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“That is positively draconian.”
“Hardly.”
“Dimitri does not care about me.”
“He is willing to marry you, of course he cares.”
“He’s never kissed me, never looked out for me. You always have, and your kiss…it was more than you are willing to admit. You can deny it all you want, but I remember what you were like, and you did not kiss me like a brother!”
“It was a one-off thing. It will never happen again and, since you will be marrying my brother, I would appreciate it very much if you never mentioned it either.” Even as he spoke the words he wondered if he was right to do so.
Phoebe deserved better than what Dimitri had given her so far. Perhaps Spiros should speak to both his older brother and his grandfather…But if he did that, would it precipitate the heart attack they all feared? What mattered more here—his grandfather’s health and family honor or Phoebe’s feelings?
It felt like a betrayal of the worst sort against his lifelong belief in himself and his sense of right and wrong when he could not decide.
She stared at him, her mouth opening and closing with no sound coming out, her eyes dulling with a pain he could not stand to see.
His resolve broke in the face of it. He started to move around the desk, but she was backing up toward the door.
“You really want me to marry Dimitri, don’t you?”
He couldn’t answer. Too many thoughts and feelings roiled inside him, reminding him of the days of emotional chaos when his parents were still alive. That chaos paralyzed him.
“I guess my personal happiness doesn’t matter to anyone else but me,” she whispered, as she opened the door and backed out of it.
Spiros stood there, stunned, unable to process the words she had just spoken. When had he ever not cared about her happiness?
Was she saying that she would be miserable married to Dimitri? Of course she was. Hadn’t she implied as much before? But she wouldn’t. His brother would treat her well. Dimitri was a good man.
But he wasn’t Spiros, that annoying voice whispered.
No, damn it. He wasn’t. And she was scared. Spiros should have recognized that. She was hurting and frightened, and he’d been so worried about his responsibility to his family he’d dismissed what she needed from him.
He had not been there for her like he usually was. Out of his own fear. Because of his inadequacy. He needed to go after her, to talk, to make her see that it was all going to be all right.
He ran out of his office and headed for the elevators, hoping she hadn’t made it onto one yet, but she was nowhere to be seen when he got there.
He noted from the light that the elevator was already halfway to the ground floor. He hit the wall and then stabbed the button.
Phoebe held control by a thin thread that threatened to snap with every breath she took.
The kiss had meant nothing to Spiros. An act that she had believed had changed her life and opened the possibilities to her most deeply held dream had been nothing more than one in a long line of similar moments for him. Considering how it had ended—with her blacking out from the pleasure and him getting nothing more out of it—he probably didn’t even have fond memories. No wonder he wanted to forget it.
She wished she could.
The pain was so intense she felt like she could not breathe. Nothing was as she’d believed it to be when she’d come back to Greece.
Her father did not want her working with him. He saw her as little more than a commodity to barter for the livelihood of the family company. A company he intended to leave to her brother. It was Chrysanthos’s birthright…not hers.
But her father’s betrayal was nothing compared to how much it hurt to realize the truth about Spiros. She’d been weaving daydreams around that kiss until she’d been almost sick with happiness. Now her heart bled from a million pricks made by the leftover shards of those dreams.
The elevator door opened and she rushed outside, running to her car as if being chased by demons. And in a way she was. Personal demons she knew from experience she could never outdistance, but that didn’t mean she had to let everyone see her cry.
She made it to her little car and got inside, started it and pressed on the accelerator, yanking the wheel and forcing the car into traffic amidst the cacophony of honks and rude words shouted at her. She didn’t care.
She came within inches of smashing into another car and told herself she didn’t care about that either. But even in her current state she could not stand to be the cause of someone else’s trauma.
She pulled into a parking garage, following the narrow lane to the very top floor. She guided her car into a spot far from the few other cars that had come to this level to find parking. With a vicious twist of her wrist she turned off her car, then leaned forward on the steering wheel and wept.
