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‘You mentioned you’d offered him ten million euros and he refused? Let’s double the offer,’ I suggested.
Neo shook his head. ‘I already tried. Petras is hell-bent on Option A or Option B.’
The breath left my lungs in a rush. ‘Over my dead body will I go for Option A and hand over twenty-five percent of Xenakis Aeronautics,’ I replied coldly. ‘Not for the paltry quarter of a million his father bailed Grandpapa out with, while almost crippling him with steep interest repayments!’
The company I’d spent gruelling years saving was now worth several billion euros.
My brother shrugged. ‘Then it’s Option B. A full and final one hundred million euros, plus marriage to his daughter for minimum term of one year.’
A cold shudder tiptoed down my spine.
Marriage.
To a bride I didn’t want and with a connection to a family that had brought mine nothing but misery, pain and near destitution.
During the formative years of my life I witnessed how a fall from grace could turn family members against each other. Clawing my own family out of that quagmire while other factions sneered and expected me to fail had opened my eyes to the true nature of relationships.
Outwardly, the Xenakis were deemed a strong unit now, but the backbiting had never gone away. The barely veiled expectation that everything I’d achieved would be brought down like a pile of loose bricks and that history would repeat itself was a silent challenge I rose to each morning.
While my extended family now enjoyed the fruits of my labour, and even tripped over themselves to remain in my good graces, deep down I knew a simple misstep was all it would take for their frivolous loyalties to falter.
I didn’t even blame them.
How could I when my own personal interactions had repeatedly taken the same route? Each liaison I entered into eventually devolved into a disillusioning level of avarice and status-grabbing.
It was why my relationships now had a strict time limit of weeks. A few months, tops. Which made the thought of tying myself to one woman for twelve long months simply…unthinkable.
My chest tightened, and the urge to rail at my grandfather for putting me in this position seared me with shame before I suppressed it.
He’d been in an equally impossible position. I knew first-hand what the toll of keeping his family together had cost him—had watched deep grooves etch his grey face once vibrant with laughter and seen his shoulders slump under the heavy burden of loss.
Yes, he should have told me about this Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. But he was gone. Thanks to the ruthless greed of the Petras family. A family hell-bent on extracting another pound of flesh they didn’t deserve.
‘The hundred million I understand. But why insist on marriage to the daughter?’ I asked my brother as his words pierced the fog of my thoughts.
Neo shrugged again. ‘Who knows how men like Petras think? Maybe he just wants to offload her. The clout that comes from marrying into the Xenakis family isn’t without its benefits,’ he mused.
I shuddered, the reminder that, to most people, my family and I were nothing but meal tickets sending a shock of bitterness through me.
‘And did you meet this woman I’m to tie myself to?’
He nodded. ‘She’s…’ He stopped and smiled slyly. ‘I’ll let you judge for yourself.’ His gaze left mine to travel over my grey pinstriped suit. ‘But I’m thinking you two will hit it off.’
Before I could demand an explanation my father leaned forward. ‘Enough, Neo.’ My father’s gaze swung to me, steel reflected in his eyes. ‘We can’t delay any longer. Yiannis Petras wants an answer by morning.’
The pressure gripping my nape escalated—the effect of the noose closing round it ramping up my discord. Marriage was the last thing I wanted. To anyone. But especially to a Petras. Both my grandparents and my parents had been strained to breaking point because of the Petras family’s actions, with ill-health borne of worry taking my grandmother before her time too.
There had to be another way…
‘What’s her name?’ I asked my father—not because I cared but because I needed another moment to think. To wrap my head around this insanity.
‘Calypso Athena Petras. But I believe she responds to Callie.’
Beside me, Neo smirked again. ‘A dramatic name for a dramatic situation!’
I balled my fist and attempted to breathe through the churning in my gut. First they’d forced my grandfather’s business into the ground, until he’d broken his family right down the middle by working himself into an early grave. Now this…
‘Show me the agreement.’ I needed to see it for myself, find a way to assimilate what I’d been committed to.
My father slid the document across the desk. I read it, my fingers clenching as with each paragraph the noose tightened.
Twelve months of my life, starting from the exchange of vows, after which either party would be free to divorce.
Twelve months during which the Petras family who, by a quirk of karma—if you believe in that sort of thing—had fallen on even harder times than they’d condemned my family to would be free to capitalise fully on their new status of wealth and privilege by association.
My lips twisted. I intended to have my lawyers draft divorce papers before I went anywhere near a church.
I exhaled, knowing my subconscious had already accepted the situation.
‘Don’t overthink it, brother. You’re thirty-three next month. This will be over by your thirty-fourth birthday. If you bite the bullet,’ Neo offered helpfully.
Slowly, I dragged myself back under control. ‘I’ve worked too hard and too long to restore our family back to where it belongs to lose it to a greedy opportunist. If there’s no other way…tell Petras we have a deal.’
My father nodded, relieved, before he sent me another nervous glance. The kind that announced there was something more equally unsavoury to deliver.
‘What now?’ My patience was hanging by a thread.
‘Besides paying for the wedding, we also need to present the family with a…a dowry of sorts. Petras has asked for Kosima.’
I surged to my feet, uncaring that my chair tipped over. ‘Excuse me?’
My father’s face tightened. ‘No one has stepped foot on the island since your grandfather passed—’
‘That doesn’t mean I want to hand it over to the son of the man who caused his death!’
A flash of pain dimmed his eyes. ‘We don’t know that to be strictly true.’
‘Don’t we? Did you not see for yourself the pressure he was under? He only started drinking after the problems with Petras started. Is it any wonder his heart failed?’
‘Easy, brother,’ Neo urged. ‘Father is right. The house is rotting away and the land around it is nothing but a pile of weeds and stones.’
But I was beyond reason. Beyond furious at this last damning request.
‘Grandpapa loved that island. It belongs to us. I’m not going to hand it over to Petras. Isn’t it enough that he’s imposing this bilious arrangement on us?’
‘Is it enough for you to drag your heels on this last hurdle?’ My father parried.
Unable to remain still, I strode to the window of the building that housed the headquarters of Xenakis Aeronautics, the global airline empire I’d headed for almost a decade. For a full minute I watched traffic move back and forth on the busy Athens streets while I grappled with this last condition.
I sensed my brother and father approach. I didn’t acknowledge them as they positioned themselves on either side of me and waited.
Waited for the only response that I could conceivably give. The words burned in my throat. Left a trail of ash on my tongue. But it had to be done. I had to honour my grandfather’s request, no matter my personal view on it. Or I’d risk everything he’d built. Risk mocking the sacrifice that had taken the ultimate toll.
‘Tell Petras he has a deal.’
My father’s hand arrived on my shoulder in silent gratitude, after which he exited quietly.
Neo chose more exuberant congratulations, but even then I barely felt him slap my shoulder.
‘Think of it this way. For twelve months you’ll be free of all the scheming socialites and supermodels who’ve been falling over themselves to extract a commitment from you. I’ll happily carry that burden for you instead.’
‘Unless you wish to date one of those supermodels whilst sporting a black eye, I suggest you leave my office immediately,’ I growled.
My brother’s laughter echoed in my ears long after he’d slammed the door behind him.
But long before the echo died I made another silent vow to myself. Petras and his kin would pay for what they’d done to my family. Before the stipulated year of marriage was out they’d regret tangling with the Xenakis family.
CHAPTER ONE (#u686479aa-33b3-5edc-a721-77748ecc78bd)
‘SMILE, CALYPSO. IT’S the happiest day of your life!’
‘Here, let me put some more blusher on your cheeks…you’re so pale. Perhaps a bit more shadow for your beautiful eyes…’
Beneath the endless layers of white tulle that some faceless stranger had deemed the perfect wedding gown material and gone to town with my fingers bunched into fists. When the tight clenches didn’t help, I bit the tip of my tongue and fought the urge to scream.
But I was past hysteria. That unfortunate state had occurred two weeks prior, when my father had informed me just how he’d mapped out the rest of my life. How it was my turn to help restore our family’s honour.
Or else.
The cold shivers racing up and down my spine had become familiar in the last month, after a few days spent in denial that my father would truly carry out his intentions.
I’d quickly accepted that he would.
Years of bitterness and humiliation and failure to emulate his ruthless father’s dubious acclaim had pushed him over the edge once and for all.
The soft bristles of the blusher brush passed feverishly over my cheeks. The make-up artist determined to transform me into an eager, blushing, starry-eyed bride.
But I was far from eager and a million miles away from starry-eyed.
The only thing they’d got right in this miserable spectacle was the virginal white.
If I’d had a choice that too would have been a lie. At twenty-four I knew, even in my sheltered existence, that being a virgin was a rare phenomenon. At least now I realised why my father had been hell-bent on thwarting my every encounter with the opposite sex. Why he’d ruthlessly vetted my friendships, curtailed my freedom.
I’d believed my choices had been so abruptly limited since the moment my mother fell from grace. Since she returned home the broken prodigal wife and handed my father all the weapons he needed to transform himself from moderately intolerable to fearsome tyrant. I thought I’d been swept along by the merciless broom of wronged party justice, but he’d had a completely different purpose for me.
A purpose which had brought me to this moment.
My wedding day.
The next shudder coagulated in my chin, making it wobble like jelly before I could wrestle my composure back under control.
Luckily the trio of women who’d descended on our house twenty-four hours ago were clucking about pre-wedding nerves, then clucking some more about how understandable my fraught emotions were, considering who my prospective husband was.
Axios Xenakis.
A man I’d never met.
Sure, like everyone in Greece I knew who he was. A wildly successful airline magnate worth billions and head of the influential Xenakis family. A family whose ill fortune, unlike mine, had been reversed due the daring innovation of its young CEO.
It was rumoured that Axios Xenakis was the kind of individual whose projections could cause stock markets to rise or fall. The various articles I’d read about him had boggled my mind—the idea that any one person could wield such power and authority was bewildering. To top it off, Axios Xenakis was drop-dead gorgeous, if a little fierce-looking.
Everything about the man was way too visceral and invasive. Just a simple glance at his image online had evoked the notion that he could see into my soul, glean my deepest desires and use them against me. It was probably why he was often seen in the company of sophisticated heiresses and equally influential A-listers.
Which begged the question—why the Petras family? More specifically, why me?
What did a man who dated socialites and heiresses on a regular basis, as was thoroughly documented in the media, have to gain by shackling himself to me?
I knew it had something to do with the supreme smugness my father had been exhibiting in the last several weeks but he had refused to disclose. Somehow, behind the sneers and bitterness whenever the Xenakis name came up over the years, my father had been scheming. And that scheming had included me.
In all my daydreams about attaining my freedom, marriage hadn’t featured anywhere. I wanted the freedom to dictate who I socialised with, what I ate, the pleasure to paint my watercolours without fear of recrimination, without judgement… The freedom to live life on my terms.
The hope of one day achieving those things had stopped me from succumbing to abject misery.
But not like this!
I forced my gaze to the mirror and promptly looked away again. My eyes were desolate pools, my cheeks artificially pink with excess rouge. My lips were turned down, reflecting my despair since learning that I was promised to a stranger. One who’d demanded a wedding within twenty-eight days.
My flat refusal had merely garnered a cold shrug from my father, before he had gone for the jugular—my one weakness.
My mother.
As if summoned by my inner turmoil, the electric whine of a wheelchair disturbed the excited chatter of the stylists. The moment they realised the mother of the bride had entered the bedroom, their attention shifted to her.
Taking advantage of the reprieve, I surreptitiously rubbed at my cheeks with a tissue, removing a layer of blusher. The icy peach lipstick disappeared with the second swipe across my lips, leaving me even paler than before but thankfully looking less of a lost, wide-eyed freak. Quickly hanging the thick lace veil over my face to hide the alteration, I stood and turned, watching as the women fawned over my mother.
Iona Petras had been stunningly beautiful once upon a time. Growing up, I was in awe of her statuesque beauty, her vivacity and sheer joy for life. Her laughter had lit up my day, her intelligence and love of the arts fuelling my own appreciation for music and painting.
Now, greying and confined, she was still a beautiful woman. But along with her broken body had come a broken spirit no amount of pretending or smiling, or even gaining the elevated position as mother of the bride, soon to marry a man most deemed a demigod, could disguise.
She withstood the stylists’ ministrations without complaint, her half-hearted smile only slipping when her eyes met mine. Within them I saw ravaging misery and the sort of unending despair that came with the life sentence she’d imposed on herself by returning when she should have fled.
But, just as I’d had to remain here because of her, I knew my mother had returned home because of me. And somewhere along the line Iona Petras had accepted her fate.
‘Leave us, please,’ she said to the stylists, her voice surprisingly steely.
The women withdrew. She wheeled herself closer, her face pinched with worry. For the longest minute she stared at me.
‘Are you all right?’
