Chapter 46
C H A P T E R
TWO DAYS LATER, IN THE DIMLY LIT RESTAURANT IN MANHATTAN, Honey sat stiffly, looking and feeling akin to a living doll.
She wore an expensive red bandage dress, one that she wouldn’t have chosen herself.
But it was the dress that Antonis had one of his men drop off the night before, instructing her to wear it for tonight.
If it had been up to her, she wouldn’t be wearing a dress at all.
But these past few days, she realized that the choices she had before, she didn’t have anymore.
“And what will you be having tonight, miss?” the waiter asked her after taking down Antonis’s order.
Honey stared at him as if he had two heads. “Why are you asking me what I want when it doesn’t matter?”
The waiter’s eyebrows rose in confusion before his eyes whipped over to Antonis, who sat on the other side of the table, chuckling.
Honey glared at him. She didn’t find anything amusing about this situation at all.
She wished she could chuck the candle on the table at his face, so he would burn and vanish from her life.
“She’ll have the filet mignon steak with roasted potatoes and asparagus,” Antonis told the waiter. The waiter stiffly took it down, his eyes shifting between them and the two rough-looking men who stood behind them until he left.
“You should like it,” Antonis told her, but Honey didn’t respond, lost in her own thoughts, wondering how she found herself there. Ever since Antonis came back, he had changed.
He had always been too pushy, crossing too many of her boundaries, being relentless in his pursuit of her, and making it known that if she ever wanted to make more money, then she would have to be with him. But she hadn’t realized until now that he hadn’t crossed all her boundaries.
She thought he had, but now as he trampled over every request she wanted, sticking true to his word of not caring what she wanted anymore, she wished she could go back to the tentative relationship they had before, where he waited for her, and she avoided him at all costs.
Now, he wasn’t waiting anymore.
He was adamant about making her his, even against her will, and that was how she found herself sitting in this restaurant on a Saturday night, tucked away in the corner where the lights were dim. The setting looked romantic, yet the mood was anything but.
There was tension in the air, not the romantic, exotic tension of two lovers who desired each other, but a palpable tension, thick enough to cut with a knife, only one that enemies could have, not lovers.
She sat further away from him than most would ever on a date, and it also didn’t help that two of his men stood on either side of them, which caused most people to stare at them whenever they walked past.
They probably thought an important official was here to eat when it was just a criminal, who had too many enemies to eat alone without his men in a restaurant.
Moments later, the waiter came back with two wine glasses and an expensive bottle of wine. Honey already knew it was expensive because Antonis was an expensive man. He would never walk around with anything less than finer things.
Honey watched as the waiter poured a small amount of wine into each of their glasses, and she was almost ready to tell him to pour more because, at this point, that was what she would need to get through this night without losing it.
Her skin prickled with annoyance and anxiety, and she felt that if anyone touched her the wrong way, she would explode, specifically on Antonis.
After the waiter left, Antonis took a sip of his wine. “This is good. This is one of the finest wines from Barcelona from the time of the war.”
Honey ignored him, not caring about how fine the wine was or where it had come from. At first, she had planned to drink it to get through this night, but now, she didn’t want it anymore, so she pushed the glass away.
“You won’t try it?”
“No,” Honey said, tersely.
“You won’t try me,” Antonis said, chuckling bitterly, and Honey arched a brow in question.
“You’ve never been willing to try with me,” Antonis explained.
“You’re my boss,” Honey said, but Antonis looked unimpressed.
“I almost would have believed you, but while I was out of commission, my nephew was in charge, and that hadn’t stopped you.”
Honey swallowed thickly, realizing that she couldn’t deny that. But when she thought about it, Nikos had never felt like a boss to her, and maybe it was because she hadn’t necessarily acknowledged him as one then.
At the time, she still only saw him as a philandering asshole who was going around sleeping with every woman in the Gentlemen’s Club.
But then she realized, it was because Nikos had never acted like her boss.
He had never imposed his feelings on her using his title.
He had never made her feel uncomfortable.
She had never had to worry about Nikos holding anything against her at her job even when she was running from him.
What she wanted had mattered to him, and he hadn’t just seen her as some toy he wanted to possess, and that was all she would ever be to a man like Antonis— a possession.
Their table was quiet even after the food arrived, and though Honey could admit that it smelt good, she refused to eat, pushing the plate away from her as she had done with the wine.
At first, Antonis ignored her and ate his food, but after ten minutes passed, he suddenly slammed his knife down, causing some nearby people to jump.
His men visibly shifted, uncomfortably, but Honey remained unmoved as she continued to act as the doll that Antonis so desperately wanted her to be.
“You won’t even give your food a try.”
“If I wanted to go out to dinner, then yes, I would. But I didn’t want to go out to dinner, so why would I eat?”
“Honey, you’re testing my patience,” he gritted out, and Honey scuffed.
“And you don’t think you’re testing mines?
” Honey barked back, feeling as if she could jump out of her skin.
“I’ve told you multiple times that I didn’t want this with you, but just like everything else, you ignore it.
What I want doesn’t matter to you, so what you want doesn’t matter to me. Unless you plan to force-feed me.”
It was only after she said it, that she started to wonder if Antonis intended on doing that. Even after having known him for four years, she felt like she was walking in uncharted territory with him now.
The man sitting in front of her now was completely different from the man she had known before. If she felt like jumping out of her skin now, she was pretty sure Antonis felt the same, like every bit of control he had developed over the past few years was disappearing from him.
He was tired of waiting, but she was tired of him waiting, period.
She wanted to go home. She wanted to return to the past. She wanted to have never started a relationship with Nikos just so he could still be alive at this moment, just so she could hear one of his stupid one-liners again. She was in pain, and Antonis wouldn’t even allow that to happen.
“Do you think I wouldn’t be able to?” The question brought chills down her spine as her heart raced. “Honey, I’m a man starved of you. You’ve left me in a dry desert with no water. What do you think I’m capable of?”
Her nose wrinkled in disgust. “Get your own damn water.”
“I want you, but you won’t let me have you.”
“Most normal people accept that when someone doesn’t want them, they have to move on.
That’s what sane people do. They don’t hold them hostage with their power.
They don’t threaten them or harm the people around them,” Honey argued, feeling as if she were talking to a brick wall, and she was sure Antonis felt the same.
“I am not a normal man. I am Antonis Tsagkarakis. I get what I want. I have ruled this tristate for decades. Most women would be begging on their knees to have me, but you—” he gritted his teeth.
She didn’t care if every woman on earth wanted him. She never would.
“The moment I laid eyes on you, I knew you were mine,” he said, his face open with a level of vulnerability that she had never seen on him before; one that made him look less like a monster and more like a desperate man.
“Why can’t you see the same? I can give you everything you’ve ever wanted.
You don’t have to work in the backrooms. You don’t have to dance for other men.
If you want to cook, you can cook for me. ”
Honey scuffed and looked away, but Antonis reached over, grabbing her chin, and forcing her to look at him.
“I can give you the world, but you won’t let me. I can give you everything he gave you, but you won’t let me. Just like this wine and food, you won’t try me. I’ve waited long enough, but if I wait any longer for you to see me, I’ll wither away and starve.”
Honey tried to pull her chin away, but Antonis wouldn’t budge.
“I want to live with you,” he confessed, and Honey slapped his hand away, looking at him with fury. How dare he say that when he had just taken another man’s life away?
“You want to know the difference between you and Nikos,” Honey said.
“He gave me all of those things with no stipulations. I didn’t need to fuck him for him to allow me to work in the backroom or give floor performances.
He allowed me to do that all on his own and when I got hurt working the first time, he was willing to give me money just to be in my company…
in my fucking company, Antonis. He could have taken advantage of that, and I thought he would, but he didn’t.
He never forced me, he never used his power over me.
He wanted me to stop working at the club so I would be safe, and I could follow my dreams. Not so I could be a doll he could play with. He was nothing like you.”
Antonis’s green eyes were enraged, and Honey knew he was probably imagining what every moment had been like between them.
But even then, he wouldn’t be able to do it because the way Nikos had treated her was a way that Antonis would never be able to.
He would never be able to love her properly, never be able to treat her the way she deserved.
He would never be able to cease being the man he was.
“Well, too bad he’s gone now, and touching what’s mine got him killed.”
Honey’s eyes watered, an automatic reaction that wouldn’t go away, and quite frankly, she was tired of him reminding her of something that she already knew because if Nikos were here, she wouldn’t be in this restaurant right now, forced to play a doll.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s gone now,” she said, “ because you’ll never be able to have me the way Nikos had.
You can force me all you want, but you’ll never be able to have me the way that you truly desire.
You want to know what I first thought when I laid eyes on you,” she said, looking him in the eye.
“I thought ‘This is a dangerous man, and I will stay away from him,’ and I was right.”
Antonis slammed the table loud enough that it drew everyone’s attention.
The restaurant was quiet as everyone watched their table warily.
She could see the waiters, looking caught between wanting to come over and assess the situation and fearing to.
She could not blame them. She had rattled a snake, and it looked ready to bite everyone, even her.
She waited with a bated breath, wondering what he would do next, seeing the veins of anger in his jaw and roping along his wrists.
“Let’s go,” he announced as he stood abruptly. “I’m done with this meal.”
As he walked away, she nearly sighed with relief, glad that this farce of a meal would be over with, but then he paused, and she stiffened again as if she were a doll wined up back to life.
“Don’t think this is enough to end us. I’ll make you love me one day. I promise it, Honey.”
She watched his back in disbelief as he charged towards the exit.
He was delusional if he thought she would ever love him. He could be the last man on earth, and she would never love him. Not only because she despised him so, but because it felt like her heart had already been stolen by someone else.