ATHENA CLIMBED INTOthe back of the car with Grace and Draco. She felt sick. The evening had gone to hell, and now Draco sat in brooding silence, Grace in less brooding silence but clearly thinking about Josefina and wondering if the poison that had erupted between their respective bosses meant the first shoots of romance between them had been trodden on. Athena’s silence came because she didn’t know what to say. An evening that had started with high expectations of a lucrative deal had ended terribly, and it was all her fault.
The goodnights exchanged with Grace when they dropped her at the hotel were muted.
The knots of guilt making Athena nauseous tightened, and she side-eyed Draco and wished she could read what he was thinking. He must be deeply regretting inviting her to the dinner.
After a long beat of silence he stiffly said, ‘I apologise for what you heard. You can rest assured I will not be doing business with that man.’
The guilt knotted even tighter. ‘But I thought it was a good deal that had the potential to make you a lot of money?’
‘I cannot do business with a man like that.’
She could hear the anger still underlying his rough tone.
That he’d stood up for her, had been so furious on her behalf…
For that, she could only love him more.
‘Draco,’ she said quietly, ‘don’t throw the deal away because of me. What Diego told you was true. I did try to seduce Thanasis.’
She felt him tense beside her.
‘That’s why I was banned from their wedding and banned from my nephew’s christening. I tried to steal Thanasis for myself, and now Lucie and Thanasis won’t let me set foot on Sephone or be at any family event they’re attending.’
There was a long exhalation of shocked breath. ‘When did this all happen?’
‘Last summer.’ She rested her head back and closed her eyes. She owed him the full story and if he hated her for it then she had no one to blame but herself. ‘Do you remember all the negative headlines last year when the war between my father and Thanasis’s father hit the press?’
The Antoniadis and Tsaliki patriarchs had been at war for decades but a year or so earlier their escalating methods of retaliatory fire had made headline news, causing both of their shipping companies serious reputational and financial difficulties.
‘I remember.’
‘The wedding was a sham to calm the investors.’
‘I had my suspicions,’ Draco said slowly, remembering how the engagement between Thanasis Antoniadis and Georgios Tsaliki’s beloved stepdaughter Lucie had caused many suspicious raised eyebrows, ‘but if it’s all a sham then they’re damn good actors.’
Along with the rest of Greek society, Draco had attended the eventual wedding—a car accident involving the bride meant the initial date had been postponed—and it was at the reception that Draco had first approached Alexis, who’d taken control of Tsaliki Shipping and was steering it back to robust health, about buying the company. It was also at the wedding that Draco’s intuition that none of the Tsalikis associated his name with his mother had been confirmed…all except one Tsaliki, who had not only associated it but known exactly who he was.
But that one Tsaliki hadn’t been at the wedding. This absence had been explained by the family telling everyone Athena had Covid, and now she was telling him she’d been barred from attending.
His guts roiled heavily.
‘They fell in love for real,’ she said.
He had to fight to keep his voice steady. ‘Did you know that when you tried to break them up?’
Her voice fell to barely a whisper. ‘They were still at the stage of hating each other but I knew Lucie had fallen for him.’
He pinched the bridge of his nose. It had been too easy to fool himself into believing the Athena he’d got to know was the ‘real’ Athena and forget who she’d always been. ‘Is that why you did it?’
She was silent for a long time. ‘I would love to tell you that had nothing to do with it, but it played its part. I’ve loved and hated Lucie since she came into my life. I suppose I loved her because I couldn’t help but love her—I want to say she’s a horrible bitch like Rebecca but she isn’t—but I hated her for stealing my life, and when I learned Thanasis had wanted to marry me, I blamed her for stealing my future too.’
A pulse of nausea cramped his guts.
‘Alexis brokered the deal. Thanasis wanted to marry me but my father refused and so it was Lucie who was pushed forward to marry him instead, and I hated her for it.’
‘Youwantedto marry him?’
‘Yes, and when I learned I’d been his first choice I decided to make it happen.’
