Ruthless Revenge: Sinful Seduction: Demetriou Demands His Child / Olivero's Outrageous Proposal / Rafael's Contract Bride

‘What do you mean, you have a choice?’ Amara asked. ‘If this man has the controlling shares...’

‘I can talk to him.’ Resolutely Iolanthe put down her cup of tea and squared her shoulders. ‘I have to talk to him.’

After finishing her tea and talk with Amara, Iolanthe headed upstairs to the top floor of the town house that had been converted into a suite of rooms for Niko. She stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, watching him with a familiar ache in her heart. He was at his desk, his golden-brown gaze narrowed as he studied the code on the computer screen, completely absorbed in what he was doing, unaware of his surroundings or her presence.

‘Niko.’ Iolanthe spoke gently, knowing her son needed a little time to focus on a person after staring so long at a screen. ‘What are you doing, pethi mou?’

Niko tensed at the sound of her voice and then slowly turned away from the screen, blinking his mother into focus. ‘An app.’

‘You’re making another app?’

He nodded, his expression serious and a little wary. Social interaction had always been fraught for him. ‘Which one is it this time?’ Iolanthe asked lightly. She perched on the edge of the desk, making sure to stay well away from the computer Niko loved and obsessed over. Once she’d dared to touch the keyboard and a near meltdown had ensued. She knew better now.

Niko shrugged thin shoulders, his gaze sliding away from hers as it so often did. From the time he was a baby, Iolanthe had struggled to forge that connection that so many mothers took for granted. She loved her son, she had no doubt about that. She loved him with a fierce and aching fury, wanting to protect him because he was different, because there were so many things he didn’t understand. But she didn’t always feel that Niko loved her. Sometimes she wondered if her son knew how to love. She felt guilty and mean for the thought; Niko showed love in his own way. She knew that, had argued the point fiercely to Lukas and her father, and yet in the quiet grief of her own heart she wondered. She feared.

‘Niko?’ Iolanthe prompted gently. ‘What’s the app?’

He shrugged, looking away from her. ‘Just a thing to keep track of your zombie power points.’

‘Right.’ As if she knew what that meant. In the last year Niko had started designing apps for some of the more popular online games, one of them apparently involving zombies. At Iolanthe’s encouragement, he’d shown them to Lukas, shyly, but Lukas had dismissed them and him with one cursory glance. Iolanthe feared that Niko, in his silence and isolation, had absorbed his father’s rejection, and it made him withdraw even more. She tried to support and encourage Niko as best she could, but she’d been out of her depth with his technical knowledge for years. ‘So what are power points?’ she asked. ‘Are they good or bad?’

‘Good. People buy them online for a lot of money.’

‘Wow. And your app keeps track of them?’

Niko confirmed this with a little nod, his gaze already moving back to the computer screen.

‘That sounds cool, Niko,’ Iolanthe said, and dared to touch her son’s hair with the tips of her fingertips.

He ducked away and Iolanthe withdrew her hand. ‘Did you meet with the solicitor?’ he asked after a few seconds, his gaze still on the screen.

‘Yes.’ She’d told him about her meeting last night before bed.

Niko turned to glance at her, his golden eyes, so much like Alekos’s, narrowing. ‘And what did he say? Is everything all right?’

‘Everything’s fine, Niko,’ Iolanthe assured him. How could she tell him anything else? He might act as if he were much older in some ways, but her son was nine. She couldn’t burden him with her financial troubles. Except they were his too, because Petra Innovation was meant to be his. Needed to be his. Taking that away from Niko would be like taking away his reason to live. Talking about Petra Innovation made his eyes light with excitement and brought him out of his untouchable silence to something close to a chatterbox. Niko needed Petra Innovation. He needed the hope of something better and bigger that he could be a part of.

Briefly Iolanthe closed her eyes as regret swamped through her. How had Lukas let this happen? How had she? Maybe she should have taken more of an interest in the company, insisted on knowing what was going on, and in doing so safeguarded her son’s inheritance.

The prospect was, she knew, laughable. She didn’t know the first thing about the business. And her father and Lukas would have never countenanced her interest anyway. They’d barely tolerated her presence, always reminding her of her shame.

‘Mama?’ The endearment sounded strange on her son’s lips; he rarely used it. ‘Are you sure everything is all right?’

‘Yes.’ Iolanthe took a deep breath and smiled at her son. She would not burden Niko with this. She would figure out a way to keep Petra Innovation for her son. She owed it to him to keep his dream alive; she owed it to herself. She’d given up so much already, all in payment for her crimes—the crime of giving her body to a cold and cruel man. ‘Everything’s fine, Niko.’ She patted his hand, winning a shy, uncertain smile from him that felt like a triumph. Smiling back, she rose from her perch on his desk, leaving him to his app.

Somehow she had to find a way forward.

* * *

Alekos pushed his laptop away, disgusted with himself and his inability to concentrate since seeing Iolanthe yesterday. After leaving the offices of Petra Innovation, he’d wandered the streets of Athens’ business district, too restless and on edge to return to his own office. Too beset by memories.

Memories of Iolanthe, her face, her voice, her body. Her throaty laugh, like strains of music he hadn’t realised he still longed to hear. Her mouth, opening under his, a flower whose scent and nectar he realised he’d never forgotten. And the feel of him inside her, the way she’d accepted him into her body, and how in that moment he’d felt, powerful and vulnerable at the same time, as if he’d scaled a mountain and come home all at once.

How had he forgotten all that? Why had he remembered it now? Iolanthe had changed. He had changed. And he had no use for her any more, if he ever had.

Now he rose from his desk in the penthouse office of Demetriou Tech and gazed out at the city skyline. He could see the ancient Acropolis in the distance, and he recalled how he’d seen it that night with Iolanthe on the balcony, when he’d been desperate to kiss her. He just hadn’t realised how much until his lips had touched hers.

Alekos swore under his breath and spun away from the window. He had to stop thinking this way. He had to stop remembering so damn much. And probably remembering it better than it was—it had been a single night of madness, a sexual encounter he’d been quick to dismiss as soon as it was over. No point in making more of it than there ever had been.

And yet he still felt restless. Where was the sense of satisfaction, of justice finally served? He’d been waiting for the day he was able to shut the doors on Petra Innovation for nearly fifteen years. When Callos had offered the shares on the open market six months ago, Alekos had known he finally had his chance.

Yet leaving Iolanthe in the CEO’s office, he hadn’t felt the savage surge of satisfaction he’d both craved and expected. He’d felt...empty. Cheated, even, although he couldn’t say how or why.

‘Kyria Iolanthe Callos to see you, sir.’ The voice of his PA coming through the intercom had Alekos stiffening. Iolanthe had come here—why? To beg for Petra Innovation?

His mouth curved in a grim smile. Then he would let her beg.

* * *

Iolanthe stepped through the double doors into Alekos’s office and forced both her step and voice to stay steady. It took a lot of effort. Just the sight of him standing there, one hand resting on his desk, his face so cold and closed and beautiful, made her heart flutter in her chest and every calm, confident thing she’d been planning to say empty from her head.

He looked forbidding but he also looked devastatingly attractive in his navy pinstriped, three-piece suit, his ebony hair cut close and emphasising his sharp cheekbones, those tawny eyes that his son had inherited. His mouth was a hard line but Iolanthe remembered when it had been soft and open on hers. She remembered the way his fingers had felt stroking her cheek...

‘What are you doing here, Iolanthe?’

He didn’t sound quite as unfriendly as he had that awful night when she’d come by, thinking to tell him she was pregnant. Recalling how harsh and unwelcoming he’d looked then thankfully forced away the memory of his kisses.

‘I wanted to talk to you.’ To her relief her voice came out strong. Mostly.

‘I didn’t realise we had anything to talk about.’

‘Why do you want to liquidate Petra Innovation?’ She hadn’t meant to speak so plainly, so desperately. She’d meant to come from a stronger stance so they could have a civilised discussion among equals, and she could act as if she were in control. But why bother? They both knew she wasn’t.

Alekos regarded her for a long, level moment, those opaque golden eyes giving nothing away. ‘Because it serves no purpose.’

‘Then why did you buy it all? Why buy something just to sell it?’

‘To make a profit.’

‘Did you? After buying up all those shares?’ Iolanthe’s stomach cramped as the realisation hit her afresh. ‘It really is just revenge,’ she stated, and Alekos simply kept giving her that awful blank stare. ‘It’s always been about revenge for you.’

He cocked his head, his gaze sweeping over her, cold, closed, formidable. ‘Then you know.’

‘I know you’ve hated my father for having an idea you couldn’t come up with,’ Iolanthe fired back, too angry now to guard her words. ‘For not being as fast or as clever as he was. It’s not just revenge, it’s—it’s nothing more than sour grapes!’

Alekos’s expression didn’t change and yet he seemed even more still, more dangerous, like a predator about to spring and devour. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked in an ominously low voice.

Iolanthe quelled underneath that voice and gaze but she still held her ground. ‘He told me all about the history between you two, after...’ She trailed away, a treacherous flush sweeping over her entire body as she remembered that after. After she’d given herself to Alekos, body and soul. After she’d stupidly thought they had some kind of connection, some kind of future.