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Damen Leventis’ voice was flat when he asked the question, yielding no clue to what he was feeling. Vilma wanted to laugh. If he thought he could stonewall her like that, he was sadly mistaken. She had not spent years in the courtroom embroiled in the most bitterly fought legal disputes over marital affairs to have learned nothing about the human psyche. He would give in sooner or later. It was only a matter of finding the right trigger.
Gesturing to the unoccupied seat across her, she said in a neutral voice, “Please join me, Mr. Leventis.” She watched him carefully as he did, his every move graceful even though his face and body hinted of bone-deep weariness.
Good. It was nothing compared to what he had made Mairi suffer.
The next time she spoke, it was soft enough for her words to remain just between the two of them. “Please satisfy my curiosity, Mr. Leventis. Why are you trying so hard for a chance to see my niece? Isn’t this the same girl you cast out of your home like useless furniture you had grown weary of?”
Damen flinched. “It was not like that. I misunderstood—-”
“You always misunderstood!” She had been wrong. She would not be able to play this cool, after all. There would no longer be anything strategic about her words and actions this time. “I know you had us investigated, and I’m sure you know that we had done the same to you. What I found out was sickening.” Her low voice shook with rage. “My niece had always loved you from the start, but you betrayed and hurt her at every turn. You treated her like trash, and now you think I’ll let you waltz back into her life like nothing happened?”
The words of Mairi’s aunt did not create fresh wounds inside him. It only made the ones that still existed burn more deeply and painfully. “I know,” he said tightly, “how much I hurt her. That’s why I’m here now. I need to tell her I’m sorry and that I love her—-”
Vilma’s responding laugh was scornful. “You have a very strange way of showing your love for Mairi.” Her next words took on a biting tone. “I’ve been following Greek business news closely, Mr. Leventis. You have been removed from your own board, almost all of your assets have been frozen, and half of Greece’s high society consider you as persona non grata. Don’t you think you have more important business to take care of back home?”
“Mairi is my life.”
Somehow, the words rang true even to Vilma’s ears, and she hated it. “Mairi is the same woman you believed was interested in you for your billions, Mr. Leventis. Why would you think she’d want to see now?”
“I made a mistake not trusting her. I won’t do it again.” He added fiercely, “I won’t hurt her again.”
“And that will make it all right, you think? To admit that you were wrong?”
His voice did not change when he answered, “I will beg if I have to.”
Her face hardened. “Then beg.”
“Please give me a chance to speak to your niece. I just want to speak to her. It’s all I ask. Even a phone call – a text message or email. Any form of communication would suffice.”
“On your knees.”
Damen did not say a word, did not hesitate even for a millisecond. He simply got up from his chair and went down on his knees, uncaring of the scores of eyes that swung to him incredulously at his action.
Even when he had his billions at his disposal, Damen had not been able to uncover a single clue about Mairi’s whereabouts, and he knew the chances of finding Mairi had become slimmer the moment he lost access to his own wealth.
If begging was the only way to have a chance to see Mairi, then so be it.
Vilma also slowly came to her feet.
And then she took the glass of water from the table and threw it at Damen. “That’s for making my niece suffer and for not protecting her from almost being raped.”
Chapter 3
Alina Kokinos felt suffocated by how crowded Miami’s airport was. It was her first time to find herself in such a situation. In the past, her family’s wealth had kept her from this. When their plane landed, there would always be a chauffeured car waiting on the grounds to whisk her off to wherever she wanted, with her passport and all travel documents processed while she remained in the comfort of the Kokinos jet.
But life was different now.
She was no longer an heiress, wasn’t even sure she had the right to use her family’s name now that she had been disinherited.
Craning her neck, she tried to search the crowd for a familiar face, but there was none. Pulling out her phone from her pocket, she re-read the anonymously sent message for the nth time.
