TRADITIONAL GREEK HUSBANDS

Notorious Greek tycoons seek brides!

Childhood friends Neo and Zephyr worked themselves up from the slums of Athens and made their fortune on Wall Street!

They fought hard for their freedom and their fortune. Now, like brothers, they rely only on one another.

Together they hold onto their Greek traditions…and the time has come for them to claim their brides!

In May, Neo’s story: THE SHY BRIDE

This month meet Zephyr in: THE GREEK’S PREGNANT LOVER

The Greek’s Pregnant Lover

By

Lucy Monroe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

LUCY MONROE started reading at the age of four. After going through the childrens’ books at home, her mother caught her reading adult novels pilfered from the higher shelves on the bookcase…alas, it was nine years before she got her hands on a Mills & Boon® Romance her older sister had brought home. She loves to create the strong alpha males and independent women who people Mills & Boon books. When she’s not immersed in a romance novel (whether reading or writing it), she enjoys travel with her family, having tea with the neighbours, gardening, and visits from her numerous nieces and nephews.

Lucy loves to hear from her readers: e-mail LucyMonroe@LucyMonroe.com or visit www.LucyMonroe.com

For my beautiful daughter Sabrina, her wonderful husband Kyle, and their precious child Nevaeh. I love you all so much, and am so very, very, VERY proud of you. I thank God to have you as blessings in my life. Kyle and Sabrina, you have a love worth memorializing and prove the truth that romance is more than fiction. I pray you are blessed with as much or even more love and happiness as your dad and I share for many years to come.

Prologue

ZEPHYR NIKOS looked out over the Port of Seattle, remembering his arrival here with Neo Stamos over a decade before. Things had been very different then. Everything Zephyr owned fit in the single tattered duffel bag he’d carried. He still had that duffel bag stored in the back of his oversized walk-in closet, behind the designer suits and top-of-the-line workout gear.

It was a small reminder of where he had come from, and where he would never be again.

They had been so sure this was the place to start their new life, the one that would move them as far from the backstreets of Athens as a man could get. And they’d been right.

Two Greek boys from the wrong side of the tracks had built not just a business, but an empire worth billions of dollars. They dined in the finest restaurants, traveled by private jet and rubbed shoulders with the richest and most powerful people in the world. They’d realized their dreams and then some.

And now Neo was in love and getting married.

As much as everyone else saw Zephyr as more easygoing than Neo, he wasn’t surprised his friend had found domestic bliss first. Zephyr wasn’t sure he would ever find anything like it. In fact, he was near positive he wouldn’t. Oh, he might marry someday, but it wouldn’t be a hearts-and-flowers event, just another business transaction. Just like how he’d been conceived.

He had learned early that a smile made as effective a mask as a blank stare, but that’s all it was…a mask.

His heart had turned to stone a long time ago, though he guarded that secret as well as he guarded all his others. Secrets he would never allow into the light of day.

Even Neo did not know the painful truth about Zephyr’s past. His friend and business partner believed Zephyr had had a similar childhood to his own before they’d met in the orphanage at the age of ten. Neo could not imagine anything worse than his own messed-up childhood and Zephyr wanted to keep it that way. The pain and shame of his past had no place in the new life he’d built for himself.

Neo had hated the orphanage. However, once Zephyr accepted his mother was not coming back for him, it had been the first step in distancing himself from a life he wished he could forget. His father had thought nothing of selling Zephyr’s mother’s “favors” along with the other women who “worked” for him in the business that supplemented his less than stellar income from the family olive groves. And he cared nothing for the illegitimate son that had resulted from his own “sampling of the merchandise.”

When Zephyr’s mother had first left him at the orphanage so she could pursue a life away from his father’s brothel, his innocent child self had been sure she would come back. He’d missed her and cried and prayed every day she would return. A few weeks later, she had. To visit. No matter how much that small boy had tearfully begged her to take him with her, she had once again left him behind.

It had taken him a few visits, but eventually, he’d realized he was no longer part of his mother’s life. And she was no longer part of his. Which even a small boy, barely old enough to attend school, had been able to recognize as freedom from being a whore’s son. An orphan, at least, had no past.

He’d learned to hide his. From everyone.

He would have stayed in the orphanage until he finished school, but the monster whose blood tainted his own had decided an illegitimate son was better than no son at all. And Zephyr had had to leave. Now his best friend, Neo, had gone with him and they had made their own lives on the streets of Athens until lying about their ages to join a cargo ship’s crew.

The move Neo considered their first step toward a new life, the life they now enjoyed. But Zephyr knew better. His journey had begun long before.

The simple truth was, as hardened as Neo appeared to be, inside—where it mattered—Zephyr was stone-cold marble in comparison.

Chapter One

“WHEN are we going to drop the bombs?”

Piper Madison’s head snapped up at the question asked in a small boy’s high-pitched tone. The dark-haired moppet, who could not be more than five, looked at the male flight attendant with earnest interest.

Glowing with embarrassed humor, his mother laughed softly. “He hasn’t quite got the hang of not all planes being geared to war. His grandfather took him to an aeronautical museum and he fell in love with the B-52 bomber.”

She turned to her son and explained for what was clearly not the first time that they were on a passenger plane going to visit Grandma and Grandpa. The little boy looked unconvinced until the first-class cabin flight attendant added his agreement to the mother’s. Small shoulders drooped in disappointment and Piper had to stifle a chuckle.

There had been a time not so many years ago that her fondest hopes included being in that exasperated mother’s place. Those dreams had died along with her marriage and she had accepted that. She had. Yet as much as she wished they didn’t, those old hopes still caused a small pang in the region of her heart in moments like this.

But dreams of children definitely had no chance of resurrection in her current situation.

Trying to let the low-level background hum created by the plane’s engines soothe nerves already stretched taut, Piper leaned back in her seat and looked away from the domestic tableau.

It didn’t work. Despite her best efforts, her heart rate increased as anticipation of her arrival in Athens thrummed through her. She couldn’t stop herself looking out the window, her eyes eagerly seeking evidence of the airport.

For hours it had been nothing but a blanket of cloud with the occasional break where the peaks of the Alps crept through. It had been a while since she spotted the last peak and she knew they were almost to their Athens destination. Less than an hour from seeing him. Zephyr Nikos. Her current boss and part-time bed partner.

She was more than a little keen to see the man and the place of his birth. Besides, who didn’t want to visit paradise?

For that’s where they were ultimately headed, a small Greek island that at one time had been the vacation home of a fabulously wealthy Greek family. Not so flush now, the patriarch had sold the island to Stamos & Nikos Enterprises. Zephyr and his partner, Neo Stamos, planned to develop it as an all-inclusive spa resort. And she’d been given the interior design contract for the entire facility, with a budget large enough to bring in whatever kind of help she needed to see it to completion.

She was beyond excited about being brought in at the ground level on such an expansive project. It would be an amazing coup for her business, but satisfying personally on a creative level as well. Even so, her current heightened sense of anticipation was predominantly for the man who waited for her there.

She had spent the last six weeks missing Zephyr with an ache that scared her when she let herself think about it. She should not be so emotionally dependent on a man who was only sort of her lover.

She bit her lip on a sigh.

They were involved sexually, but not romantically. They weren’t anything as simple as casual sex partners. That would be too easy. She’d know exactly how to handle her one-sided emotional entanglement then. But they were friends, too. Good friends. The kind of friends that hung out at least once a week before the sex benefits started and that increased to multiple times a week when they were in the same city.

To complicate things even more, he was also her boss.

Again…sort of. His company had hired her personal design firm for several projects over the past two-plus years, though this new development was by far the biggest and most far-reaching for her. He would be her boss in actual fact if she’d let him, too.

He’d offered her a staff job with salary and benefits she’d had a hard time turning down, but Piper had no desire to work for someone else. Not again. Not after losing both her husband and her job in one fell swoop only six months before she took on her first project with Zephyr’s company.

She’d vowed then that she would not allow herself to ever be that vulnerable to upheaval again.

She’d thought marrying Arthur Bellingham would give her the stability she craved, among other things—like that family she’d dreamed about. It had turned out just the opposite, though. Art had shredded her emotions before tearing her life apart piece by piece until all she had left was her talent and her determination. She would never be in that place again.

Not even for Zephyr. Not that the sexy Greek real estate tycoon was offering her marriage, or even commitment. He’d offered her a salaried job. That was all.

If she wanted more, she certainly wasn’t saying so. Up until the past weeks’ long separation, she hadn’t even admitted it to herself. Telling him wasn’t in the cards she planned to play. Not when doing so would spell the immediate end to this whole friends-who-are-sexually-intimate situation.

And maybe their friendship as well.

Zephyr waited for Piper near the luggage carousel. He hadn’t seen her in six weeks. She had been on a job in the Midwest and he’d known if he didn’t offer her the Greek job, he probably wouldn’t see her again for another two months, or more.

Not that she wasn’t the best interior designer for the job, but this project was bigger than anything she’d taken on before. He knew she could do it, though. And it wasn’t as if he needed to explain his choice to anyone. That was one of the benefits to being the boss. The only person who might have something to say about it, and only because they were both working together on this development for the first time in years, was his best friend and business partner, Neo Stamos.

However, the man was knee-deep in wedding preparations right now. Cass might not want a big production, but Neo wanted their small wedding to be perfect in every way. Hell, Zephyr was surprised his friend hadn’t insisted on designing and building a venue just for the event.

A group of newly arrived travelers surged toward the luggage carousel, bringing Zephyr’s thoughts firmly to the present. He scanned the crowd for Piper’s beautiful blond head. There she was, her attention caught by a small boy talking animatedly to his mother. The signature blue skirt-suit Piper wore highlighted her curves deliciously, while managing a claim to elegance. Yet, he doubted it was a designer label.

Piper’s business was still operating on too fine a line for her to splurge on clothes, or even an apartment much bigger than a closet. He’d offered her a job that would have made it possible for her to live at a higher standard, but she’d turned him down. Twice. Damn, the woman was stubborn. And independent.

He wondered if she would turn down a shopping spree in Athens’s fashion district?

She looked up and their gazes met. Eyes the color of a robin’s egg filled with warmth and pleasure as they landed on him, her bow-shaped lips curved in a gorgeous smile. That look struck him like a blow to the chest.

He felt a grin take over his mouth without his permission, a more honest smile than anything that usually masked his features. Not that he had to hide that he was pleased to see her. They’d hit it off when he hired her to update the main offices for Stamos & Nikos Enterprises a little over two years ago. Their friendship had only grown since. The addition of phenomenal sex to their relationship had only improved the situation as far as he was concerned.

In fact, Piper had been the reason Zephyr had encouraged Neo so strongly to develop interests outside their company, and to pursue his friendship with Cassandra Baker, the famous recluse master pianist. That had worked out better for Neo than Zephyr could have imagined. And Zephyr was happy for him. He really was.

However, it boggled his mind, to tell the truth. Neo in love. Zephyr shook his head. Sex and friendship were one thing, love something else altogether.

Piper’s delicate brows drew together in a frown and she gave him a questioning look.

“It’s nothing,” he mouthed.

When she reached him, he pulled her into a tight hug. Her soft curves felt so good against him, the low-level arousal he’d experienced since waking that morning and realizing he would be seeing Piper today went critical. Just that fast.

Damn.

“I guess you really missed me.” She leaned back, a sensual chuckle purring from her throat, her eyes glinting with teasing humor.

Chagrin washed over him. He wasn’t some untried adolescent. Nevertheless, he laughed and admitted, “Yes.”

“When is our first meeting with the architect?”

“The day after tomorrow.”

“But you told me I needed to be here today.”

“You needed a break.”

“Building a new business is always consuming.”

He shrugged because he couldn’t disagree. For the first ten years when he and Neo had been building their fortune, they had worked weekends and long hours during the week and hadn’t taken so much as an afternoon off. Things had gotten a little better after that, though they were both too much of overachievers to develop much of a life outside their company.

After meeting Piper, Zephyr had started leaving the office around six instead of eight, but he still wasn’t great about taking time off. However, Piper had sounded exhausted the last time they’d spoken on the phone, and he’d determined she would take a break, one way or another.

“Agreed, but I did not think you would begrudge an extra couple of days in Athens.”

Her eyes lit up. “You mean I actually get to do some sightseeing before submersing myself in the job?”

“Exactly. I’d hoped you’d consider the next couple of days as information-gathering time as well as our time on the island. We want the resort to fit into the island’s ambiance, but also reflect Greek culture.”

“Ambiance? I thought it was a private island. Empty.”

“The family leased out land for a small fishing village and a few farms for local produce, as well as having their own fruit orchards and olive groves.”

“Oh, that’s perfect for what you are wanting to do.”

“I thought so.” But he enjoyed how in-tune with his vision she was.

“I’m glad I’ll have time to really get to know the area then. I like to try and make my designs reflect the local setting’s positive attributes.”

“I know and I’m sure you’ve done a lot of research on Greek culture already.” Heck, she’d researched it when they’d first met, telling him she wanted to understand him and Neo better as clients. He didn’t know how much it had helped her, considering he and Neo had left Greece behind so many years ago. But there was no denying Piper got him in a way no one else did. And her design updates in their offices had been perfect. “Nothing can replace experiencing an environment in person though.”

Unconsciously nestling her body into his, she smiled, clearly pleased. “True, but I didn’t know I’d have the luxury to do so with this job.”

He just grinned and shrugged.

She laughed. “Don’t fool yourself into believing I’m not aware you have your own agenda here. One that includes judicious amounts of time between the sheets. You’re a manipulator, you know that?”

She knew him well. “Is this a bad thing?”

“In this case?” She shook her head, her bright blue eyes going heavy-lidded. “No. Definitely no.”

That’s what he appreciated so much about her. Piper Madison was a gem among women, his very own polished diamond that did not require the setting of a relationship to shine. Unlike Neo’s less worldly Cass, Piper had no illusions of love and romance. She enjoyed his body as he found pleasure in hers. No morass of untidy emotions to navigate, which was a very good thing.

Because unlike Neo, Zephyr had no love to give. “Let’s get your case and we’ll head to the hotel. It is a spa-resort.”

“Scoping out the competition, are we?”

“Naturally.” He gave in to the desire that had been riding him since her arrival and kissed her. And then he kissed her again for good measure. She tasted as sweet and arousing as always.

Eyes glowing with pleasure, she said, “Only, situated in the city, it can’t hope to offer what we, I mean Stamos and Nikos Enterprises, will.”

“There would be no point in developing a new property if we couldn’t bring something to the table no one else has already offered.”

Her azure gaze slid to his lips and stayed there for several seconds, and then she blinked at him with unfocused eyes before seeming to remember what he’d said and smiling wryly. “Always the overachiever.”

“And you are not?”

“Hey, there’s more than one reason you and I are such good friends.”

“More than this, you mean.” He rubbed himself against her subtly.

She gasped and stepped back. “You are dangerous.” Letting her gaze drop to what he hoped his suit jacket hid from others’ gazes, she winked. “I think getting to the hotel is a definite necessity.”

“Are you tired?” he asked, tongue in cheek. “Need a lie down?”

“Get my case, Zephyr.” She gave him a look that said she knew exactly what kind of lie down he had in mind and she wasn’t necessarily averse.

“Gladly, agapimenos.”

“Don’t start in with the Greek endearments unless you want spontaneous combustion right here,” she warned.

“But I like living on the edge.”

She gave a significant look to the baggage rolling by on the carousel.

He turned smartly and started looking for the zebra-print luggage he had bought her after she complained about how her black suitcase looked like everyone else’s in the airport. She’d laughed at the loud black-and-white print on the cases, but she used it.

She’d only brought one midsize case and her carry-on, so they were out of the airport and in the car he’d rented for the week a few minutes later.

“Mmm…nice. Definitely a step up from the Mercedes,” she said, rubbing the leather upholstery in the fire-engine-red Ferrari convertible.

“Don’t knock my car. It has heated seats and those come in handy in Seattle’s colder winters. And a convertible would hardly be practical in such a wet city.” But he was glad she liked the Ferrari. He’d wanted to spoil her a little, since she was always so determined not to spoil herself.

“There is that.” She brushed her hand along the ceiling. “Are you going to lower the soft-top?”

“Of course.” He pressed a button and the roof slowly disappeared.

Once the process had completed, he put the powerful car into gear and backed out of his VIP parking spot. With wellpracticed movements in cutthroat driving, he maneuvered them through Athens toward their hotel. He swerved around a taxi that had stopped in a no-parking zone and then accelerated through a light turning red.

She put her head back and laughed out loud. “Oh, I like this. We really have two days for you and me to play, and nothing else?”

“We do.”

“Thank you, Zephyr.” She brushed a hand down his thigh.

Pleasure at both the touch and the gratitude he heard in her voice filled him. With an independent woman like Piper, it had been a risk to schedule vacation time for her without her knowledge. Even if he called it locale research. He was glad the risk had paid off. “What are friends for?”

“Is that all we are? Just friends?” she asked, not sounding particularly concerned.

So, he didn’t go into masculine panic mode. “In my world there isn’t anything just about being a true friend.”

“I understand that. All of my so-called friends dumped me when I walked out on Art. I didn’t realize they were only interested in spending time with me if I came as part of a power couple.”

“Even though he cheated on you?” Zephyr asked in disgust.

“Art wasn’t the only one who believed that hoary old refrain he was so good at spouting.”

“Which one is that?”

“All men cheat,” she clarified.

“We don’t.”

“The jury is still out on that one, but I was not about to stay married to a man who believed infidelity was as inevitable as the tide.”

“You know I think you made the right choice divorcing that louse.” At least her family had finally come around to that conclusion as well, even if her former friends had not.

“Me, too. But unfortunately, that louse runs one of the most successful design houses in New York.”

“Hence your move to Seattle.”

“Exactly. There just wasn’t room enough in The Big Apple for both his ego and my career.” She smiled sadly.

The bastard she’d been married to had done his best to blackball her in the design community. Zephyr had returned the favor over the past two years and Très Bon no longer held its prestigious top position status. Arthur Bellingham’s word might send ripples out in the city, but Zephyr Nikos sent out waves big enough to drown in the international community.

The bastard who had done his best to ruin Piper’s life was on the slippery slope of business decline already. Art would only find himself in deep, murky waters when he got to the bottom, too.

Zephyr had never told Piper, of course. She hadn’t been exposed to his ruthless streak and he saw no reason to change that.

“Well, I am glad you came to Seattle,” he said.

“Again, me, too.” She tugged off her jacket, revealing the silky singlet she wore beneath it, and the fact she wasn’t wearing a bra. “I certainly made a better circle of friends.”

“Oh, I am round now?” he asked, practically choking on his lust as her hardened nipples created shoals in the slinky fabric of her top.

He forcibly snapped his attention back to Athens’s typically snarled traffic, lest he cause an accident or do a poor job avoiding one. He could hardly do what he was fantasizing to her body from a hospital bed.

Having her in peril of the same didn’t even bear thinking of.

“Don’t be smart.” She tapped his leg, having the opposite effect to the one he was sure she meant it to. “I have other friends.”

“Name one.”

“Brandi.”

“She is your assistant.”

“I have friends,” Piper insisted stubbornly. “There’s a reason I’m not available every night to keep you entertained.”

Which wasn’t something he actually liked, so he let the subject drop.

Usually, Piper noticed every tiny detail of her surroundings, always looking for ways to improve her own sense of design and aesthetics. However, she barely noticed the earth tones and ultramodern, simplistic design features of the luxury spa Zephyr had chosen for their stay as he led her through the oversized lobby to the bank of elevators on the far side.

She was too busy soaking in his every feature, her senses starved for the sight, taste and feel of him.

The past month and a half had been harder than any separation they’d had to date. For her anyway. Maybe for Zephyr, too, if the number of calls and texts she’d gotten from him was anything to go on. They’d had prolonged times apart before, but not since they started having sex regularly six months ago. Still, it wasn’t as if they were a couple. They were friends, who were also casual sex partners. At least that’s what she’d been telling herself since the first time they’d passed that intimate boundary nine months ago.

That first time, she’d thought it would be a one-off, something to get the sexual tension that had been growing between them out of the way of their friendship. She’d been wrong.

They hadn’t gotten physical again until three months later, but connected sexually several times a week since then. When he made it clear, again, that he did not see the sex as anything more than physical compatibility for stress release, she’d told herself she wasn’t ready for a committed relationship, either, so that was just fine with her. Art had done a real number on her ability to trust and she had a business to build. She didn’t have a place in her life for a full-time relationship.

The only problem was: she wasn’t sure she believed her own rhetoric any longer. Her natural optimism was doing its best to overcome her painfully learnt lesson on the ways of men. The fact she was having such a complicated internal monologue on the matter was telling in itself, she thought with an internal sigh.

She’d been careful not to ask for promises Zephyr might break, or make commitments she wasn’t ready for.

But she’d come to realize over the past six weeks—while subsisting on phone calls, texts, instant messaging and e-mail—that emotions didn’t abide by agreements, verbal or otherwise. That refusing to make a vow didn’t stop her heart from craving the security that promise implied. Nor did it stop her from living like she’d made her own promises.

She’d missed Zephyr more than she’d thought possible and wanted nothing more right now than to wrap herself up in him and soak in his essence.

He seemed to want the same thing. He hadn’t stopped touching her since they left the airport. He’d laid his hand over hers between gear changes in the car and he’d kept his arm around her waist all the way to the room.

He opened the door with a flourish. “Here we are.”

The suite reflected the minimalist décor from downstairs, but its spaciousness spoke of the ultimate in luxury. “This place is bigger than my apartment.”

“My closet is bigger than your flat,” he said, sounding unimpressed.

She grimaced at the truth of his words, but the curve of her lips morphed into a smile from the heat burning in his brown eyes.

From the feel of his arousal when he’d first hugged and kissed her hello, and the sexual need intensifying his features then and now, she expected to be taken against the door with a minimum of foreplay.

But that didn’t happen. He set her cases aside and then lifted her right into his arms, high against his chest, in a move that made her feel cherished rather than just wanted.

She quickly banished that thought even as her gasp of surprise escaped her. “Going he-man on me?”

“Spoiling you more like.”

“Oh, really? I could get used to this,” she teased.

He didn’t bother with a reply, but didn’t look too fazed at the prospect. So not good for the odd blips of emotion that had been pestering her lately. But that was one thing she could say about Zephyr Nikos, whether it be in his role as friend, boss or bed partner, the man did not stint on his generosity.

Despite his obvious desire, rather than showing mass amounts of impatience, he laid her gently on the big bed and seemed determined to reacquaint himself with every facet of her body. He drove her crazy with reticence while pumping her for information on her time away from him.

After he asked yet another question about her experience in the Midwest decorating the interior for a new office building, she laughed. “We spoke every day, Zephyr. I can’t think of anything I didn’t already tell you.”

The gorgeous tycoon actually looked like he might be blushing, his dark eyes reflecting chagrin. “I was just curious.”

“You know what I do on a job. I’ve done it for Stamos and Nikos Enterprises often enough.”

“Did you like the Midwest better than Seattle?” he asked with what she thought was entirely mistimed curiosity.

“Are you kidding?”

His expression said clearly he wasn’t.

“I love Seattle. The energy in the city is amazing.” And he was there.

“That’s good to know.”

Suddenly, all his questions started to make sense. “You heard.”

Chapter Two

ZEPHYR tried to look innocent.

“How? Who told you?”

“Does it matter? Information is more lucrative than platinum in my business.”

“Did you seriously think Pearson Property Developments could offer me a better situation than your company already has done?”

“Money isn’t your only consideration, it isn’t even your main one, or you would have accepted my job offer by now.”

It was true. She would make a lot more money working for him as an employee whose overheads were absorbed by the company rather than as a fledgling design business that sucked up the vast majority of the not-insubstantial fees charged to her clients.

“So, you thought I might like the Midwest enough to take Pearson’s job offer?” She couldn’t imagine it and disbelief colored her voice.

“They didn’t just offer you a job.”

“No, they also offered a contract for several projects they have in the pipeline over the next two years.” While still leaving her an independent operator, the offer would provide the kind of security most up-and-coming designers dreamed about.

If living in a landlocked state without a single authentic Vietnamese or Thai restaurant was what she wanted. It wasn’t. She was too fond of the diversified and active culture of Seattle.

“I’ve gotten too spoiled to big-city living. The only Thai restaurant I found was run by a man named Arnie who thinks a good curry comes with corn-on-the-cob.”

Zephyr shuddered. “So, you are not taking the contract.”

“Doing so would have made it impossible to do this property. I wasn’t willing to give up a chance at decorating a specialty resort in paradise for re-creating my first design in a series of cookie-cutter office buildings.”

One of the things she and Art had disagreed on, besides the whole issue of marital fidelity, was her need to create, not merely re-create. For Art, the bottom line was always money. While Piper craved security, she needed the chance to stretch her artistic muscles just as much.

“I’m glad.”

She smiled. “Good.”

“I’m equally pleased you are here with me now.” For a man like Zephyr, that was quite an admission.

It deserved rewarding, at the very least reciprocating honesty. Emotion she was doing her best to suppress colored her single-word answer. “Ditto.”

He made a sexy sound, very much like a growl, before pulling her to him for a scorching kiss. Finally.

She’d missed him; she’d missed this so much. Being touched. Being held. She’d gotten very spoiled to seeing him so frequently.

She threw herself into the kiss without the least resistance. She adored his lovemaking, but she could do this for hours.

And from the way his lips moved against hers, so could he.

She felt herself being lifted and then she was straddling his thighs, her skirt rucked up around her hips. The mattress was firm enough to support his sitting up easily. What brand was it? She couldn’t help wondering.

And then all work-related thoughts disappeared as her brain focused on the only thing that mattered right now, the sensation of being held and kissed by the most amazing man she’d ever met.

His mouth fit over hers perfectly. And he tasted like her idea of heaven. He deepened the kiss, but with no sense of urgency, telling her silently that they had all the time in the world. He was the only man she’d ever known who treated kissing like an end unto itself.

The kiss broke for a moment, their lips sliding apart in a natural movement. He caressed her cheek and temple with his lips.

She smiled, warmed clear through and pleased by the fact he hadn’t just missed sex with her. He seemed to have missed their connection almost as much as she had.

“I’m surprised you’re not tearing my clothes off after six weeks going without,” she whispered, the hushed quiet around them feeling almost sacred.

Then a chilling thought took her. Maybe he hadn’t gone without. Maybe that’s why he was so relaxed. They’d never made the commitment toward monogamy. He could very well have found someone else back in Seattle.

“I kept myself busy at work. With Neo cutting back his hours to spend more time with Cass, there’s a lot of reorganization of responsibilities going on.” He gave her gentle baby kisses all over face and neck between words. “Even if you had been in Seattle, I would barely have seen you over the past six weeks.”

Which implied he hadn’t been with anyone else, either.

“I didn’t realize it was that bad.” He’d mentioned something to that effect, but she’d thought he was just trying to make her feel better.

She should have known better. For all his apparent affability, Zephyr Nikos was an almost brutally honest man. He’d warned her early in their association that he didn’t do “sensitive” and he hoped she could handle candor, even when it meant criticism. He’d been referring to their work association, but she’d gotten the impression he was that way on a personal level as well.

Then, after they’d become friends, she’d gotten proof of her impression. So, why did she keep looking for evidence to the contrary now that they were involved more intimately? On a physical level anyway.

He pulled his head back and met her eyes with a sardonic expression. “Neo is a force of nature. We’ve had to restructure our head office entirely, promoting several people into positions of greater authority while hiring others and training them to take over the new vacancies.”

“With you picking up the slack.”

The signs of exhaustion were there and she couldn’t believe it had taken her this long to notice. Her delight in being in his company again was her only excuse. Dark shadows under Zephyr’s eyes, his vitality muted—she wasn’t the only one who needed a couple of days without work.

“It is worth it to see him so happy.” There was something in Zephyr’s tone. Not quite envy, not exactly sadness, but definite sincerity.

It confused her.

“I can’t imagine Neo in love,” was all she said, though.

“You’ve only met him a few times.”

“And he’s always the same. Intense. Focused. Almost dour.” There was no almost about it, but she didn’t want to offend Zephyr by calling his best friend and business partner an emotionless robot.

“Cass makes him laugh.” The strange tone was there again and no more comprehensible to Piper.

Regardless, she could not picture Neo Stamos laughing. “He really must be in love.”

“Yes.”

She might not be able to interpret that tone, but Piper did know something about it bothered her. She scooted up his lap so the silk panties covering her were directly over the hard bulge behind his zipper.

Whatever was going on in Zephyr’s head, his desire for her had not abated by even a centimeter.

He needed to relax and forget about Stamos & Nikos Enterprises for a while. She knew just how to help him do that.

She leaned forward and spoke against his lips. “No more talking, Zephyr.”

“You have something better to do with my lips?” Every word brushed his lips provocatively against hers.

“Absolutely.” She drew out the syllables, making each one a minicaress leading up to when she pressed their mouths together with serious intent.

He let her control the kiss for several tantalizing minutes she knew would not last. Allowing her tongue to tease his, he kept his hands locked onto her hips while she tunneled her fingers through his gorgeous dark hair. She rocked against him, bringing them both moan-producing pleasure.

One of the things she most adored about making love with this man was how totally into it he got. And how much he liked when she did the same. He never made her feel like a freak for enjoying sex. Art had often made cutting comments about her behavior in bed, reining in her abandon. And then he’d had the temerity to say that all men cheated because they couldn’t get what they needed from one woman. But especially their wives.

Bull. Art hadn’t been willing to take what Piper had been prepared to give. Zephyr, on the other hand, never made her feel dirty for getting lost in the physical. Her passion did not intimidate or disgust him. Not on any level.

Because his passion was just as deep and consuming. He didn’t posture or pretend. He wasn’t a man driven by appearances, like her ex-husband.

Zephyr did not worry about wrinkling or staining his clothes when their desires got in the way of a neat and tidy disrobing. Like now. It was clear from the way he touched and responded to her that he wasn’t thinking about anything but the pleasure between them, the way their bodies pressed and writhed together in primal need.

It wasn’t in the predatory nature of her tycoon to remain passive for long. And she waited with adrenaline-fueled anticipation for him to make his move.

He did not disappoint her, erupting from his sitting position to spin them around and lay her against the bed once more. He came down over her, his body heat and the strength of his bulging muscles surrounding her with his solid presence. A frisson of atavistic pleasure rolled straight down her spine directly to her feminine core.

She would never tell him, but she loved when her übersophisticated lover went caveman on her. His big body rubbed against hers; his hands were everywhere. But then so were hers. He touched her through her clothes, then shoved her silk top up her torso with a growling wound deep in his chest. Masculine fingers caressed her stomach, circling her belly button before moving up to gently mold her unfettered breasts and pluck at her nipples.

Urgent sounds of need slipped from her mouth to his. Her body rocked upward of its own volition, sharp talons of sexual hunger piercing her and making her muscles tense and strain.

If he didn’t claim her body with his soon, she was going to lose her mind. Or take over. Somehow.

One of his hands slid between them, then the pad of his thumb was exactly where she needed it to be, caressing her swollen clitoris right through the silk of her panties.

The pleasure built at light speed and she felt her climax taking her over before she’d even gotten a chance to start really aching for it. Of course, she’d been hungry for his brand of loving since the last night they spent together six weeks ago.

His voracious kiss swallowed her scream of undeniable pleasure. It went on and on and on and on in an unending cascade of bliss that drained all coherent thought from her mind.

Then the caressing finger moved away and she floated on a haze of satiation. It was temporary, because she knew he wasn’t finished, or even close to it.

The sound of a condom wrapper tearing filtered through her consciousness, but her eyes wouldn’t focus. Everything was blurred by the mind-numbing pleasure she had just experienced.

It was her fragile panties tearing away from her body that got her attention, though. The look of near animalistic carnality hardening his features made her insides clench in wanton hunger. He pressed against her slick opening with his latex-covered shaft.

And then he was inside her, his long and thick erection filling her like no other man could.

He looked down at her, his dark eyes practically black with desire. “Okay?”

She answered with a tilt of her pelvis, taking him in as deep as he would go. The feel of his blunt head pushing inexorably against her cervix sparked another orgasm, this one deep inside, an intense contraction of her womb that tilted between pain and pleasure.

Though she didn’t think she’d done anything to reveal the shock of internal delight, his openly feral gaze gleamed with satisfaction.

And then he started moving, setting a rhythm that both demanded her participation and coaxed it from her with jolt after jolt of electric pleasure.

They moved together with an urgency that would not be denied. It was only minutes before he was tearing his lips from her and roaring out his release.

Shockingly, her body contracted around him in a third muted climax sparked by the final swelling of his hardness pressing against her G-spot with inflexible pressure.

He said a four-letter word.

“I prefer the term making love.” She grinned tiredly, her entire body boneless from the overwhelming cataclysm that had been their joining.

He barked out a laugh and shook his head. “That was incredible.”

“That’s one word for it.” She looked down their bodies. They were both practically dressed. Clothes unzipped and moved out of the way only as much as absolutely necessary to make their copulating possible. “Earthshaking is another.”

“That’s two words.”

“And two more words for you—still dressed.”

His gaze traveled the path hers had and he took in their still dressed condition with widening eyes. “Unbelievable.”

He sounded as shocked as she felt, which struck her as unbelievably funny and she started laughing. Soon his laughter joined hers and he had to grab the condom before rolling off her as their humor continued unabated for long minutes.

He stood up and disposed of the condom before yanking off slacks that looked like they belonged on the jumble heap. “I wonder what the dry cleaner is going to think of that.”

“Do you really care?”

“No.” He finished undressing and then started working on her clothes. “Your panties are goners, but I think the dry cleaner can save your skirt.”

“You could have the decency to sound at least a little apologetic about that.”

“Why? What is a single pair of panties in comparison to the pleasure we both just enjoyed?”

Too true, but it wouldn’t do for her to say so. “They were my favorite pair.”

“Oh, really?” He gave her his patented doubtful frown that had sent more than one negotiator toppling toward defeat. “I don’t recall seeing them before. Ever. And I think I have more than a nodding acquaintance with the delectable bits of fabric you choose to cover your own even more enticing bits.”

“Charmer.” Then she gave him a fake pout. “I bought them new for today.”

“So how could they be your favorites?”

“They were my new favorites.”

“Well, they’re rubbish now.” And really? He didn’t sound even sort of bothered by that.

Which she liked. A lot. Still, she wasn’t ready to cede the game completely. “I thought you’d like them.”

“I did. Couldn’t you tell?”

She laughed, feeling joyous and free. “I’m only going to forgive you because I had multiple orgasms.”

“Three of them. In a very short period,” he added with welldeserved smugness. “It makes me wonder what I can do with the rest of the night.”

What he did was make love to her until she passed out from exhaustion sometime around dawn…after no less than three more orgasms.

They slept in, waking at the tail end of the morning to share a decadent brunch. Then he took her to the Acropolis. She’d watched a travel video about the temple ruins found there, but nothing prepared her for how it felt actually standing where many claimed the modern constructs of Western Civilization had been born. Maybe not everyone reacted like she did, but she felt a sense of profundity that she could not shake.

She could not help staring at the Parthenon in absolute awe.

When she told Zephyr about it, he did not laugh at her like Art would have done.

Zephyr only nodded, his expression serious. “This is not just a pile of ingeniously put-together stone. We are standing on history. You cannot dismiss something like that.”

“That’s why your developments are so special, isn’t it?”

“Because I recognize history when I see it?” he asked with underlying amusement.

She reached out and took his hand. She could not help herself. She needed to touch this incredible man. “Because you recognize the unique flavor of wherever you are and rather than try to change it, you seek to enhance it.”

Very few developers could make that claim, and none as successful as Stamos & Nikos Enterprises.

“Neo and I learned early to see the good in wherever we were.” He laced their fingers together, giving her a look that implied he wasn’t just talking about property development.

“Even the orphanage?” she asked softly.

“I admit I saw more good there than Neo did.”

“I’m not surprised.”

He shrugged.

“That’s a pretty nice talent to have. I wish I’d had it as a child like you did.” She might have found moving around as much as her family had done easier than she had. “Heck, I wouldn’t mind having it now.”

“Don’t play down your strengths. That was one of the first characteristics I admired in you.”

“Seriously?”

“Definitely. When you look at a property, you do not see what is, but what could be.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No, but it comes from the same attitude.”

“Then why was I such a miserable kid?” She felt like an idiot asking that. She’d been a grown-up for a long time. The little girl that found changing homes and schools every couple of years so traumatizing was long gone.

“It wasn’t an inability to find the good in each new situation that your father’s military career led you to that made you so unhappy. It was the fact you found so much to love and enjoy in each new place and that got ripped from you with every new reassignment.”

Feeling light-headed, and not from the panoramic view of Athens, she swallowed after developeing a suddenly dry throat. Because Zephyr was exactly right. Every time she had found the place she wanted to occupy in her new world, she had been ripped away from it.

But still. “Lots of kids grow up the way I did.”

“That doesn’t make it any easier on each one that does it. There were more than two dozen other children in the orphanage my mother abandoned me to. That reality did not make my own situation any easier to accept when she left me behind.”

“Your mother abandoned you to the orphanage?”

Zephyr walked to a viewpoint that overlooked Hadrian’s Arch. He still had hold of Piper’s hand, so she came with him. Feeling like the only connection he had with the present was their entwined fingers, he could not believe he had shared that information with Piper. He’d never even talked about it to Neo. Yet, he knew he was going to tell Piper the truth now.

Maybe not all, but at least some. He just didn’t understand why.

“How old were you?” she asked, after several moments of somber quiet between them.

“Four, almost five.” He looked down at her to gauge his tenderhearted lover’s reaction.

She did not disappoint him. Her pretty blue eyes glazed over in shock. “I thought you were a baby, or something.”

“No. My mother was a prostitute.” Again, a sense of utter unreality that he should be telling Piper these things assailed him. “One of her clients fell in love with her and wanted to marry her, but he didn’t want a living reminder of the life she’d led before they met.”

As an adult man, he could almost understand that. Not forgive, but understand. As a child who had adored his mother, the only bright constant in his short life, the one he had relied on entirely for acceptance and love, he hadn’t been so wise. Neither his child’s mind, nor the heart he’d later encased in impenetrable stone, had been able to comprehend his mother’s actions, or even her husband’s attitude.

The man had been kind enough to the small boy the few times they met before he decided to buy Leda’s freedom from her procurer, Zephyr’s father.

“But you were her child!” Piper’s obvious shock nearly ripped her hand from his grasp.

He tightened his grip, unwilling to let her go. “My mother visited. Once a month, but I learned to wish she wouldn’t.”

“Because she never took you with her when she left.”

“No.” No matter how he’d begged at first.

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”

“Last month.” But he hadn’t seen her since he’d run away from the orphanage with Neo, this time by Zephyr’s choice.

Piper stared up at him, her eyes swimming with emotion, her mouth opening and closing, but no sound coming out.

He took pity on her clear inability to fathom this state of affairs. “I contacted her after I made my first million. She was glad to hear from me.”

“You sound like that surprised you.”

“It did. Even though I was now wealthy, there was no guarantee she would want the reminder of her past.”

“You thought money was all you had to give her.”

Naturally. He’d never met a woman who didn’t appreciate financial gifts, his mother setting that precedent early for his young mind. “Why would I believe anything else?”

“She was glad you were safe, though, wasn’t she? I bet she cried that first time you called her.”

That time and almost every one since. “You are right.” Not that he understood why.

If his disappearance was such a hardship on his mother, surely she would not have dumped him at the orphanage in the first place? Nevertheless, she had not abandoned him entirely.

“She paid the orphanage to care for me.” He had discovered that when he made his first donation to the home long before he amassed his first million.

It was the reason he had contacted her later. Without the knowledge she had attempted to provide for him in some way, he did not think he ever would have. But nothing could have altered the path he had taken with his father.

“Are we going to see her while we are here?” Piper’s voice dripped with the emotion clouding her expression.

“No.”

“Of course, I’m sorry.” From looking on the verge of tears, Piper went to embarrassment in a single breath. “There’s no reason to take your friend to visit your mother.”

“It’s not that. She would like you.” How could she not? Piper was a very likable woman. “However, I have no intention of seeing my mother.”

“What? Why not? Surely we have time. Even if she lives on one of the islands. We can skip the sightseeing.”

“She lives in Athens. I bought her a house in Kifissia.” The distance between that district and the one he had been born in was measured in more than kilometers, though.

Piper’s brow furrowed. “According to the guidebook in our suite, that’s the elite part of town.”

“Is that what it said?”

“Well, as good as.”

“The book is right. The wealthy have inhabited Kifissia for generations.”

“And you bought your mother a house there.”

He shrugged. What did Piper want him to say? He had wanted to give his mother a physical break from the past.

“Yet you are not going to visit her.”

“No,” he confirmed.

“But…”

“I have not seen her in more than twenty years, Piper.”

“But you said you spoke last month.” The confusion on Piper’s face was adorable.

He kissed her. Not passionately, but he could not resist the innocent incomprehension covering her features.

“It was her birthday. So, I spoke to her.”

“You call her once a year, on her birthday?” Piper guessed.

“Yes.” The year after he first reconnected with Leda, he had made the mistake of asking what she would like for her birthday.

He’d become too ingrained in American customs. And he’d wanted the excuse to give her something nice, something to show her and the man she had married that Zephyr wasn’t such a dead loss after all. He wasn’t a lame puppy to be abandoned.

But his mother hadn’t asked for a designer handbag, or a new television. She’d only wanted one thing. For Zephyr to call her once a year on her birthday, so she could know he was doing all right. She could follow his success in the papers now, but he still made that call.

Once a year.

“Does she call you?”

“I have asked her not to, unless there is a problem with my brother or sister.” Keeping his mother at a distance was necessary and he could not change that.

“You have a brother and sister?”

He had expected some kind of criticism for his coldness toward his mother, but Piper hadn’t focused on a situation he could not change. She’d zeroed in on the one reality he found truly important. His sister and brother.

“They are half siblings, but I feel a responsibility toward them nonetheless.”

“How old are they?”

“Iola is twenty-nine. She is married to a good man and has three children of her own.”

Six years younger than him, his sister had been born a year and a half after he went into the home.

His mother had missed her visit with him that month and the one after. He’d thought she’d finally grown tired of coming to see him and wasn’t coming back. But she’d returned and she’d had a beautiful baby with her when she did.

“Have you met the children?”

“Yes, Iola insisted.”

“You sound like you don’t understand why.”

“I’m the bastard child her mother gave birth to when living a life they would all rather forget happened. My sister doesn’t even remember meeting me. She was too young the last time I saw her.”

“Your mother brought her to visit?”

“Yes.”

“That was cruel.”

He shrugged. To his way of thinking, it had been much more cruel when his mother stopped bringing Iola. Some might have thought he would be jealous of the baby, but Zephyr had adored Iola from the very beginning. He had been heartbroken when his mother’s husband had insisted Leda stop bringing his sister to visit when she was two.

But just like when he had begged to be taken with her, his mother turned deaf ears to his pleas to see the little girl he had allowed himself to love.

“I thought she was the most amazing being ever. I was in awe of her.”

“What did she think of you?”

“I don’t know. Her father did not want her to wonder about me, so my mother stopped bringing her on the visits when she was old enough to begin remembering them. My mother only brought my brother a handful of times as an infant for the same reason.”

“Clearly, they don’t want to forget you. Not if your sister insisted you meet her children.”

“I take care of them.” And even his stony heart could be moved by the little ones who called him Uncle Zee.

“You think that’s the only reason they want you in their lives?”

“Why else?”

“Maybe for the same reason I’d want you in my life even if I didn’t work with you.” How could he be so unaware of his own true worth? she wondered.

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t believe her, but he appreciated the sentiment.

“Does your brother-in-law work for you?” Piper asked.

“How did you know?”

“You said you take care of them. Does your brother work for you as well?”

“No. He’s academically brilliant. He’s finishing his doctoral thesis in physics right now.”

“Let me guess, you’ve paid for his education.”

“Naturally.”

She threw her arms around him and kissed him, far more exuberantly than he had kissed her just a moment ago. “You are an amazing man, Zephyr Nikos.”

He shook his head, but he was no idiot. He kissed her back and enjoyed the moment while it lasted, all the while wondering what in the hell was wrong with him that he had shared so much with Piper.

Maybe this friends-who-shared-sexual-intimacy wasn’t such a good idea after all. He couldn’t give her love and this openness was bound to give her the wrong impression.

Chapter Three

HE TOOK her to the Plaka after she’d soaked in all the history she could from the Acropolis ruins. That, and the fact that visiting hours were over. He could have arranged for special dispensation but wanted to take her shopping in the ancient marketplace.

It was a tourist’s paradise and Piper in tourist mode was completely charming. It also put them back on the kind of solid ground he understood. They found a shop that made authentic reproductions of ancient Greek jewelry and he bought her a necklace that would not have looked out of place on the neck of a senator’s wife.

Piper had balked at the cost, but he had stood firm. If he wanted to buy her a souvenir of their time in Athens, he would.

He could afford to spoil her and she deserved to be spoiled. Especially after the way that bastard of an ex-husband had treated her. Zephyr would not pretend to give her love as Art had, but he could afford to give her gifts. And he would.

Later that night, on the terrace of an exclusive restaurant, Piper found herself enjoying the understated, elegant décor that managed to still convey the flavor of Athens. Like most Greek restaurants, the majority of the seating was outside. However, this restaurant did not have the crowded, noisy ambiance of the cafés in the Plaka.

As much as she had enjoyed the historic shopping district closed off to automobile traffic, she appreciated the relative quiet of their current setting. Very much.

“Is this a favorite haunt of yours when you are in the country?”

“It is actually.” Zephyr’s brows furrowed. “How did you know?”

“I don’t imagine the staff know most American businessmen by name, no matter how rich and powerful.”

Looking oh so sexy in a light Armani sweater and bodyhugging designer jeans, his lips quirked in his signature wry smile. “Point.”

She was glad to see his smile. He’d seemed to draw back emotionally after opening up to her on the Acropolis. It was as if he regretted sharing so much about his past and needed to bring their focus firmly back to the present.

She could understand that. Zephyr was not a guy to wallow in emotion. Heck, he wasn’t a guy to feel emotion a lot of the time, as far as she could see. But she’d realized something as they shopped in the Plaka—she felt plenty toward Zephyr. In fact, she was drowning in emotion for him and that emotion only had one name. Love.

“Thank you for sharing this place with me.” She brushed her fingers over the gorgeous necklace he’d bought her earlier that day. “Thank you for everything.”

The stones were warm from her body, but her heart was even warmer. He had insisted a kiss would make the purchase fully worthwhile. Since her kisses were free, she’d thought nothing of giving him one. Right there, in front of the proprietor, who had grinned and said something in Greek that made Zephyr chuckle.

Piper wasn’t just feeling spoiled, she was feeling cherished and that was dangerous, she knew.

“It is my pleasure.”

“You say that a lot.” She smiled up at him.

“And it is true. You are an easy companion, Piper.”

“I’m glad you think so. I don’t hate your company, either.”

“That is a relief. I would not like to think you’d been giving me pity sex all this time.”

She couldn’t help laughing at that bit of ridiculousness. “Right. Pity sex. I don’t see it.” Or feel it. No woman would pity this man. Desire him? Yes. Crave his kisses? Definitely. Hunger for his touch? Without doubt.

But pity? Nope. No way.

“I’m relieved to hear it.”

She felt heat climb her cheeks and she shook her head. “Stop teasing me and eat your appetizer.”

Surprisingly, her tycoon listened and did exactly that.

They were halfway through the appetizer when she asked something she’d been curious about for a while. “Are you going to be Neo’s best man in the wedding?”

“Naturally.”

“Are you looking forward to it?” she teased, sure he would grimace and give a negative.

But he smiled instead and said quite decisively, “Yes.”

“You are?” She had not expected that.

“Of course. I worried that Neo had forgotten his dreams of home and family under the pressure of building our empire. When we first left Greece, that was all he’d talk about, how he was going to make something of himself and then make a proper family. He stopped talking about it maybe two years after we settled in Seattle.”

“But you didn’t want him to forget it entirely?” Wow, that was not an ambition she could picture Zephyr encouraging.

“No. He deserves a family, a home that is more than a place to live.”

“Those are some pretty traditional sentiments for a selfadmitted playboy.”

“What can I say? I am a traditional guy.”

That made her laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“What? Just because I am not married does not mean I never desire to enter the state.” He didn’t look like he was kidding.

But she couldn’t get past the feeling he had to be pulling her leg. Zephyr was the original no-commitment guy. He’d made that clear from the very beginning of their sexual relationship. So much so, that she had assumed the first time had been a one-off.

He’d shocked her by coming back for more when they worked together on the next project, and continuing to see her in Seattle after that. But he’d been smart to give her the time to accept the change in their relationship, so she was ready to accept the new “friends with benefits” nature of it.

“You look flummoxed.”

“I feel a little flummoxed,” she admitted.

“I do not know why. It is the American dream, not just the Greek one, is it not? One day, I will find the right woman.” He gave a self-deprecating smile that gave her butterflies. “Hell, I may even fall in love as Neo has done.”

Those words felt like an arrow to her heart, because they implied he had not found that woman, therefore that woman could not be her. After finally coming to terms with her own feelings, that was a double blow to her heart. Her hand went to her necklace again, this time gaining no sense of comfort from the feel of the precious metal and stones. You had to love someone to cherish them.

So, what did that make this gift and all the other gifts he’d given her?

Unfortunately, after hearing his story earlier she feared she knew. This was Zephyr’s relationship currency. Gifts and money. Not love. Not for the mother who had hurt him and not for Piper, either.

“You don’t seem like the home-and-hearth type, Zephyr,” she couldn’t resist saying. “You live in the ultimate bachelor pad and you’ve dated far and wide. And deep and long besides.”

Besides which he saw his relationships with his mother and siblings as monetary transactions.

“As was Neo before he met Cass. Me? I am as desirous of making my mark on the world in that way as any other man.”

“You’re serious?” The words were just a formality, though. There could be no doubt from his tone or his expression.

He was dead serious.

“Why wouldn’t I be? Regardless of what I just said, I do not anticipate falling in love like Neo, but one day I will marry and procreate. Why build an empire if I have no intention of leaving it to someone?”

She didn’t mention his nieces and nephew. Clearly, that wasn’t what he meant. Zephyr wanted his own family. “But you don’t think you will ever fall in love?”

“No.”

That made more sense, even if it hurt enough to make it difficult to breathe.

“But…”

“But what? You loved your ex-husband, yes?”

She grimaced. “Yes.”

“And did that bring you happiness?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think love can happen, or make me happy when it does.”

“Perhaps it will happen for you again one day.”

“Maybe it will.” It already had—with him—and his revelations on the Acropolis had only cemented that fact.

However, she could see it wasn’t a truth he would be pleased if she shared. No matter how much that situation hurt her, she could not change it. She suddenly realized she was very likely to pay the price for another woman’s actions. Actions that were decades old, but had not lost the power to hurt or mold Zephyr’s actions.

But Zephyr’s heart was not available to her and might never be.

His lips twisted in distaste. “Love is a messy emotion.”

“No question, but it’s good, too.” Surely he could see that, especially now that Neo was so happily in that state?

“You don’t regret loving Art?” Zephyr asked with calculated cool.

“No. I regret that he was a cheater and a liar and that his love was more words than substance.”

“How is that different from regretting loving him?”

“My love was a good thing.”

“That ended up causing you pain,” he observed wryly.

She couldn’t deny it. Loving Art had nearly destroyed her on every level. And loving Zephyr didn’t look like it was going to be a much better prospect. At least she knew where she stood with him, though.

That was something, wasn’t it?

Zephyr gave one of those self-deprecating smiles he used when negotiating and it made her stomach clench to have him use it on her. “Look, I’m not trying to be the Scrooge of happily ever after, but you and I both know someone loving you is no guarantee they won’t betray you.”

“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t open yourself to love at all.” She tried to keep the desperation his attitude evoked out of her voice. It wasn’t his fault she’d been dumb enough to fall in love with the wrong man. Again.

“It works for me.”

And she couldn’t fault him for his attitude. Now that she knew his mother had abandoned him to build a better life for herself, Piper couldn’t help understanding Zephyr’s distrust of love.

“But Neo loves Cassandra and vice-versa. Or so you said.”

“Cassandra is one woman in a million.”

The pain those words caused took Piper by surprise, making her heart cramp and her whole chest cavity hurt. Because they implied she was not such a woman. Who was she kidding? Certainly not herself. This whole conversation put Zephyr’s attitude toward her in stark relief.

He didn’t love her. Not even a little. He didn’t anticipate loving her, either. Not ever. Which was really not what she wanted to hear. The pain coursing through her mocked all the promises she’d made to herself after walking away from Art. She wouldn’t lose her livelihood when she and Zephyr’s sexual relationship ended, but she wasn’t sure her heart would survive, even if her business did.

Piper was head over heels in love with a man who did not believe in the concept for himself, and moreover he looked forward to marrying one day. Only Zephyr clearly did not intend that woman to be her. Not when he so blithely told her maybe she would find love again one day.

He’d reneged on his own words of maybe finding love and she felt like retracting hers as well. Was the prospect of love worth the possibility of this pain again?

She remembered the last time she had felt this awful inability to breathe. It had been when she realized once and for all that Art did not love her and never had. And once again, for her pride’s sake and maybe even for Zephyr’s sake, she had to hide the devastation going on inside her.

“I think you might be right,” she said, trying not to choke on the words.

“About what?”

“I do a pretty sucky job deciding who to fall in love with.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”

She laughed, but felt no humor. “Thanks.”

“I’ve no interest in talking about Art Bellingham anymore.”

“Trust me, this whole conversation is leaving me cold.”

His eyes narrowed, but he smiled. One of his “armor smiles” again and she wanted to be sick. “So, tell me what you want to do tomorrow.”

She needed to do a better job of hiding her emotions. Starting now. “I’m a museum freak. I’d really like to see the National Archaeological Museum, the Acropolis Museum and maybe the Benaki Museum.”

“That’s quite a list considering you did not plan to sightsee on this trip.”

“I spent the time you were in the shower pouring over the guidebook in our hotel suite.”

“Ah. So, tomorrow is to be a gluttony of museums.”

“If you’d rather do something else, I can find my own way to the museums.”

His brow quirked at this suggestion. “There is nothing I would rather do than spend the time with you. I grew up in this city. I have seen it all.”

She couldn’t see him visiting the Acropolis when he was living on the streets, but she didn’t say anything. It was taking all her wherewithal to tamp down emotions she had not fully acknowledged before today, feelings that would be unwelcome to their intended recipient and would cause her nothing but aching heartbreak.

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