was sneaking around. I did nothing in secret.”

“Then why didn’t I know about it?”

“Because neither did I advertise the fact.”

Kayla just shook her head. “Sneaky.”

“No.” His phone buzzed, indicating a text message of low priority, but then it chimed with Bradley’s tone and Andreas looked at the screen, his face taking on a thunderous appearance as he read.

“What’s the matter?” Kayla asked.

He looked up at her, his jaw set. “I’ll explain in a moment.” Then he dialed a number on his phone.

The sound of a woman’s tones answering could be heard. If Kayla wasn’t mistaken it was Genevieve.

Andreas barely listened for a second before saying, “You are fired.”

Outraged squawks followed.

“I do not care what you saw on some social feed. I do not answer to you for my time and I will not have my instructions ignored or questioned by those who work for me. I expect a breach-of-contract portion refund of my retainer. Our business dealings are at an end.”

The woman was no longer yelling, clearly trying to cajole Andreas into changing his mind, but Kayla could have told her it was a waste of her breath. He had made up his mind before making the call. Whatever she’d done had pissed him off on a level that there was no coming back from.

Not in Andreas’s world.

“Goodbye, Genevieve.” He ended the call without any more words.

Kayla stared at him. “What was that all about?”

Andreas looked pained. “You sure you want to know?”

With that look on his face? “Definitely.”

“Genevieve wanted to come to New York to give me the infamous makeover, but I told her no. She decided this morning to ignore my wishes and come anyway. Bradley learned of her plans because my administrative assistant has ears everywhere and gave me a heads-up. Not that Genevieve hadn’t told me herself in a text.” Oh, Andreas sounded pissed.

“What would make her think that would be okay with you?”

“More like what made her think she might be losing a lucrative client?”

Kayla had a bad feeling. “And what was that?”

“Someone posted a picture of us kissing to one of those social media sites.”

“But how would she have seen that? Surely they didn’t know our names.”

“A stroke of bad luck, I think. First an enterprising social media paparazzo saw you with Jacob and made it her mission to find out who you were, which wasn’t hard after his sister apparently dissed you on Twitter for bailing on your date with him. The social media paparazzo happened to be on the cruise with us this morning. She decided to update the scandal of your botched date with Jacob by posting the picture of you and me kissing this morning.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Improbable. Ridiculous timing. But not impossible.”

“And Genevieve found out already?”

“She’s a shark and stuff like this is blood in the water to her.”

“Wow.”

“That is no excuse for her ignoring my instructions.”

“She was clearly worried about your commitment to finding a wife.”

“I’m not married yet. I’m not even dating any of her candidates.”

“Still.”

“Still nothing. I fired her and she’ll refund at least eighty percent of that retainer or she’ll learn why there are risks involved targeting my demographic as her clientele.”

“Okay, relax, Andreas. She told you all that just now?”

“She wanted me to know what a bad risk you are for involvement.”

“That wasn’t very nice of her.” Not that Kayla expected any different.

“She’s not a very nice person, but she is efficient.”

“That’s good I guess.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“You’re the one who fired her.”

“You know I don’t tolerate being ignored.”

“I ignore you, you’ve never fired me.”

“You are the exception to the rule.” He winked at her and was too darn sexy with it. “Don’t let that get out.”

“We can’t have anyone thinking you are a pushover.” Kayla couldn’t help the warmth that filled her at this reminder of her unique place in Andreas’s life.

“Because I am not.”

“No, you are not.” He was selling the company out from under her after all. Andreas was no sentimental pushover.

“Have you finished?” Andreas asked, indicating her mostly eaten plate that she hadn’t touched in over ten minutes.

“Yes.”

“Are you ready to do some more sightseeing?”

Funnily enough, she’d expected him to ask to go back to the hotel. The sexual tension in the air was thick enough it should be an opaque cloud around them, but it was as if he was intent on building the anticipation to maximum levels.

He used to do that, back in the day, when they’d been lovers.

It had driven her crazy, in the best possible way.

* * *

A new-model, dark sedan was waiting for them when they reached the street.

“Where to now?” she asked as he handed her into the back seat, her slacks sliding easily over the plush leather seats.

There was something odd in his expression, almost hesitant as he joined her. “I thought the Brooklyn Bridge. You were fascinated by it this morning on the tour.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“And you like bridges.”

Portland had its own fair share, and she’d spent enough time exploring them, photographing them, walking across the ones with pedestrian ways and lost in contemplation staring at the river from their heights.

She shrugged. “They’re like code, you know. They make a way between where you are and where you want to be.”

“Your mind is unique, Kay-love. You realize this?” His voice was warm with approval.

And she wasn’t sure what to do with that. “I know I don’t think like normal people.”

“What is normal?” His dark Greek brow creased. “Are we supposed to strive for average? I do not think so.”

“Your arrogance is showing again.” But she knew he absolutely believed what he said.

Andreas Kostas had never strived to be like other people. He’d forged his own path and taken Kayla down it with him.

He reached out and took her hand, his fingers warm and strong as they curled around hers, giving her a sense of reassurance and other feelings she did not want to examine right then.

It was too dangerous for her equilibrium.

His emerald gaze locked hers in place. “If honesty is arrogance, so be it, but you should never think less of yourself because you do not fit the mold of normal.”

“You’ve gotten very affectionate all of a sudden.” Not to mention complimentary.

Color slashed his masculine cheekbones.

“What?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “It is nothing.”

But it was clearly something.

“You’re losing your contractions again.” It was a funny quirk of his, when he was really worked up. She wasn’t sure if it was a speech pattern he’d gotten from his mother or something he’d picked up in Greece, but Kayla had always found it endearing.

“Do you think the way I dress makes me unapproachable?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

“Are you serious right now? Where did that come from?”

Andreas’s lips gave a sardonic twist. “You know.”

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