Chapter Fourteen #2
Athena plucked up all her courage and pressed the intercom belonging to the last name on her list.
All her apologies had been made. She’d even received a few in return.
Her favourite reception—after Lucie’s hug, of course—had come from her brother Alexis and his wife Lydia. She’d framed the charcoal portrait she’d drawn of their baby son and gift-wrapped it.
Their response had made her cry and reinforced why she couldn’t make a career from her art. It was too intensely personal for her to share with anyone she didn’t love, and now she was about to make contact with the woman she’d missed as profoundly as she’d once missed her mother.
Her mother was not someone Athena had sought out. She would always be a part of her life, but the damage her leaving and subsequent distance had caused was the one thing that could not be healed. She was okay with that. Not everything could be fixed.
‘Hello?’
She swallowed. ‘Cora?’
There was a long pause. ‘Athena?’
Minutes later, the decades melted away as she was enfolded in the gentlest, most loving embrace of her life.
It had been exactly ten days since Athena had given Draco her resignation letter.
To the minute. Ten days since he’d seen her.
Ten days since he’d spoken to her. And it was as he was making his way up the stairs, late—for him—having overslept due to an insomnia he’d never suffered with before, thinking about her…
he always seemed to be thinking about her…
that he reached the eleventh floor, glanced through the glass door that led into the finance department, and found his foot hovering on the next step to the top floor.
He could have sworn he’d just seen her.
Turning, he looked again.
Unless he was hallucinating, Athena, dressed in her favourite pink, was in his finance department, talking animatedly with Evangeline, who was holding a large boutique box in her arms.
Athena leaned into her and lifted one of her flat locks of mousy hair, then whipped a notebook and pen from her handbag—it was the notebook she’d always carried to the meetings he’d forced her to sit through—and scribbled something on it before ripping the page out and handing it to his finance director, who was…
and he was quite sure he wasn’t imagining this… blushing.
As if in a trance, he watched them a while longer, only pulling himself out of it when Athena gave Evangeline an affectionate kiss on the cheek and secured the shoulder strap of her bag.
She was preparing to leave.
Adrenaline driving him, he took the stairs three at a time and closed himself into his office.
His heart was pumping harder than it did after an hour-long workout.
Instinct had him stand out on the balcony of the window that overlooked the main entrance, looking down at the figures bustling about their business that busy working day.
A swish of blonde hair caught his eye. His heart tried to break free.
She darted across the road, dodging vehicles as if she were impervious to the danger they posed to her fragile body, and took a left, heading, he guessed, to the Metro.
And then she stopped and stood still, as impervious to her fellow pedestrians having to walk around her as she’d been to the cars on the road.
Slowly, she turned her head and lifted her stare to him.
His heart made another desperate effort to break free.
He thought he saw her smile that special smile that was only for him before she faced forward and set off again.
Soon, she was lost in the crowd.
An hour later and Draco was still on the balcony, his gaze fixed on the last point he’d seen her before she’d disappeared.
The adrenaline that had carried him up the last flight of stairs still pumped hard, but no one looking at him would have seen it. It was all contained in his head.
He’d let her go. He’d let the brightest star in the sky, the woman who’d breezed through the staid corporate world he inhabited, daubing its walls with colour—usually pink—and attitude, slip through his fingers.
And why? Because she didn’t fit the image he’d had in his mind of the ideal wife? Because she was Georgios Tsaliki’s daughter? Because of her reputation? Because of his reputation? Because the brightness she shone with dazzled his eyes and distracted him from his life’s work?
What the hell had he been building everything for if he was prepared to throw away the only person he could ever enjoy the spoils with?
She was too distracting? Well, he couldn’t concentrate a second without her. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep.
He’d never known such loneliness existed.
He’d been every bit the selfish bastard her father was.
All those things she’d thrown at him before breaking down in tears had been true, except for one thing—Draco hadn’t ended it because he’d had his fun with her.
He’d ended it because the depth of his feelings had terrified him, threatening the control he’d ruthlessly exerted and bound himself in since those powerless days when his mother had lost her job and their home; the smooth, orderly life he’d created for himself on the cusp of falling into chaos.
Let chaos reign.
He hadn’t changed Athena, she’d changed him. Her love had changed him, brought out the man he should have been.
And in return he’d broken her heart.
He didn’t know if he could ever repair the damage he’d inflicted on her, but there was one thing he could do to show her and the world that his heart was entirely hers, and he strode back into his office and yanked the door open.
‘Grace!’ he barked. ‘Tell the senior members of the launch party team I want them in my office.’
‘When?’
‘Now.’
Athena cast a final critical eye over Evangeline and beamed. ‘Perfect. Cinderella is now ready to go to the ball.’
Evangeline blushed with pleasure. The green and gold dress Athena had sourced for her was the perfect fit for her fuller figure, flatteringly showcasing her curves without drowning them.
Her mousy hair had been highlighted and cut into a chic bob that added volume, and the touch of make-up she’d trusted Athena to apply highlighted her pretty grey eyes.
She was the best version of herself she could be and Athena had no doubt that when she walked into the hotel ballroom she would walk tall.
Her phone buzzed. She answered the video call with a bright smile.
‘Are you sure this lipstick works?’ Grace immediately asked.
‘Stand further under the light,’ Athena ordered, then nodded once Grace had done as asked. ‘Yes. That dress needs a bold colour. Now, put your phone on a shelf so I can see the whole of you… Perfect! You look gorgeous! Josefina won’t be able to keep her hands off you.’
Grace blushed as hard as Evangeline had done. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting ready?’
Athena shrugged, suddenly finding it a struggle to maintain her happy demeanour.
‘I guess so.’ The last thing she wanted was to attend the launch party.
The only thing making her go was that this would be the perfect opportunity to network for her new business.
Oh, and seeing Rebecca’s face when the new name for Tsaliki Shipping was revealed.
The biggest reason she was going, though, was for Cora.
She’d promised her, and tonight, in front of hundreds of Athens’ wealthiest and most powerful people, she would make her allegiance known.
It wouldn’t be the mother who’d left her that she’d stand with or Rebecca, who made the Queen in Snow White seem like a loving stepmother, but Cora Manolis, the mother she’d chosen for herself.
If she could only stop herself from missing Cora’s son, she might consider herself happy.
Inside, she felt dead. She didn’t even cry any more. She’d shut down emotionally, just as she’d done as a little girl, but this time with a determination not to let the awful, bitchy Athena who’d taken her over get a foothold once more.
She would never be that Athena again. If she couldn’t be happy then she would fake happiness until real happiness found its way back to her, however long it took.
With Evangeline’s help, she climbed into the red cocktail dress she’d found in a high-end charity shop.
Strapless, it skimmed her cleavage like a heart and fell to her ankles, a modest slash at the side displaying flashes of leg, but not so much that everyone would be able to see the colour of her knickers.
As a thank you for styling her, Evangeline had insisted on paying for Athena to have her hair cut and dried for the party, and her blonde hair had been styled into soft waves.
She applied her make-up with care and subtlety and then put on a pair of gold earrings shaped like dreamcatchers in the forlorn hope they would protect her from the nightmare of seeing Draco again.
With her feet in a pair of gold stilettoes, she was physically ready.
Emotionally, she was as far from ready as she’d ever been.
The ballroom of the Dionysus Hotel glittered both from the multiple chandeliers and the jewellery gleaming on the guests filing in.
Draco’s team had pulled out all the stops to make the party work, and as a string quartet played jaunty music, high society mixed with select employees and scions of the shipping industry, sipping champagne and nibbling on the canapés that would sustain them until the meal was served.
Holding court, Georgios Tsaliki, the man who’d spent decades at the forefront of Greek shipping, a maverick and innovator who, from his body language, was expecting to be eulogised that evening.
Draco couldn’t even bring himself to care about how the bastard who’d destroyed his mother would react when the new name was revealed. He was too busy scanning the growing crowd for Georgios’s daughter.
His heart thumped a beat before his eyes locked onto the vision in red walking through the door with a woman who looked much like his finance director.
From across the crowded room, her gaze lifted to his, eyes locking together for a beat long enough to make his thumping heart ache to fly to her.