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CHAPTER ONE
TESSASTILLFOUND it hard to get used to the sight of her empty ring finger, despite the fact it was twelve months since her divorce had been finalised—thank goodness, because if she’d had to spend another day legally bound to the awful man she’d foolishly married, she feared she might have curled up into a ball and never unfurled again. None the less, she stared reflectively at the empty digit as the lift sailed higher and higher, towards the top of the Athens high-rise, telling herself the butterflies in her tummy had more to do with the rapid ascent than they did the fact she was about to come face-to-face with Alexandros Zacharidis for the first time in four years—and definitely not because of the proposal she was about to make.
After all, when it boiled down to it, her proposition was practically business, and that was a language the great Alexandros Zacharidis spoke fluently. Absentmindedly, she scratched off a speck of white paint from her knuckle—courtesy of the landscape she’d been working on that morning, whilst trying to steel herself to this.
What if she couldn’t get through to him? That night they’d spent together had changed the shape of her universe. Not just because he’d been her first lover, and not because it had been right after losing her beloved brother—and Alex’s best friend—but because the girlhood crush she’d nurtured for Alex for as long as she could remember had threatened to explode into something else entirely.
Until reality had intervened, and he’d pushed her away so hard and so fast she was still suffering whiplash.
Her heart had been broken. Or, at the time, she’d thought it was. She was too grown-up to believe in hearts and love and shattered dreams now. A lot had changed for her since that night, her idealism included.
The doors to the lift swished open, parting to reveal a floor of polished concrete with industrial pendant lights and a desk in the centre of the cavernous space that housed three receptionists. Behind them, a stunning view of the city was framed, like a painting—but Tessa fought her artist’s natural inclination to study it in detail, steeling herself to focus on the task at hand.
‘Hello,’ she murmured, just a little unsteadily. ‘Is Mr Zacharidis in?’
The receptionist nearest to Tessa frowned, scanning her computer screen. ‘Good afternoon. Do you have an appointment?’
‘No.’
‘Ah.’ The receptionist’s brows beetled. ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but Mr Zacharidis has a very busy schedule. If you’d like, I can check if he might be able to see you next week.’
But this morning’s headlines were still swimming in her brain and Tessa knew this couldn’t wait another day. Her father’s health was fragile and worsening by the day. If her awful ex-husband kept selling stories to the tabloids, she worried about how that would affect her dad.
It wasn’t in Tessa’s nature to be bullish, so it was a sign of her desperation that she persisted. ‘I really believe he’ll make time for me.’ Having attended an exclusive British boarding school, her accent was as crisp as the Queen’s, and it gave the receptionist a moment’s pause.
Tessa capitalised on her silence. ‘Please,’ she leaned forward, ‘tell him I’m here.’
The receptionist’s reluctance was obvious.
‘My name is Tessa Anastakos.’
‘Tessa Anastakos,’ the receptionist repeated, as though trying to place her, and then jackknifing out of her chair as the penny dropped. After all, the Anastakos name was well-known not just in Athens, but throughout the world. ‘Yes, ma’am.’ She moved with elegant grace despite the fact she was almost running, towards a timber door across the foyer.
Tessa waited, and a moment later the receptionist reappeared. ‘You were right.’ She nodded crisply. ‘Mr Zacharidis will see you now.’
‘Thank you.’ Despite her outward calm, the butterflies multiplied in her belly, so she felt a thousand and one things as she moved towards the door. Four years ago, grief had brought Alex and Tessa together, and in that perfect, magical moment she’d felt, briefly, healed, her grief salved, until he’d jerked away from her, obviously disgusted by what had happened. Her virginity had surprised him, but it was more than that. She was Stavros’s younger sister, just a girl to him, as he’d callously pointed out whilst dressing as swiftly as he could.
Would he be any less disgusted by her proposal? Would his loyalty to her family mean he’d put aside his own personal feelings and agree to her plan? Uncertainty made her gut twist, so she pushed the doubts from her mind. If this was going to work, she had to think positively.
In preparation for this meeting, Tessa had written a thousand lists, each of them enumerating the reasons this made sense. What she hadn’t done was Google Alexandros recently, so the moment the door opened and he turned to face her, she felt as though she’d been rammed by a cement truck.
Holy crap.
Her knees turned to jelly and her stomach swished and swooshed, but outwardly she remained businesslike, her features barely shifting beyond the hint of a tight smile, even as memories of that night rocked her to the core.
‘Damn it, Theresa, you should have told me you were a virgin. I’m not interested in being your first. Do you understand what this was?’
He’d gripped her upper arms, staring into her eyes, as if to make her understand better.
‘Sex. Just sex, something I do with women all the time, and it means nothing. Nothing. You’re just a child, for God’s sake.’
She flinched at the recollection, his words as clear now as they had been on that awful night. He’d been wrong, in any event. At twenty-two, she might have been sheltered and innocent, but she was no longer a child, and she had been so sick of everyone perceiving her thus.
‘Theresa.’ He used the full version of her name, just as her brother always had, and something in the region of her heart panged.
‘Everyone calls me Tessa.’ She waved a hand through the air, her bare finger again catching her eye. ‘How are you, Alex?’
The mockery in his expression was unmistakable, so for a moment her step faltered, and then, when his eyes dropped from her face to her breasts, and lower, to the sweep of her hips and back up again, she almost fell over. His inspection was slow and purposeful, setting little fires going beneath her skin.
