Клэр Коннелли – Bride Behind The Billion-Dollar Veil (страница 5)

‘I have no idea.’

Silence for a moment and then, ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’

He turned back to face her, and there was no warmth in her expression. In fact, he couldn’t have said if she’d asked the question with curiosity or apprehension, but both sparked a ridiculous urge to laugh.

Instead, he nodded stiffly. ‘Yes. Goodnight, Alice.’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT YOU NEED is to get married, Thanos.’

Leonidas’s words came to Thanos as if through a thousand galaxies—crackly and distant. He jerked out of bed, completely naked, and strode through his penthouse apartment.

His brother’s statement was exploding through his brain, like stardust and gold. He reached for the crystal decanter of Scotch and poured himself a generous measure, moving towards the grand piano and tapping a key lightly. Manhattan glistened beneath him, all shimmering lights and elaborate dreams.

This was the first time in years he’d been alone in this city. Usually, he called one of his past lovers—of which there were many here in the city—and enjoyed a night of unbridled, no-strings passion.

But the meeting with Kosta had left him inexplicably dissatisfied.

Thanos was a master at keeping his personal life separate from his private life. The fact he had a well-documented and active bachelor lifestyle was neither here nor there. He knew he was, unequivocally, the right person to take over P & A.

And beyond that, Petó deserved to come home.

‘I know it’s out of left field but have you actually passed out?’ Leonidas’s words were filled with humour.

Thanos sipped his Scotch slowly, his eyes moving from one high rise to another. When he eventually spoke, it was with a sardonic drawl. ‘I understand that you’re in the heady bliss of being a newly-wed but I think we can safely say marriage is the last thing on my mind.’ In fact, the very idea turned his blood cold. One week after his mother had dumped him on Dion Stathakis’s doorstep, throwing a traumatised little boy into the home as one might a cat into a flock of pigeons, Thanos had sworn to Leonidas that he’d never be stupid enough to fall in love or get married.

He’d been eight and miserable, his heart broken, his soul crushed—looking back, he could see now that he’d also been terrified. His mother, the woman who’d raised him, the only family he’d ever known, had told him she couldn’t ‘do this’ any more, and dropped him like a sack of potatoes.

His father had made it abundantly clear he didn’t want Thanos, that he was raising him out of duty. When Dion’s own marriage had crumbled because of Thanos’s unexpected arrival, a large part of Thanos’s heart had been sealed closed—he knew it would never open again.

Was it any wonder Thanos viewed relationships and commitment as something best avoided?

‘I don’t mean a real marriage,’ Leonidas explained with mock simplicity.

Beyond the window, dusk was falling, the night sky turning an inky black, no stars to be seen in the brightness cast by the vibrant city. Thanos cradled his drink in the palm of his hand.

‘Kosta has given you the solution; you’re just not listening. He won’t accept any offer you make because you’re a walking tabloid headline. This isn’t just a top five hundred company he’s selling. It’s his family empire.’

‘It’s our family empire too.’

‘He bought Petó a long time ago. I doubt he continues to consider it as a distinct entity from P & A.’

‘And nor do I. I am not attempting to separate Petó from the fold. I am willing to take on his business as well.’

‘Yes, I get that. But he’s not willing to sell to us. Not given your…predilection for headline-grabbing behaviour.’

Thanos stiffened, the criticism sitting uneasily around his shoulders now. He’d never felt uncomfortable about his lifestyle before; he’d never had any reason to. But hearing first Kosta and then his brother cast aspersions on the way he lived was filling Thanos with a sense of impatience. ‘My social life is no impediment to my running Stathakis,’ he heard himself point out coldly.

‘True, but neither of us could do anything worse than our father did to trash our family name, right?’

Thanos winced, sympathy for his brother at the forefront of his mind. Years had passed since that awful day when Leonidas’s young family had been murdered as a vendetta against their father but even now that Leonidas was married with a beautiful little girl who was growing way too fast, Thanos still felt sorrow for what had been lost.

‘You and I are nothing like our father.’

‘I know.’ Leonidas and Thanos were quiet for a moment, their point of difference from Dion Stathakis one of sheer determination. Both men had sworn, many years earlier, even before his criminal prosecution, that they would never emulate his lifestyle. They had always admired their grandfather and followed much more closely in Nicholas’s footsteps.

‘So show Kosta he’s wrong about you,’ Leonidas continued, his voice insistent. ‘He thinks you’re just some debauched tycoon, with more money and sex appeal than sense—’

‘So? Even if that were accurate—’ and he didn’t want to contemplate how many threads of truth there were to that observation ‘—I’m the best man to turn that company around and make sure it continues to thrive in the twenty-first century. No one will care for the business as I will; you know that.’

‘Yes,’ Leonidas conceded softly.

‘So what? Because I happen to like sex and the tabloids happen to like me, he thinks I’m not qualified?’

‘He wants more than just a business deal,’ Leonidas said gently. ‘The company’s his legacy. It’s not just a business to him—it’s a way of life, and it’s his birthright. He wants to protect that.’

Thanos had no difficulties relating to Kosta’s desires on that score. His own life had been devoid of the kind of parents most people grew up with. His mother had abandoned him and his father had taken him in reluctantly, but there had been grandparents and what wouldn’t Thanos have done for them? What wouldn’t he have done in their honour?

Wasn’t it because of them that Leonidas and Thanos had worked tirelessly for the better part of a decade to restore Stathakis Corp to the behemoth it had been before their father’s fall from grace? To restore, in part, the Stathakis name?

And wasn’t it largely what drove him now? A desire to bring home Petó, an important and missing piece of the puzzle that was their empire? They’d diversified in their restructure, buying up tech companies, new economy investments to shore up the old. But still, he’d never forgotten the promise he’d made to himself on the day they’d signed the contracts. He had hated selling Petó, the transport company his grandfather had been so proud of, the company that had enabled all their later successes. It meant everything to Thanos, and clearly it meant everything to Kosta.

So Thanos just had to show Kosta that the legacy was safe in his hands.

If only Kosta could see that the best way to preserve what his grandparents had built was to sell the company to a man who would have the skills, acumen and motivation to take the whole enterprise to the next level.

‘You are a fool if you don’t simply tick this box for Kosta and move on. Get married and he will sell it to you in an instant.’

Thanos threw his Scotch back, his brother’s suggestion making an infuriating kind of sense, despite his determination never to marry.

‘Putting aside for the moment the fact that he’s going to see through this play in an instant, who would I even marry if I were to go through with it?’

Leonidas laughed. ‘There must be hundreds of women you’ve slept with. Choose the one you like the best.’

‘I don’t like any of them enough to marry. And I don’t generally go back for repeat performances.’

Leonidas’s sigh came down the phone line. ‘If you want the company, you’re going to have to make your peace with this. It’s the only way.’

‘It’s crazy.’

‘No, it’s actually very sensible.’

‘I cannot simply marry some random woman.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’d be doing it purely for commercial gain.’

‘So? Find someone who would be marrying you for their own commercial gain. Or have you forgotten what you’re worth?’

‘It’s completely unscrupulous.’

‘Why?’

‘To fake a marriage to fool an old man?’

Leonidas was quiet a moment. ‘Do you not think the end justifies the means?’

Thanos ground his teeth together. He could accept many things in life, but not losing Petó.

Besides, Leonidas was right—Kosta had all but drawn a map for Thanos as to how he could succeed in the purchase.

Settle down. Stop being so wild. At least appear to have become a family man.

So perhaps his brother had a point.

Marriage.

He might hate the idea of getting married, but a wedding like this—with each partner knowing it was purely mercenary? If he was clear on that point from the outset?

If there was an escape route always within reach?

So that no matter what happened he would know there was a definite termination point established, a date when the marriage would end and his life could go back to normal?

Perhaps that kind of marriage wouldn’t be so bad. A marriage, in name only. But to whom?