also went to very little effort with her appearance. Her suit was old and boxy, hiding any curves she might have beneath too much fabric. Her hair was silky and luscious, long, he suspected, though it was impossible to know as she wore it pinned in a sensible, low bun at the nape of her neck. In fact, everything about her was sensible. Plain. Businesslike.
His eyes dropped lower, to hands that were sorting through a pile of papers—red, with OVERDUE marked at the top. And despite his own monumental problems, curiosity lifted inside him.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
She looked at him with a slight frown on her face, almost as though she thought he might have left.
‘I’m catching up on some personal business. It’s my lunch break.’
He looked at his watch. ‘It’s the end of the day.’
‘I didn’t have time to have it any earlier.’ She said it as though she was worried he might be cross with her, as if she feared recriminations. That was unnecessary. Though she was only a temp, and he hadn’t been to the New York office for almost a year, Thanos knew that Alice worked harder than most of the permanent executive support team. Her security card was frequently the last one swiped out at the end of the evening, and oftentimes the first one to appear on the staff list.
She worked long hours and, though his workload was nothing if not exhausting, she’d somehow managed to keep his business and personal life running like a well-oiled machine.
If he needed his jet fuelled up, he emailed Alice. Gifts organised, Alice. Anything done with his apartments? Alice. She oversaw all aspects of his life and yet they were only today meeting for the first time.
And he knew nothing about her.
Why did that bother him? He couldn’t have said. Stathakis Corp employed thirty thousand people globally. One woman shouldn’t have interested him like this.
And yet, he found himself propping his hip on the edge of her desk, and looking at the bills with more interest. She shuffled them self-consciously.
So he knew one thing about her.
She was a poor money manager. She had to be, given what the temp rates were for an executive assistant at this level. Sure, there was agency commission to come out of her salary packet, but regardless of that, her rate was generous.
‘Did you need anything else, sir?’
She spoke without looking at him, but he detected a faint tremble in her fingertips as she filed the bills under some other papers, pointedly reaching for her sandwich.
He straightened, with a frown. ‘No.’ As he moved towards the door, his frown didn’t ease.
‘How long do you expect to be in New York?’
Her question caught him off-guard. Thanos never liked to be anywhere for long. He’d arrived in Manhattan a day earlier anticipating his business here would be wrapped up within twenty-four hours. Now he paused, with no idea when he’d be able to get out of town.
‘I have no idea.’
Silence for a moment and then, ‘So I’ll see you tomorrow?’
He turned back to face her, and there was no warmth in her expression. In fact, he couldn’t have said if she’d asked the question with curiosity or apprehension, but both sparked a ridiculous urge to laugh.
Instead, he nodded stiffly. ‘Yes. Goodnight, Alice.’
‘WHAT YOU NEED is to get married, Thanos.’
Leonidas’s words came to Thanos as if through a thousand galaxies—crackly and distant. He jerked out of bed, completely naked, and strode through his penthouse apartment.
His brother’s statement was exploding through his brain, like stardust and gold. He reached for the crystal decanter of Scotch and poured himself a generous measure, moving towards the grand piano and tapping a key lightly. Manhattan glistened beneath him, all shimmering lights and elaborate dreams.
This was the first time in years he’d been alone in this city. Usually, he called one of his past lovers—of which there were many here in the city—and enjoyed a night of unbridled, no-strings passion.
But the meeting with Kosta had left him inexplicably dissatisfied.
Thanos was a master at keeping his personal life separate from his private life. The fact he had a well-documented and active bachelor lifestyle was neither here nor there. He knew he was, unequivocally, the right person to take over P & A.
And beyond that, Petó deserved to come home.
‘I know it’s out of left field but have you actually passed out?’ Leonidas’s words were filled with humour.
Thanos sipped his Scotch slowly, his eyes moving from one high rise to another. When he eventually spoke, it was with a sardonic drawl. ‘I understand that you’re in the heady bliss of being a newly-wed but I think we can safely say marriage is the last thing on my mind.’ In fact, the very idea turned his blood cold. One week after his mother had dumped him on Dion Stathakis’s doorstep, throwing a traumatised little boy into the home as one might a cat into a flock of pigeons, Thanos had sworn to Leonidas that he’d never be stupid enough to fall in love or get married.
He’d been eight and miserable, his heart broken, his soul crushed—looking back, he could see now that he’d also been terrified. His mother, the woman who’d raised him, the only family he’d ever known, had told him she couldn’t ‘do this’ any more, and dropped him like a sack of potatoes.
His father had made it abundantly clear he didn’t want Thanos, that he was raising him out of duty. When Dion’s own marriage had crumbled because of Thanos’s unexpected arrival, a large part of Thanos’s heart had been sealed closed—he knew it would never open again.
Was it any wonder Thanos viewed relationships and commitment as something best avoided?
‘I don’t mean a real marriage,’ Leonidas explained with mock simplicity.
Beyond the window, dusk was falling, the night sky turning an inky black, no stars to be seen in the brightness cast by the vibrant city. Thanos cradled his drink in the palm of his hand.
‘Kosta has given you the solution; you’re just not listening. He won’t accept any offer you make because you’re a walking tabloid headline. This isn’t just a top five hundred company he’s selling. It’s his family empire.’
‘It’s our family empire too.’
‘He bought Petó a long time ago. I doubt he continues to consider it as a distinct entity from P & A.’
‘And nor do I. I am not attempting to separate Petó from the fold. I am willing to take on his business as well.’
‘Yes, I get that. But he’s not willing to sell to us. Not given your…predilection
