So her father had known. He’d never intimated that he did.
Oh, Daddy, why did you never tell me?
Nikolas’s next words cut short the surge of heartache. “He was also aware of your attraction to her, even if you didn’t realize it yourself.”
Then her father didn’t know everything. Aris hadn’t been attracted to her in the past.
Aris answered and demolished that belief. “Oh, I realized it. I wanted Selene from the first day I saw her. But I thought Hektor would never accept me. That she would never accept me. So I acted as the businessman who never bids on a hundred-percent losing proposition and stayed away.
“Then a miracle happened, and she reached out to me. But when she walked away, it was the easiest thing in the world for me to assume she thought she’d made a mistake. I left thinking I would never have another chance with her. But I came back, and realized I’ve been living in hope of this second chance. This time I demanded one, and she rejected me so hard I’m still aching. Then I discovered she’d given me Alex…. Yes, I am not so convoluted as you think me. I didn’t know about Alex, because I didn’t keep tabs on Selene. I couldn’t…bear knowing that she’d moved on, found someone to love. But when I knew she hadn’t…and then I saw Alex…I was scared as I’ve never been before in my life. Because another chance with Selene became a matter of life or death. And she wasn’t giving me one—in fact, she held up a mirror to me, showing me the worst that I feared about myself.
“But then another miracle happened. She gave me a chance, and this time, she didn’t only want me, she…got me, got the best out of me, made me realize I’m not the cold calculating man we all thought me to be. I can barely breathe with the magnitude of my love for her and Alex sometimes. I have no life without them now. I’d rather die than not have her, them, with me.
“But the real miracle was that she loved me back. And I didn’t understand how I could deserve to be loved by her. So when I heard the news about your coup with the contract, it made more sense to think that she didn’t love me as much as I did her, but chose to help her family against me.”
“You thought she gave us the info to preempt you?” Damon snarled. “And you say you love her?”
Lysandros said with the same ferocity, “Yeah, talk is cheap, Sarantos. You love her, you’d give your life for her, but you don’t have a smidgen of belief in her.”
“I didn’t have it in myself. It was my own insecurity, not a lack of belief in her. But I had my insecurity under control—until Alex’s accident almost uprooted my sanity, and then you surrounded me in her condo, lashed me with your triumph and with more insinuations that led me to believe my worst suspicions were true. I went berserk with pain and walked out.
“As soon as I left, I wanted to rush back, beg for anything she’d give me, even if her family would always come first. But I knew I had to prove that the contract and anything else from the past didn’t come into what we shared. So I had to take the contract back so I could give it to her, to refute your accusations.”
“So, you basically want to have your cake and eat it, too,” Damon argued.
“Yeah, who do you think you’re fooling, Sarantos?” Nikolas muttered. “So the contract is big, but not big enough for you.”
“And when we asked for something that is big,” Lysandros added, “you refused.”
“You’re damn right I refused,” Aris growled back, painting her a mental image of him and her brothers facing off like a pack of wolves, fangs bared. “You don’t get to put a price on what Selene, what Alex…what my family is worth to me.”
“So your refusal stands, huh?” Damon scoffed. “I figured it would. We’re talking more than twelve billion, after all.”
“Half my fortune is more than twenty-four billion, Louvardis,” Aris snapped. “And no, you can’t have that. I’ll make my own offer.”
Selene’s heart constricted. She couldn’t bear it if he started some cold negotiation to lower the price.
Nikolas exhaled heavily. “Keep your offers, Sarantos. We want nothing from you. And Selene and Alex will sure as hell never need anything from you. We’ll make sure of that.”
“Guess you’re not as shrewd as we thought,” Lysandros mused. “You didn’t project that you stood to gain so much more if you made that investment in our goodwill and Selene’s support.”
“That’s right, Sarantos,” Damon taunted. “It was a test. You would have passed it, you idiot, if you’d agreed to it verbally. We would never have pushed for application. Now, anything you say or offer means nothing. Worse than nothing.”
Selene felt her heart splinter in her chest.
How would Aris answer them? What would he say?
The next moment he did. “I would have been an idiot if I’d taken your offer. As I said, in the matter of proving my commitment to Selene and Alex, I don’t bow to demands, but I, and only I, will submit my own bid. And here it is.”
She heard Nikolas’s grunt as something solid and padded seemed to land against his flesh.
In a moment she heard the sound of a briefcase being opened, then papers being passed around.
At last, Nikolas exclaimed, “You…madman. You mean this?”
Damon sounded as stunned. “Okay, where’s the catch? I can’t find it, but it has to be here.”
Lysandros chimed in, just as dazed. “Point it out and get done with it, Sarantos!”
“No catch,” Aris said calmly. “I think half my empire for Selene and Alex is an insult. They’re everything to me, and they deserve all of it. And everything I acquire from here on. You can now shred it all apart if you so wish, for all I care.”
Nikolas let out a resounding guffaw. “You are insane.”
“I didn’t even know you owned most of the Di Giordanos stock,” Lysandros said, a deep tinge of admiration entering his stunned voice. “And PrimeTech. And Futures Inc. Father was right. You are well on the way to global domination.”
Damon whistled. “And you’re really giving it all to Selene.”
“It’s nowhere near her worth,” Aris said. “All my assets are just a token. She owns all of me, and I’m offering her my life, under any terms she, and you, as her brothers and protectors, wish to impose. I botched my first two chances with her. I will offer anything if she will agree to give me a third, and final, chance. I only truly lived during those weeks with her and Alex. Will you help me have that chance to live again?”