CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER THREE
Tessa
P ANIC CRAWLS UP my throat. Eight more months? After wasting twenty-one years of my life under someone else’s thumb, eight months feels like an eternity. Especially knowing I can have the things I thought might be out of my reach. Things like a family of my own. Children. Things the man sitting across from me wants nothing to do with.
“Why?”
Rafe’s face hardens. Even knowing him as I do, my body tenses. I’ve rarely seen him like this, every muscle in his body wound tight, anger lurking beneath the surface. So many people think Rafe feels nothing.
But they just don’t know where to look.
“Lucifer’s will stipulates that for me to inherit my share of Drakos Development, including all European and Asian holdings, I have to surpass our one-year anniversary.”
My mouth drops open. “What?”
Rafe’s father had barely paid me any attention. Something I’d been more than fine with. The man was an odious, selfish toad who lived to satisfy his own desires and make his sons miserable.
“That’s insane.”
Rafe’s smile is small but lethal. “On that, we agree.”
My mind races as I sit back in my chair. “So Gavriil and Juliette…”
Rafe nods. “My requirement was to reach our first anniversary. Gavriil’s requirement was to marry within a year of the will reading and stay married for a year.”
Hurt cuts through me. Gavriil and I have been friends since my family moved to Santorini. With our house being perched on the shore and within a three-minute boat ride of the private island Lucifer Drakos had built his lavish villa on, it had been easy for Gavriil to ride over with the housekeeper when she came to Santorini to do the shopping or visit with friends. It had been on one of those visits that Gavriil had seen me sitting outside on our porch and asked why I was in a wheelchair. After I told him I’d fallen off a wall, he’d asked if he could try it sometime in the innocent way so many children see life. He treated me like a person instead of someone to be handled delicately or ignored. We’d been best friends ever since.
Or at least I thought we had. Him not telling me about the will, about his real reason for marrying Juliette, stings. I’d even started to view Juliette as a friend. She was my third client ever, and the largest account to date.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek. This is part of what I need to work on when it comes to business. Keeping things professional. Not letting personal feelings get in the way. To be more like my husband.
The thought has me choking back a laugh.
“Gavriil didn’t tell you?”
I narrow my eyes at the slight taunt in Rafe’s voice. “No.”
“Interesting.” He glances at me over the rim of his glass. “If you and I hadn’t been married, I imagine he would have asked you.”
I stare at him. Then I laugh. “Gavriil?” I finally say, my sides hurting from laughing so hard. “Are you joking?”
“I don’t joke.”
The cold delivery of that statement has me laughing harder. I grab my napkin and press it to my lips. It takes a moment, but I finally wrestle myself back under control.
“Marrying Gavriil would be like marrying Katie.”
The slightest crinkle appears at the bridge of his nose. “How so?”
“Gavriil is the brother I never had. It would be like incest.” I suddenly remember the other man at the wedding. Tall, hulking, like a lumberjack stuffed into a tuxedo. But he had been surprisingly kind and fun to talk with. It had taken me a moment to realize why he felt so familiar.
The eyes. The same pale blue as my husband’s.
“What about your other brother?”
Rafe stills. “Other brother?”
“Michail.”
I can feel the fury whip across the table before Rafe pulls his mantle of apathy back on and shuts me out.
“Gavriil told you about him?”
“I met him at the wedding.”
“Ah.” He downs the rest of his bourbon and sets the glass on the edge of the table. “What about him?”
“I didn’t realize you had another brother.”
“I didn’t either until just before the will reading.”
“Are you…” My voice trails off. Rafe never had much of a relationship with Gavriil. From what Gavriil had shared, Rafe essentially ignored him ever since he stepped foot inside the Drakos villa after his mother died and he was sent to live with Lucifer. Whenever I saw them together, I noticed the distance between them, as well as the lack of emotion on Rafe’s end and the lingering hurt and bitterness Gavriil held on to.
“Are you okay with having another brother?”
One shoulder rose and fell in a subtle shrug. “It’s inconsequential. He has no interest in Drakos Development and has chosen not to fulfill the requirement to inherit.”
“But what about…” I pause, then decide to go for it. What do I have to lose by holding back at this point? “What about getting to know him?”
Two blinks this time. “Why would I?”
Pain squeezes my lungs. Pain for the man in front of me who cares about nothing, who exists solely for the purpose of his company. Pain for the numerous relationships he’s dismissed.
Including our own.
But this is good , I remind myself. A clear answer he’s not the one for you.
One day, that will be comforting. One day, I will look back on this moment and know it was the best thing to ever happen to me, second only to my decision to move to Paris.
But right now, it just hurts.
“I don’t want to wait, Rafe.” I breathe in deeply, exhale harshly. “I’m ready to move on with my life. Surely you could break the will.”
“I haven’t explored that option yet.” His gaze is intense, penetrating. “My proposal is much simpler.”
“Yes, but longer.”
“Is being married to me for eight more months such an abhorrent thought?”
If it were anyone else, I’d almost think I’d hurt him. Would imagine I saw a slight downturn of his lips, a tightening around his eyes. But as this conversation and my past behavior have proved, my interpretations and feelings about Rafe can’t be trusted.
“It has nothing to do with you, Rafe.” Liar . “I just want to move on with my life.”
“Even if we were to proceed,” Rafe says quietly, “Greek courts take an average of a year for a hearing, not to mention another year to make a decision.”
“Yes, but when a close friend of my father’s serves as a judge, matters can be expedited.”
His eyes narrowed. “How quickly?”
“Two months.”
Two months instead of two years. Twenty-two more months of freedom. Of shedding the remnants of who I used to be and embracing who I can become. An entrepreneur, a lover, a wife, a mother.
It’s enjoyable, watching Rafe unsettled for a moment as he processes this revelation. The signs are subtle: a quick blink, the tensing of his jaw that’s barely visible beneath his neatly trimmed beard.
“Is it worth the hassle?”
I used to subscribe to that mindset. Nothing was worth the hassle, especially if it resulted in my mother crying as she apologized yet again for falling asleep that day instead of going outside to play with me like she’d promised. Each teardrop added to the weight of my own shame I’d carried like a yoke around my neck for more than twenty long years until I was drowning in guilt and tears.
After living that hell for so long, calling in a favor from a family friend and going through expedited divorce proceedings seems more than worth the hassle.
“It is to me.”
Darkness shifts in his eyes. Before I can analyze it, the waiter appears with a platter of Coquilles Saint-Jacques and a plate of grilled asparagus on the side. The sea scallops, baked in half a shell and drizzled with Gruyère cheese and cream sauce, smell heavenly.
Yet I can barely stomach taking a bite as my heart gallops in my chest. I’m past the point of wanting Rafe to somehow reveal that he’s missed me. I hate that he’s so close, that we’re sharing what should be an intimate and enjoyable experience between a wife and her husband, but is instead a meal charged with undercurrents of pain and exhaustion.
“What would it take for you to agree, Tessa?”
I pop one of the scallops into my mouth, barely register the delicious taste of shellfish soaked in butter.
“What are you offering?”
His blue gaze narrows. Years of training keep me from rolling my eyes, but just barely. I told him what I want: a clean break. He’s the one trying to persuade me to stay.
“Money. I have over a billion at my disposal.”
I stab another scallop with my fork. “I told you, I have enough of my own.”
“People can always use more money.”
I pause with the fork halfway to my mouth.
“Yes.” I say the word quietly before giving him a small, sad smile. “My father thought the same thing.”
Nolan Sullivan spent his whole life in the shadow of his older sister. An existence that, coupled with my accident and my mother’s choosing to focus her life on me instead of her husband or younger daughter, had fashioned a distant man who found no joy in life. The one thing that made him get out of bed in the morning was money, as if he earned enough of it he might one day also earn his father’s respect. Perhaps even his love.
I’d seen the pleasure on my father’s face, the relief at learning my grandfather had entrusted the firm to him upon his and my aunt’s death. A pleasure swiftly defeated by shock when the lawyer told him how deeply in debt Sullivan Legacy Properties was. I know he’d rejected Rafe’s first offer to simply buy the firm. Had cited that the company had been in our family for four generations. Rafe had countered with his offer of marriage.
He’d talked to me only once after I accepted Rafe’s proposal. I’d been on my balcony, the same place where Rafe had sat and presented his proposal like a business presentation, staring out at the lines and ridges of Drakos Island. My future home.
My father had asked me if I was happy about marrying Rafe. The question had surprised me. My father rarely asked me my opinion on anything. So I’d simply said yes.
“I’m glad.”
And then he’d walked back inside. The last time I’d seen him had been during my wedding reception when he’d sat at a table with my mother with a perpetually full glass of wine in front of him and a glazed look in his eyes.
Probably mentally reviewing the astounding sum Rafe had paid to purchase Sullivan Legacy.
“Something for your business then.”
My spine stiffens. “What?”
“Your interior design firm. You’ve only been in business for a couple months. Plenty of opportunity for—”
“No. Thank you.”
He’s watching me now, his unnervingly direct gaze tinged with curiosity. I pause, trying to figure out the best way to phrase my next words. To stay strong and not let him glimpse the insecurities that still haunt me.
“As I move on with my life, I want to make a clean break. No ties to Greece, or anyone from my past.” Including you. “I also want Tessa’s Interiors to succeed on its own merits. On the work I put into it. Using my trust fund to get started felt like a compromise to begin with. Accepting handouts from my…” I look down at the table, unable to look him in the eye. “From my husband would negate my independence.”
His shoulders stiffen. Now he’s frustrated. Rafe and his brother Gavriil are renowned for their ability to make deals, to come up with mergers and sales most people in the property development community can only dream of. Stymying him shouldn’t bring me pleasure. But it’s interesting seeing this side of him, watching as he tries to come up with something to appeal to me.
The only thing I want is something I have no interest in receiving from Rafe. When I have a family of my own, I want it to be with someone I love and who loves me in return. Who won’t place business above all else. Who will look at me and see me, want me, for who I am and not what I can bring to the table.
Rafe continues to stare. He’s mentally analyzing what he knows about me and trying to come up with something, anything, to persuade me. It’s not fair on my part to be upset at his lack of feelings toward me. He never once led me on.
I just wanted it to be different.
“We’ve always gotten along well, Tessa.”
Gotten along well .
Bland, banal, boring.
I take another sip of my wine as I think about Nathan. Yes, the man is essentially a puppy in human form with his huge smile and affable personality. But I’ve seen the way he looks at my sister, the little things he does because he knows it matters to her. And on one embarrassing occasion, I walked in on him pressing my sister against a wall as he kissed her like she was his last breath of air. Nathan had been mortified. Katie had laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks.
And I…I’d been slightly embarrassed. Amused. But beneath it all, envy had coursed through me like poison. I don’t want to be Rafe’s brother’s friend who happened to be a convenient wife. I want passion. Romance. Love.
“Yes, we have.”
“I don’t like making threats.”
I arch a brow. “So don’t.”
“But I will if my hand is forced.” His voice is deadly calm, his eyes glittering. “If I were to lose my role as head of Drakos Development’s European and Asian divisions, thousands of people would be at risk for losing their jobs.”
Oh, yes. Pile on the guilt. Not like I don’t suffer from enough of it already.
I sigh. Would eight more months of marriage really make that big of a difference?
Yes . Perhaps if he hadn’t come to Paris and had simply written or emailed, I could have agreed. But seeing him here now has put fresh cracks in my healing but still broken heart. I just want this to be over. Surely there’s some other way for him to work around this condition with the will. It’s so archaic in nature, so controlling, it’s almost laughable.
“Tessa.”
Hearing my name on his lips has me gripping my wineglass so tight I’m afraid I might snap the stem. It pulls at my heart, but it also tugs at that part of me that was awakened nine years ago. The first time I saw Rafe through a woman’s eyes. I can still see him kneeling next to me on a moonlit balcony, silver light glinting in his dark hair as he gave me the faintest of smiles. Can feel the warmth of his fingers sliding over my skin when he took my hand in his. It lasted all of a second.
But that one second changed everything.
My pulse kicks up as an idea glimmers at the edges of my mind. Faint at first, but then it solidifies, takes shape even as the rational part of my brain tries to squelch it.
It’s ridiculous. Foolish. It would be doing the exact opposite of what I just told myself I needed. Yet the more I think about it, the more tempting it becomes. Yes, it would potentially be putting my heart on the line. But I’ve proven to myself I’m so much stronger than I ever thought possible. And even if I occasionally struggle, the end result would be more than worth it.
“There is something.”
I can almost feel his sense of victory as his mouth tilts up at one corner.
“Name it.”
I square my shoulders, raise my chin and look him straight in the eye.
“I want you to be my first lover.”