I smirked, imagining her face when I finally got even. After years of planning the perfect revenge, it had literally pulled me to safety on a dusty road outside Athens. And from the taste of Tia’s lips and the fire in her eyes, this would be the most enjoyable payback ever.
I could feel my father’s glare before I sat down. Taking my place at the large table in the center of our family’s grand dining hall, I nodded at my gathered relatives.
The dining hall was already alive with the familiar sounds of my family. My uncle Dimitrios’s booming laugh, Uncle Konstantin’s lower tones, and the conspiratorial whispers of my Yiayia Domnaand Theia Irida. We were all here except my cousin Matthaios, who lived abroad.
The scent of warm bread and honey wafted from silver platters, a comfort signaling an ordinary morning for the Christakis dynasty. If there was one thing my family took seriously beyond business, it was food.
“What did the doctor say?” my father, Aristides, pounced before I could sit.
“Mild concussion,” I replied, flashing a dismissive grin. “Nothing that will keep me off the track next week.”
“You look pale, agori mou,” Yiayia said softly, brushing my face with her fingers. “Your energy is all wrong.
“I’m fine, Yiayia,” I assured her, catching her fingers and pressing them to my lips.
“That bandage is misaligned,” Theia Irida observed, adjusting her glasses. “And your color’s off. You shouldn’t be upright.”
I held out my cup for the server hovering at my shoulder, inhaling the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee while buying time to formulate a response that would placate the matriarchs without revealing the stabbing pain in my side.
“How could you be this careless?” My father continued. “You could have gotten yourself killed! You destroyed a car that wasn’t even on the market yet.” His voice hardened,each word a hammer strike. “Have you no respect for the work that goes into building these machines?”
Dimitrios, intervened. “Santo has learned his lesson, Aris. The boy’s alive. That’s what matters.”
My father shot him an icy glare that would have frozen the Aegean in August. “Stay out of this.” He turned back to me, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “I would be planning a funeral right now if this American hadn’t pulled you to safety.”
He was right, though I’d never admit it aloud. I’d come frighteningly close to meeting my mother yesterday. In that split second when the car went airborne, teetering at the edge of the cliff, I’d had the sudden, crystal-clear thought that I might not walk away this time.
If Tia hadn’t risked her safety to drag me from the car before it tumbled down, I would indeed be dead. Though, if she hadn’t been dancing in the middle of the road, I wouldn’t have needed to swerve in the first place.
The memory of the dance still burned in my mind. The sway of her hips, the unbridled sensuality of her movements before she spotted my car.
“Be more careful next time, Santo,” my uncle Konstantin finally spoke up, his tone gentler than my father’s. “The company needs its future CEO intact.”
“Indeed,” Irida said. “We can’t afford to lose our heir. You’re too valuable.”
I smiled at her, leaning into their affection. My Yiayia and Theia loved me like no one else. They were always on my side, which was precisely why I didn’t mention the persistent ache in my side since dawn.
“Speaking of life,” I said, deliberately steering the conversation away from my father’s impending lecture. I turned to my grandmother, who was still fussing with my bandaged forehead. “Yiayia, did you invite Antonis Tsolakidis to your birthday celebration this weekend?”
Antonis Tsolakidis’ shipping company had been handling international transport for Olympus Motors for decades, a business relationship that remained rock-solid despite my messy history with his daughter, Katalina.
“Of course I did,” she replied, her eyes twinkling with interest at my question. “Why do you ask, agori mou?”
I shrugged, keeping my tone casual while reaching for a fresh bread roll, tearing it open to release a cloud of steam. “Just curious. I saw Katalina at a party a night ago.”
“Ah,” my grandmother said, with a sly smile. “Yes, Antonis confirmed they’ll attend. He mentioned Katalina would be joining, and she’s bringing someone with her.”
Dimitrios glanced up from his tablet. “Katalina has a boyfriend?” He navigated the question with the delicacy of a man testing thin ice, clearly gauging my reaction.
My grandmother’s eyes twinkled as she stirred more honey into her tea. “That’s what I gathered. Perhaps even someone serious.”
Uncle Konstantin cleared his throat. “We should arrange the seating charts to keep Santo and Katalina at opposite ends of the room. No need for unnecessary drama at Yiayia’s celebration.”
“Why would I care?” I interjected, spreading fig jam on bread, enjoying the private knowledge they all lacked. “Katalina’s romantic life is of no concern to me.”
My family exchanged glances laced with visible relief. They’d all tiptoed around me after our breakup, assuming I was nursing a broken heart rather than a wounded ego.
“Good,” my father said firmly, knife slicing through his omelet. “The Tsolakidis partnership is too valuable to complicate with personal matters.”
