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Andreas made a sound that could have been hurt, but Kayla refused to look at him.
Jacob nodded. “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you. For what it’s worth, I was really looking forward to tonight.”
“I don’t think it was going to end like I was hoping, though.” There was no accusation in Jacob’s tone, just rueful disappointment.
She shrugged, but she couldn’t lie. “Probably not.”
“It would not,” Andreas butted in with his obnoxious Greek hobnailed boots. “She doesn’t do casual sex.”
She rounded on him. “You are such an ass.”
“And you are the best woman I know. Apprizing Jacob of the fact you are one of the best women he has had the honor of meeting is not a bad thing.”
Kayla stared at Andreas, speechless.
Jacob burst out laughing. “You are one clueless bastard, aren’t you?”
“I am a brilliant businessman.” The bewildered offense in Andreas’s tone was almost funny.
Jacob pulled Kayla to him and laid a screen-worthy lip-lock on her. “It really was a pleasure meeting you, Kayla Jones. If you can get away from your boss while you’re in town, call and we’ll do something.”
She grinned. “I will.”
Andreas glowered at Jacob the entire time Kayla collected her things, giving the actor one-word answers to his conversational forays, if the Greek deigned to answer at all.
Andreas put his hand out imperiously for her bags. “Let me help you.”
“I’m fine.”
He didn’t bother to argue, just waited for her to pass the packages over. Andreas had an innate sense of courtesy that her own sense of independence had never been able to win against.
He somehow managed to get between her and Jacob so the other man could not kiss her again before they left either, all the while avoiding shaking the actor’s hand in farewell because of the packages Andreas had taken from Kayla.
“You think you’re a slick operator, don’t you?” she demanded as they rode the elevator downward.
“I know what I want.”
“Really? What part of what you want has you in New York right now, Andreas? Because I really don’t understand. You want to sell the company? I can’t stop you. You want the bride pimp to find you a wife? I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen while you’re here. So, what purpose is you being here going to serve?”
“I’m here for you,” he said, like it should be obvious.
“But why?”
He didn’t answer. Not in the elevator, not when they walked out onto the crowded New York streets, not when they got into the cab he hailed. In fact, Andreas remained stubbornly mute until the cab stopped in front of their hotel, where instead of letting her out, he imperiously waved at the doorman.
The man came over and Andreas handed over Kayla’s packages with instructions for taking them up to the suite along with a generous tip.
“Where are we going?” she asked when Andreas got back in the cab.
“You were going to dinner. I would not deprive you of nourishment.”
“We could have ordered room service.”
“You were looking forward to a night out on the town.”
Was he kidding? “Not with you.”
“We are still friends, Kayla.”
“I’m not sure we are, Andreas.” It hurt to say.
The tightening of his jaw said he didn’t like hearing it either. “Do no say that.”
“Don’t pretend like it matters to you.”
“Of course it matters!” he roared.
Kayla jumped, shocked. Andreas did no lose his temper. Not with her. Not like this.
“Six years ago, you told me how much I mattered to you. I was just too desperate to believe something else.”
“What? What are you talking about six years ago?” He turned to face her in the back seat of the cab, green gazed laser-like focus entirely on Kayla. “I thought you were angry about the meeting yesterday.”
Kayla could feel the tears at the back of her throat, burning in her eyes. “I did too, but it’s all part of the same thing, isn’t it? I’ve never been more than a means to an end to you. What I don’t understand is why you’re here, why you tracked me down to Jacob’s apartment, why you had to ruin my night with him. I guess I’ve never really known you, have I? I never thought you were petty.”
“Petty?” Andreas demanded in a near roar. “The only reason that damn playboy still has his coveted role on Broadway is because he tried to protect a woman I care about very much.”
“You don’t care about me. You have never cared about me.” Of that one fact Kayla was absolutely certain.
She’d been the piece of the puzzle Andreas needed to get his business off the ground. The brain behind the software to make the dream a reality so he could thumb his nose at Barnabas Georgas and prove that Andreas Kostas didn’t need his father’s money or his name, or anything else from the family that had hurt him so much.
“Turn this cab around!” Andreas sounded as out of control as she’d ever heard him, his big body fairly vibrating with stress.
“What do you mean?” The cabbie’s hand gestured wildly. “I can’t do no U-turn. This is a one-way street, buddy.”
“Take us back to the hotel,” Andreas demanded in only slightly lower decibels.
Kayla crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “I thought we were going out to dinner.”
“We are not having this conversation in front of a room full of strangers.”
“Sounds more like a fight from where I’m sitting,” the cabbie piped in.
Andreas ignored him and shook his head at Kayla. “You don’t understand.”
“On that we agree.”
He didn’t look calmed by that acknowledgment. The silence between them on the ride back to the hotel seethed with resentment and things left unsaid.
Kayla was terrified that after tonight the only person she’d considered family wouldn’t be anything but a bad memory. But if she was right, if her place in his life was what she thought it was, that was all he’d been for six years and she’d been fooling herself all along.
(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER FOUR (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)
ANDREAS HADN’T BEEN this out of control since his father had come storming into Andreas’s life, demanding he move to Greece, forcing him to use the Georgas name, pretending it meant something that they were blood.
When it hadn’t meant anything at all. He’d hated being a Georgas. Hated living in that mausoleum mansion that had been the family home for generations.
Formally recognized as heir to the Georgas shipping empire, Andreas had been trained to his father’s likeness, all the while planning his escape.
He’d wanted nothing of the man who could so callously discard the woman who had loved him with her whole heart. Melia Kostas had been an amazing mother who had not allowed a broken heart or the rejection of her family to stop her from raising her son to believe he had value and that he was worth every sacrifice she’d had to make to give him a different life.
She’d immigrated to America, only to die when Andreas was a teen, leaving the door open for Barnabas, that bastard, to come swooping in. That was the one time in Andreas’s life that he’d felt completely helpless. He’d done a lot of yelling before settling down to plan.
Not until today had he felt so completely at the whim of another again. He had not felt such fear since the day his father had him physically carried onto the Georgas private jet and forced to fly to Greece against his will. Kayla leaving Portland, leaving Andreas, had paralyzed him. They were a team. Didn’t she realize that?
Clearly not.
Never was his temper so close to the surface, so beyond his control.
But seeing that playboy actor’s lips on his Kayla’s face? That had made Andreas see red. She deserved better.
Kayla Jones deserved the best.
Maybe once Andreas was settled down with a wife who would complete his revenge plan on his father, he would hire Genevieve to find Kayla her own Prince Charming. A man who would care for her like she deserved. Someone who could appreciate the rare gem that she was.
Not some damn New York actor just looking to add another beautiful notch to his bedpost.
Andreas shifted in his seat, trying to control his urge to demand Kayla explain her remark about six years ago. It wasn’t just a restaurant full of strangers he didn’t want witnessing their very private conversation.
Andreas had no intention of giving their nosy cabbie any more fodder for his curiosity.
When they arrived at the hotel, Andreas waited on the sidewalk for Kayla to scoot out of the back seat. He would usually go ahead of her, trusting her to follow, but in her current state, he wasn’t taking anything for granted.
She stopped in front of him, tugging the hem of her sexy little dress down. It hugged every curve, reminding him of how beautiful she was, that no other woman had ever measured up to the perfection of Kayla Jones since that first day he’d seen her across the quad at university.
He shoved those thoughts away. “Are you ready to go inside?”
“Do I have a choice?” she asked, 100 percent attitude.
Rather than grab her, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “You act like I’m some kind of tyrant.”
“Do I need to remind you of the events of the last hour?” she asked in that sarcastic tone that made him want to do things he’d made himself forget.
He forced an even tone. “None of which would have happened if you had been waiting in the suite when I arrived.”
“That was not going to happen.”
“So, you wanted to go shopping.” It had not surprised him to find out she was in the garment district. Kayla liked to shop when she was stressed. She’d worked out a few knotty computer codes with “shopping therapy,” as she called it. It was discovering she was with Jacob Tarkent that had Andreas’s blood pressure spiking. “Did you have to pick up a date?”
Kayla stepped past him with a saucy sway of her sexy hips. “He picked me up.”
“I figured.” Andreas followed, forcing himself to ignore the way her dress and attitude were affecting his libido.
He had six years’ experience ignoring these sexual urges. It shouldn’t be so damn hard.
“So? I’m single. It’s allowed.”
“You are in a strange city. He could have been anyone.”
“But he’s not.”
“No.” As soon as he’d known whom she was with, he’d had a background check run on Jacob Tarkent, by Hawk’s company coincidentally.
They were very thorough and fast.
“So, you knew I was safe.”
He put his hand on her arm, stopping them outside the doors to the hotel. “You didn’t.” And that was the damned point, even if she wanted to ignore it.
“I did.” Oh, she sounded so sure.
“That’s right, you think you can read people.”
“I can. It’s a skill you learn in foster care.” Her feisty expression dared him to contradict her.
“It’s not one hundred percent.”
“Nothing is.” She glared up at him, everything in her demeanor defying him, and that should not have been a turn-on. “Are we going to stand out here discussing this?”
“At least you are finally admitting we need to discuss things between us.”
She rolled her eyes, her lovely latte skin flushed with anger. “I’m really annoyed with you, Andreas.”
“I think you are understating the case.” Furious seemed more like it.
Her gray eyes narrowed further. “Maybe.”
“Definitely.” That was okay. He was pretty pissed off himself. Not that he wanted to examine why. He just wanted to fix it. All of it.
They were friends. She was all he had left of family.
Even if she didn’t realize it.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Whatever you say, Commander.”
