CHAPTER 9
NERO ZANTHOS
“Thank God! You’re home!”
My mother storms into my bedroom like a hurricane, and I lift my eyes from my phone screen before slipping it into my pants pocket. I turn toward Lysandra.
Her impeccable appearance—champagne-colored dress, white heels—clashes sharply with the gravity stamped on her face. My shoulders tense immediately at her tone.
Lysandra has a bad habit of being dramatic, and most of the time her great worries aren’t truly worth noting. Still, I can’t help feeling alarmed by her voice. I always think that this time, something might really have happened—and the last thing we need is a problem on Christmas morning.
“What happened?” I ask, my mind already running a marathon in search of solutions to a problem I don’t yet know.
“This happened!” she replies, thrusting a newspaper up in front of my face, practically rubbing it against my nose.
It takes my eyes a few seconds to process the image printed there: Nina and me, last night, in the garden. We’re standing side by side, looking at each other and smiling. The photo was taken before the dance, before the kiss.
Above it, the headline reads: “Greek Heir Off the Market?”
“It’s a Christmas disaster!” Lysandra declares, convinced.
I restrain myself from scoffing.
She lowers the newspaper just enough for me to see her face—genuinely worried.
“It’s a photo, Mother.”
“Yours—with a… a… a… urgh! I don’t even know what that girl is!” She points at the image as I turn away and continue getting ready, now that I know nothing truly happened. I pick up my watch from the bedside table and fasten it around my wrist. “You need to be more careful, Nero.”
I turn my head slightly toward her.
“Careful about what?”
“Your…” She pauses, as if searching for the right word—but I know my mother well enough to know that if she came in here, every word she intends to say has already been carefully chosen.
“Your company,” she concludes. “You need to be careful with your company. All your life, you and those boys—” the last two words drip with the usual disdain “—have had all sorts of affairs, and this sort of thing”—she lifts the newspaper again to emphasize—“has never happened before. You can’t be careless now, Nero. ”
One of my eyebrows lifts reflexively. I blink—and almost laugh.
All sorts of affairs?
Where did she get that from?
I press my lips together, making an extra effort to keep the laughter in. That would only irritate her further—and for fuck’s sake, it’s Christmas.
“All sorts of affairs?” I ask.
Lysandra rolls her eyes.
“You know what I mean.”
I narrow my gaze, because no—I really don’t.
That statement would only make sense if we took the number of women Apollo sleeps with and averaged it across four people. I abandon the thought the moment it crosses my mind.
“I don’t think I do,” I say.
My mother lets out something close to a growl.
“Public relations is already dealing with it,” she says, completely ignoring my words. “But discretion, Nero. That’s all. Be discreet and avoid ending up on more front pages next to that… that… that type.”
I let out a long breath, allowing my mother’s words to go in one ear and out the other.
I love my parents. I am deeply and eternally grateful for everything they gave me—and for the opportunities that allowed me to extend that generosity to others.
That doesn’t mean I’m blind to who they are as people.
Lysandra and Konstantino have always been good parents to me. Far more than I ever expected when they told me I was being adopted.
In fact, the first years after leaving the orphanage were hard on all of us.
I ran away many times. I deliberately caused trouble just as often, trying to be returned—to go back home. Not to the hellish walls of the orphanage, but to my brothers.
It took a long time and immense patience on Lysandra’s and Konstantino’s part for me to understand that they had truly chosen me—and that nothing I did would change that. I could resent the opportunities suddenly being poured at my feet after years without options, or I could embrace them.
I chose the second.
The five years I spent away from all of them—because my parents wouldn’t allow me to keep in contact and I was still a minor—were the hardest of my life.
On the day I turned eighteen, I went back to the orphanage. It was the first time I’d seen my brothers in a very long time.
I brought a cake that wasn't for my own celebration, but for theirs.
Because every experience I’d had over the previous years had never been lived without me first promising myself that they would live it too. The birthday cake was the first of those promises fulfilled.
There were no parties for us at the orphanage. At best, a cupcake with a single candle Rosa brought in from the street so we could sing Happy Birthday in secret.
After that day, I kept coming back. And every time one of them reached adulthood, I took him out of there.
First the twins. Two years later, Drako.
And despite my parents’ reluctance to understand that my bond with my brothers wouldn’t end when my time at the orphanage did, it was the education Lysandra and Konstantino gave me—and the doors the Zanthos name opened—that allowed me to do it.
They raised me as their son from the moment I stepped into this house. Giving me the best of themselves and the best the world could offer. Overnight, I had everything—and I clung to it fiercely.
I studied. I became responsible for the family businesses. And I gave Apollo, Atlas, and Drako opportunities that, without my parents, they would never have had.
Today, all my friends are as formally educated as I am, and each of them runs his own business.
I financed the beginning of each one, of course. But years have passed since every coin I invested was paid back. None of the three stopped until every last cent of what they owed me had been returned—even though it was never required.
And that wasn’t the only thing the Zanthos family gave me by adopting me.
They gave me the chance to ensure that no child in Khione would ever go through what I did.
That is the association’s primary role: to follow, support, and protect.
Which is why I change the subject.
“How is the lunch planning going? Do you need anything?”
“You’re not going out, are you?” my mother asks, clearly ready to remind me that I promised I’d be here.
“Only later. But if you don’t need me until the guests arrive, I’ll be in the office.”
She nods, satisfied with my answer, and steps closer, finally lowering her defenses.
“I just need you here,” she says, wrapping her arms around my waist.
I kiss her forehead.
“Good morning, Nero,” she finally says—prompting a laugh from me.
Priorities, right?