Chapter 2 Aristides
The packed sand felt good under my shoes. I kept my usual pace along the water, not thinking about much of anything.
Athens in the summer demanded early mornings or late evenings for physical exertion. Only tourists and fools ran at midday.
A few paces behind, Markos and Haris followed, their strides matching mine. Years of working together had trained them to blend into my periphery, unseen by most.
The beach stretched before me, largely empty save for a couple seated near the water’s edge. I paid them no attention initially, my mind occupied with the quarterly reports I’d reviewed that morning and the factory expansion in Thessaloniki requiring my decision.
As CEO of Olympus Motors, Greece’s only car manufacturer, I bore ultimate responsibility, though I relied heavily on my younger brothers Konstantin and Dimitrios, who managed the financial and operational—
Theó mou.
That profile. Those legs. I stopped abruptly.
Dede.
My mind had drifted to her more times than I cared to admit over the past three weeks. The American woman with rich brown skin and curves her romper had done nothing to hide.
I’d hoped she was at least in her early thirties. At forty-four, the thought of being attracted to someone young enough to be within five years of my son, Chrysanthos’s age, made my stomach revolt.
But no, there was a maturity in her bearing, a confidence that came only with years of living. Not a woman entering adulthood, but one fully formed and formidable.
My son would laugh if he knew his father was lamenting over a woman he’d known for less than twenty minutes.
The same son who threw himself into danger on racetracks across the world, encouraging me for years to live a little.
Usually while recovering from his latest crash, bandaged and grinning as though mortality were a trifle.
I’d convinced myself I’d never see her again.
Yet here she sat, close enough to touch, head tilted toward the man beside her. Too close beside her.
The man, younger than me by perhaps a decade, was tall with an athletic build, and American by the sound of him. He gestured animatedly while she laughed at whatever inanities he spouted.
Something dark and possessive unfurled in my chest. Irrational. She wasn’t mine. One rescue in an alley didn’t constitute a claim. Yet every instinct I possessed screamed otherwise.
I turned to leave. This unwelcome surge of territorial aggression toward a woman I’d met once required distance.
“Aris?” Her voice carried across the sand, stopping me.
She remembered my name. After three weeks, she remembered.
I turned slowly, giving myself time to arrange my expression into nonchalance. “Dede.”
She waved me over. “What a coincidence!”
Farther up the beach, my men stopped as if admiring the water. I approached the pair, acutely aware of my appearance. Sweat-dampened shirt clinging to my torso and shorts, the complete absence of the polished veneer I maintained.
Yet her eyes traveled over me with unmistakable appreciation. It was satisfying.
“This is Greg, my neighbor here while in Athens,” she said as I reached them. “Greg, this is Aris. My knight in shining armor.”
Greg extended his hand. I shook it because manners required it, but I couldn’t muster enthusiasm for the gesture.
“Dede told me about the alley incident,” he said, maintaining that irritating smile. “Good thing you were there. Athens can be sketchy if you don’t know where you’re going.”
“Indeed.” I kept my gaze on Deanna, noting the flush still visible on her chest from her run.
Her sports bra and shorts revealed every curve I’d spent three weeks trying not to imagine.
Those breasts were designed specifically to torment me.
I wanted her on my lap, my hand beneath that fabric, my thumb circling her nipple to discover whether she was a screamer or a moaner. “One must be careful.”
The American’s smile had faded, his posture shifting from relaxed to uncertain. He stood quickly, brushing sand from his shorts. “I’ll, uh, leave you to it.”
Good. He possessed more intelligence than his persistent hovering suggested.
“Thanks for the run,” Dede called after him. When she turned back to me, her eyes had narrowed. “You scared him off.”
“I have done this?”
“Please.” She rolled her eyes. “You practically marked your territory.” She patted the space Greg had vacated. “Wanna join me? Since you chased away my companion.”
I sat beside her, letting my thigh rest against hers. Her floral scent mixed with clean sweat and salt air filled my lungs.
She didn’t pull away. If anything, she leaned into the contact. “You run here often?”
“Not here. But I do run in the evenings, yes.”
She smiled at that. “No wonder we haven’t crossed paths. I usually jog before the sun rises. Slept in today.”
Her phone buzzed. She pulled it from her pocket, and I watched her expression soften as she read whatever message had arrived. Her fingers moved quickly across the screen, typing a response.
“I should go.”
Her husband was probably on the other end of that text. Yet I found myself unable to move.
Dede’s head snapped up. “That was rude of me. I’m sorry. That was my daughter.”
“How many children do you have?”
“Just one. She’s twenty-two years old and the love of my life.” The words carried absolute conviction.
Dede must have been young when she became a parent. I waited for her to elaborate, but she lifted her chin, bracing for judgment.
“I am relieved. I thought you were closer in age to my son. He is twenty-three.”
“Is he your only child?”
“He is. Which is why he is determined to be death of me. I have not met more mischievous and oppositional creature.”
“I know what you mean. For twenty-two years and six months, I had a model daughter. A kid who focused on school and followed her mother’s excellent judgment.
” She made a face that was somehow both exasperated and proud.
“Now, I’ve got a woman on my hands who makes her own plans and doesn’t bother to share the details of her adult life. ”
“We do not control our children, unfortunately.” Chrysanthos’s terrible life decisions had proven this truth repeatedly.
“Damn shame,” she said with a smile.
“Are you happily married?”
Her eyebrows rose. “I’ve been happily divorced for fourteen years.”
“The day we met,” I said. “When your phone rang, you answered with love of my life.
“That was my daughter.”
I’d walked away from her for nothing.
Then her eyes narrowed. “Wait. Why did you ask me if I was ‘happily’ married?”
“If you are married, then I must work harder for a kiss, yes?”
“Is that right?” Her voice had dropped.
“Yes.”
“And since I’m single?”
I leaned closer. “Then there is no husband to remove.”
I closed the remaining distance, and there was nothing gentle about the kiss. I’d been thinking about this for weeks. Wondering if her lips were as soft as they looked, and if she’d taste as good as I imagined.
She was better.
I slid my hand into her hair—extensions, I realized, but I didn’t care—and gripped tight enough to angle her head back. My other hand found the bare skin of her lower back, pulling her against me.
She made a small sound that went straight to my cock.
Then she bit my lower lip.
A growl tore from my chest, and I tightened my grip on her hair, deepening the kiss. My tongue slid against hers, tasting, exploring, claiming.
She pressed closer, her fingers moving to the back of my neck, into my hair, and every point of contact between us burned. My thumb brushed the underside of her breast, and she made that sound again.
I wanted more. Wanted my hands everywhere. Wanted to strip away the thin fabric between us and—
She pulled back, breathing hard. “Wait. Wait.”
I forced myself to stop. “What has happened?”
Her chest rose and fell rapidly, pupils blown wide with desire. Whatever had made her pull away, it wasn’t a lack of want.
“I just—” She took another breath. “I don’t even know if you’re single.”
“Widowed for past twenty-three years.”
Her expression shifted from desire to compassion. “I’m sorry for your loss, Aris.”
The same words I’d heard countless times over two decades, yet from her lips, they didn’t feel forced. “It was long time ago.”
“But you were so young. Both of you, I’m guessing.” Her hand moved from my hair to rest against my chest, directly over my heart. “My divorce was hard, sure. But at least my daughter’s father was alive. I don’t know how you did it.”
My hand covered hers, holding it there as I spoke truths I rarely acknowledged. “Some days, I did not manage this. I was poor at it. But my son, he needed me. That was sufficient to move.” My thumb brushed across her knuckles. “We do what we must for our children. You know this.”
“Yeah,” she whispered. “I do.”
We sat in silence, hands linked, the ocean rolling before us. The moment stretched, weighted with a shared understanding that transcended the heat still simmering between us.
I broke the silence before I could reconsider. “Have dinner with me on Saturday.”
“Just dinner?”
“To start.”
“Seven o’clock?”
“I will come at six-thirty.” I rolled her nipple between my fingers through the fabric, and she whimpered. “And Dede?”
“Yeah?” Her voice had gone breathless.
“Wear something I can remove without complication.”
Three days later, I stood inside my walk-in closet in trousers and an undershirt, debating between a green shirt and a pale blue one. Twenty-three minutes remained until I was due to pick up Dede for dinner.
Dating wasn’t foreign territory. I’d had my share of elegant dinners with suitable women over the years, but this felt different. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d changed shirts three times for a date.
I pulled the green shirt from its hanger and slipped it on, leaving it unbuttoned as I moved to the dresser. A tie or no tie? I selected a pair of diamond cufflinks from the wooden box, then reconsidered. Perhaps simpler ones.
A knock interrupted my thoughts, followed immediately by the door swinging open. Chrysanthos strode in without waiting for permission, exactly as he’d done since he was tall enough to reach the handle.
“Father, I need to...” He stopped, taking in my appearance. “You got a haircut?”
I emerged from the closet and reached for my watch on the nightstand, fastening it around my wrist. “Is there something you need?”
He dropped into the armchair near the window. “You’ve got a date.”
I turned back to the cufflinks on the dresser, still debating which pair to choose rather than respond. My son’s sudden appearance was more than coincidental. There was something specific he wanted to discuss, and his curiosity about my evening plans was merely a detour.
“What brings you to my room, Chrysanthos?” I asked.
“I’m leaving for Japan tomorrow morning.”
My hands stilled on the cufflinks. Some weeks ago, my son had taken our newest, most expensive prototype from the factory without permission and crashed it.
I had gone to the crash site and stood at the edge of that cliff, watching as they hauled the wreckage up. The rescue team had been silent, their faces grim.
They knew what I knew. No one could have survived that fall.
If not for Tia Massey, the American tourist who’d pulled him from the wreckage before it careened off the cliff, I would be attending a funeral instead of preparing for this date.
“The doctors cleared you to be back on the track?” I asked, unable to keep the skepticism from my voice.
“Completely,” he asserted. “I’ll be fine, Father.”
I studied my only child. He was the living embodiment of both my youthful spirit and his mother’s determination. Before losing her in childbirth, I had lived for the thrill of risk.
“Be careful,” I said simply, knowing any stronger words would be dismissed.
Chrysanthos rose. “Will you come to my race?”
I hesitated. Each time I watched him on that track, my heart threatened to stop with every turn and acceleration.
“I’ll be there,” I promised. “And when you return, we host the executive dinner.”
His face darkened. “Father, I know. I signed the contract.”
The contract. My leverage to ensure my son finally took his place in the family business. The same agreement that had secured the restoration job for Tia Massey. His path was set now, whether he fully accepted it yet or not.
“Yes, you did, and I expect you to honor it.”
His gaze drifted to my closet and then back to my unbuttoned green shirt. “Who is she?”
“Is there anything else you need?” I asked pointedly.
“You should wear the blue shirt,” he suggested, gesturing to my closet. “And no tie.”
“Since when are you the fashion expert?” I challenged, though I found myself considering his suggestion.
“Since Kayla threatened to burn half my wardrobe and replace it,” he replied with a grin. “Konstantin’s new wife has excellent taste, and she’d tell you the same thing.”
I glanced between the green shirt I wore and the blue one in the closet, then shrugged out of the green and returned to my closet to retrieve the blue.
“Enjoy your evening, Father. Try not to be home before midnight. It would be emasculating.”
“Your concern is noted,” I called after him, unable to suppress a smile as he disappeared through the door.
I finished buttoning the blue shirt and fastened the diamond cufflinks, then checked my watch. It had been years since I’d felt this combination of anticipation and uncertainty.
I grabbed my wallet and headed for the door before I could overthink it further.