So perhaps his brother had a point.
Marriage.
He might hate the idea of getting married, but a wedding like this—with each partner knowing it was purely mercenary? If he was clear on that point from the outset?
If there was an escape route always within reach?
So that no matter what happened he would know there was a definite termination point established, a date when the marriage would end and his life could go back to normal?
Perhaps that kind of marriage wouldn’t be so bad. A marriage, in name only. But to whom?
* * *
Alice disconnected the call with wobbly fingers and stared at her office wall. Tears that she rarely allowed herself to give into cloyed at her throat, so she had to press the heel of her palm to her eyes to stop from crying.
Bankruptcy.
The word hung in the air like a thousand little arrows, pointed at her soul. How could it have come to this? No matter how hard she worked, she could never get ahead, and now her credit-card company was demanding she close her accounts, settling her debts in full, or they’d commence bankruptcy proceedings.
She clamped her teeth down on her lip, trying to stave off an actual sob, trying to see some kind of light, somewhere, at the end of this tunnel. There had to be something she could sell, something she could do.
Except, there wasn’t. She’d hawked everything of value over the years, reluctantly parting with anything they could make money from, including the diamond earrings her mother had loved so much—a gift from Alice’s father, when they’d first met.
She hadn’t been able to go to college, she couldn’t get a job that paid more than this one, and no reputable bank would touch her with a barge pole in terms of a loan. She knew what her credit rating was.
She let out a guttural noise of impatience and stood, pacing across the office, nausea tightening her stomach. There had to be something.
A single tear slid from one of her eyes, rolling down her cheek, and at that exact moment Thanos Stathakis appeared in the door frame of his office, looking out at her, hi
s expression as forbidding and handsome as it had been the day before.
He opened his mouth to speak, then saw her expression and closed it. His eyes roamed her face quite freely, and Alice stood completely still, so overwhelmed that she didn’t even think to wipe away her tear.
‘Did you need something?’ Her voice was a little wobbly, but there was pride in her question, because she wasn’t going to let things get any worse by acting unprofessionally.
His lips tugged downwards at the corner. ‘Yes. Come in.’ He waved a hand in the direction of his office and Alice sucked in a breath, moving quickly to her desk and sliding her credit-card statement under her keyboard before doing as he’d said and stepping into his massive workspace.
‘Please, have a seat.’ He gestured to the boardroom table.
She shook her head. Alice didn’t feel like sitting down.
‘You’re upset?’
She blinked, shaking her head, lifting her fingers to her cheeks now and wiping her tears. ‘No,’ she lied—badly. ‘I’m fine. What did you need?’
His eyes narrowed but he turned away from her, apparently accepting her statement, pouring a cool glass of water and carrying it across the room. When he passed it to her, their fingers brushed and a jolt of electricity travelled the length of Alice’s arm, burning brightly into her chest cavity.
‘You may feel better if you speak about what is troubling you,’ he invited.
Alice’s eyes flew wide, this kindness completely unexpected. ‘I... It’s my problem,’ she demurred.
Thanos nodded slowly, assimilating this information. ‘And you like to solve your problems yourself,’ he surmised.
Alice nodded. ‘As, I think, do you.’
His smile lacked humour; in fact, his smile had the look of someone who’d almost forgotten how. ‘Wherever possible, certainly.’ He crossed his arms over his broad chest, a gesture that drew her attention to his muscled abdomen in a way that sparked heat in her cheeks.
‘But you’re inviting me to pour my heart out to you?’ she prompted, to which he pulled a face, as if it was actually the last thing he’d been expecting. Alice laughed, despite her enormous worries.