Not a single hint of humour—mocking or otherwise—showed in his darkly handsome, poker-faced expression. ‘I am truly surprised how people’s lives can alter with a blink of an eye,’ he mused curiously, ‘For there we both were, getting on with our independent lives with little chance of the two of us ever meeting face to face. Then I agree to do a favour for Theo and—’ he glanced at the face of his solid gold wristwatch ‘—twenty-four hours later, almost to the minute, and here we are lovers already and planning our forthcoming marriage.’
‘We are planning nothing.’ Zoe drew her fingers into her palms at her sides. ‘And we already did the marriage thing last night, if you recall,’ she slung back. ‘I let you off the hook. Take my advice, fly away in your jet plane again and stay off the hook.’
With that she turned back to the door again.
‘But I don’t want to stay off the hook,’ he t
raded, as smooth as rich cream. ‘I want us to marry in haste before the tabloids get wind of it. Don’t walk out of that door, Zoe,’ he warned then, very seriously. ‘This is far from finished just because you prefer it to be. We have other people to consider.’
‘If you’re talking about Theo …’
‘And your brother,’ he tagged on. ‘Plus all the other people out there who are reliant on the Kanellis and Pallis business empires remaining healthy and strong.’
Now he was injecting something new into this discussion that trickled a slither of ice down Zoe’s back. ‘What other people?’ she questioned warily.
‘Our shareholders,’ he provided. ‘Our subsidiary companies that rely on us for their business, and the thousands of individuals we employ between us across the globe. With Theo living in seclusion on his island, I have been the face of both companies for the last two years. I drive them, I keep them stable and strong.
She was listening even though she still faced the door, Anton noted grimly. Zoe Kanellis might want to hate everything her Greek grandfather represented, but she couldn’t bring herself to ignore what he was saying to her about everyone else involved.
‘During my two-year reign, it has been taken as a given that I would inherit from Theo one day, therefore it went without needing to be said that I must have a vested interest in maintaining his business fortunes. Then your story broke and both Pallis and Kanellis stock did a swan-dive into the pits of alarm. Panic hit the volatile stock markets. They feared the appearance of Theo’s relatives was about to put me out in the cold.’
‘And has it?’ The question was jerked from her but she still did not turn round to look at him.
‘That is for Theo to decide.’ Anton shrugged off that side of this discussion because it wasn’t important right now. ‘The thing is, Zoe, when that article and its photographs appeared this morning our stock-price shot back up the market rankings like it had been rocket-propelled. Everyone loves a good, solid merger, and what could be more solid than a merger of marriage between you and I?’
Altering his stance, and his mood, Anton straightened up from the desk and began walking towards her. She looked like a trapped bird hovering helplessly in front of a solid object, he observed, holding on to his grim intent that he was not about to let her fly away from this. He laid his hands on her shoulders and felt her quiver and stiffen as he turned her around. That she did not shrug him off, though, told him that her natural intelligence had already started to scan the wider picture he had just mapped out. Without either of them saying a word, he guided her back to the chair by the desk and invited her to sit down again.
‘So this is about business.’ Tossing her head, Zoe refused to sit. If they were negotiating terms then she preferred to stand while they thrashed it out. ‘I have become a Kanellis asset that you need to use to keep both companies flying up there in the stratosphere?’
‘It affects me too, agape mou.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ Who did he think he was? ‘I am not your darling and I have no wish to be.’
‘And to think I used to believe myself to be quite a catch.’
Ignoring his attempt at sardonic self-mockery, she said, ‘I still don’t see why I need to be involved in this in any way. All you have to do is get Theo to announce you as his heir and the rest will take care of itself.’
‘But Theo won’t announce me as his heir because I am not. You and your brother are.’
Stunned by that claim, Zoe stared at him. ‘We can’t be. He didn’t know we even existed until three weeks ago! And I don’t want to be his heir to anything and neither does Toby!’
‘You’re sure about that?’ Resting back against the desk again, Anton held her sparkling, defiant gaze. ‘I think you are failing your brother if you make that kind of decision for him before he is old enough to decide for himself.
‘And the thing is, Zoe,’ he speared home grimly, ‘Whether you want it or not, you are now responsible for the good health and wellbeing of the Kanellis name and all that responsibility entails. So you had better think fast about what you want do about it, because if it ever gets out there that you want nothing to do with your grandfather then the rocket ship will crash and burn—make no mistake about it—and it will probably take me down with it as it goes.’
‘People aren’t that stupid as to crush two companies on my say so,’ Zoe protested, frowning as she did, though, because she wasn’t absolutely sure about it.
‘The stock market is all about risk and intuition. They do not like uncertainty. Theo’s health is failing. Everybody knows this, though we try our best to keep speculation down to rumour rather than hard fact. While no one thought to question my place in his life, everything ran along smoothly. Now the market is reacting like a heart-attack victim, peaking up then shooting down depending on what snippet of information leaks out. A marriage between you and me would calm the problem.’
The grim picture he was painting her was so frighteningly bleak, Zoe gave in and lowered herself into the chair. She might want to feel nothing about any of this but it wasn’t quite working out like that. She did not follow the stock markets—why would she? She’d never had more than a spare fifty pounds to spend at any one time in her entire life. Until recently, her only concern about money had been the growing size of her student loan and how she was ever going to pay it off. However, she would have had to be living on another planet not to have heard all about the unstable nature of the world’s stock markets ever since the big crash.
Were they really still so sensitive that they could rip two global businesses apart on mere speculation and rumour, or be soothed by a simple thing like a marriage between Anton and herself?
The trammelling pressure of uncertainty held her silent as she stared down at her hands twisted together on her lap. She thought about her father next, and her fierce sense of loyalty to him. Would he have wanted her to do this thing? Her instincts said no. Her instincts reminded her of the countless times she had watched him arrive home from work looking ready to drop on his feet. He’d worked two jobs to earn them a decent living, his week days filled with the grease and grime as a car mechanic, his weekends filled with waiting on tables at a local restaurant. Yet not once had she heard him even whisper the seed of an idea that he wanted to return to his old life here in Greece.
And how many nights had he stretched out on the sofa in front of the TV and barely move again until it was time for bed? How many weekends had her mother spent quietly on her own while her husband had served other people with a smile he probably forced onto his tired face? And how many years had Theo Kanellis spent being waited on by men like my dad? she tagged on bitterly. The private islands, the yachts, the planes.
‘Your father’s death hit Theo very hard,’ Anton inserted quietly, choosing his next words with care. ‘He has weeks not months to live, Zoe. Try to dig deep inside yourself and see if you really want a fading old man tormented by regrets watch his empire fall into tatters while the life fades from him.’