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“Respectfully.” Alia snipped off the word so Lambros would know she was using it ironically. “You two aren’t on speaking terms, are you? And—” her mind leaped to a point of inspired genius “—if he can’t remember the accident, he may have amnesia for other things, like the fact we were together and in love. Look.”

She picked up the framed photo from the nightstand, the one of her and Khristos in Yaya’s garden in March, the one that had been altered so it appeared Spiro was the man with his arm around her.

Lambros impatiently brushed it away, but she showed it to Spiro, provoking yet another baffled scowl out of him.

“Why were you dating other women if you were engaged to her?” Lambros pressed.

“I’ve told you, my grandmother needed me to stay with her on the island.” Alia didn’t give Spiro a chance to interject, lest he say something that would ruin everything. “I was always fully aware whenever Spiro asked someone to accompany him—”

“Shut up.” Lambros cut her off and said to Spiro, “You tell me how the hell you have a wife despite being unconscious.”

Spiro moved his gaze from Alia to Lambros.

Panic scrambled her thoughts. She moved her lips, unable to find the right words.

“You shut up.” Spiro’s voice was like gravel, his glare at Lambros filled with disgust. “She’s right. You and I don’t speak. Get out.”

“No.” Lambros stepped closer to the bed. “Tell me—”

“Is that the doctor?” Alia picked up her head and slid to her feet, forcing Lambros to take a step back.

In the hall, the neurologist’s voice gave instructions to the nurse.

“We’ll step out while he checks you over.” She patted Spiro’s chest. “I’ll text Khristos the good news. Did you call Daphne?” she asked Lambros.

He narrowed his eyes on her in a way that chilled her blood. He knew this was all cooked up at the last second, but he couldn’t prove it. Not unless Spiro denounced her outright.

She was trying very hard to keep that from happening. She stood her ground and held Lambros’s gaze, chin up, eyes as guileless as she could make them, even while her heart hammered so hard with fear it ought to be filling the room with pounding thunder.

“My wife is on her way,” Lambros said. “I’ll contact the board of directors while I wait for her.” A nasty curl arrived at the corner of his lip. “And inform them of his memory deficit. I’m sure they’ll agree it’s imperative they appoint an interim CEO, now we know he’s unfit to run the company.”

“I know exactly what is going on and I won’t let you do that,” Spiro growled.

“You don’t even know your wife,” Lambros retorted.

“And yet his wife is perfectly lucid and may vote for an interim CEO in his stead,” Alia said, adding a pointed, “Or not.”

Lambros’s glower should have knocked her across the room.

She met it with a haughty tilt of her head before she smiled down at her husband.

“It’s all safely in my hands, agapi mou. Don’t worry.”

Spiro looked as though he might combust. Fortunately, the neurologist strode in.

“Kyrie Mylonas. I’m Dr. Gedi.”

“We’ll be right outside,” she promised Spiro and waved a trembling hand, insisting Lambros leave ahead of her.

Lambros threw her one last, malevolent look, the kind that suggested she was a pesky mosquito he would stop at nothing to smack, and strode from the room.

Alia pulled the door closed behind her and waited until Lambros was at the elevator before she sank into the nearest chair, knees melting like butter.

Behind the closed door, she could hear the murmur of conversation between Spiro and his doctor. She wished she knew what they were saying, but she quickly texted Spiro’s brother and his husband, Julian.

She kept it simple. Khristos had given her a new phone, one that was supposed to be secure, but he had warned her Lambros might find a way to hack into it.

Her text showed Read, then Julian replied, We’re on our way to the UN. Tell Spiro that Khristos will call as soon as he can. In a fresh bubble, he added, Stay strong, doll.