Chapter Seven
I T WAS A cold day in hell when something surprised Christos Onassis. Which meant right now the underworld must be experiencing its first blizzard.
Because never in his life…not in his wildest…
Dreams?
He didn’t even have dreams. He went to sleep and closed his eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
He had never conceived of this.
Sylvie Jones?
She was the woman, his secret. She was the one he had been carrying on an affair with. The one who had left him rocked, gutted, after their time together?
He looked at her frizzy red hair, her freckles, her ample bosom.
He felt attraction to her. He had for a long time, but he had always put that down to the fact that it was human nature to crave the forbidden, and very little was forbidden to him.
Lusting after a woman who so clearly hated him was of course its own sort of fantasy.
One that he welcomed.
And yet. And yet. The thought that she was the one that he had been…
She knew him.
For a moment, he felt as if his ruthlessly tailored suit had been stripped from his body. Like he was sitting there in the coffeehouse naked.
He had never worried about such a thing and had never found such a thought embarrassing in his life.
He wasn’t even sure he had ever been embarrassed before.
She knew things about him. This woman that he was engaged in a business battle with knew things about him.
He’d…he’d had sex with her. And it had stripped him of his protective layer, and it had been her all along.
And suddenly, something occurred to him.
“Did you know?” he asked.
“Why are you asking me that again?”
“Because this is extraordinary, and I have a very hard time believing this wasn’t orchestrated. Did. You. Know?”
“What?” She slapped the top of the table with her open palms. “What kind of question is that after you just made a marriage demand? Did I know about it? Of course I didn’t know about it.”
“It seems as if it would be a good way for you to begin to understand your enemy.”
“Would it? Because I understand you less now than I ever have. Believe me, it would be a stupid plan if it was my plan. Because what did I get? What did I win? Is this my prize? This horrendous coffee date and the fact I’m carrying your fetus?”
His lip curled. “Don’t say it like that.”
“It is like that. And you think we should get married? That’s ridiculous. We can’t even say two words to each other. We had sex—” she looked around, obviously a little bit embarrassed that she’d said it so loudly “—and you sent me away. Like nothing that had happened before meant anything.”
“It didn’t,” he said.
“Then, why are you asking to marry me?”
“I don’t have to. When I tell you that my first offer is my kindest, I expect you to listen.”
He saw fear shimmering in her eyes, and he felt a strange experience of…
softness. Sympathy. He didn’t like it. Why would he feel anything for her?
It was like reading her texts. Looking at her when she was this distressed.
Suddenly, he couldn’t separate her from the woman in his phone.
And he ought to. She had been misrepresenting herself.
Because there was no way that Sylvie was actually that woman.
Who was smart and knew exactly what to say to him.
Who had reached beneath his armor and found part of him that still had feeling. No.
“What exactly does that mean?”
“I will maintain control of my child.” It felt like a desperation. Like a clawing, animal need.
Because all he could think about was his own childhood.
And what happened when you were in the wrong hands.
What could become of you. Once his mother had been out of the picture, everything had fallen to pieces for him.
Once his mother was gone, all his safety had been destroyed.
And his father… Once he had been away from his father, who was a truly awful man, things had only gotten worse.
No. This child would be bonded to him. Tied to him. Safe.
“We will move on to full custody from there. I think the safest way to guarantee that I have access to my child is through marriage.”
“That’s…archaic.”
“Perhaps. But it is the easiest way for us to have default custody, and for me to have default acknowledgment. You can call it archaic all you want, but there are still realities to the physical custody of the child.”
“And you’re just so desperate to be a father?”
“I am desperate to make sure that my child is safe. That they are in my life. That I always know what is happening with them.”
“As for now,” she said, “they are a zygote.”
“And are you choosing to end the pregnancy?”
She looked down at her hands. “No.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“What makes you just assume that?”
“Because if you had already decided on that course of action, you would have been resolved. And you wouldn’t have been half so terrified that you were going to have to deal with me. Because you would’ve already decided that you weren’t.”
She looked away. “It’s not the right decision for me.”
“If you wish to surrender custody, you can. I will assume the role of single father.”
She looked horrified at that. “Absolutely not. You are not going to have full custody of this child. Because I already know what it’s like to have one dysfunctional parent. You need the other one to be involved.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. I wouldn’t call you dysfunctional .”
“I didn’t mean me, Christos.”
He couldn’t process what she was saying.
“I am not dysfunctional. I’m a billionaire.”
She laughed. Like it was the funniest thing she had ever heard. “What does you being a billionaire have to do with whether or not you’re functional?”
“If I am doing so well at managing my life, how could you possibly classify me as dysfunctional?”
“You do realize that there’s more to life than money?”
She was maddening. If she was trying to imply that he didn’t function, then she was ridiculous. And how dare she? He’d won. When it came to matters of her company, he had beaten her decisively, and he felt that spoke to functionality fairly damned well.
He’d heard it said there was more to life than money, of course he had. Multiple times. But it had never meant anything to him. “Do you mean power?”
“Have you never seen a Christmas movie in your life?”
He stared at her. “I don’t think I have.”
“Friendship. Family. Love. ”
“I find that I do perfectly well without any of those things.”
“And yet you’re trying to muscle your way into having a family. You think that you’re going to marry me. You think that I should just be content with… What do you even want with me? You want to throw me up in the attic? You know you can kidnap me without making it official.”
“All I know is that in my life, when my parents were together and I had both of them, I was safe. I was well fed. I had a roof over my head. Then everything fell apart. And yes, I am logical enough to know that there are many variable factors in play. But what I want for my own child…is security. In every way.”
“Yet again,” she said, “you are a billionaire.”
“Yes, which means I have resources you don’t have.”
“I have enough resources to take care of a baby, and as far as I can tell you don’t care about anyone or anything.
You lied to me in those texts. You made me think you were a decent man, and I thought I was meeting a decent man here today.
But I will not be strong-armed into anything by a man who doesn’t even know why he wants to be involved in his child’s life. ”
“I know why I want to be involved.”
“You gave me a reason, but I don’t think it’s a good one. Nothing you’ve said has anything to do with how you feel, just what you’re afraid of.”
Her words were like a dagger in the center of his chest. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then, you’re not afraid of me walking out,” she said, standing up and turning away from him.
Desperation gripped him. An old feeling. One he didn’t recognize in this new body he’d created, this warrior frame he did battle from. He didn’t do desperate, he didn’t beg, he didn’t feel fear or vulnerability, and yet now he did, and it forced his next words from deep within him.
“I’ll give you the company back,” he said.
“What?”
“I’ll sign Jones he was shocked by that.
She suddenly looked like perhaps what he had said made sense.
And he realized when he said it, how true it was.
He really didn’t believe in love. He didn’t much care about anyone or anything.
But that was why it was easy to transfer the company back to her.
She didn’t seem to understand that. That the brilliant thing about living the way he did was that when something else became a bigger priority, he could sacrifice the thing that had mattered previously.
She held on to so many things too tightly. While he…he pivoted easily. For that reason.