The Greek's Nine-Month Redemption

“What you said,” she said, waving her hand. “Substitute ‘men’ for ‘women’, ‘slightly disorganized’ for ‘rocked’, and ‘God’ for... I don’t know, maybe ‘a really good cheesecake’? Not exactly divine, but adequate.”

“You are in typical form today.”

“I try for consistency, Apollo. It’s part of my charm.”

“I have rarely seen evidence of your charm. Your charms perhaps, but I’m not really speaking of your personality.”

“Right, well, for some reason things have been especially difficult between us lately, haven’t they? Though, I imagine not as difficult as things have been between you and my father. Have you spoken to him since you rammed that knife into his back?”

“Oh, yes. Of course we have.”

“You’re sick. How could you do that to your own—”

“He is not my own anything. I am not your blood, agape. And a good thing to or what happened between us would be off-limits. Both in the past and in the future.”

She gritted her teeth, trying not to blush. She was definitely playing at being slightly more blasé and experienced than she was. But he hadn’t called her on it yet. So she was going to carry on. “I would rather run my new Jimmy Choos through the shredder, thanks.”

“Is that what the kids are calling it these days? I admit, that doesn’t sound very sexy.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

“Right. Tell me, Elle, how is my mother?” he asked.

Elle arched a brow. “How long has it been since you’ve spoken to Mariam?”

He shrugged. “Months? She doesn’t approve of my betrayal any more than you or your father do.”

“And yet you don’t feel any guilt over it?”

“I have my reasons,” he said, his tone so cold and hard it could cut glass.

“I’m sure you do, but none of them are compelling enough for me or my family. I don’t care what your reasons are. And your mother is well,” she said. “I just talked to her last night.”

It had been difficult to talk to her stepmother when memories of what had passed between her and Apollo had lingered so persistently. She had felt...guilty and completely transparent. Thankfully, Mariam had her own topics to discuss and hadn’t seemed to notice Elle’s general silence.

“Well,” she said, clearing her throat, “as charming as this little detour has been, let’s get down to business.”

He reached up, touching the knot on his tie. “Oh, you meant actual business.”

“You’re a pig.”

“I’m wounded. Now, I’ve been going over projections for the quarter. You have to either increase profits soon or you need to start cutting expenses. I can guarantee one, but I can’t guarantee the other.” He stood, placing his hands on the desk. Her desk.

She tried to cling to her anger. Anger that would hopefully be much more powerful than the attraction that was still surging through her. What was her problem? She was supposed to be cured. She was supposed to have inoculated herself to all future Apollo encounters. Cure yourself from a snakebite with snake venom, and all that. But she didn’t feel cured. She did not feel at all inoculated. In fact, she felt a little bit dizzy.

“Of course you can’t,” she said, the words coming out harsh. “No one can guarantee a profit increase. But trust me, if we keep on going in this new direction—”

“This isn’t about trust. It’s about the bottom line. I have a great deal more experience in business than you do, Elle.”

Those words rankled. In part because they were true. In part because they dug beneath the suit of armor she had worked so hard to put into place today. It hit the wound beneath it that twinged every day. That she was her father’s second choice through and through. When she failed at this, she would prove that she never should have been here in the first place. That if her father had had his way he would have put someone else in her position. That if Apollo weren’t too important for it, if Apollo hadn’t turned against them, it would likely have been him.

You decided failure be damned, remember?

Yes. She had. But it was difficult to feel committed to that now.

“But I care about this company.”

“As do I. It’s a part of my bottom line, and there is nothing I care about more than my bottom line.”

“Well, Matte is only part of your bottom line because you set out to acquire it when you saw that it was floundering. You knew what you were getting.”

“And without my influence this company would probably already be six feet under. Like the rest of the holdings I bought from your father.”

“You fired the final shot into them.”

“A mercy killing,” he said, his tone hard. “Don’t oppose me, Elle. I am not doing this for my own amusement. If I succeed, you will succeed along with me. I am not the enemy that you set me up to be.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. Except, it was a disagreement they were not going to settle. Not without blood anyway. “Yes, but you said you were standing there ready to pull the plug, so let’s be honest. You aren’t a savior, either.”

“I never claimed to be.”

“Well, don’t stand there and pretend that you aren’t the villain.”

“Oh, did you think that’s what I was doing? You’re wrong there. I know full well that I’m the villain here, agape. If I had a mustache I would twirl it. Alas. You will have to settle for the assurance that I know full well where I stand in this little play. However, we do not have to oppose each other. I know that my presence is sinister. However, there is nothing you can do to fight it. But understand I will save Matte if it’s at all possible.”

“You’re here to announce cuts today, aren’t you?”

“Surprisingly, no. But I did come to discuss something with you.”

“What?” she asked, feeling suspicious.

“I would like for you to come to my European headquarters. To get a little bit of an idea for how things run, to attend to some meetings there, and to attend a certain number of charity events.”

“What?”

“What I would like to do is help revitalize the image of Matte. I would like to bring you into the public eye. Have you as the public face, so to speak. With a little bit of help you could provide a facelift all on your own. And then, maybe we would be able to avoid cuts.”

She hadn’t expected this. She was, in fact, struck dumb by the fact that he was extending a hand out. That he was offering her a chance to not only save the company, but to do it in such a public way.

She had been prepared to be the one left standing in the ashes. A phoenix who was not poised to rise. She had been prepared to go down in flames, with her hands on Apollo’s naked body.

And now...now he was changing things. Again.

“You just expect me to pick up and go to Europe with you?”

“Yes. And I don’t exactly expect you to have a major issue with being asked to spend some time in Greece with me.”

“Your headquarters are in Greece still? Are you the last remaining corporation in the country?”

“I am successful. Worldwide. It would be a poor thanks to my homeland to remove the jobs and revenue I provide simply because there’s been some unrest.”

“Please, don’t tell me you have a heart. Only a moment ago you were telling me that your decisions were based on the bottom line.”

“I don’t have a heart. I simply have a strong liking for dolmas and ouzo.”

“That I can believe.”

He smiled, and for a moment, she felt like she was looking back at the boy he had been. The boy she had known all those years ago. The one who had captivated her from the first moment she had laid eyes on him.

The boy she had proceeded to snipe at and torture with flippant remarks every chance she got. Reminding him that he wasn’t really a St. James. Because she’d been nothing more than a little girl with a crush and she’d handled it like they were on the playground.

But though things had never been easy between Apollo and her, he’d been very close with her father. But as close as Apollo and her father had once been, they were just as distant now.

And she had been thrown into the middle of that divide. Tossed into a storm she could never hope to weather. Between two alpha males locking horns. One defending his turf, the other intent on destroying it.

So take control. Do this.

“Well, I’m not going to complain about a free vacation,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. She wasn’t going to show her hand. Not to him. Wasn’t going to let him see that this mattered to her. That she was going to use this—whatever it was to him—to gain a handle on things again.

To redeem herself.

“Oh, this isn’t going to be a vacation,” he said, rounding the desk and making his way toward the door. “We will go to Greece and work. Additionally, there is a charity event in Athens that we will attend together.”

“As business associates,” she said, “I assume.”

She couldn’t even imagine her father’s reaction. If he had any idea that she and Apollo— He would be furious. Disgusted.

The idea of disappointing him like that...of losing him altogether, was something she couldn’t fathom.

Her mother had left when she’d been a child. She could barely remember her. But she remembered the hole left behind, because it was still there.

She couldn’t go through that again.

Apollo gave her a dismissive glance. “What else would we be? The entire idea is to strengthen the brand. Should there be any suspicion that the two of us had—”

“There’s no need to keep bringing it up.”

“You’re the one who seems to persist in bringing it up.”

Elle crossed her arms, shaking her head, her ponytail swinging back and forth. His eyes followed the motion.

“You should wear your hair down,” he said.

She abruptly stopped shaking her head. “I didn’t ask you for fashion advice.”

“And yet, I’m giving it. Because you desperately need it.” He looked at her, his expression critical. “Yes, you need a slightly younger look. One that isn’t quite so...ironed.”

“Well, my clothes are ironed. Would you have them look rumpled?”

“I would have you look slightly less like a matron.”

She frowned. “I do not look matronly. I have a very classic sense of style. It’s chic.”

“You certainly know how to flatter your figure.” He didn’t bother to hide that he was looking. “But you need more than that to be the kind of brand that people remember.”

“I’m not a...brand,” she sputtered, “I’m a woman. Where are you going?” He had walked past her, heading for the door.

“I thought I might go and speak to some of the staff.”

“No,” she said, hurrying after him. “I do not wish to unleash you on them. I don’t want you talking about how their jobs may be in jeopardy when you make final decisions.”

“Their jobs may well not be in jeopardy if you don’t fight me every step of the way. People like a public face. You can provide that. You can be strongly associated with the brand, and in effect, become a brand yourself. A young, professional woman. Brilliant, fashionable. You can be that woman.”

She rolled her eyes. “That does not sound like—”

“It isn’t a negotiation. Either you comply with my plan, or you are subject to Plan B, which is making sweeping cuts and doing my best to lift profit margins that way.”

She made an exasperated sound, following him down the hall. “I wish you wouldn’t keep walking away from me.”

“I have places to be. I want to take a look at the different departments. Get a body count. So to speak.”

“We are talking.” She scampered after him. “Of course I will agree to go.”

He pushed the button for the elevator. “I’m glad to hear that. I get the feeling sometimes you’re just opposing me for the sake of it.”

“And I get the feeling that you’re an ass to me just because you enjoy it.”

He chuckled and she stepped in just as the doors began to close. “Well, you are possibly correct in that assessment. Anyway, you spent a great many years being an ass to me simply because you enjoyed it.”

She let out a harsh breath and watched the numbers on the elevator as it moved. Suddenly, she was very aware of the fact that she and Apollo were alone again. She looked at him, just a quick glance out of the corner of her eye. She tried to ignore the restless feeling between her thighs. Tried to ignore the restless feeling in her body.

After what seemed like an eternity, the doors opened again, and they were on the floor that housed the marketing department. He stepped out of the elevator and began to sweep his way through the space like a destructive wind. As he whipped by, heads turned, expressions went from relaxed to terrified.

“See that? Your mere presence lowers morale. I hope you’re happy.”

“I don’t care about morale.” He paused by one of the desks. “Hello,” he said, clearly attempting to be charming. “My name is Apollo Savas. I’m the owner of this company. What is it you do?”

The girl, a blonde who could barely be twenty-five, blinked rather owlishly. She seemed to be struck dumb by his presence. Either by the fact that he was the owner of the company, or by the fact that he was just so damn good-looking. Truly, it was a problem. Elle felt a moment of sympathy for her.

“I’m on the marketing team for the makeup line,” she said, looking a little bit thunderstruck.

“Have you been satisfied with the performance of those products?”

“Well,” she said, shuffling the papers on her desk around, “we have seen an increase in revenue this past quarter. And our relationships with vendors—”

“How do you plan to continue the increase? What do you think attracts consumers to this product? Why should they buy this instead of say...any other brand of lipstick? I am a man, I know, but I’m not certain why one sort of cosmetic might be more attractive than another.”

“I... I...”

“Enough,” Elle said. “You do not need to prod at my staff.”

He turned toward her, an amused expression on his face, and suddenly she felt like they were the only two people in the room. That little blonde might as well have evaporated into thin air.

There was no question, she was not remotely as immune to Apollo and she would like to be.

* * *

Apollo would question the purity of his motives if his motives were—in fact—ever pure. They weren’t, so he was certain there was something self-serving and wretched behind them now. Even if he didn’t know precisely what.

He had wanted to impress upon Elle the importance of her complying with his plan. When he had left her after... After the appalling lack of control that had occurred in his hotel room, he had formulated a plan to try to improve things for her company. A foolish thing, perhaps. He didn’t know why he should care about the fate of her magazine. Beyond the fact that it was a potential profit machine for him.

Perhaps it was the fact that she had become collateral damage in a war he’d never intended to bring her into. But David had placed her in direct line of the firing squad.

Apollo wasn’t a kind man. At least, no one ever accused him of being so. And he had never made it a goal to be seen that way. He had cared about very few people growing up, and it had turned out those he had cared about most had betrayed him long ago.

And so he had stolen his stepfather’s empire, started dismantling it. But he had left Elle at Matte. God knew why. He’d known in the end he would destroy it, destroy her.

Perhaps it was because he knew what it was to be caught in the consequences of the sins of the father. Hers and his. Perhaps because he knew that—whether or not Elle had been kind to him when they were younger—she was innocent here.

But now...now it was as though a veil had been stripped away from his eyes. He would have to use her. There was no other choice. There was no preserving her. That much had been made clear when he’d taken her against the wall.

It had been symbolic in many ways of that protection being destroyed. That desire to keep her safe from himself being completely and utterly ripped away.

He could no longer ignore Elle. Could no longer dance around the fact that he would have to destroy her along with her father.

He would use her. And he would discard her.

It had nothing to do with his desire to strip her naked again. To watch her pale skin flush with pleasure once more. It had nothing at all to do with that, because he was not going to allow himself the indulgence.

Indulgence was unacceptable. But revenge? That was sweet.

“Perhaps you would like to give me a tour of the rest of the department, Elle?” he asked, ruthlessly cutting off his train of thought.

“Of course.”

They moved away from where they had been standing, and she continued on down the role of desks. “Just don’t talk to anyone,” she said, her voice hushed.

“Why is it that you think you can tell me what to do when I am in my own company?”

“Because I am the boss,” she said, her tone sounding slightly petulant. “That has to count for something somewhere.”

“Sadly for you, I am your boss. Being boss of a lot of other people doesn’t give you extra clout. I am the final word. So let it be written, et cetera.”

She swept through the little space quickly. “There you have it. And now, I expect you want to be going.”

“No,” he said, crossing his arms across his chest. “I’ll head back up to your office floor and set up for a few hours, get a few things done. I do like to familiarize myself with my acquisitions.”

Elle looked livid. Her jaw set, her lips in a flat line. “Can’t you do that in your hotel room?”

The mention of his hotel room brought back illicit memories. “I could. But I want to get a greater sense for how things are running here. It is in your best interest to keep me around. I might grow attached. I might yet see the importance of this team you keep talking about.”

She said nothing, but her expression took on a rather long-suffering edge. They walked back through the office space and toward the elevators again. She pushed the button, then pushed it again when the elevator didn’t immediately appear.

“If I didn’t know better I would say you were in a hurry to escape my presence.”

“I am,” she said, flashing a smile. One he very much wanted to kiss right off her pretty face. But he was still calculating. When. Where. What. He wouldn’t touch her until he made those decisions.

If he touched her at all.

“I do admire your honesty,” he said, instead of kissing her.

“What is taking so long?” She scowled, hitting the button again. Then suddenly, the doors slid open.

“Tenth time’s the charm,” he said, stepping inside.

She gave him a withering glance before moving inside after him.

The doors slid shut and he had the impression that all the air had been sucked out of the space.

The tension between them was unlike anything he had ever known before. Likely because she was the only woman he had ever bothered to resist. He could remember well the first time he had noticed her as a woman, rather than a girl. Sometime after her seventeenth birthday, when all of her snubs and cutting comments had begun to arouse even as they enraged.

When they’d given way to fantasies of him showing her how base and beneath her he truly was.

His attraction, swift, sudden and abhorrent to him, had hit him low and fast in the gut, so quickly he had not had the chance to guard against it. He had not expected to have to guard against an attraction to his chilly younger stepsister.

He had nearly acted on it back then.

He could well remember the time he’d come home from university to see her getting out of the pool. Sleek curves barely concealed by a hot pink bikini that should have clashed terribly with her red hair, but rather was all the more enticing for how incongruous it was.

And he’d gone over to her, and she’d said something snotty, as she usually did. Then he’d grabbed hold of her arm, and pulled her to him. Her green eyes had gone wide, those pink lips parting gently. Begging to be kissed.

But he hadn’t. He’d watched the water drops roll over her bare skin, over her breasts, had imagined lowering his head and slicking up the slow-rolling water. But he hadn’t done that, either.

He’d waited. Waited until her eyes had darkened with desire. Until he’d seen her breath speed up, the pulse in her neck beating at a rapid rate. He had held her arm until he’d been sure he’d turned her on. Until he’d been sure the little ice princess was hot all over.

Then he’d let her go, and turned away, hard as iron and fantasizing about what he might have had.

And now... Well, now he’d had her, hadn’t he? He had answered the question he’d never meant to ask.

He looked at her now, at the sleek ponytail that begged for him to grab hold of it, to wrap it around his hand. Her long, elegant neck. The soft curve of her pale lips. His stomach tightened. Clearly, his lust for her was not so easily dealt with via one quick screw up against the wall.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she said, pressing the button that would take them to the floor that housed her office.

“Do what?”

“I wish you wouldn’t stare at me.”

“I’m trying to unlock the mysteries of your mind,” he said. “Or rather, I’m attempting to remember what you look like underneath your clothes.” He knew that taunting her was the wrong decision. Knew that it would only push them back to the place he was so desperate to stay away from.

You don’t want to stay away. You want her naked and panting in your arms again.

“Stop it,” she said.

“You’re so desperate to forget what happened between us.”

“Nobody likes to remember rock bottom, Apollo. I consider having sex with you my own personal walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”

“I’m honored, I’m sure.”

“Honored isn’t what you’re supposed to be.” She arched one finely groomed brow, her lips twisted into a sneer. She was so self-righteous when she was just as guilty as he was. So sure she was above this attraction that burned between them when she was just as enslaved.

He wanted her. The angrier he got with her, the more he wanted her. Whatever this thing was, the sick, twisted desire that was exploding between them, he couldn’t measure it or assign a number to account for it. He couldn’t parse it the way he could a business acquisition. It wasn’t the simple desire he felt for the sort of woman he usually picked up to spend a few hours of fun with. It was much, much darker.

It was forbidden. Something he had told himself he couldn’t have.

Perhaps that was why it was coming to bite him in the ass now. He didn’t typically practice restraint. Maybe by creating forbidden fruit, by placing it in the middle of his personal garden and telling himself he could not eat it, neither could he touch it, he had created temptation.

That made the most sense. Since Elle looked like original sin. A brilliant, shining apple he wanted to bite into.

And why shouldn’t he? His reasoning for resisting her didn’t matter now. He didn’t want to honor her father. And he still wanted to kiss that puckered expression off her face. So why the hell not?

“You don’t like me,” he said, that darkness compelling him now. “And yet, you do want me.”

“Come now, Apollo, don’t tell me you like every single one of your bed partners. We both know that sex isn’t love,” she said, tilting her chin upward, a faint blush spreading across her cheekbones, adding a kind of dissonance to her bold words.

Elle was certainly playing the part of experienced woman. She had gone up in flames in his arms, an equal participant in the conflagration. And yet, it didn’t all ring true. Didn’t quite piece together in a way that made sense.

He wasn’t sure he cared to analyze it. It wouldn’t change his actions either way.

“Perhaps. But sex and hate don’t typically go together,” he said. “And you claim to hate me.”

“I do,” she said, green eyes flashing. “I hate you for what you’ve done to my father. To me.”