One day, she’d probably think about the loss of her father in terms of having his prolific life aborted at a robust sixty-six, in terms of what the whole family, the whole world, had lost. But she could think of nothing but her own loss now. The gaping void his absence left inside her.
“He made my life…so many things,” she whispered. “I’ll miss them all.”
Again he didn’t commiserate.
After a beat he said, “He wasn’t ill.”
Statement. She nodded, shook her head, felt her throat closing. She had no idea. He hadn’t seemed ill. But her father would have never admitted to any weakness, would have hidden it at any cost. He could have been gravely ill, for all they knew.
“And he died shortly after 11:00 a.m. yesterday.”
Her father had been found dead in his office at 12:30 p.m. Selene had no idea how Sarantos had found that out.
He went on. “At 9:00 a.m, the head of my legal team was in touch with yours, concerning our complementary bids for the British navy contract.” She knew that. She’d been the one his man had talked to. She’d relayed the restrictive, ruthless, nonnegotiable—if in her opinion, ultimately fair and practical—terms to her father by phone. “At eleven, Hektor called me.” Selene lurched at the sound of her father’s name on his lips. If she didn’t know better, she’d say this was how a man uttered a friend’s name. More than a friend. “He tore into me, then he hung up. Within the hour he was dead.”
Before she could say anything, he gave her a terse nod and turned on his heel.
She gaped after his receding form until he exited the mansion.
Was that it? He’d come to say it had been him who’d pushed her father beyond endurance, drove him to his death? Why?
But since when did anyone understand why the unfathomable Aristedes Sarantos did anything?
Instead of running after him and demanding an explanation, she could only burn in an inferno of speculation and frustration as the hours dragged on before everyone had pity on her family and left them alone.
She allowed her brothers to wrap up the macabre proceedings and stumbled out of the mansion.
She had to get away. Probably permanently.
She flopped into her car. She’d roam the streets. Maybe tears would come again, relieve the pressure accumulating inside her.
She’d just swung her car outside the gates when she saw him.
It was totally dark, and he stood outside the streetlight’s reach, but she recognized him at once.
Aristedes Sarantos. Standing across the street, facing the mansion, like a sentinel on unwavering guard.
Her heart revved from its sluggish despondence into a hammering of confusion, of curiosity. Of excitement.
Why was he still here?
She decided to ask him, that and everything else, made a U-turn. In a minute she brought the car to a stop beside him.
She thought he hadn’t noticed her until she opened the passenger window, leaned across and addressed him.
“You came without a car?”
It was a long, still moment before he unfastened his gaze from the mansion and swept it down to her.
He gave an almost imperceptible shrug. “I sent it away. I’ll walk back to my hotel.”
Before she could think, she unlocked the doors. “Get in.”
He stared at her. After another endless moment, he opened the door, lowered his muscled body beside her with all the economy and grace of a leopard settling into an effortless coil.
Electricity skidded across her skin, zapped her muscles. Air disappeared from the night. All from one brush of his shoulder, before he presented her with his profile and went statue-still.
She knew she should ask which hotel, start driving. Do something. She couldn’t. Just having him this near was messing up her coherence centers. And that when he seemed not to notice her. How would she feel if he…
Stop it, you moron. You’re a twenty-eight-year-old businesswoman and attorney, not some slobbering teenager!
It was him who spoke, to specify which hotel. Then he fell silent again. His silence badgered her with the blunt edge of the emotions it contained, smothered.
Before tonight, she’d thought Aristedes Sarantos had no feelings.
In twenty minutes she pulled in the driveway of one of the five-star-plus hotels he was known to live in. As far as the world knew, the man who could buy a small country had no home.
He opened his door. Just as she thought he’d exit the car without a look back, he turned to her, snatching the air from her lungs again. His eyes glinted in the dimness with something that shook her, something bleak and terrible.
“Thank you.” His voice had dipped an octave lower than usual. After a beat he added, “See you in the battlefield.”
He turned then. He would exit the car, and she would never see him again except as the enemy. But before they returned to their battle stations, she had to know.
“Are you okay?” she said, fighting the desire to reach for his hand, to cup his face, to offer him…something.
He stilled, turned back to her. One formidable eyebrow rose. “Are you?”
She inhaled tremulously. “What do you think?”
“But cross-examining me would make you feel better.”
A chuckle burst out of nowhere. “I’m that transparent?”
His gaze darkened. “Right now, yes. Shoot.”
“Here?”
“If you like. Or you can walk me to my room.”
The way he said that, such a manifestation of virility, had another chuckle trembling on her lips. And she discovered it wasn’t only her lips that were trembling. She was shaking all over.
He reached for her hand, absorbed its tremors in the steadiness of his. “When was the last time you ate?”
He had a point. This reaction was due to low blood sugar along with everything else. “Yesterday morning.”
“That makes two of us. Let’s get something to eat.”
And for the next half hour, she just let him steer her. He took her up to his presidential suite, ordered a Cordon Bleu dinner, encouraged her to eat by showing her how a meal was supposed to be demolished, systematically, like he did everything.
It felt surreal, having Aristedes Sarantos catering to her needs. Weirder still to be in his suite but to feel no threat of any sort. She didn’t know if she should be pleased that he was such a gentleman, or disappointed he could be so much of one around her.
After dinner he took her to the suite’s sitting area, served her herbal tea. They hadn’t talked much during dinner. She’d been too shaky, and he’d been drifting in and out of his own realm.