CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
When Ophelia arrived , Athan had already swum until his muscles screamed. He could barely lift himself out of the pool. Then he sat there, dripping water while she told him every last piece of information from the article.
Against his wishes.
It was truths mixed with lies, and all of it continued to be a tarnish on his reputation. All of it made it harder for anyone who might have a soft spot for the Carews to follow him—not just because they might believe the stories that he was violent and betrayal personified, but because they also might be concerned that Constantine’s retaliation to any defection would be stories about each of them.
No doubt Constantine knew all their secrets.
“I cannot avoid my work, my office simply because of this,” Athan told Ophelia, gesturing at the tablet she read from.
“No. But when you do go into the office, it must be with calm. With a plan. All of these stories, Constantine’s little wars against you, they are meant to get under your skin. And then, once he has, prove every single one of them a fact.”
Athan was well aware. That night in his library had been an obvious indication of that, and yet… He was struggling to find that clear, determined detachment.
His mother had essentially called him a monster in the press, and maybe he was. No, there was no maybe. He had been. He had tried to make amends these past few years, but he supposed this was evidence that it did not matter.
What was done was done. There was no fixing all the lives he’d hurt. And that overwhelming realization that there was nothing to be done about it, that these years of trying to fix it were pointless and worthless made it feel impossible to act, to move.
“Mr. Akakios?” He could hear the slight concern in Ophelia’s tone, and he almost laughed. That his dogged PR manager would suddenly have concern for him must have meant he was truly in bad shape.
He inhaled deeply, let it out slowly, trying to hold on to a course of action. He needed to get into work, nothing changed that, but…
He heard a door slide open and glanced over, sure it would be another staff member to deliver some new blow. But it was Lynna.
She had changed into dark slacks, a button-up shirt the color of sunshine. Her hair was pulled back into a simple twist, and she looked…office ready.
“I am going to go into the office with you.” She looked him up and down. “I suppose you’ll want to be clothed first, though.”
“Why would you go with me?” he asked, truly confused.
“The point of this entire endeavor is to win over anyone who might still be loyal to my father over Constantine. They have seen me at dinners, at the ball, but they have not seen me in the same place my father once worked. They should, and what better time than now? To prove I don’t believe these stories.”
He turned to look at her, all prim and determined. Strength personified, but… “Do you not believe them?”
Something flitted in and out of her expression too quickly to analyze. “You are capable of many terrible things, Athan,” she said firmly, “but I take exception to your parents, who are clearly not above reproach, trying to tear you down like this. It is wrong, so we’ll do what we can do to right it. I’ll come with you, make the rounds for a little bit. Then, tonight, we’ll have dinner with the Aritis as planned. Does this suit, Ophelia?”
“It does indeed, Mrs. Akakios.”
She stiffened at that, but she didn’t correct Ophelia at the Mrs. Akakios . “Then I suggest you go get ready, Athan.” She glanced at her watch. “Quickly.” She strode inside without anything else.
Athan didn’t move at first. Too many confusing, whirling feelings were battering around inside of him. But Ophelia studied him with her sharp, assessing gaze.
“You might want to keep her around.” Then she too left.
Athan knew he needed to move. To go get ready for the day. To put on that suit of armor that would allow him to walk down the halls his father had built and stolen, Lynna on his arm, and not react .
But it felt as though yesterday he had known exactly who he was and exactly what he was doing, and now…after last night, after this morning, he didn’t have a clue. Too much like that night after Aled Carew’s funeral, when he realized what a lie his father had sold him.
Except now it felt less like lies exposed, and more like truths…just out of reach. Ophelia’s words, echoing in his head like a curse.
Keep her around.
* * *
Lynna didn’t care for the way she was feeling, which was why she’d set it aside. Locked it down. There was a problem to be solved and she intended to solve it.
If it helped Athan, it was only in the service of not helping Constantine. If she helped Athan, it was only holding up her end of this bargain to get what she wanted. Rhys settled for life and her father’s name cleared.
Perhaps he did deserve whatever befell him, but she couldn’t help but think it rather awful that Athan’s parents had both turned against him. Obviously, Constantine had no ground to stand on, but Lynna had watched Athan in the aftermath of both his parents’ bombshells.
Constantine stealing away his fiancée had made him angry, but it hadn’t hurt him. His mother’s words in that article had drained all the color from his face. Lynna had been actually concerned about him in that moment.
Before she reminded herself he deserved everything he got, and that her only focus was Rhys’s future and clearing her father’s name.
But that meant aligning herself with Athan. So when he came down the stairs, dressed crisply for a day at the office, she followed him outside to his car. When he climbed into the driver’s side, she got into the passenger’s.
They said nothing. Athan drove adeptly into the hustle of Athens proper, and to AC International.
A building she hadn’t been in for almost a decade. Anxiety began to build inside of her, no matter how she tried to set it aside with everything else. She did not wish to be assaulted by memories of her father.
People would no doubt want to talk about him with her. Why had she thought this was a good idea?
Rhys. Think of Rhys’s future. She could do that, and it wouldn’t be so difficult to maneuver every conversation into one about the future rather than the past. She would never understand why so many people wanted to live in the past, the loss, the pain .
Marching on was only ever the answer. Athan pulled his car to a stop in his parking space, but before he turned off the ignition he looked over at her, something thoughtful and strange in his expression.
“I am struggling to understand why you are doing this for me.”
She pretended to look through her purse. “I’m not. I’m doing it for Rhys and my father’s name.” But she felt his gaze on her, like he was studying every inch of her face for some inkling that there was more to it.
There wasn’t. There couldn’t be.
He got out of the car, and so she did too before he could get around to her side and help her out. But she could hardly avoid touching him completely if the point was to look like she supported him.
So she let him put a hand on her back, gently guide her to the elevator. She tried not to think of that hand, of anything from last night. Or this morning. She focused on her goal. On divorcing herself from any emotion battering her, because this wasn’t about feelings .
It was about fixing a problem. Halfway up, the elevator stopped and let in an older man who looked vaguely familiar, though Lynna couldn’t place him right away.
“Athan,” the man greeted. He looked at Lynna briefly, but didn’t greet her.
Usually Lynna didn’t mind being ignored, even when it was meant to be a slight, but the pompousness of greeting only one of them really struck her the wrong way today.
“Mr. Giordano,” Athan said in return. “You remember Lynna Carew, I’m sure, as you worked closely with her father. Lynna, this is Regina’s father.”
Once again, the man looked at her, then said nothing.
The gall .
“Well, I take it you’ve seen the news,” Mr. Giordano said pleasantly enough, his gaze on the elevator doors instead of either of them.
“If you’re referring to my mother’s appearance in the tabloid scheme against me, yes I have indeed,” Athan replied, and he sounded quite carefree about it, which gave Lynna hope that he had recovered from this morning’s…blow.
“And it doesn’t concern you?” Mr. Giordano asked, looking back at Athan with something like overly acted skepticism in his tone. “Perhaps it should, young man.”
“You know what would concern me ?” Lynna offered, managing to sound pleasant despite how much she wanted to wring the man’s neck. “Why someone seems so bound and determined to attempt to make my husband out to look like a problem, when there is not a shred of evidence that he has actually done anything wrong.”
When Mr. Giordano’s cool dark gaze turned to her, she smiled blandly at him. “But I suppose we all have different concerns, of course,” she added pleasantly enough.
“I suppose it makes sense you’d think so.” He looked back at the elevator door. “If I recall, your father was a bit of a criminal as well.”
“I wonder what determines if someone is a criminal,” Lynna mused, or pretended to anyway. “Because I think there’s something a little criminal about supporting your daughter marrying a man thirty years her senior just so you can feel more important in your job.”
The elevator door opened, but Mr. Giordano did not get out. He turned to stare at Lynna. And Lynna knew she shouldn’t have said it. She knew she should not enjoy the surprise, the horror, the slowly dawning fury on this man’s expression.
But she would not listen to anyone criticize her father.
“Lynna, darling, perhaps this is not the time,” Athan murmured in her ear, but he sounded amused more than censoring. “If you’ll excuse us,” he said, maneuvering himself between Mr. Giordano and Lynna and ushering her out of the elevator space.
Giordano said nothing, and Athan held her tightly by the elbow and walked her down the hall. He made a motion to a trim man behind a desk, then opened a door and guided her inside, closing the door behind them.
“I thought you had come here to help, not start fights.”
“No one will call my father a criminal to my face.”
“And here I thought you had supernatural control. Why, you have pretended not to hate me for so long, I almost believed you actually indifferent.”
Lynna did not want to engage with that topic. She tossed her purse on the luxurious leather couch and stalked over to the huge window that looked out over Athens. She crossed her arms over her chest and tried to breathe.
She usually did have better control. She should have kept her mouth shut. This wasn’t her fight. “It isn’t as though Giordano is going to vote with you anyway.”
“No, I don’t suppose he will, but I don’t need to stir up my enemies when my father is stirred up enough. And my mother, apparently.”
Lynna closed her eyes, breathed in and then out. It wasn’t like her to lose her temper so easily. Athan was right, she’d spent five years pretending she was mostly indifferent to him when he was her second sworn enemy.
And now you’ve slept with him. Perhaps a lack of control in all things is your punishment.
She wanted to laugh at herself. The thoughts were dramatic and that wasn’t her. Time to screw her head on straight. She took a few more breaths then turned to face Athan.
“All right. No more fights. Moving forward, I am as detached and bland and pleasant as they come.” She even offered him one of her patented bland, polite smiles.
But it faltered when he stepped close. When he reached out, fitted his large palm against her cheek. Making her entire internal wiring go haywire.
“I don’t mind watching you fight, Lynna,” he said, his voice low and gravelly, somehow it always felt like friction against her skin, and now that she had let herself intimately know what all that friction could do , it heated her bloodstream even more.
She wanted to pull away. To center herself. She was letting too much get to her. Giordano. Athan. All of this corporate nonsense. When her only goal was her family. Her only focus them .
But she was Athan’s wife here. They wanted people to believe it was true. They needed her father’s supporters to believe it was true. So she had to endure the touch.
Endure . If only she could convince herself it was a hardship.
A knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” Athan said, though he did not look away from her or even drop his hand.
The man from the desk, probably another assistant, entered. If he thought anything of Athan standing so close or his hand on Lynna’s cheek, he didn’t show it.
“Your meeting is here, Mr. Akakios. I have put him in the meeting room.”
Athan nodded, and finally dropped his hand. But he didn’t look at his assistant or anywhere away from Lynna.
She should look away, get a handle on her heart scrabbling about in her chest like what had happened last night changed anything between them, when it absolutely did not.
But she held his gaze anyway.
“My wife would like to see some of her father’s old friends,” Athan said. “Make sure to help her find anything she needs.”
“Of course, sir.”
“I’ll be back in an hour or so, and then we can go to lunch. Perhaps with Henry. We’ll see who’s available.” He leaned in, brushed a very chaste kiss across her cheek. “Behave, Mrs. Akakios,” he murmured in her ear, before turning and walking away. Out of the office.
While she stood, off-kilter and…too many things to name. She hadn’t even given him a dirty look for calling her Akakios.
“Mrs. Akakios?” the assistant said, and she realized he must have said something she hadn’t heard before that.
“I should be able to find my away around,” she offered, sounding breathless even to herself. “If I have any troubles, I’ll let you know.”
The assistant nodded and left and Lynna closed her eyes, took a deep inhale. This was a problem of her own making, and she solved everyone’s problems. Including her own.
So she straightened her shoulders and set out to charm her father’s old associates.