The thought settled over Leonidas Gazis like a familiar weight as he stood at the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Cannizzaro Racing headquarters, his gaze fixed on the test track below. From the executive level, the training drivers looked like toys. Sleek machines carving through curves, engines screaming in the afternoon heat.
One of them braked too late entering the chicane. Typical rookie mistake, the kind that separated champions from casualties.
Eight years ago, that could have been him down there.
Should have been him.
And itwouldhave been him, if not for a torn posterior cruciate ligament that had ended his racing career before it truly began.
The PCL injury had been a cruel joke of fate. Not dramatic enough for sympathy, not visible enough for anyone to understand why a twenty-nine-year-old with reflexes like lightning couldn’t simply push through it. But the ligament controlled the knee’s backward movement. Essential for the split-second braking adjustments that meant the difference between podium and wall.
His body had betrayed him. And Leonidas, ever the practical man, had taken it as a sign to switch gears in life. He retired the same day he was discharged from the hospital, and the day after that, he had accepted his father’s offer to take over the family business.
Along with a bride.
Eight years had passed since then. Eight years of marriage, and it was the kind of marriage that he still had trouble describing.
His mind drifted to Lexy. To her serious dark eyes and her love of machines and her complete indifference to his fortune. Twenty-six years old now. No longer the barely-legal teenager her mother had warned him about with such theatrical despair.
If he went through with the divorce, he would still look after her. She would never know, of course. He’d make sure of that. But the security details would remain. The financial protections. The quiet network of people whose job it was to ensure that Lexina Aryanis Gazis—or whatever name she chose to take afterward—never fell prey to another con artist, never went hungry because she forgot to eat, never found herself stranded in an unfamiliar city without someone watching from the shadows.
She would be free. Truly free, for the first time since their arrangement began.
And if she chose to marry someone else...
The thought filled him with an unexpected surge of distaste. His jaw tightened. His hands, clasped behind his back, curled into fists.
But that was normal, surely. He cared about her. Had grown accustomed to her presence in his life, even if that presence was mostly peripheral. It was only natural to feel protective, to feel some resistance to the idea of another man taking his place.
Not jealousy. Just concern.
He wanted what was best for her. That was all.
His mind traveled deeper into the past, retrieving a memory of his first meeting with Lavinia, his future mother-in-law.
She is adamant about going to college.
The older woman had divulged this with a pained look on her face, her voice heavy with the bewilderment of a woman who had devoted her entire life to being a proper wife.
And she desires to study something about machines! Machines!
Leonidas would later find out that Lexy’s course of choice was mechanical engineering, whichdidsurprise him, but ultimately, he had not given it much thought. What his wife wanted to study was her business...just like the companies that their respective parents owned would behisbusiness to merge and manage, not hers.
The older woman had shaken her head, genuinely lost.‘So you understand what I’m up against. And what you will have to deal with, if she were to agree to marry you. I love my daughter, but I am not blind, and I do not want to be accused of deception either, in asking you to consider taking my daughter as your bride. You must understand...she is not your typical Greek girl. She is not your typical...anything. You understand?’
By the time the main course arrived, and his would-be bride was set to join them, Leonidas had expected to meet a creature half wallflower, half monster. Some hunched, scowling girl who would make his arranged marriage a daily punishment.
But instead...
Goïtevménos.
The word translated to ‘enchanted’ in English.
And that was how she had made him feel that first night...and why he had known without a doubt Lexina Aryanis would be the perfect fit as his wife.
Lavinia excused herself as soon as Lexina arrived, but only after warning her daughtersotto voceto ‘please do behave’. Cynical as he was, he had thought Lexina would then try to charm or flirt with him, or perhaps play the ‘reverse psychology’ card by trying to pick a fight with him in hopes that this would make her seem more interesting.
But instead...she had done nothing.
