The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum
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After three years of separation and living independent lives on two different continents, she hadn’t even considered such a thing. “I see.”
“Do you?” he asked, his voice silky with unnamed menace and that awful sense of dread washed over her again.
“Have Helena and Sandros expressed a desire to meet them?”
“I have decided the time has come.”
And as the head of the Kiriakis clan, he expected the rest of the family to go along with whatever decision he made.
“No.”
“How can you be so selfish?” Condemnation weighted each word with bruising force.
“Selfish?” she asked, feeling anger roiling in her stomach, making it churn. “You call it selfish for a mother to wish to protect her children from the rejection of people that are supposed to love them, people that should have loved them since birth, but decided for their own obscure reasons not to?”
She knew she wasn’t being entirely fair. For six years, Savannah had believed Dion’s family had hated her because she was not the suitable Greek bride they had chosen for him to wed and therefore rejected her children. His phone call the night before he died effectively obliterated that theory.
Along with other stunning revelations, her dear husband had admitted that he’d been poisoning their minds with his insane jealousy, accusing her of infidelity, from almost the very start of their marriage. Helena and Sandros had what they believed to be legitimate reasons to question the parentage of Savannah’s daughters, but that didn’t make her any more willing to expose Eva and Nyssa to possible rejection and pain.
“Sandros and Helena will accept the girls with open arms.”
“Who do you think you are. God?”
Funny, she could actually sense the fury sizzling through the phone lines. He was not used to being questioned. He’d been in charge of the huge Kiriakis financial empire since his father’s unexpected death when Leiandros was twenty. At thirty-two, his arrogance and sense of personal power were as ingrained and natural to him as making his next million.
“Do not be blasphemous. It is unbecoming in a woman.”
She almost laughed out loud at how stilted he sounded, like someone’s maiden aunt giving lessons in etiquette. “I’m not trying to be offensive,” she replied, “I simply want to protect my daughters’ best interests.”
“If you expect those interests to include further financial support from the Kiriakis family, you will bring them to Greece.”
Savannah tried to draw in a breath, but it seemed to get stuck somewhere between her windpipe and her lungs. The edges of her vision turned black and she wondered with a sense of detachment if she were going to faint. Leiandros didn’t know it, but he was forcing her to choose between the elderly aunt who had raised her and the safety of her daughters’ emotions along with her own sanity.
It was her second worse nightmare. The first had already happened. She’d married Dion Kiriakis.
“Savannah!”
Someone was shouting in her ear. Her hand instinctively tightened on the phone and the room came slowly back into focus.
“Leiandros?” Was that thready voice hers?
How pathetic she must sound to the self-assured man on the other end of the line, but then she doubted anyone had ever forced him to do anything he did not want to.
“Are you all right?”
“No,” she admitted. The last of her emotional reserves seemed to have dissipated with his overt threat.
“Savannah, I’m not going to let anyone hurt Eva and Nyssa.” His voice reverberated against her ear with conviction and assurance.
But would he let them hurt her? “How can you prevent it?”
“You will have to trust me.”
“I don’t trust people named Kiriakis.” Her words came in the flat monotone she couldn’t seem to shake.
“You don’t have a choice.”
Leiandros hung up the phone, satisfied.
The opening gambit had gone to him. It would only be a matter of time before he captured her.
Savannah and her daughters would be flying to Greece the day after Eva’s school let out for the summer. Savannah had agreed only after extracting a promise from him not to instigate any meeting between Eva, Nyssa and their grandparents before she had an opportunity to speak to Helena and Sandros.
How could she now show such concern for her daughters’ emotional well-being when her lies about their parentage had denied them the love of their family since birth?
No doubt, her arguments were an attempt at manipulation. Perhaps she intended to try to use the girls as bargaining chips for a larger allowance. While her current stipend was substantial, it would hardly support the designer clad, jet setting lifestyle she had experienced while living with Dion.
He put through a call to his secretary. “Arrange for my jet to land in Atlanta to transport Savannah Kiriakis and her children to Athens two weeks from today.”
He cut the connection after giving his secretary other necessary details.
Savannah had balked at flying on his jet, but after he told her the plane had a bedroom the girls could use to sleep in comfort, she had agreed. If she’d remained insistent he would have given in to her. The first step in his plan was the most important: getting Savannah and the girls to Greece.
Savannah had to be on the chessboard in order to engage her in the game.
He would not allow an ocean and two continents to prevent him from exacting full payment from her for all that she had cost his family, all that she had cost him.
Savannah had committed the gravest of all sins against his family, that of withholding her children, using lies and manipulation to cheat Dion out of his fatherhood and Helena and Sandros out of their rightful role as doting grandparents.
That would end in two weeks time.
When he had first met Savannah, he had been drawn to her apparent innocence, to the impression of untouched sensuality she had exuded. So drawn he had kissed her without knowing her name or anything else about her.
She had struggled at first, but within seconds had gone up in flames. Her response had been more exciting than any other sexual experience he’d ever had. Then, she’d yanked herself from his arms and told him she was married. His first, primitive instinct had been to tell her she had married the wrong man. And then her husband had arrived. His cousin.
Leiandros’s body still remembered the feel of hers. His mouth still hungered for her taste. His sex still ached for the release denied him that night. No matter how he tried to forget the forbidden desire for his cousin’s wife, she was always there, in his dreams, in his mind.
Even knowing she was a scheming, heartless witch, he wanted her. Now, he would have her. She would replace what he had lost and in the process, he would sate his body’s urge to possess her.
CHAPTER THREE
SAVANNAH carried a sleeping Nyssa toward customs, following Leiandros’s personal flight attendant who led an equally worn-out, but barely awake, Eva by the hand. Exhaustion dragged at Savannah and she looked forward to a shower with almost religious fervor.
She could have taken one on the plane, but had not wanted to wake Eva and Nyssa any sooner than she had to. Wound up by the excitement of flying in an airplane, they had not made proper use of the plane’s bedroom until an hour before landing.
When they reached customs, she was given VIP treatment and rushed through, an example of Leiandros’s power and far reaching influence. It increased the sense of a trap closing around her she’d had since stepping onto his private jet.
As she stepped into the main terminal, she forced her weary eyes to focus on the scene around her. The new airport was all modern glass and streamlined walkways, but still incredibly crowded. She sighed and shifted her grip on Nyssa. Her arms felt like two strands of pasta cooked al dente.
Even as her gaze swept the crowded terminal, she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Turning her head slightly to the right, she met the dark, inscrutable gaze of Leiandros Kiriakis himself and she stopped. Not voluntarily. Her legs simply quit working.
She hadn’t expected to see him until the next day.
The flight attendant paused beside her, forcing the stream of air passengers to break and flow around them. “Mrs. Kiriakis? Is something wrong?”
Savannah could not make her lips form words. Her entire being was caught up in this first sight of Leiandros Kiriakis in a year. His black hair had been cut to lie close to the sculpted lines of his head. His sensual lips set in a grim line, his eyes betrayed nothing. He made no move to come toward them, but seemed content to wait, towering with unconscious arrogance above the sea of humanity that welled around him.
Taking a tighter hold on her sleeping daughter, she stepped forward only to bump into another passenger. “Excuse me. I’m sorry.”
The woman she’d bumped ignored Savannah and scurried away toward the luggage carousel.
A large man who looked like a Greek Sumo wrestler barreled into her from behind. Stumbling, she feared she would lose her hold on Nyssa when two strong hands gripped her upper arms and steadied her. How had he gotten to her so quickly?
“You’re dead on your feet, Savannah. Let me take the child.” Leiandros moved one hand from her arm to Nyssa’s back.
Without conscious volition, Savannah yanked herself and her daughter out of touching distance from Leiandros. “No. I can carry her, but thank you,” she tacked on belatedly.
His eyes narrowed.
“Mama…” Eva’s tentative interruption saved Savannah from whatever Leiandros had planned to say.
Savannah turned her attention gratefully to her daughter. “Yes, sweet pea?”
“I’m tired. May I go to bed now?”
“It will be a little while before we reach your bed, but you can sleep in the car. The seats are big enough for a little girl like you to treat them like a bed,” Leiandros said.
“I’m five,” Eva announced.
His mouth quirked. “If you are five, you must be Eva. I am Leiandros Kiriakis.”
Eva’s head tipped back and she measured him with a drowsy but direct look. “Kiriakis is my name, too.”
He squatted down until his face was almost level with that of Savannah’s serious little daughter. He matched Eva’s grave expression. His mouth curved into a devastating smile. “So it is. That is because we are family.”
Eva tugged her hand away from the flight attendant’s and sidled next to Savannah, taking a grip on the loose fabric of her crushed silk trousers. “Is he my family, Mama?”
Leiandros’s eyes blasted Savannah with sulfuric fury briefly as he straightened to stand at his full impressive six feet four inches. He seemed to be daring her to deny the link to her daughter, which she had no intention of doing.
She hadn’t been the one to deny her daughters’ family ties. “Yes, darling, your father was his cousin.”
“Does he look like my father?” Eva asked.
Leiandros speared Savannah with another look of censure.
“You’ve seen pictures, what do you think?” Savannah replied, letting her daughter draw her own conclusions.
She felt Eva’s head shift against her thigh as the little girl nodded her head. “But maybe he’s bigger.”
Eva put her hand on Nyssa’s small leg dangling over Savannah’s arm. “This is Nyssa. She’s four.”
He acknowledged the introduction with a devastating smile.
“Now that we are acquainted, it is time we left. Felix will take care of the luggage,” he said, indicating a short, stocky man standing several paces away near another very muscular man, only a couple of inches shorter than Leiandros.
Leiandros led them outside and Savannah blessed the lightweight nature of her crushed silk pantsuit when the hot Greek air blasted her as they stepped out of the air-conditioned environs of the recently completed airport. While the heat wasn’t so very different from Georgia, the sun’s impact felt stronger.
As they approached a black limousine with darkly tinted windows, the chauffeur opened the back door while another man stood sentry on the driver’s side. He and the man with Felix were no doubt part of Leiandros’s security team.
Savannah motioned Eva to climb in first. She did, taking Leiandros at his word and making herself comfortable for sleep on the far side of the seat, leaving enough space for Savannah to lay Nyssa’s dozing form down as well. Another wave of exhaustion rolled over her and Savannah wished she could join Nyssa in her peaceful slumber. Within fifteen minutes of leaving the airport, Eva had done so.
“Sleep if you wish. I will not be offended,” Leiandros offered. “The trip is a long one from the airport.”
Savannah swallowed a yawn. “I didn’t think it was that far from the city.”
“It is not, but there is road construction.” He shrugged. “It will take us at least two hours to reach the villa.”
She’d been relaxing against the seat, preparing to take him up on his advice to pass the time sleeping when he made that comment. She sat straight up and twisted her body until she could look him full in the face.
“What villa? I thought we were staying at a hotel.”
“You are family. You will stay with family.”
There was that word again, but Savannah had had enough experience her first time around in Greece with the dutiful ties of the Kiriakis family not to trust them.
“You promised me the girls would not have to see their grandparents until we discussed it,” she accused him in a fierce whisper, not wanting to wake her daughters to hear this particular argument. “I insist you take us to a hotel.”
“No.”
“No? No! How dare you do this? You promised.” She settled back against the seat with her arms crossed. “I knew I couldn’t trust a Kiriakis.”
That seemed to get him, because his hands curled into fists at his side and his face looked hewn from rock.
“You will not be staying with Helena and Sandros.”
“You said we’d be staying with family, at the villa.” As the words left her lips, an awful thought occurred to her. “You want us to stay at your villa on Evia Island? With you?”
His brows rose in sardonic challenge. “My mother is also staying at the villa. She will be sufficient chaperone.”
“Chaperone? I don’t need a chaperone. I need privacy. I need to stay in a hotel.”
“Relax, Savannah. There is no reason to shout about it. With two active children, you will find the villa much more comfortable than a hotel, I promise you.”
In that respect, she had no doubt he was right, but it wasn’t her daughters she was worried about at the moment. It was herself. She shuddered inwardly at the prospect of sharing living space with Leiandros.
“I suppose you still keep an apartment in Athens and spend most of your time there,” she said hopefully.
“Yes.”
She couldn’t quite stifle her sigh of relief.
“Of course, I’ve arranged to work from the villa for the next few days so I can spend time with my family.”
Savannah’s throat went tight in reaction to the threat in his voice, despite the innocence of the sentiments expressed.
“How long did you plan our visit to last?” It was something he’d refused to discuss on the phone.
If she’d been in her right mind, instead of riddled with worry over her aunt, Savannah would have forced the issue.
Leiandros looked at her as if trying to read her mind. “We’ll discuss that tomorrow.”
“I’d rather discuss it now.” She kept her expression purposefully blank.
“Very well.” He shrugged again, his face wearing a strangely watchful air. “Permanently.”
“Permanently?”
The grim line of his mouth went even more taut. “Yes. You’ve spent enough time running from your family. It’s time you came home, Savannah.”
Home? She wanted to shriek at him and pound her fists, but even with rage coursing through her veins like molten lava, she held onto her temper. She’d learned that lesson much too well to forget it, even with the current provocation.
She’d lost her control once with a Kiriakis male and opened herself to physical reprisal from her husband. She still had nightmares about her last meeting with Dion, the feeling of bruising male fists landing against her unprotected flesh.
“America is my home,” she said, spacing the words evenly, keeping her voice flat.
“It was your home before you married a Kiriakis, yes. But now Greece is your home, specifically my villa.”
“Your villa? You expect me to live in your villa permanently?” She was in a waking nightmare.
He reached out and opened the minifridge, pulling out a bottle of water, handing it to her before taking one for himself. “Yes.”
She stared at the cold plastic bottle in her hand, wondering for a second how it had gotten there. “I can’t.”
He didn’t bother to argue with her. In fact, he didn’t answer her at all. Instead, he pulled a buzzing cell phone from his pocket and answered it.
Savannah slowly regained consciousness, uncertain what had wakened her, and shifted in the cocooned warmth of her make shift bed. She burrowed her face into the pillow, which felt strangely hard against her cheek. Unsated exhaustion tugged at her, tempting her back into an unconscious state.
Her bed moved and the blanket pressed against her back in a soft caress. “Wake up pethi mou, we have almost arrived.”
Her eyes flew open. For the space of several seconds she couldn’t even breathe. The blanket caressing her back was in fact a large, male hand and her firm pillow, a muscular chest. Frozen into immobility by shock, she further discovered that her arms were wrapped tightly around his torso.
The subtle fragrance of fresh, clean male and expensive aftershave teased her senses. Familiar and yet unknown. She blinked, trying to focus, but her vision was clouded by crisp white silk and her mind could not quite come to grips with the first intimacy shared with a man in well over four years.
And not just any man.
She was wrapped up like an early Christmas present in the arms of Leiandros Kiriakis.
Reality so closely matched the dreams that had tormented her subconscious for seven long years that she spent several precious seconds trying to determine if she were still asleep.
“Eva, how come Mama is hugging that man?” Nyssa’s voice unlocked Savannah’s frozen limbs.
She was definitely awake. Her daughters had never played a role in the dreams she had had about Leiandros. Yanking her arms from their snug nest in his suit coat, she launched herself from Leiandros with such a violent movement she bounced against the opposite door and nearly fell off the seat.
He reached out to steady her and she recoiled violently from the possible touch. “I’m fine,” she all but snarled, her usual polite reserve a forgotten ideal.
“He’s our family,” Eva said, as if that explained everything. She had that much in common with her uncle.
Savannah couldn’t help but wonder if he had thought the familial claim justified the intimacy of their position as well.
“Mama?” Nyssa asked, her brown Kiriakis eyes wide with curiosity.
Savannah settled herself more firmly on the large limousine seat. Not caring what Leiandros thought of the action, she scooted as close to the door as she could get without sitting on the armrest. “Yes, sugar?”
“Why did you hug the big man?”
“I wasn’t hugging him.” She turned and glared at Leiandros. This situation was all his fault. “I was asleep.”
“Oh.” Nyssa turned her interested gaze to Leiandros and stared at him in silence for several seconds before turning back to her mother. “Were you sitting in his lap to sleep?”
The heat of embarrassment crawled over Savannah’s skin like ants on a picnic blanket. She couldn’t look at Leiandros. She had no idea how she’d ended up sleeping with her body plastered against his and feared finding out she had been the instigator.
The last thing she remembered was letting her head rest against the back of the seat. She’d closed her eyes in weariness as she tired of waiting for him to finish the latest of his numerous business calls on the cell.
She’d obviously fallen asleep. That she could understand. She’d been nearly comatose from exhaustion before the plane had landed. The last two weeks had been peppered with sleepless nights and emotionally draining days visiting her aunt.
Even so, she found it difficult to believe she’d allowed herself to get that close to a man, asleep or not. Her subconscious mind might crave Leiandros Kiriakis, but her conscious mind rejected even the hint of intimacy with any man.
The evidence, however, was irrefutable. Her skin still tingled from where she had touched him.
Before she got a chance to form a reply to Nyssa’s question that wouldn’t betray the rawness of her nerves, her daughter smiled at Leiandros. “Sometimes I sit on my mama’s lap for sleeping, but she says I’m getting too heavy. Isn’t she too big for your lap?”
Savannah wanted to groan out loud at her daughter’s logic. Nyssa’s nap had clearly been long enough to rejuvenate her mind as well as her spirits. Savannah wished she had been so lucky. Her mind felt too sluggish to deal with the current situation. Unbelievably, her traitorous body craved return to the warm, muscular resting place of Leiandros’s chest.
“I’d say she’s just right.” His low, sensual tone caressed Savannah’s insides, making them tighten and interrupting her chaotic thoughts.
Awareness of his masculinity bombarded her. Along with something else, something elemental that left her feeling hot and strangely edgy. Impossible. She had spent the last four years believing she would never again experience sexual desire and here she was as jittery as a mare being bred for the first time. Wanting it, but terrified at the same time.
“Where are we?” she asked in a desperate bid to change the direction her thoughts were taking.
“Very near Villa Kalosorisma. We have just crossed the bridge to Evia Island.” His eyes told her he knew exactly why she’d asked the question and found the knowledge amusing.
The car slid to a halt and seconds later, the door next to Savannah opened. The chauffeur helped first Eva, then Nyssa from the car. By the time Savannah swung her legs around to climb out, Leiandros had exited from the other side and come around to take her hand in his.
He pulled her from the sleek chauffeured car, the heat of his hand branding her as intimately as if he’d kissed her. She tried to ignore the sensation and swiftly stepped away from him.
The girls stood a few yards away, staring at the villa’s front with identical expressions of surprised awe. Savannah identified with the feeling.
She had never been to Villa Kalosorisma. Dion had kept her separated from the rest of his family as much as possible, even his parents and sister. He’d told her at the time it was his way of protecting her from their disapproval until they came to accept the marriage. She now knew differently. He’d been afraid of having his ugly lies about her morality revealed. She still cringed at what a gullible idiot she had been then.
The pristine whiteness of the villa’s stucco exterior dazzled her eyes, contrasting beautifully with the red tile roof. Three levels of terraces outlined by arches fronted the mansion. Surrounded by immaculate gardens and green trees, through which she could see glimpses of sparkling blue sea, Villa Kalosorisma simply took her breath away.
“It’s a real pretty hotel,” Nyssa announced.
“It’s not a hotel,” Savannah felt impelled to say.
“This is my home.” Leiandros had come to stand behind Savannah without her realizing it.
She once again stepped away, impatient to put distance between herself and his disturbing presence. She’d almost grown accustomed to the anxiety a man’s nearness caused in her, but that anxiety mixed with unmistakable sexual awareness was a cocktail mix guaranteed to corrupt her sanity.