Page 102 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
Maybe she should just storm back into the bedroom and push him onto the bed. Get it over with. Use him to get all these hot sticky feelings out of her system and then she’d be able to think more clearly. He wouldn’t mind being used in that way. He’d revel in it, his massive ego taking it to mean that she was desperate for him. Damn the bastard, he’d be right, and she would never willingly feed that damned ego or hand any more power to him.
Hanging on the back of the door was a black robe. She yanked it down and shoved her arms into it, then tied it tightly. It fell to her ankles. After rolling the sleeves, she checked her reflection again and expelled a long breath. Visually, that was much better. Now she was fully covered with an extra layer of protection to stop her treacherous body giving her away.
If only the weight of the robe didn’t make her feel as though he were embracing her…
To Lydia’s relief, the bedroom had been empty of Alexis. Less of a relief had been the expression on his gorgeous face when she’d appeared on the patio to join him for dinner. Amusement. He’d taken one look at the robe and known exactly why she was wearing it. The worst of it was that he didn’t have to say a word, and now she was picking at her food and sweltering under the humid air even more than she’d done earlier when the sun had blazed. She would not give him the satisfaction of asking if they could eat inside where the air-conditioning worked like a dream.
‘How many properties do you own?’ she asked, just for something to say, something to distract from the heat of the sensuous stare she couldn’t stop her eyes from seeking.
‘Eight for my personal use. As for my business portfolio…’ He shrugged and shook his head. ‘Do you want me to include business properties like nightclubs and retail units or just the properties I rent out?’
She blinked. ‘You own nightclubs?’
‘I own many businesses.’
‘I know, but I’d never heard of you owning nightclubs.’
‘Most of the businesses I own or invest in are done through a company my name is only attached to if a lot of digging is done.’
‘Why the secrecy?’
‘I don’t need my family knowing my net worth. My siblings have bled my father dry over the years. If I fail to save Tsaliki Shipping then I will have to support them—Iamsupporting them—but they need to learn to fend for themselves.’
She took a moment to digest this. ‘Did you know our fathers’ rivalry was going to lead to their downfall?’
He speared a lemon potato. ‘I saw long ago the way things were headed. The world we live in is very different from the one they lived in when their war started. The bottom line is the bottom line, but investors are no longer so willing to risk reputational damage—it matters much more than it did even a decade ago.’
‘That goes for clients too,’ she pointed out, thinking of the contracts Tsaliki Shipping had lost since the whole toxicity of the rivalry had been exposed.
He bowed his head in agreement.
‘You say about your siblings bleeding your father dry…does that mean you see me as a freeloader too?’
His eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘Of course not.’
‘I still live with my parents…well, on their estate… and the majority of my income comes from my shares in Antoniadis Shipping.’
‘But you still work. You don’t rely on your parents’ largesse.’
‘Of course I do, and from tomorrow I’ll be relying on yours, especially when Antoniadis Shipping files for bankruptcy and I lose my income from the shares.’
He fixed her with a stare. ‘Have you ever demanded a brand-new penthouse apartment? Or a chalet in Gstaad? Or your own yacht? Or a McLaren fresh off the production line?’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it, and if I did, I’d be told to buy them myself.’
‘And that is my point—my siblings not only dream of those things but see it as their right, and my father never says no. He happily bled money supporting his own lifestyle, Rebecca’s, his ex-wives’ including my mother’s, and all his children.’
‘Including Lucie?’
‘Lucie’s not his daughter.’
‘Is that why you thought it was okay to treat her like dirt and trick her into believing she was in love with my brother?’
The dig landed. She saw it, the tightening of his features. ‘Lucie agreed to marry your brother. I did not coerce her or bribe her or blackmail her. She agreed of her own volition, and then she let her emotions get the better of her and broke her word—we all knew how things would end if she failed to marry Thanasis; it’s what’s playing out now. Her amnesia gave us all the chance to play the card again and if your brother hadn’t been so damned stupid as to tell her the truth, she wouldn’t have run again and your family wouldn’t be facing bankruptcy.’
‘And I wouldn’t be sitting here.’
Now he was the one to consider what had just been said. ‘Would you ever have told me about the baby if circumstance hadn’t forced you into it?’
