capital into his company.
Eber didn’t want to give enough shares of the company for the investment capital he expected in return, but the marriage deal made it possible for both men to find a win-win.
Emotions were messy and devastating.
Business was something Ariston understood and knew how to control, so finding a wife as the result of a business deal appealed very much.
He now realized his certainty that a business marriage would come without the complications he’d sworn off, not once, but twice in his life—first because of his parents’ devastating mistakes and then because of his own—was one of the reasons he’d been so livid with Chloe for lying to him.
She’d let him down personally, but more important, Chloe had betrayed him on a business level, just as Shannon had done. Only this time, Ariston’s grandfather had been hurt as well and Ariston found that untenable.
The one person in his life he could trust and wanted to protect, and Chloe had betrayed them both.
Ariston hadn’t discovered what she’d been up to until a couple of months before their third anniversary. He’d been looking for his wife’s favorite pair of earrings so he could have a complementary necklace and bracelet made as a gift to celebrate the occasion.
He’d also hoped to use the jewelry to soften her toward having fertility tests done. Ariston hadn’t said anything, but he’d been to his own doctor and tests had confirmed that there should be no problem with conception coming from his side.
He’d thought Chloe might need fertility treatments because three years of sex at least once a day, often more frequently, should have resulted in pregnancy.
For a woman not on birth control.
Ariston had never found the earrings. What he had found was a partially used packet of birth control pills in the upper drawer of Chloe’s jewelry armoire.
No matter how she wanted to look at it, Chloe had affirmed to both Ariston and his grandfather that she wanted children before she ever signed the contract they’d negotiated with Eber Dioletis.
She’d tacked on an eventually, but Ariston had assumed the eventually would come within the initial three-year parameter of their marriage contract.
Apparently, he’d been wrong.
What was bothering him now was the possibility—no, probability—he’d been equally wrong about other things, as well.
Chloe had not been on board with her father’s idea of marrying her off in another business contract advantageous to Dioletis Industries. Ariston had known the older man’s plans in that line had fallen through, but he’d assumed it was because of actions on Ariston’s part.
He’d made subtle but unmistakable promises regarding the future of the other man’s business interests if he married Chloe. Ariston had followed that up by allowing his displeasure at the thought of his ex-wife married to someone else leak into the financial community.
It would take a brave or very stupid man to buck the Spiridakou empire.
No one had. Or so he thought.
It had never occurred to Ariston that Chloe might have refused any other marriage deal outright, that those threats might be unnecessary.
However, that made a lot more sense of the fact that she’d made a new life for herself across country. Her claim she’d had nothing to do with her father or Dioletis Industries in two years rang true and was too easily checked. As she had to know it would be.
He’d told Chloe he hadn’t had her watched by a private investigator, and he hadn’t, but now he regretted that choice.
He’d been too focused on Eber and Dioletis Industries and maneuvering her father into an untenable situation for which there was only one out—giving Ariston what he wanted. He hadn’t been focused enough on the woman who had been his wife.
Most telling, for Ariston at any rate, was that he had no trouble adjusting his view of her to something other than a mercenary witch, willing to defraud a trusting old man to get what she wanted for her father’s company, that he’d believed her to be for the past two years.
His instincts had told him Chloe was an innocent, but he’d allowed his knowledge of her deceit to override them.
His new view cast his full-on revenge plans in a different light and opened the door to other possibilities he hadn’t considered.
He hadn’t gotten where he was by ignoring potential avenues and opportunities either. In fact, he was known for his ability to change his train of thought to a new track with lightning speed and efficiency.
Their discussion earlier today would imply that whatever Chloe’s reasons for using the pill, unswerving loyalty to her father and his company was not one of them.
He had no choice but to acknowledge that it appeared she’d been far more her father’s pawn than the black queen on Eber’s side of the chessboard as Ariston had once believed.
Well before their last trip to Greece, Ariston had known Eber was courting other businessmen for another monetarily motivated wedding for his daughter.
At first, he’d assumed the rumors were about his oldest, Rhea, whose marriage Eber had never approved of. The marriage was the only thing Rhea had ever bucked her father’s will regarding and Ariston wouldn’t have put it past the other man to force his daughter into a divorce.
Only later, after discovering the birth control, had Ariston taken Eber’s rumored overtures as irrefutable proof of Chloe’s duplicity. He’d believed that she planned to walk away from their marriage as soon as the contract was completed.
It had surprised him that the family would give up stock in the still privately held company so easily. According to the terms of the contract, Ariston controlled the shares placed in a trust for the first three years of their marriage. If, after three years, either he or Chloe filed for divorce, he kept the rather large chunk of stock.
Well worth the fifty-million-dollar investment.
If Ariston had divorced Chloe before the three-year term, though, he would have forfeited the stock, and vice versa if Chloe had filed for legal separation or divorce during that time.
However, if a child resulted from their marriage, said child would then own the shares, which Ariston would only be trustee of until the child’s twenty-first year.
In addition, the terms of any divorce settlement would change significantly in Chloe’s favor once a child had been conceived. She had every monetary reason in the world to get pregnant and Ariston had wanted it that way, assuming the incentives would be enough to dictate the direction of their relationship.
He’d been wrong and he did not enjoy that state of events. At all.
Regardless, whatever it had been, he now very much doubted that Chloe’s use of birth control had been part of a plot to bilk him and his grandfather of fifty million dollars.
Because he still owned the stock as per the agreement and even if they didn’t realize it, the precarious state of Dioletis Industries did not rest on Eber’s shoulders.
