‘Think of it this way. For twelve months you’ll be free of all the scheming socialites and supermodels who’ve been falling over themselves to extract a commitment from you. I’ll happily carry that burden for you instead.’
‘Unless you wish to date one of those supermodels whilst sporting a black eye, I suggest you leave my office immediately,’ I growled.
My brother’s laughter echoed in my ears long after he’d slammed the door behind him.
But long before the echo died I made another silent vow to myself. Petras and his kin would pay for what they’d done to my family. Before the stipulated year of marriage was out they’d regret tangling with the Xenakis family.
CHAPTER ONE
‘SMILE, CALYPSO. IT’S the happiest day of your life!’
‘Here, let me put some more blusher on your cheeks...you’re so pale. Perhaps a bit more shadow for your beautiful eyes...’
Beneath the endless layers of white tulle that some faceless stranger had deemed the perfect wedding gown material and gone to town with my fingers bunched into fists. When the tight clenches didn’t help, I bit the tip of my tongue and fought the urge to scream.
But I was past hysteria. That unfortunate state had occurred two weeks prior, when my father had informed me just how he’d mapped out the rest of my life. How it was my turn to help restore our family’s honour.
Or else.
The cold shivers racing up and down my spine had become familiar in the last month, after a few days spent in denial that my father would truly carry out his intentions.
I’d quickly accepted that he would.
Years of bitterness and humiliation and failure to emulate his ruthless father’s dubious acclaim had pushed him over the edge once and for all.
The soft bristles of the blusher brush passed feverishly over my cheeks. The make-up artist determined to transform me into an eager, blushing, starry-eyed bride.
But I was far from eager and a million miles away from starry-eyed.
The only thing they’d got right in this miserable spectacle was the virginal white.
If I’d had a choice that too would have been a lie. At twenty-four I knew, even in my sheltered existence, that being a virgin was a rare phenomenon. At least now I realised why my father had been hell-bent on thwarting my every encounter with the opposite sex. Why he’d ruthlessly vetted my friendships, curtailed my freedom.
I’d believed my choices had been so abruptly limited since the moment my mother fell from grace. Since she returned home the broken prodigal wife and handed my father all the weapons he needed to transform himself from moderately intolerable to fearsome tyrant. I thought I’d been swept along by the merciless broom of wronged party justice, but he’d had a completely different purpose for me.
A purpose which had brought me to this moment.
My wedding day.
The next shudder coagulated in my chin, making it wobble like jelly before I could wrestle my composure back under control.
Luckily the trio of women who’d descended on our house twenty-four hours ago were clucking about pre-wedding nerves, then clucking some more about how understandable my fraught emotions were, considering who my prospective husband was.
Axios Xenakis.
A man I’d never met.
Sure, like everyone in Greece I knew who he was. A wildly successful airline magnate worth billions and head of the influential Xenakis family. A family whose ill fortune, unlike mine, had been reversed due the daring innovation of its young CEO.
It was rumoured that Axios Xenakis was the kind of individual whose projections could cause stock markets to rise or fall. The various articles I’d read about him had boggled my mind—the idea that any one person could wield such power and authority was bewildering. To top it off, Axios Xenakis was drop-dead gorgeous, if a little fierce-looking.
Everything about the man was way too visceral and invasive. Just a simple glance at his image online had evoked the notion that he could see into my soul, glean my deepest desires and use them against me. It was probably why he was often seen in the company of sophisticated heiresses and equally influential A-listers.
Which begged the question—why the Petras family? More specifically, why me?
What did a man who dated socialites and heiresses on a regular basis, as was thoroughly documented in the media, have to gain by shackling himself to me?
I knew it had something to do with the supreme smugness my father had been exhibiting in the last several weeks but he had refused to disclose. Somehow, behind the sneers and bitterness whenever the Xenakis name came up over the years, my father had been scheming. And that scheming had included me.