CHAPTER ONE
EROS THEODOROU RAISED the single glass of ouzo into the air and made a silent toast to the night sky above his Athens penthouse. His mother stood by his side, a haunted darkness in her eyes as she stared out into nothing.
‘I didn’t expect you to play the grieving widow.’ He placed his glass down on the ledge with unnecessary force, not bothering to mask his irritation.
‘I may not legally be his widow...but I loved him.’ Arista sighed, turning to face him with a hint of steel in her pale grey eyes. ‘I was with him until the end.’
The thought of his formidable mother playing nursemaid, kneeling once again to the whims of such a man...it was enough to make Eros see red. The world knew Arista Theodorou for two things, her powerful career as legal adviser to the global elite and her disastrous on-again-off-again relationship with Zeus Mytikas.
‘The bastard always knew how to manipulate you.’ Eros cursed swiftly under his breath and felt his fists tighten as an old darkness threatened to resurface—the resentment and hatred that he’d long ago learned to keep buried.
‘You didn’t come to the memorial,’ Arista said, her tone laced with disapproval.
Still pulling strings from beyond the grave, the old man had arranged for his body to be returned to his home country. Over the past week, it seemed the entire capital city had turned out in mourning for their most powerful ex-citizen. Eros felt his lip curl in revulsion. ‘If I wished to attend a public spectacle, I’d go to the circus.’
‘He was your father.’
Her cool hand touched his forearm, a rare show of affection. He allowed himself a moment to savour the novelty before calmly removing it.
‘No. He wasn’t.’
The taut syllables seemed to sit in the air between them, silently daring his mother to contest his words. As he expected, she averted her gaze. Eros had long ago learned that the title of father was one that needed to be earned. The blood that connected him to Zeus was only that. A genetic link that could not be erased, no matter how much money or power he amassed.
‘Why are you here, Mother?’
‘Our schedules never seem to have us in the same city at the same time...’ she said quickly, avoiding his eyes as she touched the small briefcase at her feet. ‘I thought we might have dinner... Talk.’
‘The truth.’ Eros rolled his eyes, despising the use of niceties to conceal hidden motives. With Arista, there was always a hidden motive.
‘Fine.’ All traces of kindness vanished from her eyes. ‘There are some urgent matters that we must discuss.’
‘Make it quick, I have a date in half an hour.’
‘Of course you do.’ His mother’s expression tightened. ‘You talk of his philandering ways, and yet—’
‘If you finish that sentence you can show yourself out,’ Eros warned.
‘I didn’t mean to touch a nerve.’ Arista shrugged, her tone flat and lacking its usual bite.
‘If you must know, unlike your darling Zeus, I actually respect the women I entertain. They are quite aware that I am not in the habit of long-term arrangements, so there are no misunderstandings or accusations. It’s called communication, Mother, you should try it.’
‘Are you really so arrogant as to believe you haven’t broken women’s hearts simply because you told them not to give them to you?’ Arista scoffed, lifting a slim black folder from the depths of her designer handbag.
Any retort to her words was lost as Eros eyed the official documents, a dull roar building in his ears. ‘What is this?’
‘Zeus’s last will and testament.’
He remained deathly still, controlling the violent reaction that boiled in his veins. ‘You have got to be joking.’
He leaned against the balcony edge, a harsh bellow of laughter escaping his chest. ‘After he tried to ruin my businesses, after the threats and reminders that I walked away from leading his empire...’
Disbelief warred with rage within him as he tried to focus on the sweeping view over the city that stretched all the way to the Acropolis. He was vaguely aware of his mother as she heaved a sigh and took a seat beside him. Her dark blond hair was identical to his own, a feature he’d always been grateful for as it put him another step away from the sleek black darkness of the powerful Mytikas family. He was not easily recognised as one of them, even if his cerulean blue eyes were a permanent reminder of the man who’d done the bare minimum in contributing to his birth.
Eros sat back, kicking his heels up onto the table in front of him. ‘Let me guess, he had a change of heart and decided to leave everything to me and nothing to his other by-blows.’
Arista stiffened at the reminder that she was not the only woman to produce an illegitimate child by one of the wealthiest men in the world.
‘It’s not quite that simple.’ She shook her head. ‘There are stipulations...’
‘Look around.’ He gestured to the penthouse suite that sat atop the high-rise tower he owned in the centre of Athens’s financial district. ‘Why would I want to take his poisonous empire when I’ve built one of my own? I have no need to jump through his hoops.’
He was merely the second born of three bastard sons that Zeus had chosen to acknowledge in his lifetime. The image of Xander’s face came unbidden into his mind and he pushed it away. His traitorous half-brother had made it clear where his loyalties stood the moment he took Zeus’s name and stepped into the role of prodigal son.
As for the third and youngest of their merry trio, a reclusive member of one of the oldest dynasties in Italy, Nysio Bacchetti had made it impossible for anyone to connect his powerful family name with that of his hidden paternal link.
‘This stipulation...it applies to all three of us?’ Eros fought to keep his tone even. ‘What have the others had to say on the matter?’
Arista shook her head. ‘The Italian didn’t even answer my calls. He will not risk the link being made public. But Xander has long known what he stood to lose if Zeus changed his mind...mainly his majority shareholder position and his place as acting CEO.’
He took the documents from his mother’s hands and read through the highlighted text. Silence descended upon them and he could feel his mother’s anxious gaze.
The first to remain in a valid marriage for one year, inherits all.
The words settled like lead in his gut. Marriage? He had walked away from Zeus’s fiercely traditional values and control, but he had to admit that attempting to enforce matrimony from beyond the grave was an impressive feat.
‘So Xander
knows about this?’
‘He knows...and he is already engaged. No announcement in the paper, no engagement party, it’s all been kept completely under wraps.’
‘Very convenient,’ Eros murmured, still skimming down the legal pages spread out before him. Sure enough, the document made clear that of the three illegitimate sons Zeus had fathered, whoever married first and completed the terms would take everything. He sat back in his seat, tension building in his temples.
‘Eros, don’t you see...he’s already acting like he has won. Our last board meeting was dominated by talk of his plans to purge the company of excess.’ Arista’s voice turned cold. ‘He made it clear that my position in the company would fall under that category.’
He turned to his mother, fire in his veins and all thoughts of his date firmly forgotten. ‘This conversation is futile. You know that I will never marry.’
‘Not even to spite Xander?’ Her voice raised an octave as she continued. ‘I need to retain control at Mytikas and the only way I can achieve that is with my own son at the helm. Please, Eros.’
He saw her expression soften and knew this was a part of her act. It was always this way with Arista. For such a powerhouse of a woman, he had often seen her reduce herself to theatrics to achieve her goals. She would promise the stars, only to walk away once she had got what she needed.
He thought of his childhood spent watching her manipulate the one man who had loved her for the one who never would. His stepfather, a proud man who’d craved a simple family life, had died expecting her to change. Once upon a time, Eros had expected her to change too.
He turned to stare out at the starlit sky, his mind struggling to remain on track, as it often did with sudden shifts of information. Decades overcoming an embarrassingly inconvenient childhood stammer made him hyperaware of moments that might trigger a relapse. His jaw tightened and he carefully inhaled and exhaled a breath before speaking, just in case.
‘What do you expect me to do? Barge into the church and object? Surely you can do that yourself.’
‘I can’t risk my position, you know that. Plus... If we want to make sure this marriage doesn’t go ahead, it’s not just the ceremony that needs to be ruined.’
‘Ah... I see.’ He forced his tone to remain calm, not belying the flash of anger that seethed in his veins. ‘You don’t just need my help, Mother. You need my reputation.’
‘I need this bride to become suddenly, irrevocably unmarriageable. At the very least, it will give me time to contest the will. If you are determined not to fulfil it yourself.’
‘I must admit, the thought of ruining Xander’s perfectly laid plans is quite tempting,’ Eros mused, running a hand along his jaw.
‘Will you do it or not?’ Arista snapped, her loss of patience sudden and sharp against the stillness of the night air. ‘I just...want your brother
to pay for how he betrayed you. I don’t want him to win.’
Eros felt his fists tighten at her impatience, knowing that his mother had never once tried to stand up for her only son in the past. She had remained at Zeus’s beck and call while Eros had gone out into the world, using nothing but rage and bitterness to forge his way alone.
The memories remained under the surface of his control but he drew upon the emotion they evoked as he stood up and took his mother’s hands in his own. He saw her eyes light up with barely restrained hope.
It was rather poetic that her fatal error would so perfectly mirror that of the man she’d loved so much. Arista believed him weak, just as Zeus had, but now she was unwittingly inviting a ravenous wolf into the hencoop.
‘Rest easy. I will stop the wedding.’
‘You will?’ she said hopefully. ‘And the bride?’
‘Consider her already taken care of.’ He kept his features neutral. ‘You just focus on contesting the will. I will do the rest.’
‘This deal remains confidential between us?’ she said sharply. ‘If I succeed, the house in the Hamptons and the seat on the board will be mine but everything else is yours for the taking.’
‘Of course,’ he said silkily. ‘Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?’
Her expression softened, her objective met, and she sipped on her own ouzo like a cat who had just got the proverbial cream.
It was only once she had gone and Eros was alone with the stars once more that he allowed the ghost of a smile to touch his lips. Using his phone, he searched for the name of the woman his mother had given him before she’d left. His brother’s bride.
He had long imagined what he might do if he ever got the opportunity to seek revenge on those who had wronged him...but he had never considered there might be collateral damage. He would go to New York and he would destroy his brother’s plot and ensure that in a matter of weeks there would be no Mytikas Holdings for them to fight over.
He would destroy everything. Divide it up and sell it off piece by piece.
He looked at the photo on his phone once again, running his finger across the image. His big brother had chosen a pretty bride. He wondered if the beauty knew of the world she was entering into. Even if she didn’t, he could not allow himself to feel guilt. It wasn’t his fault if his brother had drawn an innocent into the crossfire.
In this family...all was fair in love and war.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
Priya Davidson Khan jolted upright in her seat at the sound of her best friend’s voice in the doorway of the office, her surprise causing her to knock over the neat stack of documents she’d been studying. ‘I had a few things that needed my attention.’
‘On a Sunday?’ Aria strode into the room and stopped to glare down at her with obvious
disdain. ‘Don’t you have somewhere rather important to be?’
‘Money never sleeps,’ Priya grumbled, furiously gathering the scrambled pile of pages. After another sleepless night, she’d come into the deserted office to calm herself by double-checking the most up-to-date figures for the company she would soon own. She’d set her plan in motion, lining up all the various parts she required until her inheritance finally became her own. She just needed to survive the next few hours first...
‘Step away from the spreadsheets.’ Her friend’s feet appeared in her peripheral vision as she scooped up more of the errant papers under the vast mahogany desk.
Priya looked up, properly taking in the extravagant dusty pink bridesmaid’s gown that Aria wore and the long white garment bag in her hands.
Her stomach sank as she took in the elegant black script on the front that read Bride.
‘Sweetheart...if you were planning to run from a wedding again, you could have chosen somewhere a little more glamorous.’ Aria smiled good-naturedly.
Priya swallowed hard, feeling her anxiety peak at that single word.
Again.
Her best friend wasn’t trying to be cruel. They often joked of her disastrous first engagement and the society scandal that had come from her abrupt departure mere hours before the ceremony. But that had been in the past, when she’d believed herself free of this world with all its expectations and power plays. She pushed away the sinking feeling of dread and stood up, wiping down her moist palms on her tailored black suit trousers.
‘What time is it?’
‘Just past two.’ Aria’s expression softened as she stepped into the office suite and closed the double doors softly behind her. Frustration she could have dealt with, but the look of kind concern on Aria’s pretty face was too much.
‘Are you sure you want to go through with this? With...him?’
Priya thought of the him her friend referred to and felt the urge to growl that of course she wasn’t sure. Xander Mytikas had been a last-minute choice, a deal brokered by her uncle as part of their family’s desperate bid to avoid ruin. ...
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