Greece family is everything. It would be considered a grave insult were I not to offer my home to you all and equally offensive if your mama refused to accept it.” Leiandros’s words seemed laced with warning and Savannah turned her head to see him more clearly.
Was he trying to intimidate her and if so, why? She’d already agreed to stay at his villa and in fact felt a small measure of gratitude that she hadn’t been forced to play this scene with Helena and Sandros. She would have refused any invitation extended by them regardless of the offense taken.
The very thought of being forced to accept her in-law’s hospitality was enough to make her feel slightly nauseous.
“Our house is lots smaller because we’ve just got a mommy and me and Eva. You must have an awful lot of kids. You’re house is like Cinderella’s castle.” Typically, Nyssa had spoken again while Eva silently watched the adults, letting her serious green gaze flicker between them and the big white villa.
Bitterness and pain reflected briefly in his dark chocolate eyes. “I have no children.”
“Oh. Don’t you like kids?” Nyssa asked before Savannah thought to caution her daughter to silence.
This time the pain was more pronounced and even slipped into his voice as he answered. “I like children very much.”
Had he and Petra planned to have them right away? It must have been a horrible shock to lose her so soon after marriage. Leiandros and Petra had only been married about a year when Dion crashed his car with Petra in it, killing them both instantly. Knowing it was ridiculous, Savannah still felt guilty by association. It had been her estranged husband responsible for the crash.
Eva stepped forward and laid her little hand on Leiandros’s forearm. “It’s okay. Someday, you’ll have some. Mama says you’ve got to believe in your dreams for them to come true.”
He squatted down in front of Eva and reached out to brush her cheek. “Thank you, pethi mou. You and your sister staying at the villa will be like having children of my own.”
In a wholly uncharacteristic move, Eva let her small fingers trail down Leiandros’s face to his chin, her green eyes full of both compassion and a wistfulness that surprised Savannah. “I’ll play checkers with you if you like. Daddies do that with their little girls sometimes.”
“You can help Mom tuck us in at night, too,” Nyssa added, not willing to be outdone by her sister.
Savannah watched the entire scene with a sense of unreality intensified by her tiredness. Her daughters had spent very little time around men, which usually made even the more gregarious Nyssa timid with them. And yet, here was Savannah’s extremely cautious eldest daughter reaching out to touch Leiandros.
Even more shocking than her daughter’s response to Leiandros were his words. Did he truly want her and the girls to move to Greece to fill a void that had opened in his life since his young wife’s death?
She’d never considered Leiandros Kiriakis vulnerable in any way. The man spent his time running a multibillion dollar corporation. He couldn’t seriously need the company of two small girls to complete his life.
Savannah curled her hands around the oversized woven bag she carried. It felt like a link to sanity, its casual American styling a reminder of the life she’d made for herself and her daughters. A life far removed from that of privileged wealth exemplified by Villa Kalosorisma.
A life she and her daughters would return to.
CHAPTER FOUR
LEIANDROS sipped his neat whiskey and waited for Savannah to join him in the fireside reception room before dinner.
The villa, built by his grandfather, boasted two large reception rooms as well as two formal dining rooms, one of which his father had turned into a study after losing the smaller area dedicated to that purpose to a TV viewing room at his wife’s request. There was also a breakfast nook, eight bedrooms with en suites and full staff quarters on the ground level.
In other words, his home had plenty of space for Savannah to find the privacy she said she craved, but such privacy would not extend to her avoiding his company. That was not part of his plan. Tonight, he intended to make it clear to her he would be an intrinsic part of her life from now on.
He was so hungry for her, he had been unable to resist the growing temptation to pull her into his arms after she fell asleep. He’d watched her for several miles of travel before giving into the urge to pull her into his arms.
He had not held her, even in an embrace of greeting, since the hot kiss they had shared the night they met. He could not risk his own body’s reaction. Touching her then had been wrong. She’d belonged to another man.
Dion had died and now Savannah belonged to Leiandros, even if she did not yet realize it.
Her body had known it. She’d curled around him like a lover of longstanding and his physical reaction had been predictable if surprisingly swift. He’d wanted to touch her, to remove her soft silk blouse and see the breasts pressed so tantalizingly against his chest, but even Greek tycoons had their sense of honor, he thought cynically.
When he touched Savannah, she would be awake and wanting it as much as he did.
As she had wanted his kiss seven years ago.
He took another sip of his whiskey as she appeared in the arched doorway. She’d changed into a knee length sheath in emerald green raw silk and pulled the multi-colored, golden brown strands of her hair into an elegant twist on the back of her head. Her only jewelry was a necklace of hammered silver medallions and matching earrings.
It was a lovely look, but hardly the designer labeled couture he’d expected from her based on the monthly allowance she received. Nyssa had also said their house was small.
Was that the unrealistic view of a child, or had she been stating a fact? If Nyssa had spoken the truth, what did Savannah spend the ten thousand dollars a month she received from the Kiriakis coffers on?
Savannah hovered in the doorway, wanting to flee. The girls had been fed and put to bed an hour ago. They had invited Leiandros to help tuck them in, but he’d had to take an international call and had promised to do so the following night.
Savannah hadn’t minded one bit. She found his presence distinctly disturbing.
“Come in, Savannah. I’m not going to eat you.”
She forced a slight smile to her lips and a light tone to her voice. “Of course not. Billionaire Greek tycoons have too much discernment to eat houseguests, even reluctant ones.”
His black brow raised in cynical amusement. “What would you like to drink?”
“Something nonalcoholic. I have no head for spirits and in my current state of jet lag, I’d probably pass out after a sip of your most innocuous sherry.” And she needed her wits.
He turned toward the drink trolley, his gorgeous body graceful in movement and yet exuding power. He poured her a tall glass of chilled water over ice, adding a twist of lime to it.
She accepted the drink, making sure their fingers did not touch and then took a step back. “Isn’t your mother joining us
