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She shrugged, not wanting him to know that she had learned to be this way because she had been too afraid of displeasing James if she was anything less than neat and orderly in her room.
When they got to bed, she and Jack talked about the seminar they had attended in the afternoon and the kind of photos they planned to take using the new techniques they had learned. When Jack suddenly sat up, she thought it was to grab a glass of water because talking had made him thirsty.
But instead, he leaned down to kiss her on the lips.
MJ recovered a second too late. “No, Jack.” She pushed him, and he immediately moved away. The kiss left her body shaking. She had never thought Jack would do something like that. He was a friend. She only ever saw him as a friend. She was still trying to get over Helios, and it was the reason why they had gotten to know each other in the first place. Had he forgotten that?
“I’m sorry,” Jack said in a flat voice after a while. He was lying on his back on the comforter, one arm thrown over his head while he stared sightlessly at the ceiling.
MJ had a pillow over her head, and her voice was muffled when she answered, “I’m sorry if I led you on or something. I didn’t mean to.”
“You didn’t. It was wishful thinking on my part.” Jack paused. “But MJ?”
“Y-yeah?”
“I know about you wanting Helios to be a normal guy. And I’m being completely honest here – and not being a jealous vindictive jerk – Helios Andreadis can never be normal. It will be a daily routine to be involved in catfights, brawls, and scandals as long as you’re connected to him. If you really want a normal guy, how about dating me? I don’t think his pride will allow him to go after you if he knows you’re already going out with someone else.”
She said uncertainly, “It’s not that easy—”
Slowly, Jack lifted his hand and sought MJ’s. Twining his fingers with hers, he said, “It’s that easy. It’s really that easy – but maybe you just don’t want it to be.” And then he let her hand go, allowing her to think about whose hand she really wanted to hold.
Chapter Ten
Against the adviceof his friends, Helios was alone when he walked inside the mansion he had lived in for several years with the rest of the Andreadis clan. This was a place he should call home, but he had never thought of it that way, not even from the very start.
Indifference was the only thing he felt as he gazed at the familiar surroundings, beautiful and elegant as they were. The vaulted ceilings, the marbled tiles, the priceless furniture all around him – if anything, every single bit of it only reminded him of the price one had to pay to be a part of the Andreadis clan.
His mother had not been willing to pay the price, even if it meant dying in poverty.
Fortunately, Helios, too, had realized the same thing in time.
Herod’s mother, Dahlia, was visibly surprised to see him when she came down the grand spiral staircase, dressed resplendently in pearls and silk. She was in her early fifties now, but Dahlia appeared two decades younger, no doubt thanks to expensive beauty treatments that only the Andreadis fortune could afford.
“Why are you here?” Dahlia stopped at one of the last few steps of the stairs, needing the additional height to be able to look down on Helios. Even dressed plainly as he was in a shirt and jeans, there was something godlike about him – and it wasn’t even because at six-foot-seven, he towered over most people.
No, with Helios Andreadis, the ability to wield power was natural, something he was born with and had no need of outside trappings to prove – unlike her son Herod. Her teeth snapped together at the thought, wishing for the thousandth time that Helios Andreadis had never existed.
