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‘A sweeping agreement where the other party gets to call the shots whenever they like? How come the lawyers haven’t ripped this to shreds?’ I demanded, striving to keep a tighter rein on my ire.
My father’s lips firmed. ‘I’ve spent the last month discussing it with our counsel. We can fight it in court, and probably win, but it’ll be a protracted affair. And is now really the time to draw adverse publicity to the company? Or drag your grandfather’s name through the mud again for that matter?’
My own lips flattened as again I grimly accepted he was right. With Xenakis Aeronautics poised for its biggest global expansion yet, the timing was far from ideal.
Which was exactly what Yiannis Petras had banked on.
‘You mentioned you’d offered him ten million euros and he refused? Let’s double the offer,’ I suggested.
Neo shook his head. ‘I already tried. Petras is hell-bent on Option A or Option B.’
The breath left my lungs in a rush. ‘Over my dead body will I go for Option A and hand over twenty-five percent of Xenakis Aeronautics,’ I replied coldly. ‘Not for the paltry quarter of a million his father bailed Grandpapa out with, while almost crippling him with steep interest repayments!’
The company I’d spent gruelling years saving was now worth several billion euros.
My brother shrugged. ‘Then it’s Option B. A full and final one hundred million euros, plus marriage to his daughter for minimum term of one year.’
A cold shudder tiptoed down my spine.
Marriage.
To a bride I didn’t want and with a connection to a family that had brought mine nothing but misery, pain and near destitution.
During the formative years of my life I witnessed how a fall from grace could turn family members against each other. Clawing my own family out of that quagmire while other factions sneered and expected me to fail had opened my eyes to the true nature of relationships.
Outwardly, the Xenakis were deemed a strong unit now, but the backbiting had never gone away. The barely veiled expectation that everything I’d achieved would be brought down like a pile of loose bricks and that history would repeat itself was a silent challenge I rose to each morning.
While my extended family now enjoyed the fruits of my labour, and even tripped over themselves to remain in my good graces, deep down I knew a simple misstep was all it would take for their frivolous loyalties to falter.
I didn’t even blame them.
How could I when my own personal interactions had repeatedly taken the same route? Each liaison I entered into eventually devolved into a disillusioning level of avarice and status-grabbing.
It was why my relationships now had a strict time limit of weeks. A few months, tops. Which made the thought of tying myself to one woman for twelve long months simply...unthinkable.
My chest tightened, and the urge to rail at my grandfather for putting me in this position seared me with shame before I suppressed it.
He’d been in an equally impossible position. I knew first-hand what the toll of keeping his family together had cost him—had watched deep grooves etch his grey face once vibrant with laughter and seen his shoulders slump under the heavy burden of loss.
Yes, he should have told me about this Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. But he was gone. Thanks to the ruthless greed of the Petras family. A family hell-bent on extracting another pound of flesh they didn’t deserve.
‘The hundred million I understand. But why insist on marriage to the daughter?’ I asked my brother as his words pierced the fog of my thoughts.
Neo shrugged again. ‘Who knows how men like Petras think? Maybe he just wants to offload her. The clout that comes from marrying into the Xenakis family isn’t without its benefits,’ he mused.
I shuddered, the reminder that, to most people, my family and I were nothing but meal tickets sending a shock of bitterness through me.
‘And did you meet this woman I’m to tie myself to?’
He nodded. ‘She’s...’ He stopped and smiled slyly. ‘I’ll let you judge for yourself.’ His gaze left mine to travel over my grey pinstriped suit. ‘But I’m thinking you two will hit it off.’
Before I could demand an explanation my father leaned forward. ‘Enough, Neo.’ My father’s gaze swung to me, steel reflected in his eyes. ‘We can’t delay any longer. Yiannis Petras wants an answer by morning.’
The pressure gripping my nape escalated—the effect of the noose closing round it ramping up my discord. Marriage was the last thing I wanted. To anyone. But especially to a Petras. Both my grandparents and my parents had been strained to breaking point because of the Petras family’s actions, with ill-health borne of worry taking my grandmother before her time too.
There had to be another way...
