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Just like that night on his sofa.
Perhaps choosing to cut all ties with the women who normally populated his electronic diary this last year had been a mistake.
And perhaps Costas would’ve discovered your sham marriage much earlier too, if you’d been seen with other women. And without help from Georgios.
His lips twisted at the grim truth, his gaze dropping to the set of engagement and wedding rings on her finger before he passed his thumb over the wide platinum band encircling his own.
Then, he inhaled deeply. ‘My grandfather knows that, of everything he owns, Drakonisos is the only thing I desire.’
She frowned. ‘This island?’
He nodded. ‘And it seems he’s determined to make me jump through the biggest of hoops to get it.’
‘By pitting you against your cousin?’ Her frown deepened. ‘I admit I don’t know him very well, but I wouldn’t have thought Costas would do something like that purely for his amusement.’
He felt a peculiar pang in his chest at her astuteness. ‘Nor would I. Which means either my cousin is succeeding in pouring poison into his ear or...’
‘Or what?’
‘Or the situation has a few more facets than I initially realised.’
Her frown evaporated to be filled by apprehension. ‘You think this is part of him facing his own mortality.’
A different ache tightened his chest, and he nodded again. ‘Yes.’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘I won’t know until I talk to his doctor. If it’s the former, I can handle it...’
‘And if it’s the latter?’ she asked, her eyes wide on his.
He didn’t answer immediately, purely because he had no answer to give. His grandfather had been a constant in his life, a formidable force to whom he’d unburdened his innermost fears as a child. In his teenage years and early adulthood, they’d been mostly at loggerheads once Christos had made it clear he was choosing his own path and not following the one his grandfather had wanted for him. But even then Costas had remained in his life. He hadn’t cut him off as his parents had. Or used him as a pawn in whatever game took his fancy.
Until now.
They were Drakakis men after all, and Christos knew he didn’t have to look far to see where his own father had inherited his cut-throat characteristics from.
And yet, for whatever reason, his grandfather had supported him. Hell, he’d done more than that. He’d claimed Christos as his own when his father had merely seen him as a chess piece to be used when he pleased, t
hen set aside to gather dust.
The thought that Costas wouldn’t be around for much longer, for whatever reason...
He shook his head free of that thought. ‘If it’s the latter, we’ll discuss it.’
His grandfather’s comment at the table echoed in his head, the confirmation that Costas might not believe their marriage to be real raising the hairs on his nape.
Drakanisos was his. He couldn’t lose it. Couldn’t lose the old man who lived on it either.
The thought burrowed deep inside him, wrapping tight around his chest until his breathing grew constricted. Until all of a sudden that one emotion he’d thought alien to him, love of the familial kind, and the possible absence of it, took on a wraithlike shape in his mind.
He whirled to face her, wishing for something...anything to distract from that harrowing possibility. Then couldn’t seem to look away. Thee mou, had her skin always been this flawless, her brown eyes flecked with such beguiling strands of gold? He knew about the temptation of her lips, the suppleness of her hips, the delicious sensation of her warm breath over his face. The sound of her moans—
‘I’m going to call the doctor. Dinner won’t be served until late, so you have a few hours to yourself.’
He exited the suite before she saw the physical manifestation of his thoughts or the turbulence of his emotions, experiencing a twinge of shame for sneering at her for suspecting the churning thoughts gripping him now.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he didn’t encounter any staff member before he made it to the sanctuary of his study. Still, it took a minute to summon the control to calm his thoughts and pluck his phone from his pocket.
