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The shipping tycoon was older than both Aristide and Sebastian, but they'd been friends for years. There weren't that many men in the world, much less Greece, with the power, the wealth or the inner drive that all three possessed.
Even fewer that held and therefore practiced their particular stand on business ethics. It was no surprise the three men were friends despite the slight age difference, but the fact that they functioned so well in the business arena together shocked many.
"I am fine. Where is Savannah?" Aristide asked to change the subject.
His friend's features softened. "She and the children are shopping for my Christmas present. I am not allowed to see it, so I have been banished. She promised to join me here as soon as she settled the children with my mother."
"You didn't wait to come with her?"
"You know how it is…there are always business discussions at a gathering like this. I want to get them out of the way before my wife arrives, so she can command my full attention."
"You two are very devoted." There had been a lot of gossip when Leiandros married his cousin's widow, but even the most determined naysayers did not question the couple's deep and loving affection now.
"As are you and Eden."
"Do you think so?"
Leiandros's expression sharpened. "Definitely, but why would you ask such a thing?"
He shrugged. He could hardly tell the other man he couldn't remember his wife and therefore had no idea what sort of relationship they had before. From what Leiandros implied, either Aristide had been very good at putting on a front, or his relationship with Eden was not the unequal and unhappy union the facts of his present condition implied. He was fairly certain it had been nothing like the armed truce they were currently engaged in either.
Tired of that truce and the amalgam of unnamed needs that swirled through him constantly when it came to his wife, Aristide took leave of his friend.
He stopped beside Eden and laid his arm over her shoulders. It felt right and she smelled so damn good. It was a scent, like springtime after a rain, that he did not associate with anyone else. Her soft skin tantalized his fingertips and he could not help brushing his thumb along her exposed shoulder.
His friends apparently found nothing odd in this gesture of affection, none of them so much as blinking, but his wife went as stiff as a board beside him. She made a subtle effort to shrug off his hand, but rather than let her go, he pulled her closer. He knew it was a mistake the second he did it as a sexual charge leapt through his body and he became instantly aroused.
He had been an idiot to deny himself the pleasure of intimacy with his wife.
Doing his best to control a libido rapidly spiraling out of control, he smiled down at her. "Enjoying yourself?"
Her lips curved in an answering gesture that did not begin to reach her vulnerable gray eyes. "Yes, of course. I've been looking forward to this party for weeks."
The hostess, who was in the group surrounding Eden, looked pleased. "You did a lot to help me plan it."
The party was more than a gathering of friends for the holidays. It was a fund raiser for a worldwide children's organization. That much he remembered.
But Eden had helped plan it? That was hardly the action of a woman who had trapped him into marriage for mercenary motives.
"And you are pleased with the results?" he asked, his heart rate increasing as Eden's scent continued to tease his senses.
He could feel himself growing hard and changed his stance with Eden so she stood partially in front of him.
Apparently unaware of his predicament, the hostess nodded enthusiastically. "We raised over one hundred thousand dollars."
"That's fantastic!" Eden said, relaxing, her pleasure in the success of the evening blatant and clearly genuine.
He could not remember if he had donated anything beyond the door admission for him and his wife. Couldn't even remember buying the tickets. His mother and brother were here as well, but he didn't know if they had bought their own tickets. He hated these lapses of knowledge in his memory.
The hostess laughed. "How could it be anything else? You bought tickets for so many people here, Eden, it should be your name being bandied about tonight, not mine."
Well that answered one question…the one of who had bought the tickets. It was such a small thing, but there were so many little glitches like that in his memory banks, they were driving him crazy. His personal frustration aside, he could not fault a wife who had used his resources in such a fashion.
"Like I had anything else to do with my allowance," Eden said, sounding very American. "Aristide is so generous with me, I never have to buy anything for myself."
The unexpected approval in her voice warmed him. Until he remembered that approval was for the man he'd been before he lost his memory. She certainly wasn't as enamored of the man he was now… or at least the way that man treated her.
"I would happily double your allowance if this is how you would like to spend the money," he said honestly.
She looked up at him, her expression open and filled with pleasure for the first time in days. "Are you serious?"
"Very." He would triple it, if doing so would keep that expression on her face when she looked at him. "In fact, I will put you in charge of Kouros Industries' charitable contributions if you like."
Her expression closed up immediately and she looked away, all the relaxing her body had done disappearing in the blink of an eye. "That is Kassandra's domain."
"She has enough to keep her busy, she will be content to give that up, I am sure."
"Don't bet on it," Eden muttered.
"It does not matter. I am the boss, not she."
Eden's snort was followed by good-natured laughter from those around him. Clearly, the others thought she was teasing him, but he knew better.
He turned her to face him, his already overactive libido going into overdrive as he got a very nice view down the front of her slinky little dress. Damn it. Had other men seen her this way tonight? He could see the top swell of her breasts and it didn't take much imagination to picture her nipples a little further down.
His sex tightened and he had to bite back a groan. He wanted her with an obsessive ache that grew with every passing day.
"You mock me at your peril," he growled with a teasing look for the benefit of the others.
She gave him a saucy grin that went straight to his groin. "What are you going to do about it?"
He knew what he wanted to do about it, but making love to her in front of an audience was not exactly his thing. "Wait until we get home and see," he threatened.
Her eyes widened with mock trepidation and something else he could swear was very real anticipation.
Something flashed in his head…an impression, if not a clear memory. This type of teasing between them was not a new thing and it had been something he had enjoyed a great deal.
"The way you two carry on, it's hard to understand how you can stand to live apart as much as you do," their hostess said with a laugh.
The animation and anticipation drained out of Eden as if it had never been there. Reality flooded back. She stepped away before he could stop her. "You know what Aristide always says, it keeps our relationship fresh."
He didn't know how he had looked at things before, but more time spent together now would reveal her true nature faster than their current living arrangement. "Theo is older and he made the last trip to New York as if he was born to air travel. There is no reason you cannot travel with me now."
A mysterious shadow passed through her gray eyes, but all she did was shrug.
"You always said having your wife along would be too much of a distraction, Aristide." Kassandra joined their small group, her smile directed at him.
He did not miss the way she effectively cut his wife without making a point of doing so. Was she being protective? She had implied she felt he needed it when it came to his wife. Even so, she could not be allowed to behave rudely toward Eden. He had chosen to marry her, and no matter how his loyal friend and employee felt about that, she needed to respect his decision.
"Maybe I have changed my mind."
"You no longer find Eden a distraction?" Kassandra asked, the barb so subtle he would have missed it but for the stonelike quality that took over his lovely wife's expression.
She was obviously very sensitive where his assistant was concerned. And he could not forget that she had accused the two of them of being lovers.
Kassandra had explained her remarks to Eden outside the hospital room, but his wife's ultra-sensitivity to the other woman would account for her taking them the opposite way they had been intended.
"On the contrary," he said for his wife's benefit, "I feel as if I've just gotten married for the first time again. If I can do my job while living with my wife in Greece, I fail to see how she would hamper me in New York or anywhere else for that matter."
