Page 25 of Greek’s Christmas Heir

Constance was willing to risk herself. She was not willing to risk her baby.

Even if she could get around the Natalia factor safely...what could she do? Her first thought was that she would rouse all her friends back home in Iowa and see if they would come and rescue her. But how would she explain where she was? She could find the island on the map in her phone, but she had no idea how to tell someone to actuallyget here. They would have to rent helicopters or boats or planes.

Who could she ask to do such a thing?

Besides, her friends were a little too easily persuaded that she’d gone off with Anax...simply to go off with him.

As if that was anything like her.

You did just randomly decide to impregnate yourself last year, Kelly texted back when Constance pointed that out.You went from being entirely dependable to being a mystery, Constance. I don’t know what to tell you.

Tonight she heard the helicopter come in as she walked from her part of the sprawling house to what she thought of as the dinner patio. And she absolutely did not walk any faster because of that, she assured herself.

But maybe she did, because when she arrived, he was already there. He was standing with his back to the house and his eyes toward the sea. And her breath seemed to be coming a little too quickly, all of a sudden.

“Sit,” Anax said as he turned, though she hadn’t thought she’d made any noise. He beckoned toward the table. “We will eat. We will be civilized.”

She wanted to snap back at him and say something like,That’s what you think.That felt unworthy of her. Because he already had all the power. She didn’t have to act childishly on top of it. That would only give him more and he had enough as it was.

Constance took her seat at the table as gracefully as she could. And as she did, it occurred to her that all of this was a performance that he was putting on. An island that he owned. Private jets, helicopters. The mind-boggling luxury was the point.

He was wealthy and important. She wasn’t.

But very few things put steel into her spine like being condescended to. Even obliquely.

The seat he’d indicated she should take was catty-corner to his. She sat there, ignoring what she felt inside, and tried to pay closer attention to the stagecraft of all this.

Anax was exquisitely dressed, as ever. Tonight it was the sort of bespoke suit that she had only ever seen on the pages of magazines that she, personally, would never buy herself. She only knew that word,bespoke, because of those magazines in the first place, because folks around Halburg put suits on very rarely. A prom, a wedding, or a funeral. And in all of those cases, they looked as little worn as they were. They were stunts. Costumes.

That was clearly not the case with the suit that Anax was wearing. She had a sudden understanding of what it truly meant to have something madespecificallyfor a person. The suit fit him as well as a pair of jeans, and he wore it, jacket unbuttoned and no tie, as casually.

He exuded a kind of casual, yet cosmopolitan, elegance that she should have found off-puttingly showy. Because it was.

But she was not as put off as she should have been.

She watched the way he reacted to the dishes of food that his kitchen staff placed before him. She watched the way he scrutinized the wine that was presented to him. How he tasted it, swirling it around his glass in what seemed like an offhanded manner until he nodded at the hovering servant, indicating that the wine was acceptable.

Then he sat back in his chair and focused on her.

And all she could see was that particular gleam in his dark eyes, which was not exactly calming.

Constance folded her hands on the table in front of her and smiled at him, hoping he really was paying close attention to her. And especially the cargo pants and slouchy sweatshirt she’d gotten from Walmart. There wasn’t a single thing on her body that cost more than thirty dollars. Altogether, she doubted that it would tally up to the cost of one cuff of that coat of his.

She was delighted by the contrast. Just in case she needed reminding who she was.

“What’s the purpose of all this?” she asked, and her voice was calm. At least she had that.

“Generally speaking,” Anax replied in that low voice of his that seemed like a rebuke and a lure at once, “civilized human beings break their fast at the end of the day. Some consider it a convivial, communal experience. You’re welcome to sit in silence, if that is what you would prefer. I understand that your will has been thwarted. That can be very upsetting.”

“How would you know?” She let her smile widen when he stared back at her, his brows rising. “I was under the impression that no one dared thwart you. Ever.”

“If it was up to me,koritsi, you would feel nothing of the kind.” He didn’t explain what that word was that he’d called her back in Halburg, too. She refused to ask. “It is obviously in our child’s best interest to live where she is protected. Where she will want for nothing.”

“And what did she want for back home?” Constance asked. “You had a spy in my house from the start. If you had concerns about Natalia’s well-being, you should have communicated them instead of all that subterfuge and drama.”

“I permitted you to keep her in that place for nearly a year. That is certainly not something I wasrequiredto do, Constance. It was a gift.”

“How thoughtful,” she said, scathingly. “I don’t know how I failed to notice that while being kidnapped and transported across borders without my consent.”

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