Blackmailed By The Greek's Vows

She didn’t even have cash for a taxi, but if she’d learnt anything in the last nine months of this flailing about she’d been doing in the name of independence, it was that she could survive.

She could survive without designer clothes and shoes, she could survive without the adulation she’d taken as her due as the fashionista that Milan looked up to, she could survive without the Conti villa and the cars and the expensive lifestyle.

She picked up her clutch from the bed, her phone from the floor. “If you won’t leave, I will.”

He blocked the door with his shoulders. “Not dressed like a cheap hooker, strutting for business at dawn, you’re not.”

“I don’t want—”

“I will throw you over my shoulder and lock you up in the stateroom.”

It should have sounded dramatic, emotional. But Kairos didn’t do drama. Didn’t utter a word he didn’t mean. And if he so much as touched her...

“Fine. Let’s talk.” She threw her clutch back on the bed and faced him. “Even better, why don’t you call your lawyer and have him bring divorce papers? I’ll sign them right now and we won’t see each other ever again.”

He didn’t exactly startle. But again, Tina had the feeling that something in him became alert. She had...surprised him? Shocked him?

What did he think her leaving him had meant?

He stretched out his wrists, undid the cufflinks on his right hand—platinum cufflinks she’d bought him for their three-month anniversary with her brother’s credit card—and pushed back the sleeve.

A shiver of anticipation curled around her spine.

He stretched his left hand toward her. Being left-handed, he’d always undone the right cuff link first. But the right hand...his fingers didn’t do fine motor skills well. She’d noted it on their wedding night, how they had felt clumsy when he tried to do anything.

For a physically perfect specimen of masculinity, it had been a shock to note that the fingers of his right hand didn’t work quite right. When she’d asked if he’d hurt his hand, he’d kissed her instead. The second time she’d asked, he’d just shrugged.

His usual response when he didn’t want to talk.

She’d taken his left hand in hers and deftly undone the cufflink on their wedding night. And a thousand times after that.

It was one of a hundred rituals they’d had as man and wife. Such intimacy in a simple action. So much history in an everyday thing.

Tina stared at the blunt, square nails now, her breath ballooning up in her chest; the long fingers sprinkled with hair to the plain platinum band on his ring finger; the rough calluses on his palm because he didn’t wear gloves when he lifted weights. It was a strong, powerful hand and yet when he touched her in the most sensitive places, it was capable of such feathery, tender movements.

A sheen of sweat coated every inch of her skin.

Dios, she couldn’t bear to touch him.

Without meeting his gaze, she took a few steps away from him. “What do I have to do to make you believe that I’m done with this marriage? That my behavior is not dictated anymore by trying to get you to acknowledge my existence?”

He smirked, noting the distance she’d put between them. “Is that what you did during our marriage?”

She leaned against the opposite wall and shrugged. “I want to talk about the divorce.”

“You really want one?”

“Si. Whatever we had was not healthy and I don’t want to live like that anymore.”

“So Leandro enlightened you about the fat settlement you will receive then.”

“What?”

“Your brother made sure you would receive a huge chunk of everything I own should we separate. Bloody insistent, if I remember correctly.” His shrug highlighted those muscle-packed shoulders. “Maybe Leandro knew how hard you would make it for any man to stay married to you.”

“You think that will hurt me? Leandro...” Her voice caught, the gulf she had put between her brothers and her a physical ache. “He practically raised me, he loved me when he could have hated me for our mother deserting him and Luca. And I still cut him out of my life because he thought so little of me that he had to bribe you to marry me. In the grand scheme of things that I’ve lost and learned, this marriage and anything I get by dissolving it...they mean nothing to me, Kairos.”

He was upon her in the blink of an eye. The scent of him—a hint of male sweat and the mild thread of his cologne—hit her first. Awareness pooled low in her belly. He didn’t touch her, and yet the heat of his body was a languid caress.

“How will you afford your haute couture and your designer stilettos then?”

“I haven’t touched your credit cards in months. I haven’t taken a single Euro from Leandro or Luca. Even the clothes I wear belong to Nikolai.”

“Ah...” His gaze raked down the length of her body. The edge of cruelty in it stole her breath even as her skin tingled at his perusal. He nodded toward the happily snoring figure behind him on the bed. “Of course, your pimp dresses you now.”

“Nikolai is not a pimp and he tricked me into believing tonight was just a party.”

“I have to admit, only Valentina Constantinou could make a tacky, slinky dress look stylish and sophisticated. But that skill is not really helping, is it? Paris chewed you out and threw you back to Milan after a mere two months. Since then, you’ve been licking the boots of everyone at that fashion magazine. Fetching coffee for those bitchy socialites, when you had once been their queen bee, running errands in the rain for photographers and models that salivated over you for years...” His gaze swept over her in that dismissive way of his. “Have you had enough of reality? Are you ready to return to your life of luxury?”

She wasn’t surprised he knew what she’d been up to in the last few months. “I don’t care how long it takes, I mean to—”

“Is that why you decided to try your hand at the oldest profession in the world?”

“You’re the one who bought me from Leandro, remember? If anyone made me a whore, Kairos, it was you.” Every hurt she felt poured out into her words, all her promises to herself to keep it civil forgotten.

“I did not pursue you under false pretenses. I did not take you to bed, hoping that a good performance would bring me closer to the CEO position of the Conti board.”

A blaze lit up in his silvery eyes, tight lines fanning around his mouth.

He tugged her and Tina fell onto him with a soft gasp. Hard muscles pushed against her breasts, sending shock waves through her. “Believe me, pethi mou, if there is one aspect of our marriage that both of us agree on, it is in bed.”

His fingers wrapped around her nape in a possessive hold, a flicker of arousal and something else etched onto his features.

“You’re the one who broke our marriage vows, Valentina. You’re the one who avowed her love in passionate statements and sensational gestures, ne? Again and again. All I wanted was a civil marriage. Then, the fickle, spoilt brat that you are, you ran away because your little fantasy world where you rule as a queen and I fall at your feet crumbled. You leave no note. No message. You tell my security guard you’re visiting your damned brothers. I imagined you kidnapped and waited for a ransom note. I imagined your body lying in some morgue because you met with an accident. I imagined one of the women or men you insulted with your cruel words may have been pushed to the limit and wrung your pretty neck.”

Heart thundering, Valentina stared.

His fingers dug into her tender flesh with a grip she was sure would leave bruises. She’d never seen him like this, smoldering with a barely banked fire. “Until Leandro took pity on me and informed me that you had simply walked out on me. On our marriage.”

Tina sagged against the wall, a strange twisting in her belly. He had been worried about her safety. Terrified for her. “I’m... I’m sorry. I didn’t think...”

“Too little, too late.”

He was right. If nothing else, he deserved an explanation. “I was furious with you and with Leandro. I had just learned that I was not a Conti but a bastard child my mother had with her chauffeur. That you married me as part of a bloody deal. You’ve had nine months to come after me.” The words slipped past her tongue, desperate, pathetic.

And just like that, any emotion she had spied in his eyes was wiped away. He stared at his fingers pressing into her flesh, his other hand kneading her hip.

His eyes widened fractionally before he stepped back. Stopped touching her. “The moment Leandro informed me what you’d done, I stopped thinking of you. I had other matters—urgent, important matters—to deal with rather than chase my impulsive brat of a wife through Europe.”

A fist to her heart would have been less painful.

But this was good, Tina reassured herself. She’d needed this talk with him. She’d needed to hear these words from Kairos’s mouth. Now, she could stop wondering—in the middle of the night, alone in her bed—if she’d made a mistake.

If their marriage deserved another chance.

After tonight, she wouldn’t have to see him again. Never hear those hateful words again. “Bene. You had important matters and I had enough time to think my decision through. I had nine months to realize what I did on impulse was right. I do not care whether you pay me alimony or not because I would not touch it. I intend to make something out of myself.”

“By whoring yourself out to Russian investors? By dressing like a cheap tramp? Admit it, Valentina. You’ve gotten nowhere in nine months except ending up with that buffoon who wants to get in your pants. You have no talent. No skills. Your connections were the only things of value about you.”

“I know that. Believe me, I have learned a lifetime’s worth of lessons in these nine months. The only good thing about this is that whatever connections you thought I would bring you as the Conti heiress are now lost.”

“Your brothers haven’t disowned you.”

“I have cut all my connections with them. With that life. I’m of no more use to you.”

“Ah...so that is your petty revenge? To deny what I planned to get by cutting yourself off from your brothers temporarily?”

“You give both me and your role in my life too much credit, Kairos. I love my brothers. Every day I spend away from them tears my heart. But it is the price I have to pay to face myself in the mirror.”

Finally, it seemed that she was getting through to him. And still, ruthlessness was etched onto his every feature. “This marriage is not done until I say it is done.”

“All I want is a teeny signature on a piece of paper. Ask me to sign away that alimony Leandro set up and I will. I will do anything you ask of me to be released from this marriage. You already wrote me out of your life when you decided not to come after me nine months ago, Kairos. I was nothing but a disappointment to you. So why drag this on? Is it just because your masculine pride is dented? Is it because, once again, I made you lose your rigid self-control?”

“Whether you want it or not, whether you touch it or not, half of what is mine will be yours for years to come. If I’m going to pay through the nose for the mistake of indulging you in your foolish fantasies of everlasting love, for putting up with your temper tantrums, for the pleasure of having you in my bed, I would like three more months of marriage, agapita. And maybe, a little more of you for that price tag.”

“A little more of me for that price...” Tina whispered, his words gouging through her already battered heart.

Her hand flew at him, outrage filling her every pore.

His lightning-fast reflexes didn’t let her slap land. With a gentleness that belied the hard, wiry strength of his body, he held her wrist between them, crowding her body against the wall until it kissed the line of her spine.

Hardness and heat, he was so male. Her five-inch stilettos made up for the height difference between them until she was perfectly molded against him. Muscular thighs straddled hers. His granite chest grazed the tips of her breasts, making her nipples tighten and ache. And against her belly... Maledizione, his arousal was lengthening and hardening.

Damp heat uncurled between Tina’s thighs. A whimper flew from her mouth—a needy and desperate plea for more. She clenched her thighs on instinct. “I do not even use my hands or my mouth. Yet you’re damp and ready for me, ne?”

Breath shallow, she fought for control over her body, over the hunger he lit so easily. “As you said, it’s why other men follow me around. I’m hot and uninhibited in bed, si? I could always match your sexual appetite and we both know it’s insatiable. That I’m like a bitch in heat right now is not a point in your favor. You give good sex, Kairos. It was the one place where I was happy as your wife.”

A lick of temper awakened in his silver eyes. “Tell me, Valentina. Do you get hot like this for any other man? For the fool lying in the bed behind us?” He twisted his hips in that way of his.

His erection rubbed against the lips of her sex and she jerked.

Pleasure was a fork in her spine, setting fire along her nerves. She could feel that thick rigidness inside her, could see the tight control etched onto his features as he moved inside her. She craved the softening of his gaze, the few moments of the real Kairos, tender and caring, that she used to glimpse after he found his release.

And she still wanted that man. Like a puppy that had been kicked but still came back for more.

His mouth was at her cheekbone and his stubble chafed her lips. A wet, open kiss at her pulse. “I have other uses for you, wife...along with a few more months in my bed.” His hands moved to cup her buttocks and pulled her against his hardness.

His mouth trailed lazily along her jawline, heading for her lips—the depth of her want, the fire along her skin—and she could taste the release in her fevered muscles.

“Admit defeat, Valentina. You can pretend all you want but your best bet is to be a rich man’s trophy wife. It is not a bad role for you. Accept your limitations. Adjust your expectations. Just as I did when your brother Luca stood in the way of the Conti board CEO position. I want nothing more from a wife, and who knows? You can maybe even persuade me to give this marriage another try.”

He was angry she had walked out.

No, not angry, she realized, running shaking hands through her hair.

He was furious with an icy, cold edge to it. Every word and caress of his was meant to provoke her with its cruelty. She’d never seen him like that.

It was more temper than she’d seen of him in all of their relationship so far—and, by God, she’d done every awful thing she could think of to provoke it.

But he wasn’t asking her back. He didn’t want to give their marriage another chance. He didn’t want to give her a chance.

No, all he wanted was a sop to his male ego. All he wanted was to punish her for daring to leave him, for calling him out on his ruthless ambition.

That pain gave her a rope with which to climb out of the sensual haze. To deny herself what she’d never been able to before—his touch.

“Please, Kairos, release me.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, he let her go. Pupils drenched with lust, he stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she could put a stop to it.

Shaking but determined to hold herself up, she met his gaze. “What do I have to do to get you to agree to a divorce? To get you to leave me alone?”

He looked taken aback but recovered fast. “Three months as my wife.”

“Why? Why do you need me now? Other than because you want to punish me for walking out on you?”

“I have a debt to pay to Theseus.”

“The man who brought you home from the streets, the one who adopted you?”

“Ne.”

“And for this, you need to have a wife?”

“Yes. His daughter Helena—”

“Is causing trouble between you and him? You want me to take her on? I don’t understand how your wife’s presence will help...” The words trailed away from her lips as she saw his closed off expression. A mocking laugh rose. “Non, I’ve got it, I think. The daughter wants you and you want to say no without hurting anyone’s feelings. How noble of you, Kairos.”

His brow cleared, relief dawning in his eyes. “Theseus deserves nothing less from me.”

The depth of his sincerity shook Tina. She had never seen Kairos feel that strongly about anyone or anything. Except wealth and power and the amassing of it.

“This is the only way you get your divorce, Valentina.”

“You cannot drag me back into that life against my will.”

“But I can fight the divorce proceedings. Make your life into the media circus that you suddenly appear to abhor. And even worse, one wrong word or move from me toward you will bring forth your brothers’ fury upon me and their interference in your life...if you truly intend to make it on your own, that would be hell.”

Tina stared at him, amazed despite the anger pouring through her. He was calling her bluff about all this—the new direction she wanted to take in life.

She was damned if she answered it, damned if she didn’t. She didn’t want to spend another moment with him and yet he had left her no choice.

She sighed. “You will release me when things are clarified?”

“When things are clarified to my satisfaction, yes. No sooner. I’m warning you, Valentina, I want a perfect wife. No tantrums. No reckless escapades. You could even leave with the fat settlement the divorce will award you with the satisfaction that you’ve truly earned it. A novel feeling, I assure you.”

“And if I sleep with you to earn it, you will have truly made me a whore, si, Kairos? Will your dented ego be repaired then? Because, hear me out, Kairos. My body might be willing but my heart is not.”

The growl he swallowed down filled her with vicious satisfaction.

Valentina smiled for the first time in nine months.

Now all she’d have to do was convince herself of what she had told him.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT DO I have to do to get you to leave me alone?

She truly wanted out of their marriage.

The realization moved through Kairos like an earthquake as he stared down at her sleeping form in the rear cabin of his private jet.

He’d only thought of how he would punish her when he found her. How good she would feel under him once again. How he would provoke her temper until she came at him all explosive fury and uncontained passion.

But she’d done nothing of the sort.

Oh, she’d lost control a couple of times and given him back as much as he’d deserved, but that was nothing to the Valentina he had known.

It was as if he was looking at a stranger.

If I sleep with you to earn it, you will have truly made me a whore.

Christos, only she could find such an appalling twist to what he had suggested.

But then since he was blackmailing her into his bed, was it any wonder that she had fought dirty?

He should have been impervious to her passionate, fiery declarations after ten months of living with her and her infamous tempers. Should have been unaffected by the sounds of her moans, the slide of her lithe body against his when he touched her.

That he wasn’t, disconcerted him on a level he didn’t understand.

His physical need for her and only her, and the fact that neither the sweet Stella nor any of the women who had readily offered him a place in their bed in the nine months since Valentina had walked out on him had remotely even tempted him, he could still somehow explain.

Like she had so crudely pointed out, Valentina was explosive in bed. He had been more than surprised when he’d discovered her virginity on their wedding night.

Valentina, as he’d quickly learned to his tremendous satisfaction, was an utterly sensual creature. Whatever he had taught her in bed, she’d not only taken to it enthusiastically but her innate curiosity for his body, her relentless eagerness to return every pleasure he had shown her. That she had remained untouched had been a shock.

She possessed a quick temper and an even quicker sexual trigger, and Christos, he’d reveled in making her explode to his slightest caresses. Tender and drawn-out, or explosive and fast, her passion had matched his own.

No man could be blamed for becoming obsessed like he had.

He needed Valentina with a fervor he didn’t care or need to understand, and he would have her.

But the hurt in her eyes as he had dealt one cruel statement after the other, hoping to get her temper to rise, festered like an unhealed wound in the hours since he’d arranged for them to travel to Greece.

He should be grateful that the blinders were torn from her eyes. That she would not look at him anymore as if he were her knight in shining armor. Or the man who’d fulfilled all her romantic fantasies.

Whether they divorced or not, it was a good thing she had finally learned the truth.

He had no familiarity or place in his life for tender feelings or love. They demanded a price he couldn’t afford, however wealthy he had become.

But the sight of her huge brown eyes as he’d torn her into shreds with his words wouldn’t leave him alone. He hadn’t pulled any of his punches and she had taken them as if they were her due.

He didn’t believe for a second that Valentina would stick to her chosen path or that she had what it took to succeed in her career.

She was just too undisciplined, too impulsive, too spoilt for the hard work it entailed. But still, for the first time in his life, Kairos felt as if he had stood up to the title that had haunted him all his childhood.

Bastard.

He was a bastard.

For even knowing that she would end up in his bed, even acknowledging that something intrinsic had changed in Valentina and he was the one who had caused it, knowing that he would hurt her, he still couldn’t walk away from her.

Neither would he keep her.

For all that she’d professed her love for him, she had proved that she was like the rest—using love as manipulation, and then breaking her word.

No one was important enough for him to risk that, to forget the lesson he had already learned.

Love was nothing but a game.

* * *

For all your avowals, you left. You proved how little your words mean.

The words and the sentiment behind them stung Tina as she lathered up in the small shower cubicle.

Had there been an infinitesimal thread of complaint in Kairos’s tone? Was she just reading too much when there was nothing again?

She had, at every available moment and opportunity, prostrated her feelings at his feet. Made a spectacle of herself.

How dare he think she’d given in too easily?

She wrapped a towel around herself, and stepped out.

Designer-label bags in every size and color covered the bed.

Mothership to Valentina... Calling now.

A soft sigh emerged from her lips.

She lasted nineteen seconds before she pulled the soft tissue out of the first bag and discovered a black cold-shoulder blouse and white capri pants. More casual pants and blouses. She counted four dresses ranging from a cocktail dress to a pale pink ball gown that would show off her tan beautifully.

Small, silky tissue bags of underwear and everything in her size. Makeup bags with her favorite lipsticks and perfumes with designer labels.

The bras were from the designer label she loved and sinfully expensive—two of them she had discovered recently would pay for her food for a month. And of the push-up kind she’d always preferred to make the most of her nonexistent boobage.

Sliding to the bed in her towel, Tina fingered the butter-soft cushioning of a push-up bra. In some throwaway remark he had made once when they’d watched an old Hollywood movie, she’d realized her husband had a thing for big breasts.