about his lifestyle before; he’d never had any reason to. But hearing first Kosta and then his brother cast aspersions on the way he lived was filling Thanos with a sense of impatience. ‘My social life is no impediment to my running Stathakis,’ he heard himself point out coldly.
‘True, but neither of us could do anything worse than our father did to trash our family name, right?’
Thanos winced, sympathy for his brother at the forefront of his mind. Years had passed since that awful day when Leonidas’s young family had been murdered as a vendetta against their father but even now that Leonidas was married with a beautiful little girl who was growing way too fast, Thanos still felt sorrow for what had been lost.
‘You and I are nothing like our father.’
‘I know.’ Leonidas and Thanos were quiet for a moment, their point of difference from Dion Stathakis one of sheer determination. Both men had sworn, many years earlier, even before his criminal prosecution, that they would never emulate his lifestyle. They had always admired their grandfather and followed much more closely in Nicholas’s footsteps.
‘So show Kosta he’s wrong about you,’ Leonidas continued, his voice insistent. ‘He thinks you’re just some debauched tycoon, with more money and sex appeal than sense—’
‘So? Even if that were accurate—’ and he didn’t want to contemplate how many threads of truth there were to that observation ‘—I’m the best man to turn that company around and make sure it continues to thrive in the twenty-first century. No one will care for the business as I will; you know that.’
‘Yes,’ Leonidas conceded softly.
‘So what? Because I happen to like sex and the tabloids happen to like me, he thinks I’m not qualified?’
‘He wants more than just a business deal,’ Leonidas said gently. ‘The company’s his legacy. It’s not just a business to him—it’s a way of life, and it’s his birthright. He wants to protect that.’
Thanos had no difficulties relating to Kosta’s desires on that score. His own life had been devoid of the kind of parents most people grew up with. His mother had abandoned him and his father had taken him in reluctantly, but there had been grandparents and what wouldn’t Thanos have done for them? What wouldn’t he have done in their honour?
Wasn’t it because of them that Leonidas and Thanos had worked tirelessly for the better part of a decade to restore Stathakis Corp to the behemoth it had been before their father’s fall from grace? To restore, in part, the Stathakis name?
And wasn’t it largely what drove him now? A desire to bring home Petó, an important and missing piece of the puzzle that was their empire? They’d diversified in their restructure, buying up tech companies, new economy investments to shore up the old. But still, he’d never forgotten the promise he’d made to himself on the day they’d signed the contracts. He had hated selling Petó, the transport company his grandfather had been so proud of, the company that had enabled all their later successes. It meant everything to Thanos, and clearly it meant everything to Kosta.
So Thanos just had to show Kosta that the legacy was safe in his hands.
If only Kosta could see that the best way to preserve what his grandparents had built was to sell the company to a man who would have the skills, acumen and motivation to take the whole enterprise to the next level.
‘You are a fool if you don’t simply tick this box for Kosta and move on. Get married and he will sell it to you in an instant.’
Thanos threw his Scotch back, his brother’s suggestion making an infuriating kind of sense, despite his determination never to marry.
‘Putting aside for the moment the fact that he’s going to see through this play in an instant, who would I even marry if I were to go through with it?’
Leonidas laughed. ‘There must be hundreds of women you’ve slept with. Choose the one you like the best.’
‘I don’t like any of them enough to marry. And I don’t generally go back for repeat performances.’
Leonidas’s sigh came down the phone line. ‘If you want the company, you’re going to have to make your peace with this. It’s the only way.’
‘It’s crazy.’
‘No, it’s actually very sensible.’
‘I cannot simply marry some random woman.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d be doing it purely for commercial gain.’
‘So? Find someone who would be marrying you for their own commercial gain. Or have you forgotten what you’re worth?’
‘It’s completely unscrupulous.’
‘Why?’
‘To fake a marriage to fool an old man?’
Leonidas was quiet a moment. ‘Do you not think the end justifies the means?’
Thanos ground his teeth together. He could accept many things in life, but not losing Petó.
Besides, Leonidas was right—Kosta had all but drawn a map for Thanos as to how he could succeed in the purchase.
Settle down. Stop being so wild. At least appear to have become a family man.
So perhaps his brother had a point.
Marriage.
He might hate the idea of getting married, but a wedding like this—with each partner knowing it was purely mercenary? If he was clear on that point from the outset?
If there was an escape route always within reach?
So that no matter what happened he would know there was a definite termination point established, a date when the marriage would end and his life could go back to normal?
Perhaps that kind of marriage wouldn’t be so bad. A marriage, in name only. But to whom?
Alice disconnected the call with wobbly fingers and stared at her office wall. Tears that she rarely allowed herself to give into cloyed at her throat, so she had to press the heel of her palm to her eyes to stop from crying.
Bankruptcy.
The word hung in the air like a thousand little arrows, pointed at her soul. How could it have come to this? No matter how hard she worked, she could never get ahead, and now her credit-card company was demanding she close her accounts, settling her debts in full, or they’d commence bankruptcy proceedings.
She clamped her teeth down on her lip, trying to stave off an actual sob, trying to see some kind of light, somewhere, at the end of this tunnel. There had to be something she could sell, something she could do.
Except, there wasn’t. She’d hawked everything of value over the years, reluctantly parting with anything they could make money from, including
