Page 96 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4
He caught the questioning eye of his senior cabin crew member and shook his head. He’d told Lydia four p.m. and he would give her until the clock turned the hour. But not a minute more.
He took a long breath and stretched his legs out. His chest had been tight since he’d got out of bed. He hadn’t slept a wink. Too much going on in his head. By rights, he should be hunting down Lucie and gathering all the board members together to drive forward a solid plan to save Tsaliki Shipping from the fate that was coming for Antoniadis Shipping. If Tsaliki Shipping went down then his personal wealth would be safe. Alexis had diversified over the years, building himself a portfolio of assets that had made him a billionaire in his own right before he’d reached thirty. Ultimately, his family would be safe too because he would never let them suffer poverty.
Four minutes.
Alexis had never wanted to take control of his father’s company. In truth, he’d never had much interest in the business, but he was the oldest son and it had been expected by his father and, growing up, he’d hero-worshipped the man. It wasn’t until he’d become an adult himself that he’d finally admitted to himself that his father’s feet were made of clay, and it wasn’t until his siblings came of age one by one that he realised none of them had the ability to step into their father’s clay business shoes. They were all spoilt; a bunch of useless, work-shy wastrels living off daddy’s largesse. Constantine at least tried, but he had no business acumen and zero judgement.
Three minutes.
If Alexis did manage to save Tsaliki Shipping then a hard conversation would need to be had because once all this was done with, he wanted out. So yes, he should be concentrating on the damned business he didn’t even want to run and finding a way to save it from a fate that would leave his entire family dependent onhislargesse, not making covert plans to marry the one woman in the world who despised him. Make that two women. He didn’t imagine Lucie’s opinion of him was particularly high at that moment, but Lucie wasn’t blood and had been too young when her mother had married his father for Alexis to take any interest in her. And she wasn’t pregnant with his child.
Theos, he was going to be a father. Since Lydia had bamboozled him with the news, it had sat in him like an extra beat in his heart. Maybe at some point soon he’d have the time to actually think about what that meant. But not yet. Not when he had so much else to think about and contend with.
Two minutes.
He took another deep breath and gave another shake of his head to the stewardess.
Lydia wasn’t coming but he would still let the clock count down.
He closed his eyes briefly and allowed himself the luxury of remembering how she’d come apart at the seams on the beach. Only ruthless determination had allowed him to hold onto his own control. He’d had a point to make to them both and he’d damned well made it.
One minute.
He straightened, swallowed the constriction in his throat and opened his mouth to instruct the crew…and then he saw it, a blur in the corner of his eye. A scooter carrying two people speeding towards his plane.
It stopped at the steps that were twenty seconds away from being removed and the passenger jumped off, tugged off her helmet, handed it to the rider and with a quick wave of goodbye raced up the metal steps clutching a small black handbag and virtually threw herself through the door.
Alexis looked at his watch and then looked her up and down. Dressed in tight black trousers, black ankle books and a loose black sheer blouse, all Lydia needed was a black veil and she’d fit in perfectly as chief mourner at a funeral. He was quite sure she’d chosen the outfit for that specific effect and was equally sure, judging by the faint sheen of perspiration on her face and the way her fringe was sticking to her forehead, that she must be roasting in it.
‘You look…hot.’ In more ways than one, because he was quite sure too that she was oblivious to the fact that the sunlight pouring through the plane’s windows had made her blouse transparent and that he could see the pattern of her black lace bra beneath it.
The delectably plump lips tightened, defiance shining from her hazel eyes even as colour rose on her cheeks. ‘And you look smug.’
He couldn’t argue with that. She was there, throwing herself at his mercy.
Sinking onto the seat across from his, she strapped herself in, aimed the air-conditioning console above her head to her face, and turned her gaze out of the window. ‘Are we going or what?’
Or what…?
Throw Lydia to her fate or save her?
Alexis caught the eye of the senior stewardess and nodded.
Minutes later they were in the air.
The skies were so clear and the sun so bright that even at over thirty thousand feet, Lydia could see the white dots of yachts in the blue sea far below them. She wondered if any of those dots were guests at the wedding that had never taken place.
‘Did you get cold feet?’
She pulled in a breath before casting a brief glance at the man sitting opposite her whose kisses she could still taste and whose hand she could still feel on the naked skin of her back. It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d taken off.
It wasn’t fair that he should look all fresh and rugged and gorgeous while a night of no sleep whatsoever, along with choosing the most impractical clothes to race across Kos in a heatwave with, had left her looking like death warmed up. She wished she could blame her lack of sleep on her family’s dire predicament messing with her head but it was all Alexis and the mortifying way she’d melted for him messing with her body and her mind, and it was Alexis’s fault, too, that she’d chosen to dress all in black. She’d wanted to send him a message but all she’d done was make herself hot and bothered in the only black clothing she’d packed for Sephone, and while the plane’s excellent air conditioning was cooling her skin, it was having no effect whatsoever on her core temperature, and that was all Alexis’s fault too.
She hated that he’d spent the short time they’d been in the air concentrating on his laptop as if she weren’t right there with him, as if he feltnothingto have her right there with him. She hated too that the powerful awareness inside her for him was a living entity she had no control over whereas he could turn any attraction on and off like a tap.
For heaven’s sake, he was wearing a white shirt and suit trousers, clothing that had always turned her off men, what with it being the attire her father and brother lived in, and he wasstillsex on legs.
‘No,’ she answered shortly. Not cold feet in the sense that she’d come close to backing out. Backing out was not an option. The only person capable of saving her family was her brother, and he was falling apart. Marrying Alexis would give Lydia the security she needed for her and her baby and maybe, in time,shewould have the means to help her family. It made her heart clench to imagine them rejecting that help. Rejecting her. Rejecting her baby.
