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BABY-BOUND TO THE GREEK

Millie Adams

Chapter One

Esme Brown had never been called sexy before in her life. Charming, sure. Adorable, yes. Cute as a button—once. But tonight she was going for sexy.

The occasion was: I have finally let go of my long-held, childish and foolish fantasy that my older brother’s best friend will ever fuck my brains out.

Which, she thought, was a marvelous occasion indeed. She had been stuck on Adonis Katrakis for longer than anyone should ever obsess over a man.

What had begun as hero worship when she was a small child had bloomed into a fierce crush that had refused to let her out of its grip for far too long.

He had been her first waking thought every morning, and her last sigh before she went to sleep. He had been too many things, in other words. He was why she had never been able to find a man who was good enough. He was why she was so relentlessly cheerful and positive—because she had wanted more than anything to make him smile for most of her existence. He was why she was still a virgin at the ripe old age of twenty-four.

The man was detrimental.

But she was cured. Oh, she was cured.

Last month when he’d announced he was leaving the company he’d founded with her and her brother, Alex, he’d destroyed every fond feeling she’d ever had for him. Bastard.

They had built it together, but on the side, he had been building another empire. And he was leaving it—them—for that.

It was a dreadful and terrible thing, because they’d been with him ever since they were kids. Thrown out on the street after their mother’s death, she and Alex hadn’t had anywhere else to go. Then they had met Adonis. Part of a group of feral street children who had lived in the margins of Boston. They had evaded child protective services and foster care by the skin of their teeth, and had survived by rallying around each other. The group of kids had rotated, but she, Alex and Adonis had always stayed together.

Adonis had never given them the full story of how he’d ended up in Boston—he was from Greece. He had been, from the time she was eight years old, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. His nose was slightly crooked, because it had been broken once; he had been fourteen or so when he told her that. He had protected her and Alex. Had kept them safe. He was hard, but he had done his best to make sure the world didn’t do the same to them.

She had always thought he was the best thing in the world. But now that they were so successful all together, he was just abandoning them.

They’d established their company all together, and they’d been equal partners. As they’d always been in life. Until Adonis left.

Alex was furious. He had been brooding about it in his office ever since, and Esme couldn’t pull him out of his funk. Which was why it was maybe a little bit rash, and a little bit… Maybe it was a weird time for her to go out and try to lose her virginity. Maybe. Except she felt furious. Because just the way that Alex felt betrayed by the man he had built his life around, so did she. She wanted to do something in rebellion against that. Their business would be fine; she knew that it would. Even though Alex had been shouting about how they would be ruined. It wasn’t true.

They had amassed well over a billion dollars in net worth in their luxury goods company—an elite service that provided ultrawealthy clients with whatever they wanted, day or night, for parties or personal use.

They were the premier providers of luxury experiences for the rich and famous.

They did everything. From sweet-sixteen birthday parties with famous pop stars performing at them, to procuring a hundred white peacocks to hang out on a yacht in the middle of the Aegean Sea for a bridal shower. Adonis had once called them a glorified party rental place.

She had kicked him in the shin.

It was a nonsense thing to say. They were an elite, highly specialized agency and he did know that, of course.

But they were street kids who’d been elevated into a world of excess, and so to them the demands of their clients often seemed petty and surreal. She’d known what he’d meant even though she’d kicked him.

That was back when things were different. He had begun branching off into real estate, luxury properties and resorts and development. And now he was cashing in his chips, selling his stake, and the real wound was that for the first time since they were kids they wouldn’t all be together.

Boo-hoo, twelve-year-old Esme would punch you in the face. You have a billion dollars and you think that this is a struggle.

She wrinkled her nose and checked her reflection in the private bathroom in her office.

Yeah. Her younger self would not find this to be a struggle. Her younger self would also think that she looked like a slut.

Oh well.

Her younger self was a judgmental bitch.

The dress she was wearing was tight, and didn’t keep very many secrets. But the kind of club that she was going to required this sort of thing. Poster-girl dresses with cutouts and extremely short hems. She was wearing very high heels to try to add a little bit of length to her five-foot-two frame.