“Talia, darling,” my father croons. “Your father and I go way back.” His jaw clenches and darkness shrouds his expression before he smiles it away. “And we’ve come to an agreement.”
“What sort of agreement?” Talia breathes. Her hand trembles when she reaches for her water again.
“You are to marry my son,” Father states with a devious glint in his eyes.
Her head turns sharply to regard Aris, who’s frowning in confusion. Meanwhile, I’m about to explode with fucking rage. If only it were that easy, Talia.
“My eldest,” Father corrects, searing his hard eyes into mine, daring me to argue.
Even as the volcano within me spills with fury, I don’t speak a word against my father. Never. Not in front of weak, worthless pieces of shit like Niles Nikolaides.
Talia’s head jerks my way so fast, I’m worried she’ll give herself whiplash. Her blue eyes glow with accusation—as though I knew this all along. I meet her glare with one of my own. A glare filled with contempt for the Nikolaides name. She withers beneath my fierce stare.
“An arranged marriage,” I state in a bored way. “Lovely. Can someone pass me the pepper before my eggs get cold?”
Phoenix grabs the pepper shaker and slams it on the table in front of me, making everyone’s glasses slosh. “What the hell are you thinking, Dad?” he demands in a furious tone. “Talia? You negotiated Talia?”
My father’s smile is victorious.
I want to ram my fist right into his face.
How dare he do this to me without warning?
“I fucked up,” Niles admits. “I thought I could pay them back in time.”
Father picks up his fork and begins stabbing at the eggs on his plate, clearly overjoyed at my emotionless response to the bomb he just dropped in my lap.
“Four point six million,” Aris states, unusual anger tightening his voice. “Is that what your daughter is worth to you? A few million euros?”
“She’s worth everything to me.” Niles shoots his daughter a pleading look. She won’t look at him. She won’t speak. She’s taken to wringing her hands in her lap, her bottom lip slightly wobbling.
“I have a life,” she utters so softly, I almost think it’s meant just for me. “I can’t just leave to marry some stranger because my father is a bad businessman.”
“You have to,” Niles says, hanging his head in shame. “They’ll kill me if you don’t.”
Once again, she glowers at me. As though all of this is my fault. It pisses me off.
“You’d kill my father if I don’t marry you?” she hisses, anger making her face turn red again.
“I’ll kill your father if he doesn’t pay,” I bite out in a cold tone. “And since he put a four-point-six-million-dollar price tag around your pretty neck, it looks like I’m getting my payment in full.”
She stands abruptly from the table. Furious tears well in her blue eyes, reminding me of the blue waters of the Aegean Sea. “Fuck you all,” she snaps. “I’m not marrying anyone. I’m going home.”
As soon as she rushes from the table, Phoenix bolts after her. I give a slight nod to Basil and Adrian. They follow after them. My fiancée isn’t going anywhere. The sooner she realizes this, the better.
“Really, Dad?” Aris mutters, the muscle in his neck flexing. “A girl as payment? That’s a new low.”
Father’s nostrils flare at his blatant disrespect. I flick my chin up at Aris, silently telling him to leave before he fucks things up. With a grumble, he loudly scrapes his chair back and storms off.
“Please don’t hurt her,” Niles pleads. “Promise me.”
I have to refrain from rolling my eyes. Since when do worms negotiate with sharks? Fucking never.
“I’ll promise nothing of the sort,” I tell him sharply. “Say your goodbyes to her. I want you and your son off Crete and heading back to Thessaloniki by noon.”
“Kostas,” he croaks. “Please.”
Ignoring his pleas, I grab the small bottle of jam and begin smearing some all over my toast with a knife that would go to better use cutting this motherfucker’s throat.
“Kostas,” he says once more.
“Noon, Niles. I suggest you not waste another moment with your sunshine. Your world is about to get really fucking dark.”
I’m waiting inside my office that overlooks the bay when Father decides to grace me with his presence. He walks in, his features impassive. It’s a much different look than from earlier where he was almost gleeful. Rather than sitting across from me, he walks over to the open door to the veranda.
“You know everything I do is for a reason, agóri mou.” My boy. Not anymore. I’ve long grown into a man—a business partner. Someone worthy of being told about a plan before it’s enacted, not after. To say I feel betrayed is an understatement.
“Of course, Patéras.”
He turns to regard me, a wistful smile on his face. If he wants to play a game of calling me his boy like he did when I was six or seven, then I will take to calling him Father in the same way I would at that age.
“She is beautiful,” he mutters. “At least you have that.”
“At least.”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “I didn’t do this to anger you, Kostas.”
No, this was all about his beef with Niles.
“Then what was it about?” I demand, my voice cracking, a clear indicator of how pissed I am.
“Niles owes me in ways you’ll never understand,” he practically growls. “Giving up his daughter to my son is—”
“Much more difficult than just killing him,” I grit out. “Why not kill him and be done with it? Why drag his family into it?”
Father shrugs and steps out onto the veranda, silently indicating he wants me to continue the conversation out there. With a frustrated sigh, I rise from my leather desk chair and stalk after him. He leans over the railing, staring out onto the sparkly bay that’s dotted with sailboats.
“It’s too easy,” he tells me with a shrug. “Niles deserves to pay in every way he can.”
“But why?”
Rather than answering, he remains seemingly lost in thought. I’m growing bored of this nostalgic power games shit he seems to be playing.
“Do I really need to marry her?” I ask in an exasperated tone. “For how long? When will this be over and I can go back to the way things were?”
Father turns my way, his features dark with hate. “I don’t mean for you to think of this as a punishment, Kostas. She’ll be a wife in name only. Keep whores on the side if you wish.”
My lip curls up at his words. He says that as though he truly believes that. If I’ve learned anything from my father, it’s that loyalty is everything. His marriage to my mother is solid and unbreakable, bordering on obsession. If Ezio Demetriou can keep his dick in one woman for nearly four decades, then so can I.
“Until when?” I ask, ignoring his words.
“As long as it takes to satisfy me.”
Selfish fucking bastard.
I’m used to him treating everyone, even Aris, this way, but not me. It’s a brutal blow that I’m at a loss for how to get over.