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“She’s a classic, not decrepit. I did all the renovations myself.”
“Papa let you?” Phoebe asked in shock as she allowed herself to be guided into the seat.
Her brother waited to answer until he had gone around the car and climbed into the driver’s seat. “He didn’t know I was doing them until it was finished.”
“But…” Hadn’t her father offered to buy her brother a car, the same as her? Or had things been tighter in their personal finances than she’d realized?
“He never brought up buying me a car, and neither did I.”
“I bet he regretted that when he saw this.”
“She’s a beaut.” The car certainly sounded healthy, purring to life as her brother started it.
“I’m just amazed you did this…I had no idea your strengths were in this direction.”
“Oh, it’s just a hobby. A guy’s gotta have ’em, you know?”
She smiled for the first time in days. “Sure.”
“So, I was listening at the door when Spiros was talking to you all.”
“Didn’t Mama teach you better?”
He just snorted. “Please. I’m no mushroom.”
“You don’t like being kept in the dark?” she guessed, doing her best to translate his teenspeak.
“Would you?”
She thought of all the things her father should have told her over the past four years but had not—and the things Spiros had kept from her as well. “No. I don’t like it at all.”
“So what’s the big deal with this marriage thing?”
“You said you were listening.”
“I was. I got that Leonides Enterprises is in trouble and we need a lotta money, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“But how did Papa come to the conclusion that selling you was the way to do it?”
It was what she’d accused her father of, but it sounded so much worse coming from her brother’s mouth. “I don’t think he sees it that way. He wanted our families joined all along. That’s why he and Theo pushed Dimitri and me into making the promise we did four years ago. The fact that the marriage itself was a way of digging the company out of a very deep hole was a side benefit.”
“If that’s true, why is he pushing you to marry Spiros now?”
“Same reasons.”
“He still wants our families connected?”
“Yep. Too bad Dimitri and Spiros don’t have a younger sister, isn’t it?”
“Bite your tongue. I’m so not ready to get married.”
“I wasn’t four years ago.”
“Are you ready now?”
“I don’t have much choice.”
