Ruthless Revenge: Sinful Seduction

‘Kyria Callos. May I offer my condolences on the recent loss of your husband?’ He would observe the niceties.

Iolanthe inclined her head in regal acceptance of his words. She didn’t speak. Her face looked as if it had been made of marble, as blank as a statue, no expression visible in those mist-silver eyes.

‘I have informed Kyria Callos of your controlling interest in the company,’ Metaxas said. ‘She would like to know what your intentions are regarding Petra Innovation.’

Alekos’s gaze snapped to Metaxas. ‘And can Kyria Callos speak for herself?’ he asked with deliberate mildness. He moved his gaze back to Iolanthe, surprised and strangely gratified to see a flash of ire in her eye; the statue was gone.

‘Yes, Kyria Callos can,’ she informed him shortly. The sound of her voice was another surprise; gone was the girlish lilt, replaced by the crisp tones of a grown-up woman in control of her life, if not her business.

‘Very well.’ Alekos gave her a nod, just as she had given him. ‘What is it you wish to know?’

‘I wish to know why you have bought controlling shares in my father and husband’s company,’ she said, and he heard the dislike in her voice, mixed with contempt. The realisation that she scorned him made his resolve for revenge harden inside him, a core of steel that had been the basis of every choice and desire for his entire adult life. ‘And were so secretive about it,’ she added, tossing the words like an insult.

‘If you had cared to dig a little deeper, you would have found that I was not as secretive about my purchases as you seem to think. It was simply that your husband did not care to look closely into the matter.’

A small gasp escaped her before she pressed her lips together. ‘How dare you?’

‘How dare I?’ Alekos arched an eyebrow, coldly incredulous. Her fake posturing of outrage and hauteur he could handle; this he could dismiss. ‘I did not realise I was daring anything at all. I was merely stating a fact. Your husband was desperate, Kyria Callos.’

‘At least he was honourable,’ Iolanthe shot back before she drew in a quick breath and composed herself. ‘Something you’ve never been.’

‘Kyria Callos—’ Metaxas began, clearly shocked by this unprecedented exchange.

‘Iolanthe and I have some history,’ Alekos informed the solicitor with curt politeness. ‘As you have most likely surmised.’ He glanced back at Iolanthe; her eyes looked like lambent silver, shining with suppressed fury—and remembrance. Was she recalling, as he was, how explosive they’d been together? Ten years on and he still remembered how she’d felt and tasted. How irresistible she’d been to him, so much so that he’d thrown caution and common sense to the wind in order to possess her.

Thank goodness he’d learned a little self-control in the last decade. Of course, he’d made sure never to cross paths with Iolanthe again.

Now Metaxas shot Iolanthe a troubled glance, but she said nothing. ‘Kyria Callos is naturally concerned about the nature of your business dealings—’

‘My actions towards Petra Innovation have been completely legal,’ Alekos cut him off smoothly. ‘Which is more than I can say for Talos Petrakis or Lukas Callos.’

Metaxas stiffened with affront. ‘Are you implying something—?’

‘Implying, no. Merely stating fact. Again.’ Alekos moved his gaze to Iolanthe once more. She was pale with shock, but her eyes snapped with fury, her mouth compressed. She still had her spirit, then. Why did that thought please him? Nothing about Iolanthe Callos pleased or even interested him. He had not thought of her in ten years. At least, he had made himself not think of her.

‘So after initiating a hostile takeover of my father’s company, you cast aspersions on him and my husband’s character?’ Iolanthe shook her head, her features pinching with dislike. ‘I suppose I should have expected nothing less from you. Next you will be insulting me as well.’

‘As far as I can tell, you are the only one casting insults.’

‘I really think this has gone far enough,’ Metaxas intervened. ‘Perhaps we can keep to discussing what Kyrie Demetriou intends for Petra Innovation—’

‘Of course.’ Colour flared in Iolanthe’s pale cheeks, making her look even lovelier. She was like a tall, dark flame, standing so straight and proud, refusing to be cowed. Alekos felt an unsettling mix of pity and admiration. Even so, her courage wouldn’t keep him from dealing the lethal blow he’d intended for so long. He only wished Talos Petrakis were alive to see and feel it.

‘I am more than happy to inform you both of my intentions for Petra Innovation,’ Alekos stated. He’d been responding emotionally to Iolanthe; it was time to stick to facts. To savour them, and the sweet revenge he’d now enjoy to the full, cold as it was. ‘My intention for Petra Innovation is to close the company and liquidate all of its assets.’ He glanced at Iolanthe, registering the lovely mouth that had dropped open in shock, the hands hanging slack and useless by her sides. ‘Forty per cent should keep you in relative comfort, although I’m afraid the company is not performing nearly as well as it once was.’ Not like when it had been flogging the software system he had designed. Tech wizard Callos might have been, but he had not ever been able to match Alekos’s inventions. Just copy them.

‘You can’t,’ Iolanthe whispered.

‘I can,’ Alekos informed her flatly. ‘Indeed I have already begun the process.’

‘You’re going to fire all the employees—’

‘Are you so concerned for those nameless faces, or is it your own position that worries you?’ Alekos cut across her, a new fury firing his voice. He’d thought he’d put this anger far, far behind him. But now, seeing Iolanthe here, knowing she had profited from his inventions, his work and life’s blood, all the while married to that leech Callos, sleeping in his bed—

Rage was not a strong enough word.

It had taken a while for him to realise that Lukas Callos was the technical genius behind Talos Petrakis’s business savvy; to understand that Callos had been the one to copy his design, at Petrakis’s behest, all those years ago. And Iolanthe had been sharing his bed, the pampered, spoiled wife.

‘How dare you accuse me?’ Iolanthe whispered, the words a breath of fury. ‘You, of all people—’

‘Clearly you hold me in low regard,’ Alekos drawled in a bored voice. ‘But it is of little consequence. The liquidation will go forward immediately.’

‘I think we should all take a moment to—’ Metaxas began, but Iolanthe cut across him, taking a step towards Alekos, one slender hand balled into a useless fist.

‘You can’t. Petra Innovation belongs to me.’

He stared at her, unmoved. ‘Not any more.’

‘My whole life, my son’s life—’

He’d heard she’d had a son by Callos. He’d never seen the boy, of course, and didn’t even know his name. And what did he care of his enemy’s birthright? His own had been taken from him when Petrakis had kissed him on both cheeks and then stolen his idea. His illusions had been ripped away first by the father, and then his daughter. He had none left.

‘I hope you are both adaptable,’ Alekos said coolly and Iolanthe let out a choked cry.

‘When I first met you, I thought you were a good man. You have proved me wrong again and again.’

Alekos stamped down on the flicker of regret he felt, a tiny, unfortunate flame that he quickly quenched. ‘Then perhaps you are a fool,’ he said coldly. ‘To believe something when the evidence proves otherwise. Or,’ he suggested, iron entering his voice, ‘perhaps you should question which is the good man and which is the bad in this scenario. Good day.’ Not trusting himself to say any more, he nodded tersely to both Metaxas and Iolanthe before turning to leave the room.

CHAPTER FIVE

‘HOW WAS IT?’

Amara, Iolanthe’s housekeeper and closest confidante for the last ten years, having cared for her since she was a child, met her at the doorway of the town house near the Plaka that she’d lived in since her marriage.

‘Terrible.’ Iolanthe only just managed to choke out the word. An hour after meeting Alekos and she was still caught between fury and fear.

Amara’s face paled as she took Iolanthe’s coat. ‘Let me get you a warm drink.’ Amara’s solution for everything was a cup of Greek mountain tea, considered a panacea in the region of central Greece from which she came. Over the years Iolanthe had learned to like the herbal tea, made of ironwort and flavoured with honey and lemon.

‘Thank you, Amara,’ she said as she moved past the housekeeper to the kitchen, the heart of the house. ‘But I’m afraid a cup of tea is not going to solve my problems now. Where is Niko?’

‘Upstairs, on the computer.’

As he so often was. Her son spent most of his time either reading, playing with his electrical gadgets, or on the computer. People and social situations were a continual struggle, despite Iolanthe’s determined and increasingly desperate attempts to have him socialise.

She sank into a chair at the kitchen table and pressed trembling fingers to her temple. She was shaken in more ways than she cared to admit by seeing Alekos again. Not just by his awful plans for the company, but by the sheer presence of the man himself. He was just as darkly and devastatingly attractive now as he’d been ten years ago, when he’d stolen both her heart and her innocence. Even more so, more forbidding, with no hint of a smile to curve that once mobile mouth, no promise of laughter to lighten those topaz eyes. He’d looked like an angry god from the old myths and legends, someone come down from the stars to wreak his vengeance. And he had. Oh, he had. How could she lose Petra Innovation?

Amara busied herself at the range, plucking the roots and stems of the ironwort plant she always kept in supply and boiling them in a little brass pot on the stovetop. ‘What has happened?’ she asked as she plucked a mug from the rack and squeezed lemon juice and honey into it. ‘I thought you went to speak to the solicitor as a matter of course.’

‘So did I.’ Iolanthe leaned back in her chair and briefly closed her eyes. It felt like an age since she’d taken a taxi to Metaxas’s office, blithely thinking he would simply number her assets. Instead he’d told her she might as well not have any.

‘Well, then?’ Amara asked, a touch of impatience adding to the anxiety in her voice. She’d been part of Iolanthe’s household for her entire marriage. ‘Tell me what has happened.’

‘Alekos Demetriou has taken over Petra Innovation.’ Amara’s eyes widened with surprise. No one knew that Alekos was Niko’s father, no one save her, her father, and Lukas. It had been an agreement they had made when Lukas had agreed to take Iolanthe as his wife. He would raise Niko as his own, and to the whole world they would present a happy, united front. Or at least try. In the end, Lukas had not tried very hard at all.

‘And what does this Demetriou intend to do with it?’ Amara asked.

Briefly Iolanthe told her. Amara listened in silence, setting the mug of hot, fragrant tea in front of Iolanthe before sitting across from her with her own cup.

‘Very well,’ she said when Iolanthe had finished. ‘But it is not so terrible, surely? Forty per cent should see you and Niko cared for, and you never had anything to do with the company.’

‘The company is Niko’s birthright,’ Iolanthe returned with feeling. ‘My father lived for that company, and so did Lukas.’ She took a sip of tea, swallowing the honey-sweetened liquid along with her bitterness. ‘Niko has always looked forward to being a part of it.’ Talos had, in the last years of his life, mellowed in his disappointment and anger towards Iolanthe, and he’d sometimes taken Niko to work with him, shown him the inheritance that shimmered so promisingly. Lukas had always ignored his cuckoo son, and Iolanthe suspected that Niko cared so much about Petra Innovation because he wanted to impress the man he believed to be his father. Now Lukas was dead, and the company was all her son had. ‘I can’t give it up without a fight. For Niko’s sake I need to try.’ She glanced up at Amara, forcing back the threat of tears. ‘You know what it means to him.’

Amara sighed. ‘Yes, but he is only nine.’

‘All he has ever wanted is to work for Petra Innovation,’ Iolanthe answered. ‘To make his father and grandfather proud.’ The tears she had blinked back now thickened in her throat. Niko had so many struggles, and only one hope. How could she take it from him?

‘And if you have no choice?’ Amara asked grimly.

‘I do have a choice,’ Iolanthe returned, and then closed her eyes against the realisation. She could tell Alekos that Niko was his son. Would he keep Petra Innovation for his own son? Could she gamble on some hidden compassion and softness that Alekos had yet to show her? And it was a gamble; she didn’t know if she dared risk whatever repercussions such an admission would cause. Everything felt fraught.

‘What do you mean, you have a choice?’ Amara asked. ‘If this man has the controlling shares...’

‘I can talk to him.’ Resolutely Iolanthe put down her cup of tea and squared her shoulders. ‘I have to talk to him.’

After finishing her tea and talk with Amara, Iolanthe headed upstairs to the top floor of the town house that had been converted into a suite of rooms for Niko. She stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, watching him with a familiar ache in her heart. He was at his desk, his golden-brown gaze narrowed as he studied the code on the computer screen, completely absorbed in what he was doing, unaware of his surroundings or her presence.

‘Niko.’ Iolanthe spoke gently, knowing her son needed a little time to focus on a person after staring so long at a screen. ‘What are you doing, pethi mou?’

Niko tensed at the sound of her voice and then slowly turned away from the screen, blinking his mother into focus. ‘An app.’

‘You’re making another app?’

He nodded, his expression serious and a little wary. Social interaction had always been fraught for him. ‘Which one is it this time?’ Iolanthe asked lightly. She perched on the edge of the desk, making sure to stay well away from the computer Niko loved and obsessed over. Once she’d dared to touch the keyboard and a near meltdown had ensued. She knew better now.

Niko shrugged thin shoulders, his gaze sliding away from hers as it so often did. From the time he was a baby, Iolanthe had struggled to forge that connection that so many mothers took for granted. She loved her son, she had no doubt about that. She loved him with a fierce and aching fury, wanting to protect him because he was different, because there were so many things he didn’t understand. But she didn’t always feel that Niko loved her. Sometimes she wondered if her son knew how to love. She felt guilty and mean for the thought; Niko showed love in his own way. She knew that, had argued the point fiercely to Lukas and her father, and yet in the quiet grief of her own heart she wondered. She feared.

‘Niko?’ Iolanthe prompted gently. ‘What’s the app?’

He shrugged, looking away from her. ‘Just a thing to keep track of your zombie power points.’

‘Right.’ As if she knew what that meant. In the last year Niko had started designing apps for some of the more popular online games, one of them apparently involving zombies. At Iolanthe’s encouragement, he’d shown them to Lukas, shyly, but Lukas had dismissed them and him with one cursory glance. Iolanthe feared that Niko, in his silence and isolation, had absorbed his father’s rejection, and it made him withdraw even more. She tried to support and encourage Niko as best she could, but she’d been out of her depth with his technical knowledge for years. ‘So what are power points?’ she asked. ‘Are they good or bad?’

‘Good. People buy them online for a lot of money.’

‘Wow. And your app keeps track of them?’

Niko confirmed this with a little nod, his gaze already moving back to the computer screen.

‘That sounds cool, Niko,’ Iolanthe said, and dared to touch her son’s hair with the tips of her fingertips.

He ducked away and Iolanthe withdrew her hand. ‘Did you meet with the solicitor?’ he asked after a few seconds, his gaze still on the screen.

‘Yes.’ She’d told him about her meeting last night before bed.

Niko turned to glance at her, his golden eyes, so much like Alekos’s, narrowing. ‘And what did he say? Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine, Niko,’ Iolanthe assured him. How could she tell him anything else? He might act as if he were much older in some ways, but her son was nine. She couldn’t burden him with her financial troubles. Except they were his too, because Petra Innovation was meant to be his. Needed to be his. Taking that away from Niko would be like taking away his reason to live. Talking about Petra Innovation made his eyes light with excitement and brought him out of his untouchable silence to something close to a chatterbox. Niko needed Petra Innovation. He needed the hope of something better and bigger that he could be a part of.

Briefly Iolanthe closed her eyes as regret swamped through her. How had Lukas let this happen? How had she? Maybe she should have taken more of an interest in the company, insisted on knowing what was going on, and in doing so safeguarded her son’s inheritance.

The prospect was, she knew, laughable. She didn’t know the first thing about the business. And her father and Lukas would have never countenanced her interest anyway. They’d barely tolerated her presence, always reminding her of her shame.

‘Mama?’ The endearment sounded strange on her son’s lips; he rarely used it. ‘Are you sure everything is all right?’

‘Yes.’ Iolanthe took a deep breath and smiled at her son. She would not burden Niko with this. She would figure out a way to keep Petra Innovation for her son. She owed it to him to keep his dream alive; she owed it to herself. She’d given up so much already, all in payment for her crimes—the crime of giving her body to a cold and cruel man. ‘Everything’s fine, Niko.’ She patted his hand, winning a shy, uncertain smile from him that felt like a triumph. Smiling back, she rose from her perch on his desk, leaving him to his app.

Somehow she had to find a way forward.

* * *

Alekos pushed his laptop away, disgusted with himself and his inability to concentrate since seeing Iolanthe yesterday. After leaving the offices of Petra Innovation, he’d wandered the streets of Athens’ business district, too restless and on edge to return to his own office. Too beset by memories.

Memories of Iolanthe, her face, her voice, her body. Her throaty laugh, like strains of music he hadn’t realised he still longed to hear. Her mouth, opening under his, a flower whose scent and nectar he realised he’d never forgotten. And the feel of him inside her, the way she’d accepted him into her body, and how in that moment he’d felt, powerful and vulnerable at the same time, as if he’d scaled a mountain and come home all at once.

How had he forgotten all that? Why had he remembered it now? Iolanthe had changed. He had changed. And he had no use for her any more, if he ever had.

Now he rose from his desk in the penthouse office of Demetriou Tech and gazed out at the city skyline. He could see the ancient Acropolis in the distance, and he recalled how he’d seen it that night with Iolanthe on the balcony, when he’d been desperate to kiss her. He just hadn’t realised how much until his lips had touched hers.

Alekos swore under his breath and spun away from the window. He had to stop thinking this way. He had to stop remembering so damn much. And probably remembering it better than it was—it had been a single night of madness, a sexual encounter he’d been quick to dismiss as soon as it was over. No point in making more of it than there ever had been.

And yet he still felt restless. Where was the sense of satisfaction, of justice finally served? He’d been waiting for the day he was able to shut the doors on Petra Innovation for nearly fifteen years. When Callos had offered the shares on the open market six months ago, Alekos had known he finally had his chance.

Yet leaving Iolanthe in the CEO’s office, he hadn’t felt the savage surge of satisfaction he’d both craved and expected. He’d felt...empty. Cheated, even, although he couldn’t say how or why.

‘Kyria Iolanthe Callos to see you, sir.’ The voice of his PA coming through the intercom had Alekos stiffening. Iolanthe had come here—why? To beg for Petra Innovation?

His mouth curved in a grim smile. Then he would let her beg.

* * *

Iolanthe stepped through the double doors into Alekos’s office and forced both her step and voice to stay steady. It took a lot of effort. Just the sight of him standing there, one hand resting on his desk, his face so cold and closed and beautiful, made her heart flutter in her chest and every calm, confident thing she’d been planning to say empty from her head.

He looked forbidding but he also looked devastatingly attractive in his navy pinstriped, three-piece suit, his ebony hair cut close and emphasising his sharp cheekbones, those tawny eyes that his son had inherited. His mouth was a hard line but Iolanthe remembered when it had been soft and open on hers. She remembered the way his fingers had felt stroking her cheek...

‘What are you doing here, Iolanthe?’

He didn’t sound quite as unfriendly as he had that awful night when she’d come by, thinking to tell him she was pregnant. Recalling how harsh and unwelcoming he’d looked then thankfully forced away the memory of his kisses.

‘I wanted to talk to you.’ To her relief her voice came out strong. Mostly.

‘I didn’t realise we had anything to talk about.’

‘Why do you want to liquidate Petra Innovation?’ She hadn’t meant to speak so plainly, so desperately. She’d meant to come from a stronger stance so they could have a civilised discussion among equals, and she could act as if she were in control. But why bother? They both knew she wasn’t.

Alekos regarded her for a long, level moment, those opaque golden eyes giving nothing away. ‘Because it serves no purpose.’

‘Then why did you buy it all? Why buy something just to sell it?’

‘To make a profit.’

‘Did you? After buying up all those shares?’ Iolanthe’s stomach cramped as the realisation hit her afresh. ‘It really is just revenge,’ she stated, and Alekos simply kept giving her that awful blank stare. ‘It’s always been about revenge for you.’

He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her, cold, closed, formidable. ‘Then you know.’

‘I know you’ve hated my father for having an idea you couldn’t come up with,’ Iolanthe fired back, too angry now to guard her words. ‘For not being as fast or as clever as he was. It’s not just revenge, it’s—it’s nothing more than sour grapes!’

Alekos’s expression didn’t change and yet he seemed even more still, more dangerous, like a predator about to spring and devour. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked in an ominously low voice.

Iolanthe quelled underneath that voice and gaze but she still held her ground. ‘He told me all about the history between you two, after...’ She trailed away, a treacherous flush sweeping over her entire body as she remembered that after. After she’d given herself to Alekos, body and soul. After she’d stupidly thought they had some kind of connection, some kind of future.

‘He told you about our history?’ Alekos clarified. ‘And he said I wasn’t as—what was it?—as fast or as clever as he was?’

‘Yes...’

He strolled to the window, his hands clasped behind his back, and gazed out at the azure sky. ‘He came up with an idea that I couldn’t.’

Iolanthe eyed him uncertainly. He’d spoken the words like a statement, but it felt more like a question. Something was still unsaid, unresolved. ‘Something like that. He didn’t give me the details. He just said there was a software system he’d designed more quickly than you had.’

‘Is that right?’ He sounded so diffident, as if this were a matter of casual interest, yet she could feel the tension and even the anger reverberating through the room. The air felt electric with it.