âI imagine that is the point of this charade, is it not?â Theo was stroking that wineglass the way heâd once stroked her body and Holly was certain it was deliberate. That he knew exactly what that slow sweep of his tapered, too-strong fingers against the glass did inside of her. âWhat do you want from me?â
âI told you what I wanted.â
It was hard to keep her voice even when he was on the other side of such a tiny little table, his intense physicality, his rampant maleness, like an industrial-force magnet. Holly had forgotten that, somehow. Sheâd forgotten that so much of being near Theo was being utterly helpless and under his spell. In his thrall. Sheâd had to leave him or disappear into him, never to be seen again, and she remembered why now. She could feel it, like a black hole, sucking her in all over againâthe same way this same kind of destructive love had sucked in her father all those years ago. Sheâd watched how this ended before. Why did she think it could be different now?
She kept her gaze level on Theoâs and tried not to think about her parents. âA divorce.â
CHAPTER ONE
THEO TSOUKATOS SCOWLED when his office door swung open despite the fact heâd given strict orders that he wasnât to be disturbed. He expected his orders to be followedâand they usually were, because no one who worked for him enjoyed the consequences when they were not.
He was becoming more like his widely feared father by the day, he thought grimly. Which he could tolerate as long as that was only true here, in the business sphere. God help him if he ever acted like his father in his personal life.
Never, he vowed, as he had since he was a child. I will never let that happen.
âI trust the building is on fire?â he asked his secretary icily as she marched inside, because it could only be a crisis that brought her in here against his instructions, surely. He glowered at her. âOr is about to be?â
âNot as far as Iâm aware,â she retorted, appearing utterly unperturbed by his aggressive tone. Mrs. Papadopoulos, who reminded him of his hatchet-faced, steely-haired and pursed-mouthed aunt and acted about as enamored of Theo as Aunt Despina always had been, was meant to keep him from distractions rather than cause them. âBut itâs early yet.â
Theo sighed his impatience. He was in the middle of compiling the rest of his notes on fuel efficiency and trim optimization strategies for the meeting that heâd be running in his fatherâs stead today, now that wily old Demetrious Tsoukatos was focusing more on his mounting medical issues than on the family business. He glanced out the wall of windows surrounding him and saw all of Athens arrayed at his feet, the sprawling commotion and hectic madness of the greatest city in Greece serving as a reminder, the way it always did.
That all that rose must fallâbefore rising again, stronger than before.
That was the unspoken Tsoukatos family creed. It was the story of Theoâs own life, certainly. It was built into every inch of the proud Tsoukatos tower, where Theo now sat. Just like the steel girders themselves that made the building an imposing physical testament to his shipping magnate fatherâs searing vision and ruthless success in the face of all obstacles, from sworn enemies to the faltering economy.
These days, the tower stood as a marker of Theoâs own growing reputation as a fearless risk taker and out-of-the-box thinker in a business cluttered by those who played it safe straight into bankruptcy. That wasnât going to happen to the Tsoukatos fleet. Theo might have acted the spoiled heir apparent for most of his twenties, but in the past four years heâd dedicated himself to proving he was every bit as formidable and intimidating as the old man himself.
It turned out he was good at this. As if ruthless power really did run in his veins the way his father had always assured him it did. Or should.
And heâd decided he could emulate his father here, in the boardroom, where that kind of ruthlessness was a positive thing. Theoâs own personal life might have been a mess, such as it was, but not for the same reasons Demetriousâs had been.