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He will do anything, Khristos had warned with great agitation. So I must do everything I can to stop him.

But why does it have to be me? Alia had argued. I don’t understand high-stakes business strategy. I don’t care about corporate politics.

Exactly, Julian had said. That’s why it has to be you.

She had been so desperate, so afraid to be alone in what she faced, that she had agreed.

Now her fingers itched to make a panicked call to Julian, to tell him Spiro was awake, but she had to keep a cool head and maintain the ruse that she and Spiro had been quietly engaged for weeks. They were deeply in love, newly married and she was relieved her husband was finally conscious.

“Of course he won’t remember we’re married,” Alia said to Lambros, using a tone that suggested he was being ridiculous. “The ceremony was done by proxy.”

Lambros didn’t like her speaking to him that way. She sensed him stiffen, but she only hitched her hip onto the edge of Spiro’s bed and picked up his hand the way she had been doing for days.

“Khristos stood in for you, psychi mou.” My soul. The endearment rolled easily off her tongue, practiced in the hours when she had sat here coaxing him from his coma.

She kissed his fingers, but instead of the warm feeling that usually suffused her, lightning shot into her chest.

Touching him was completely different now, when she was forced to meet his chilly, narrowed eyes and feel his fingers twitch against her lips. Spiky heat rose beneath her skin—embarrassment coupled with a sudden, painful yearning for him to like her.

Don’t rebuff me. She was hypersensitive to being rejected. And she had developed an affection for him. A connection. Infatuation, even, with him and the idea of marriage.

Aside from a few hours spent with Yaya at his villa every morning and evening, she had been here, memorizing his brutishly handsome features. Talking to him had been a type of therapy that allowed her to spill old secrets and painful longings she had never shared with anyone.

That had fooled her into believing this was real, but reality was hitting her as she held his hand and his hard stare.

His thick, black eyebrows were dour, now that he was conscious. His short, thick lashes framed irises that were nearly as black as his pupils. His gaze held the gleam of polished obsidian. She had decided his lips belonged on a statue of David, but they were set in a line of dismay, one that filled her with dread even as she couldn’t stop looking at them.

She had spent hours with him, sometimes tracing the curve of his aquiline nose or shaving his jaw, as she’d done this morning, carefully lifting and retaping the feeding tube that ran into his nose and down his throat. Afterward, she had smoothed a fragrance-free lotion into his face and hands.

Did he know how many times she had done that? Did he know how often she tucked his warm hand against her neck? Or set her ear on his chest to hear his heartbeat?

His coma had disturbed her, agitating her own fear of being alone. How abandoned had he felt in the chasms of his own mind?

The nurses had encouraged her to be affectionate, claiming he would be aware of it at a subconscious level, but now she felt awkward about taking such liberties. As though she had overstepped. And she had to wonder, had her tender care really been for him? Or for her own desire for warm, human touch?

Could he read all of that in her guilty expression? The muscles in her face felt frozen as she kept her devoted smile in place.

She had begun to see him as a safe harbor for her deepest heartaches, but it was becoming brutally obvious that he was not.

“Why would Khristos do that?” He withdrew his hand from hers. His dark gaze was sharp with skepticism and flicked to Lambros, telling her he didn’t trust either of them.

“Because we were engaged and to be married anyway,” she lied. Blatantly. And had to fight to hide that it was a complete fabrication.

Shadows came into Spiro’s eyes. She hurried to override any argument he was about to offer.

“It wasn’t the ceremony we planned, agapi mou, but Khristos and I agreed it was best to make it official. This way, I could be with you while you were ill and he was away.”

Spiro had radiated a surprising level of dynamic tension even when he’d been unconscious. Now he possessed the energy of a cornered lion, one who was about to roar and claw his way to freedom.

“She said she was pregnant,” Lambros blurted, making it sound as laughable as it was.

Spiro’s eyes flared in livid astonishment.

“Khristos asked if there was a possibility,” she corrected stiffly, sliding Lambros a cold side-eye. “Whether I am or not is no one’s business but mine and yours.” She cupped Spiro’s jaw. It hardened to concrete. “We’ll talk about it later, when we’re alone.”

Spiro made a strangled sound of disbelief, one that rejected any possibility that she carried his baby. He was right to do so. There was no chance of it and it was cruel to gaslight him when he had to be very confused, waking up to all of this, but she had promised Khristos and Julian she would do everything she could to maintain the deception in front of Lambros.

“Tell me the truth,” Lambros demanded as he stepped forward to address Spiro directly. “How long have you been engaged to her? Why did I never hear her name until she showed up in this room, claiming to be your wife?”