that would be right,’ Theo agreed, feeling no remorse for attacking one of Ariana’s weak spots. ‘I did have a thing for older women at that age. Do you remember there were balloons and clowns?’
‘There was a famous mime artist,’ Ariana told Andreas, ‘and Theo fell asleep.’
‘Age isn’t relevant when you’re in love,’ Andreas said quickly and with enough defensiveness in his manner to reveal this was not an opinion he had formed in the moment. ‘And Theo was never a child; he emerged with a phone in one hand and a contract in the other.’
Theo accepted the glass from his brother and turned to close the door behind him while he fought to control his temper.
He would lock his brother in a cellar if that was what it took, but he was hoping to come up with a more imaginative solution.
Failure was not something that Theo considered.
Considering failure was not the attitude that had quadrupled the profits of the already prominent international company he’d become head of after his father’s death; considering failure was not why Theo was spoken of as one the most influential figures of the decade, the template for any man who wanted to make his first billion before he was thirty.
‘So what is the occasion?’ he drawled, his dark glance sliding once more to the ostentatious diamond before his eyes lifted and he looked directly at his brother. ‘Or is that a foolish question?’ he asked, resisting the strong impulse to yell, Have you lost your tiny mind? And added, ‘I take it congratulations are in order.’
Ariana fluttered her lashes and waved her left hand at him. ‘We wanted you to be the first to know, Theo.’
But he wasn’t; the girl who was probably composing a second resignation letter as they spoke had known.
‘I’m touched,’ Theo said, his thoughts turning to the problem at hand—namely, how to make his brother see that he would be better off marrying a barracuda, or at least safer.
Forcibly beating the information into his brother’s head was an appealing option and it would have the added bonus of making Theo feel moderately better in the short term but, as this was the reaction Ariana was probably hoping for, he was not going to give her the opportunity to call him the jealous brother.
It was actually not jealousy but nausea he felt as he watched Andreas slide his arm around Ariana’s slender waist.
His brother’s expression was tinged with defiance as he hugged her to him and announced with pride, ‘Ariana has agreed to be my wife. I hope…we hope that this won’t be awkward…’
There was only a moment’s pause before Theo lifted his glass and drawled, ‘Not awkward for me. Congratulations.’
Andreas, his relief visible, relaxed and reached for another glass. ‘I’ll just take one out for Beth; she should join us.’
Theo held out a hand. ‘I’ll do it.’
Before his brother could respond to his offer, Ariana intervened. ‘Beth?’ the blonde echoed. She adopted an expression of wide-eyed bewilderment as she asked, ‘Who’s Beth?’
‘Beth—my secretary, Beth—you passed her on the way in; you’ve seen her every time you’ve been here, darling.’
‘Oh, her!’
Theo watched as the glamorous model dismissed the younger woman with a laugh and went on to convince his brother that to invite his assistant, who was obviously a shy little creature, to join in with what was, after all, a family occasion would only embarrass her.
Andreas gave a shrug. ‘I suppose you’re right; this is a family thing.’
Despite his agreement, it was obvious to Theo that his brother was not happy to exclude his assistant.
Now this was interesting. It did not surprise him that Ariana had picked up on the fact that the girl was desperately in love with her boss; she was about as subtle as a slap in the face—she looked at Andreas as if she was on a carb-free diet and he was freshly baked bread.
But Ariana’s determination to exclude her did.
Did she actually view the younger girl as a threat, a possible rival for Andreas’s affections that had to be kept out of the picture?
His eyes narrowed slightly as he summoned a mental picture of the features of the woman who had not seemed a shy creature when she had yelled at him moments earlier.
Possibly it was the novelty value of her attitude towards him that made it surprisingly easy for Theo to recall her small heart-shaped face, big eyes and, of course, her soft mouth in such detail.
He still didn’t think it was possible that anything had happened between his brother and Elizabeth Farley but if Ariana was insecure about the girl, who could make a nun look flamboyant by comparison, if she considered her a threat, what had or hadn’t happened was not the point.
The point was, he might be able to use Ariana’s obvious insecurities to his advantage…As he listened to his brother describing their plans for the wedding, the bones of a plan began to formulate in his head.
Beth tried to turn a deaf ear to the sounds emanating from the adjoining room. She was doing quite well until she started at the loud distinctive sound of a champagne cork popping and deleted the page of statistics that had taken her the entire morning to meticulously research.
‘Get a grip, Beth!’ she growled with a grimace of self-disgust as some of the moisture pooling in her hazel eyes escaped.
Biting her wobbling lower lip, she angrily blotted a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand.
‘What did you expect, you idiot—that he’d stay single? That he’d wait for you? That was really going to happen!’
It would not be so bad, Beth told herself as she blotted her face and went about retrieving the deleted figures, if it hadn’t been that woman.
Obviously, no woman was good enough for Andreas, who possessed the rare qualities that made him perfect husband material, but there was not good enough and then there was Ariana.
An image of the willowy blonde’s suspiciously smooth face flashed before her eyes and she scowled. There was just something about Ariana Demetrios that really got under her skin—correction, it was everything, from the older woman’s fake smile to her fake breasts.
The bitchy thought afforded her a brief moment of satisfaction before the self-pity crowded in once more.
If it had been anyone else he had fallen for, she could have been happy for him…Well, not happy, but resigned at least.
She didn’t feel resigned; she felt…Beth pressed a hand to her stomach and shifted restlessly in her swivel chair…actually, she felt sick. Her dreams had just died and a person needed dreams, or at least she did, even of the impossible variety.
And while sitting by and watching Andreas work his way through every drop dead gorgeous blonde with a D cup in the City had not been pleasant, it had at least left her room to hope.
Now,
