Page 5 of Marcellus: House of Drakos
CHAPTER THREE
When Niko sat up again after about twenty minutes of resting, Marcellus, remembering his “orders” from Savannah, hurried over with the bowl and placed it under his son’s chin. Even Niko was surprised. But when he started throwing up, he forgot the surprise and suffered through the rib pain he felt from so much heaving.
Marcellus felt sorry for his son and held the back of his head as he threw up. He endured this every year? He had a chronic condition his own father didn’t even know about? Although he wasn’t the kind of father that got involved with his children’s day-to-day lives, he always thought he was a decent enough parent who traveled all the way from his sanctuary in France to have dinner with them each and every month (in addition to holding meetings with his corporate board).
But was grooming all of his children to eventually take over the running of his multi-billion-dollar corporation and Niko would have been included had he not chosen his own path. He did everything he could for them. But seeing Niko suffering and his secretary forced to help him instead of his own father or family, got to Marcellus. Maybe he wasn’t such a “decent” parent after all.
By the time Savannah finally returned in another pair of shorts and a t-shirt, looking and smelling wholesome and refreshed, Marcellus had removed his suit coat, rolled up his sleeves, and had oversaw the filling and cleaning of Niko’s bowl, the calming of his fears, and the waiting by the side of his bed for the next episode. Marcellus had taken charge.
“Go sit over there,” he said to her when she was about to take her place at Niko’s bedside. “Or better yet, go get yourself some sleep. I’m staying the night with him.”
Savannah and Niko both looked at him with shock in their eyes. “You are?” she asked him.
He was offended by the tone of her voice, as if she couldn’t believe it. “Yes, I’m staying the night. Nothing revolutionary about it. I already ordered my bodyguard and chauffeur to go to my home and wait there for me. I’ll call them when I need them. I’m staying here tonight.”
Savannah was inwardly elated. But what surprised her most was that her elation wasn’t just for Niko. She knew how badly he wanted a closer relationship with his father. She knew how much Niko loved that man. But in the little time she’d been around Marcellus, she found that she enjoyed his company too. He was hard on her and nasty toward her at times, but he was honest. He didn’t put on airs. He was being who he was and that, she felt, was the most you could ask of somebody.
She also understood even in that short period of time what Niko meant when he once said he and his siblings would give up every dime they had to be fully loved and fully embraced by their father. Whatever it was that Marcellus had, Savannah felt it. Because it had that effect on her too, which was insane to her. While she was bathing she couldn’t wait to get back in his presence. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him.
But Niko was staring at Marcellus for an entirely different reason. For Niko, it was as if he was staring at a stranger. As if he was wondering in deep contemplation who was this helpful, caring man, and what had he done to his father.
What amazed Savannah most was how Marcellus didn’t work for a couple hours and turn it back over to her, but the man actually took full control of the care of his son. It sounded like a given for most fathers, but not if Niko had told her thetruth about the man in front of her. Not that Niko said he was a bad father. Niko spoke glowingly of how he looked out for his children and their mothers too. They were never abandoned by him.
But love was the issue for Niko. His father loved him, he said, but not with that all-consuming, all-embracing love he and his siblings craved from their father. Niko gave his all and he expected others to give their all to him in return. But from what Savannah remembered, Niko felt, in that area, his father was sorely lacking.
“Does he know how to love that deeply?” Savannah remembered asking Niko. But it was a question Niko had no idea how to answer. Yet he still held his father to the highest of standards.
After a few more throwing-up episodes, Niko finally fell asleep. Marcellus, exhausted, stretched and seemed ready to call it a night.
But Savannah knew Niko too well. “Wait thirty minutes,” she said to Marcellus as she pressed the button that turned on Niko’s stereo. Soft, elevator-style music came on, which helped Niko sleep longer at night. But when she saw that Marcellus was staring at her as if she had some nerve telling him what to do, she explained herself. “If he doesn’t wake back up in thirty minutes, then he’ll sleep through the night every single time. If he wakes up sooner, he won’t. The music helps him to sleep longer too. That’s just how his body works.”
Marcellus was still getting adjusted to Savannah’s in-your-face personality. That was why he looked at her the way he was looking. But when he looked into her caring, sincerely sweet dark-brown eyes, he knew he could never give her any of his usual tongue-lashings. Instead of putting her in her place the way he would have done almost anybody else who tried tohandle him, he didn’t bother with the back and forth. He sat back down.
He folded his legs and watched her. She fascinated him in ways that went beyond the surface. Not that he wasn’t physically attracted to her too. He was. When she crossed her shapely legs while sitting there, he immediately went hard. He was extremely attracted to her. But there was more to his interest in her than her body and her face. Much more. And that was the part, that deeper part, that got his attention. “How long have you worked for Nikolas?”
“When he got his inheritance from you, at least that’s where he said he got the money, and he purchased his fashion house. That was what? Three years ago. I had just got laid off from a job I worked for seven years and needed full-time employment fast. I was putting in applications from my hometown in Indiana to every place imaginable in Chicago. I was at Starbucks in Chicago when I met Niko.” Then she smiled.
She looked less-burdensome when she smiled, which pleased him. “What’s funny?”
“Niko liked the way I told that assistant manager off when she said I was overqualified for the job. ‘Bitch I need to feed myself and pay my bills and you’re talking about I’moverqualified?’ That’s what I said to her. I guess he thought I had what it took to be his gatekeeper. Which is what a secretary is you know. So he told me about this company that he was just getting off the ground, and asked if I’d be his secretary. At first I thought he was a little young to be owning something as consequential as a fashion house, but the more I talked with him the more I knew this kid wasn’t fucking around.”
Marcellus inwardly smiled. This woman had no filter. None! He realized he liked that too.
“So I jumped at the chance,” she kept talking. “I figured it would be something different and something that would havemore job security than a barista. At least until I could find something better.”
“And three years later you still haven’t found something better?”
“I haven’t had a chance to look,” Savannah said honestly. “Everybody who works for Niko work fourteen-hour days at least. There’s no way around it. And Niko works even longer than that.”
Marcellus had wondered before if there was more to her devotion to his son than mere employment. “You speak very highly of Nikolas.”
“He’s a great kid. I like him.”
Marcellus smiled. “You’re a kid yourself.”
“Mea kid? I’m twenty-nine years old. I’m pushing thirty hard.”
“Which is still young. Compared to me.”
