CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SIX
Lynna avoided Athan for the next two days. It was cowardly, and she hated being cowardly, but she hated failing more.
Feeling any fissure of attraction for him, just biological or not, felt like a failure, and she needed to get a handle on it before they headed to Athens.
Today.
She did not think she had any handle on it. Which was lowering, but she convinced herself it was simply like learning a difficult cooking technique. Like making a souffle or macarons. It took time, determination, skill and practice .
Avoidance wasn’t practice, so she needed to be around him. She would practice her indifference all the way to Athens. Because she did not like him, no matter how her body betrayed her with its attraction to him.
And maybe he did find her attractive, and that all wasn’t some trick or ruse. That only meant he had no standards and was likely desperate for anything after agreeing to keep from engaging in any affairs for the duration of their marriage.
Not that him agreeing meant he would keep his hands to himself when it came to other women.
Probably especially if you refuse him.
She physically shook her head as if to dislodge that thought from her brain. It was not her responsibility to…to…do that in order for him to keep his hands to himself. That was on him and his ridiculous plan.
She’d packed her bag. She’d no doubt need to go shopping once they were in Athens if she was going to be leaving his house. She didn’t mind looking a little blend-into-the-background and drab if it suited the moment. But she wasn’t going to stand next to him looking like staff .
She was his wife.
And no amount of times she reminded herself of that could make the reality really take root. But she handed her suitcase off to his assistant when they came to collect them. She met Athan at the car that would drive them to the airport at the appointed time.
He greeted her charmingly, as if she hadn’t been avoiding him for two days, and then chatted inanely about the weather the whole way to the airport, and then more once in the air, about what was to come.
“I have arranged a few intimate dinners. Couple to couple, that sort of thing. We won’t discuss business. They’ll be friendly outings. I will go into the office this week, normal hours, so you may do whatever you like during the day. Might I suggest some…shopping.”
She scowled at him. Even though she’d been planning on it, she certainly didn’t like to be told . “It is hardly my fault I packed for a job and ended up in a ruse .”
“No, indeed. But you’ll need to shop all the same. I’ll have a calendar made up for you, including dress code and expectations so you can figure out what you need.”
She had to bite her tongue to keep from arguing. To argue with him would be childish. A knee-jerk reaction to being told what to do.
And Lynna was never childish. She was always calm and cool and unbothered by other people’s nonsense and attempts to impart their will on her. Whether he wanted to or not, whether he approved or not, she would go shopping when she pleased and for what she pleased.
She assured herself of this over and over again, failing at concentrating on the book she was reading as the flight took them from Mykonos to Athens. They touched down, deplaned, then got in another vehicle.
Lynna had very purposefully avoided Athens for quite some time. Ever since she’d helped Mom clean out their home and put it on the market. When she visited her family, they usually got together near Rhys’s school in Thessaloniki or she paid for them to come see her in London when she could manage the expense.
She couldn’t help herself from watching the city pass by, feeling nostalgia for a childhood that had been so simple . But that nostalgia started becoming dread as they didn’t turn into the city center. Instead, they seemed to be driving around and north, very near where she’d grown up. So close that her heart seemed to clutch in her chest.
Would they drive by her childhood home? Where she’d grown up and left at eighteen thinking the world was hers for the taking?
Only to have her stable, loving family’s world torn apart.
But the car did not turn down the street that would have led them there. Still, they didn’t drive much farther before the car stopped at a gate, and after a few moments, drove through onto a brick drive toward a beautiful white mansion, all classic lines and lots of green surrounding it. So that it felt as secluded as any country estate.
This was not at all what she’d expected. “This is your home?” she asked, suspiciously. “For one single man?”
“I bought it with an eye toward the future. Besides, if I really need to stay in the city overnight, I simply stay at a hotel. So why not have a comfortable home base?”
An eye toward the future. So he’d bought the house for the beautiful Regina and future children. And still, Lynna didn’t think it quite fit. They seemed like such a modern, sophisticated couple and this felt…
Like a home. Like her childhood home. And her parents had been Constantine’s opposites. Her father used to joke that that was what made them such good business partners. Yin and yang. And she had heard Constantine, on more than one occasion, say he envied the Carew family. For their warmth and their stability .
Had it all been a lie? Was everything a lie?
“Did you love her?” Lynna heard herself ask before she thought better of it. Before she centered herself in the present instead of the past. Oh, God , she should have never vocalized that question. She should have never even wondered that question.
But Athan considered this without giving some scathing response or knowing grin. “I liked her well enough. Enjoyed her company. Was looking forward to a life together, getting and building what we had both decided we wanted. But love? I don’t think I understand the concept of love.”
“What do you mean you don’t understand the concept ?”
“Human beings are selfish and destructive by nature. It’s biology. We can decide what we believe is right and wrong, and follow that, but emotions are not…decisions we make. Love is no evolutionary response. So what is it?”
He looked at her expectantly, like she was supposed to know, and know well enough to explain it.
She had no experience with romantic love, of course, but she loved her family dearly. Even when her brother was obnoxious, even when her mother felt more like a burden than an authority figure, even when her father had descended into a bitterness that would take his life.
They were the center of almost everything she did.
And Athan was posing the question as if there was no answer, when of course there was. “Love is the things you said. Enjoying someone’s company. Wanting to be with them and planning futures together.” Lynna thought of her family, her friends. Tried to put all those feelings into words, which was not exactly her strong point. She preferred acts of service to having to explain things. But here she was, and she was hardly going to admit to Athan she wasn’t sure or didn’t know something.
“And it’s wanting their happiness as much as if not more than your own. It’s caring for them and finding joy in that.”
“Interesting,” he said. As if it was . Which somehow made this whole strange conversation worse. “What about them caring for you?” Athan asked.
It was a strange question to have posed to her. She always took on the role of caretaker, felt she thrived there. The only time she’d really been taken care of outside of childhood was when her friends had rallied around her after her father died, but she’d been so mired in grief she hadn’t really, fully recognized what was happening in the moment.
Still, Athan had a point of sorts. For some people. “I… I suppose you’d have to find joy in that too.”
“You suppose ?”
She frowned at him as the car finally came to a stop after circling around a huge fountain. She refused to say anything else on the matter.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to take your word for it, expert or not. I certainly haven’t seen any evidence that this love people are so obsessed with is a reality. Outside of people with nice families, of course.”
“My parents loved each other.” She said it quietly, and the words felt like they’d escaped against her will. Because she didn’t want to be that vulnerable, but it also felt like a strange betrayal not to put that forward.
He had seen her parents. He’d been there when their families had been the best of friends.
She tried to look back on that time from his perspective. His parents had divorced when Lynna had been young and Athan couldn’t have been more than a young teen. She remembered him having to spend holidays with his mother, but during the school year he was in his father’s custody.
Constantine had never remarried, but there’d been a steady stream of women. Each younger and more glittery than the last—or so Lynna’s mother had said once when she didn’t think Lynna was listening.
Athan stared at her for the longest time, a faint line between his drawn-together brows. Then the driver opened her door and she pulled her gaze away and allowed the driver to help her out.
Before she could even catch a breath, Athan was at her side. “Welcome home, Mrs. Akakios.”
“I am not changing my name, even temporarily,” she said through gritted teeth, under her breath. Just the thought had her recoiling. Akakios? No. Never.
But Athan only grinned at her. “Let me show you around your new home.”
* * *
Athan had known his father wouldn’t stay away. So, that night in Athens, satisfaction twisted through him as he watched his father’s sleek sports car pull up on the security monitor at just a little after ten.
No doubt his father’s attempt at a surprise visit, but Athan was still dressed for the day. Still debating if he should act surprised when Constantine showed up, or if he should play the unbothered protégé.
Ideally, Lynna would be with him. Ideally he could tell her I told you so , but she had retired to her room after dinner, despite his attempts to coax her to stay downstairs and enjoy an after-dinner drink.
He’d shown her around the house on their arrival, given her one of the larger rooms in the estate. Then she’d demanded to get a tour of the kitchen. She’d spent over two hours getting acquainted with the layout and where everything was, she’d made a list of cooking and baking items she would need supplied, and she’d studiously ignored him as he’d sat in that very kitchen and, once again, watched her make a meal.
It had been delicious. He had a very good cook for his Athens home, but Lynna had a…special talent. He personally didn’t understand how one chef could be better than another when they were all just following recipes, but there was something about the food she made that stuck with him.
Then, despite his best efforts, she had refused to retire to the library with him. Said no to a drink, a swim, a walk around the property. Once she’d cleaned up the kitchen, she’d soared past him and gone upstairs to her room.
Athan was determined to be patient. It was his father’s greatest weapon, and Athan needed to use it effectively here. But something about Lynna poked at all the control he’d learned at his father’s knee.
But he hadn’t gone after her. Hadn’t resorted to demands that definitely would not work on someone as hardheaded as his wife . He’d spent the last hour awaiting his father’s “surprise” arrival, nursing his own after-dinner drink on the sprawling porch that overlooked the sparkling pool. As the sun set, the lights came on inside the water, giving everything an eerie blue glow.
A staff member stepped outside and Athan knew it was showtime .
“Mr. Akakios. Your father is here to see you.”
“Thank you, Sebastian. Show him to the library. I’ll be there in a moment.”
He waited five minutes. Finished his drink. His father had spent a lifetime being patient, controlling his anger, hiding his narcissistic impulses. And still, even without any outward reaction, Athan knew how to needle him.
Athan marrying Lynna was something Constantine hadn’t seen coming, and he wouldn’t be able to let it go until he was certain he had the upper hand in the situation. He’d poke and prod at Athan until he found a weak spot.
But there was no weak spot here. Athan was determined .
So, Athan didn’t walk back into the house with purposeful strides. He… meandered . Half expecting his father to come thundering out of the library demanding to know why the devil he should have to wait.
But when Athan finally reached the library, his father was still in the room. Athan leaned against the doorway, watched as his father looked through drawers. He wondered what dear old Dad thought he might find in a public room, in unlocked drawers. Did he really underestimate Athan that deeply?
It grated, but it was good, and Athan would use it.
“To what do I owe this late-night visit, Father?”
Constantine straightened, regarded Athan from behind Athan’s own desk. He didn’t have the decency to look guilty or caught, because the man never thought he was guilty. Anything in service to what he wanted was fair game.
Athan had believed that once himself. And while he had not murdered Aled Carew, Athan still felt the guilt of his death like a weight around his neck. Because he had used his father’s tactics on the man. He had ruthlessly and carefully planned to frame Lynna’s father for all his own father’s shortcomings.
And still, Constantine had not been proud . He’d not reacted positively. He’d only wanted Athan to do more, sink lower.
It had been enough to finally break the spell of Constantine Akakios, and still he likely would have sunk all that lower for Constantine out of sheer habit if it hadn’t been for seeing Lynna at the Carew funeral.
“I heard you were back in Athens.” Constantine straightened. “Our last conversation was not satisfactory. Since you cannot be trusted to have a calm, direct conversation over the phone, I knew I would need to come see you in person.”
It was impressive, really, the blame game his father could play, considering just how calm Athan had been during their last phone conversation.
Unlike Constantine.
But Constantine had a way of speaking, of twisting words, that could have even the strongest man doubt himself.
Athan didn’t tonight. “I see,” Athan said, though he made sure his expression was one of confusion rather than understanding.
“You have made a grave mistake, son.” Constantine shook his head, as if he simply despaired of Athan, when Athan knew what he despaired of was being surprised . “I will give you one last opportunity to save us both the hideous embarrassment you’re about to cause.”
Athan raised an eyebrow. An interesting and impressive tactic, to use us as though they were somehow in this embarrassment together.
“And by embarrassment you’re referring to…?”
“Your sham of a marriage that was clearly only meant to be a pathetic slap at me.”
Pathetic. And yet it had warranted an angry phone call and whatever this was. No, Athan had succeeded quite well.
“Oh, no sham, I assure you.” Athan smiled. “We are legally wed and quite happy everything worked out. I suppose the news landed before I wanted it to, but no harm no foul. If you have come to try to pry this wife away from me, I’m afraid that even you will find it impossible. If there is one person I can be assured Lynna will never betray me for, it is you.”
Constantine did not bite at that. He kept up the fake tired disappointment. Athan gave him credit, it was an impressive performance, and one he hadn’t trotted out in a while. There was a time Athan might have even fallen for the gravely concerned father.
But that time was over.
“I have come to give you one last chance, Athan. One last opportunity to salvage this mess you’ve made. We will get the marriage annulled, send the Carew girl back where she came from and hammer out a fair deal.” Constantine even smiled kindly. “We have been at odds, and I know you are upset about Regina. But this can still be salvaged.”
Athan had known marrying Lynna would send his father into a rage, but he hadn’t expected it to go quite this well. Constantine must be all too aware of how easily members of the board would be swayed to him with a Carew connection.
Constantine sighed deeply. He met Athan’s gaze with one of concern. It really was no wonder people fell for his father’s act. “I am here to help you, son. If you can be smart enough to take the hand offered, we can fix this gigantic mistake of yours.”
Athan didn’t laugh, though it was hard to swallow it back at the idea his father would ever help him. “I thought you were ousting me?”
“I figured after what happened with Regina, it would be necessary. But the fact you’re willing to jump into another doomed marriage proves that I have not hurt anything but your pride. You are still an Akakios, and where I once suspected you’d land on your feet, now I have concerns, son. I want to ensure that you are not left to the wolves.”
Son, son, son. Such manipulation. So smooth. So genuine seeming. Athan wondered if there was any predator so adept at undermining its prey. For so long, Athan had fallen for it. Twisting himself into whatever knot he could, if only it would make Constantine offer a good job , said so damn warmly he’d truly believed he could earn his father’s regard.
His father’s love.
But it never lasted because whatever task he’d do for his father was never quite enough. And still Constantine kept that carrot of affection right there, within reach, only to slide it through his grasp. Time and time again.
Until Athan had finally grown the hell up. Until he had learned that there was no relationship to be had here. They were adversaries. Now and forever.
At best.
“Concerns?” Athan repeated, feigning ignorance.
“The pictures of the wedding hit the papers the night of the wedding because apparently you are not sharp enough to keep these things under wraps.”
Athan pretended to consider this. Then he shrugged. “That’s one interpretation.”
“It is my interpretation, and thus fact ,” Constantine said, with a snap to his tone. But he tempered it with a smile. “You’re fumbling, son. Let me take care of this for you.”
“You know, I was affronted, obviously, at you and Regina plotting against me, when it would have been easier for all involved to just be direct. But Lynna was there, and it reminded me that I do not have to play these…silly parlor games you love so much.”
Constantine’s gentle expression sharpened. “Parlor games?”
Athan waved a hand. “Stealing fiancées, pitting people against one another, framing others, skimming a little off the top here and there just for the thrill.” Athan sighed heavily as if it all exhausted him.
“Are you accusing me of something?” Constantine demanded.
“Of course not,” Athan assured him, trying to maintain a wounded expression when what he wanted to do was grin. “I’m simply explaining to you that we’re different. You appreciate a puppet on a string, Father , and I do not. It’s best, surely, if instead of helping me, instead of…how did you put it, not leaving me to the wolves? Let’s cut the apron and puppet strings. If I get eaten, so be it.”
Constantine’s expression was nothing but rage now, but he was breathing carefully. Keeping the explosion inside.
Still, Athan thought he knew how to break his father. And if he could, he had an even larger upper hand.
“Oh, you’re worried how this will all reflect upon you .” Athan shook his head sadly. “And here I thought you were confident enough to stand in your own legacy.”
Constantine was across the room in an instant. Violence flashed in his dark eyes, but he did not touch Athan. He clenched his fists at his sides, looked up at his son.
“All these years I’ve let you fail and fail again. I have saved you from embarrassment. I have been the only thing keeping you from ruin. Now you will fail. Largely. Spectacularly. Publicly. I’m sure the Carew girl will enjoy once again watching her meal ticket crumble into a useless bitter husk.”
It was an impressive speech. It was meant to embarrass him, infantilize him, destroy any last shred of confidence he might have. And it likely would have worked if Athan hadn’t spent his formative years at his father’s knee, learning his views on business and dealing with people.
Dad only sought to undercut that which was actually a threat. Which meant Athan’s marriage to Lynna had rattled the mighty Constantine Akakios.
Which meant his was a plan that could work. And while he’d already known that, it was nice to have his father assure him of this.
“Father, I cannot fathom why you’d be so emotional.” Athan went so far as to cluck his tongue. His father’s face began to edge toward purple. “Why don’t you go on home to my, I mean, your fiancée and rest? Please, I give you permission to continue your plans to oust me. And free you of any worry about how I land—on my feet or otherwise.”
“People will see through this farce, Athan. I take no joy in ending you, but if it must be done, I will do it. I will ruin you. Once and for all. This is your final chance to be saved.”