The Antonides Marriage Deal

It would be Elias’s someday. And, though he’d saved the company and all its holdings, none of them mattered to him as much as that single house. It held memories of his childhood, of summer days spent working building boats with his grandfather, of the dreams of youth that were pure and untarnished, though life was anything but. The house on Santorini was their strength, their refuge—the physical heart of the Antonides family.

It was the only thing Elias loved.

His fingers curled into fists. It was the only way he could keep from grabbing his father by the front of his emerald-green polo shirt and shaking him. “What have you done to our house?”

“Nothing,” Aeolus said quickly. “Well, nothing if you stay on at Antonides.” He shot Elias a quick, hopeful glance that skittered away at once in the face of his son’s burning black fury. He wrung his hands. “It was just a small bet. A sailboat race. A bet I made with Socrates. Which boat—his or mine—could sail to Montauk and back faster. I’m a better sailor than Socrates Savas!”

Which Elias had no doubt was true. “So what happened?”

“The bet was about the boats,” his father said heavily.

“I know. You raced the boats. So?”

Aeolus shot him an exasperated look. “I’m a better sailor than Socrates Savas. I don’t hold a candle to his son Theo!”

Elias whistled. “Theo Savas is Socrates’s son?”

Even Elias had heard of Theo Savas. Anyone who knew anything about sailing knew Theo Savas. He had sailed for Greece in the Olympics. He had crewed in several America’s Cup races. He had done windsurfing and solo sailing voyages that caught the hearts and minds of armchair adventurers everywhere. He was also lean, muscular and handsome, a playboy without equal and, naturally—according to Elias’s sisters—the ideal of Greek manhood.

No matter that he had been raised in Queens.

“Theo won,” Aeolus said, filling his cheeks with air, then exhaling sharply and shaking his head. “And he gets clear title to the house—unless you agree to stay on as managing director of Antonides Marine for two years.”

“Two years!”

“It’s not much!” Aeolus protested. “Hardly a life sentence.”

It might as well be. Elias couldn’t believe it. His father was asking him to simply sit here and watch as Socrates Savas gutted the company he had worked so hard to save!

“What the hell did I ever do to him?” Elias demanded.

“Do to him? Why, nothing at all. What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Never mind.” There was no reason to take it personally. Socrates Savas did this sort of thing all the time. Still Elias ground his teeth. He felt the pulse pound in his temple and deliberately unclenched his jaw and took a deep, calculated breath.

Two years. It was a price he could pay. He’d paid far bigger ones. And this wasn’t just about his life, it was the life of his whole family.

He’d done everything else. How could he not do this?

“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll stay.”

His father beamed, breathed again, pounded him on the back. “I knew you would!”

“But I’m not answering to Socrates Savas. He’s not running things!”

“Of course not!” His father said, relieved beyond belief. “His daughter is!”

The new president of Antonides Marine International hadn’t slept a wink all night.

Tallie had lain awake, grinning ear to ear, her mind whirling with glorious possibilities and the satisfaction of knowing that her father was finally acknowledging she was good at what she did.

She knew it wasn’t easy for him. Socrates Savas was as traditional as a stubborn, opinionated Greek father could be—even though he was two generations removed from the old country.

In her father’s mind, his four sons were the ones who were supposed to follow his footsteps into the family business. His only daughter, Thalia, ought to stay at home, mend clothes and cook meals and eventually marry a nice, hardworking Greek man and have lots of lovely little dark-haired, dark-eyed Greek grandchildren for Socrates to dandle on his knee.

It wasn’t going to happen.

Oh, she would have married. If Lieutenant Brian O’Malley’s plane had not crashed seven years ago, she certainly would have married him. Life would have been a lot different.

But since Brian’s death she’d never met anyone who’d even tempted her. And not for her father’s lack of trying. Sometimes she thought he’d introduced her to every eligible Greek on the East Coast.

“Go pester the boys,” she told him. “Go find them wives.”

But Socrates just muttered and grumbled about his four sons. They were even more of a mystery to him than Tallie was. If she desperately wanted to follow him into business, Theo, George, Demetrios and Yiannis, had absolutely no interest in their father’s footsteps—or his business—at all.

Theo, the eldest, was a world-class open-ocean sailor. Tie him to an office or even stick him in a city and he would die. Socrates wasn’t sympathetic. He considered that his oldest son just “mucked about in boats.”

George was a brilliant physicist. He was unraveling the universe, one strand at a time. Socrates couldn’t believe people actually had theories about strings.

Demetrios was a well-known television actor with an action-adventure series of his own. His face—and a whole lot of his bare, sculpted torso—had recently been on a billboard in Times Square. Socrates had averted his eyes and muttered, “What next?”

But he wouldn’t have believed it if anyone had told him.

Yiannis, the youngest of Tallie’s four older brothers, who was as city-born and -bred as the rest of them, had, five years ago, finished a master’s degree in forestry and was living and working at the top of a Montana mountain!

It was Tallie who had always been determined to follow in her father’s footsteps. She was the one with the head for business. She was the one who had worked in stockrooms and storerooms, in warehouses and shipping offices, doing everything she could to learn how things worked from the ground up.

And she was the one her father had fired more than once when he’d found her working in one of his companies.

“No daughter of mine is going to work here,” he’d blustered and fumed.

So she’d gone to work for someone else.

He hadn’t liked that any better. But Tallie was as stubborn as her old man. She’d gone to university and done a degree in accounting. She’d taken a job in California, crunching numbers for a mom-and-pop tortilla factory. And while she was there, she’d learned everything from how to make tortillas to a thousand ways to cook with them to the cleverest way to market them. Then she’d gone back and got her MBA, working on the side for a Viennese baker who taught her everything he knew. If she were ever going into business for herself, Tallie decided, it would be in baking. She loved making cakes and tortes and pastries. But she preferred that as her relaxation.

Eighteen months ago, MBA in hand, she’d applied for another job with one of her father’s companies—and had been turned down.

So she’d gone to work for Easley Manufacturing, one of his biggest competitors. She’d been doing well there and had recently been promoted. She was on the fast track, the boss had told her. She’d hoped word would get back to Socrates.

Obviously it had.

Two weeks ago he’d rung and invited her to dinner after she got off work.

“Dinner?” she’d echoed. “With whom?”

Had he dredged up another eligible Greek, in other words?

“Just me,” Socrates said, offended. “I’m in the city. Your mother is in Rome with her art group. I’m lonely. I thought I’d call my daughter and invite her to a meal.”

It sounded perfectly innocent, but Tallie had known her father for twenty-nine years. She knew suppressed excitement when she heard it in his voice. She accepted, but not without reservations.

And when she’d met him at Lazlo’s, a Hungarian restaurant on the Upper East Side he’d suggested, she had looked around warily for stray males before she went to sit at the table with him.

But Socrates hadn’t come bearing Greeks for a change. Instead he’d offered her a job.

“A job?” Tallie had done her best to hide her incredulity while she found herself glancing outside to see if the late-May sun was still shining. The words hell froze over were flitting around in her brain. “What sort of job?”

Her father waited until the server had brought their dinners. Then he said in his characteristic blunt fashion. “I’ve just acquired forty percent of Antonides Marine International. They build boats. As major stockholder, I get to name the president.” He paused, smiling. “You.”

“Me?” Tallie’s voice squeaked. She blinked rapidly. Now she was sure that hell had frozen over. Or that she’d lost her mind.

But Socrates picked up his knife and fork and cut into his chicken paprika and said with a shrug, “You’ve always said you wanted to come into the business.”

“Yes, but—”

“So now you’re in.”

Tallie shook her head, mind still whirling. “I meant…I didn’t mean I expected you to buy me a company, Dad!”

“I didn’t buy you a company,” he said, enunciating every word. “I acquired part of a company. And so, I have a say in how it’s run. I want you to run it.”

Tallie wet her lips. Her brain spun with possibilities, with potential—with panic. She tried to get a toehold on her thoughts. “I don’t— It’s so…sudden.”

“The best opportunities often are.”

“I know.” But still…she needed to think. To consider. To—

“So, what do you say?”

“I—” Her tongue seemed welded to the roof of her mouth.

Socrates smiled gently and regarded her over a forkful of chicken. “Or maybe you were just talking. Maybe you don’t think you can do it.”

By God, yes, she could do it!

And she’d said so.

Socrates had beamed, the way a shark must beam when an unsuspecting little fish swims straight into his mouth. Tallie knew it. She could almost hear his jaws snap shut. But she didn’t care.

Whatever agenda her father had in offering her this job, she had her own agenda—to do the best damned job she could do and prove to him that she was worthy of his trust.

The two weeks she had to spend working out her notice at Easley’s had given her time to break in a replacement and do a crash course of reading everything she could get her hands on about Antonides Marine International.

What she’d learned about its history had made her even more eager to get to work. It was an old and respected boat-building company that had fallen on hard times and over the past eight years had been in the process of righting itself and moving ahead. While there was no change in leadership—Aeolus Antonides was still president (until today!)—his son had been running things. And apparently the son had done rather well. He’d economized and streamlined things, getting back to basics, redefining and refocusing the company’s mission. Recently she’d read that AMI appeared poised to branch out, to test the waters in areas other than strictly marine construction. It was on the brink of expansion.

Tallie could hardly wait to be part of the process.

And now, she thought as she stood on the pavement and stared up at the old Brooklyn warehouse that was the home of the offices of Antonides Marine International, she was.

Amazingly the address was only nine blocks from her flat. She had expected some mid-Manhattan office building. Six months ago, she knew, she would have been right. But then AMI had moved across the East River to Brooklyn.

Tallie understood it was a cost-cutting move. But there was a certain rightness to it being here in DUMBO, the neighborhood acronym for its location “down under the Manhattan Bridge.”

DUMBO was a vital, happening place—lots of urban renewal going on, considerable gentrification of the old brownstones and even older warehouses that sat on or near the edge of the East River. It was that energy, as well as the more reasonable rents, that had drawn her to DUMBO. She imagined it had drawn the management of AMI as well.

But looking around in the crisp early morning light, Tallie could see that it belonged here anyway, in the old five-story brick warehouse in the process of being restored. Within sight of the old Navy Shipyards, it was where a shipbuilding company—even the corporate offices thereof—ought to be.

Feng shui, her friend Katy who knew these things, would have said. Or maybe that was just inside buildings and where you put your bed. But it felt right. And that made Tallie smile and feel even better.

She was early—way early—but she couldn’t wait any longer. She pushed open the door and went in.

It was like stepping across the ocean. Expecting the traditional neutral business environment, she was startled to find herself in a foyer painted blue—and not the soft pale blue one usually found on walls—but the deep vibrant blue of the Mediterranean. From floor to ceiling there was blue sea and blue sky—and dotted here and there were brown islands out of which seemed to grow impossibly white buildings and blue-domed churches. All very simple and spare, and almost breathtaking in its unexpectedness. And in it appropriateness.

Tallie had never been to the Greek homeland of her forebears. She’d never had time. But she knew it at once and found it drawing her in. Instinctively she reached out a finger and traced the line of rooftops, then a bare hillside, then one lone white building at the far end of one island. As if it were a sentry. A lookout.

She’d never particularly wanted to go to Greece. It had seemed the source of all the tradition she’d spent her life battling. But now she could see there was more to it than that. And suddenly the notion tempted her.

But not as much as punching the elevator button and hitting 3.

The elevator was apparently part of the refurbishment, all polished wood and carpet that still smelled new. When the door slid open three floors later she saw that the renovation was still a work in progress. The floor was bare, unfinished wood. The walls were plastered but unpainted. She could hear hammering coming from behind a closed door down the hall.

She thought briefly that whoever was doing it, she’d have to get his name and pass it on to her landlord. Arnie was trying to get some renovations done on one of the apartments and couldn’t find a workman who would show up before noon.

She passed several offices—an accountant, a magazine publisher, a dentist—before she found the new heavy glass door of Antonides Marine International. The door was locked. At six-forty in the morning she could hardly expect otherwise.

No matter. She had a key. A key to her company. Well, a key to the company she was president of.

Now all she had to do was prove herself worthy of it.

Taking a deep breath and feeling the rightness of the moment, Tallie set her briefcase down and shifted the bag in her arm to get out the key. Then she turned it in the lock, pushed open the door and went in.

She was late.

First day on the job and the new hotshot president of Antonides Marine couldn’t even be bothered to show up!

Elias prowled his office, coffee mug in hand, grinding the teeth with which he’d intended to take a bite out of her. So much for the “eager beaver” his father had assured him Socrates insisted she was.

He supposed he ought to be pleased. If she wasn’t there, she couldn’t screw things up. He’d spent the past two weeks trying to make sure she had as little opportunity to interfere as possible.

Once it had been clear that there was no way out of the mess his father had created, Elias had done his best to limit the damage. That meant defining the limits of the problem and making sure it didn’t get bigger. So he’d readied the big office overlooking the river—the one he’d hoped to move into someday but which was too far from the hub of the office to be practical now. That was for when things were running themselves.

Or for when he was running them and needed to stick a figurehead president as far from the action as possible, he thought grimly. With her conveniently out of the way, he could get on with running the company. Which he ought to be doing right now, damn it! But he wanted her settled and disposed of first.

He had expected she’d at least be there by nine, but it was already half past. He’d been at his desk since eight, ready to deal with the interloper. Rosie, his assistant, had been there when he came in and had coffee brewing—obviously trying to impress the new “boss.”

She told him to make his own damn coffee on a daily basis. She’d even put a plate of fancy cookies by the coffeemaker.

Elias had considered giving her grief over them, but they were damn good. Some buttery chocolate kind with a hint of cinnamon, and some with almonds, and the traditional American favorite, peanut butter criss-cross.

His stomach growled now just thinking about them, and he went out to snatch another one only to find everyone else already there.

His normally spit-and-polished researcher, Paul Johanssen, was talking with his mouth full. Lucy, who oversaw the contracts and accounting, was deciding to go on her diet tomorrow. Dyson, who did blueprints and development for AMI projects, had crumbs in his mustache, and even the temp steno girls, Trina and Cara and the very-pregnant-and-about-to-deliver-any-moment Giulia were sneaking into reception to steal a cookie or two.

Elias thought it was no wonder Rosie had always refused to even make coffee in the office. If they’d known the extent of her talents, they wouldn’t have let her do anything else.

Well, Ms Thalia Savas was sure to be impressed—provided she managed to show up before the coffee and cookies were gone.

But he was done waiting. It was time she realized this wasn’t business school. Real work got done in the real world.

“We’ll go into the boardroom,” he said to Paul and Dyson. They jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice, and Paul surreptitiously wiped his mouth.

Elias grinned, taking a bit of perverse satisfaction in the tardy Ms Savas missing out on the cookies made especially for her. Not to mention that Rosie had gone to all that trouble only to have her efforts gobbled up by the rest of the staff.

“Very impressive,” he said as he passed her on his way to the boardroom. “I can see why you don’t do it all the time.”

Rosie looked up. “I didn’t do it at all.”

Elias gave her a sceptical look, but she stared him down so sternly that he turned to Paul. “Don’t tell me you baked them?”

Paul laughed. “I can’t boil water.”

“Don’t look at me,” Dyson backed away, shaking his dreadlocks and grinning.

“Maybe the new girl made them,” Trina suggested as she headed back to her office with her arms full of files.

“What new girl?” Elias knew they were going to send one to fill Giulia’s spot, but he didn’t know she’d arrived.

“I guess that would be me.” A cheerful, unfamiliar voice from the hallway made them all turn around. She was not the usual temp agency girl. She was older for one thing. Late twenties probably. She didn’t resemble a stick insect, either. She was slender but definitely curvy. She also wasn’t wearing a nose ring or sporting a hank of blue hair. Her hair, in fact, though pulled back and tied down and even anchored, had a will of its own. And even the army of barrettes she’d enlisted to tame it wasn’t up to the job. Her hair was thick and wild and decidedly sexy.

She looked as if she’d just got out of bed.

Elias found himself imagining what she would be like in bed. The thought brought him up short. He was as appreciative of a beautiful woman as the next man, but he didn’t usually fantasize about taking them to bed within moments of meeting them.

Then Ms Temp smiled brightly at him, at the same time giving her head a little shake so that her hair actually danced. And the urge to pull out those pins and tangle his fingers in that glorious hair hit him harder.

He shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew better than to mix business and pleasure.

“You made the cookies?” he demanded.

She nodded, still smiling. “Did you like them?”

“They’re good,” he acknowledged gruffly. But he didn’t want her getting the idea she could use them as a ticket to something more. “But they aren’t necessary. You only have to do your job.”

“My job?” She looked blank.

So she had a temp brain apparently. “Filing,” he said patiently. “Typing. Doing what you’re told.”

“I don’t type. I hate to file. And I rarely do what I’m told,” she said cheerfully.

Elias frowned. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

She stuck out her hand to shake his. “I’m Tallie Savas. The new president. It’s nice to meet you.”

CHAPTER TWO

DAMN Socrates, anyway.

One look at Elias Antonides and Tallie knew she’d been had. So much for her father finally taking her seriously.

Now she knew what he was really up to. The presidency of Antonides Marine was nothing more than a means to throw her into the path of a Greek god in khakis and a blue oxford cloth shirt.

Elias Antonides was definitely that—an astonishingly handsome Greek god with thick, wavy, tousled black hair, a wide mobile mouth, strong cheekbones and an aquiline nose that was no less attractive for having been rearranged at some earlier date. Its slight crook only made him look tough and capable—like the sort of god who could quell sea monsters on the one hand while sacking Troy on the other.

And naturally he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, which just confirmed her suspicions. Well, she certainly couldn’t say her father didn’t have high aspirations.

But he must have lost his mind to imagine that a hunk like Elias Antonides would be interested in her!

In the looks department, Tallie knew she was decidedly average. Passable, but certainly not head-turning. Some men liked her hair, but they rarely liked the high-energy, high-powered brain beneath it. More men liked her father’s money, but they seldom wanted to put up with a woman who had a mind of her own.

Only Brian had loved her for herself. And until she found another man who did, she wasn’t interested.

When the right man came along, he wouldn’t be intimidated by her brain or attracted only by her hair or her father’s millions. He would love her.

He certainly wouldn’t be looking at her, appalled, as Elias Antonides was, like she was something nasty he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. At least she didn’t have to worry that Elias was in on her father’s little game.

But if he found her presence so distasteful, why hadn’t he just told her father—and his—no? As managing director—not to mention the man who had pulled Antonides Marine back from the edge of the financial abyss over the past eight years—surely he had some say in the matter.

Maybe he was just always surly.

Well, Tallie wasn’t surly, and she was determined to make the best of this as a business opportunity, regardless of what her father’s hidden agenda was.

So she grabbed Elias’s hand and shook it firmly. “You must be Elias. I’m glad to meet you at last. And I’m glad you liked the cookies. I thought I should begin as I mean to go on.”

“Making cookies?” He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, then scowled, his brow furrowing, which would have made the average man look baffled and confused. It made Elias Antonides look brooding and dangerous and entirely too tempting. Silently Tallie cursed her father.

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I’ve always found that people like them—and so they enjoy coming to work.”

Elias’s brows lifted, and he looked down his patrician nose at her. “Enjoyment is highly overrated, Ms Savas,” he said haughtily.

Tallie let out a sigh of relief. Oh, good, if he was going to be all stiff and pompous, he would be much easier to resist.

“Oh, I don’t agree at all,” she said frankly. “I think it’s enormously important. If employee morale is low,” she informed him, “the business suffers.”