Two years ago I had a heart attack. Not bad, you understand. But it scares me a little. I will not live forever. I want to spend time with my wife. My children.” He raised his gaze to meet hers. “You understand?”
“Children?” Mari said archly.
Stavros’s mouth pressed into a thin line for a second, as he absorbed the hit, then he nodded to acknowledge it “My little children. They need a father.”
“And Nikos doesn’t?”
“Nikos is an adult, for all that he acts like an iresponsible idiot!”
And I wonder why that is? Mari said silently. But she just waited for Stavros to continue.
“I keep my company, though,” he said. “I built it!” These last three words were spoken with the most emotion she’d heard from him. “From nothing I built it. Almost thirty-five years I have invested in it. It is my life, my legacy! I won’t see it wasted.” His eyes met hers again, dark and fierce. “I don’t let Nikos waste it!”
“You think he would?” Mari didn’t know anything about that possibility.
Stavros made a spitting sound. “Bah. Why wouldn’t he?” He picked up a folder from his desk and shoved it at her. “See for yourself!”
Mari took the folder automatically. It was at least an inch thick, filled, she could see, with copies of newspaper clippings. Headlines like “Greek Playboy Turns Heiress’s Head” and “Nick the Hunk Bares All” blared out at her. She shut the folder with a snap.
“You see? He knows nothing! He cares nothing! He respects nothing!” Stavros’s dark complexion was a deep shade of red. He aimed the pen at her. “That is what I want you to fix.”
Helping children become emotionally healthy was something she was pretty good at. Keeping an adult man from running amok in the scandal sheets and driving a family business into the ground was not exactly in the same league.
“I’m not sure...” she began hesitantly.
“I am sure.” The pen leveled on her again. “You will teach him to respect.”
It was on the tip of Mari’s tongue to tell him that respect was earned, not taught, but she didn’t think he wanted to hear it.
Stavros tapped the pen irritably on the desktop. “He is smart. He is clever. He could do well if he wanted to. But he has to understand the business, the work I do. He won’t. He behaves like a fool. Then he wants to take over just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “‘I can do it,’ he says. ‘Trust me,’ he says. ‘You want me to take over? Step down, I will take over,’ he says. Never! I never started at the top!”
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