‘Iammarried.’
In the time it took her to blink in shock, her heart had turned to ice. Fingers tightening their grip on her cutlery, she had to swallow to say, ‘You’remarried?’
He raised his glass of water. ‘To my business.’ He smiled wryly. ‘That’s what a number of girlfriends have told me.’
The ice melted, warmth rushing to her head, almost dizzying her. She laughed reflexively. ‘And are they right?’
He lifted a meaty shoulder in a shrug. ‘Probably. In the early years, definitely. I knew I had the brains to make a success of the software I’d developed, but I didn’t have the money or connections.’
This would be the tech start-up he was talking about, Athena thought. An inbuilt safety device for computers that made them unhackable.
‘Making it work took seven years of twenty-hour days and most of that was spent teaching myself English and trying to get my foot in the door of investors and then buyers,’ he continued. ‘That left no time for romance. Once I’d made it a success, I knew I could lose it all if I took my eye off the ball. The next big thing can easily become tomorrow’s forgotten thing. I wasn’t going to let that happen to me.’
‘But surely you’re worth so much now that you don’t need to work?’
‘I could sell everything and live like a prince until the end of time,’ he agreed. ‘But I’d be bored out of my skull in days.’
‘So why not marry? Even I know you don’t work twenty-hour days any more.’
‘While you’re filing your nails in the evenings, I’m usually holding conference calls with my Californian team.’
‘That’s defamatory. I’ve never filed my own nails in my life.’
His face creased and he gave a low rumble of laughter.
Athena had never heard him laugh before. There had been many times she’d been certain he’d come close to it, but this was the first time she’d heard it and it sank into her skin like a sunbeam.
‘Workaholic tendencies aside, I’m fussy. If I’m going to marry, I want a woman who’s going to slot seamlessly into my life and understand the business comes first and that she can’t make demands on my time. I want a wife who’s going to be an asset to me and the business, not a noose around my neck.’
‘Have you considered using technology to create an android of this paragon? Because I hate to tell you, she doesn’t exist in human form.’
He shook his head with another rumble of laughter. ‘Then I shall live out my existence married to my business. I’ve studied your father enough to see how marrying the wrong woman can be fatal. He built his own business like I did, but he was too intent on having a good time and maintaining that pointless vendetta with the Antoniadises to protect it. If your brother hadn’t stepped in and taken control, you could all have lost everything.’
‘I can’t argue with that,’ she agreed with an easiness she no longer felt on the inside. ‘But marriage wasn’t the cause of it. I hate Rebecca as much as anyone, but she’s not to blame. Life has always been one big party to him. My father thinks with his cock—when he’s not screwing it into any woman who catches his eye, he’s waving it at his rivals…’ Her voice trailed away, and she whispered, ‘But you already know that.’
The lightness that had sparkled in Draco’s eyes throughout their conversation had vanished. ‘The day it happened, my mother’s father died. Your father took advantage of her grief but he never screwed her. It never went that far, and yet it was she who lost her livelihood and her home and had her name blackened.’
She felt the last of the lightness drain out of her, her heart tightening the way it always did whenever she thought of Cora Manolis. ‘I’m sorry. Rebecca spoke so vilely about her, and my father has had so many affairs and flings over the years…’ She shook her head to clear a sickening image that had flashed in her mind, of the time she’d gone to the spa of their yacht when they’d been on a family holiday and caught her father with one of the crew. He’d barely broken his stride, telling her to come back in five minutes.
Her appetite gone, she put her cutlery down and finished what she’d been saying. ‘I assumed the same thing happened to your mother as it did to all the others.’
Athena, Draco knew, was an expert at faking contrition. There was nothing fake about the remorse evident in her green eyes now.
‘You were a child,’ he said evenly, speaking through a rock that seemed to have lodged itself in his throat.
‘I know, but that doesn’t excuse how I spoke about her that time. I really am sorry for that.’
‘You’ve already apologised.’
‘I just felt it needed saying again.’
‘Put it behind you. I have.’
Her stare, so much more intelligent than she wanted people to believe, intensified. ‘Have you really?’
There was an unbearable impulse tingling in his fingers to cover her hand. He could still feel the imprint on his skin from where her hand had slipped into his while she’d slept. ‘Yes.’ He took a heavy breath. ‘My mother would want me to put it behind me. She still thinks the world of you.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Really?’
