claim your place in my family. It is time you paid the dues accompanied by that status.”
Humorless laughter fought to break free of the constriction in her throat. Paid her dues? Hadn’t she done that for six long years? Hadn’t she paid dearly for the privilege of wearing the Kiriakis name?
Leiandros watched emotions chase across Savannah’s usually expressionless face. She hadn’t been that way the first time they met. Then, she had seemed achingly vulnerable and sweet. So sweet she allowed another man to kiss her, to touch her while married to his cousin, he reminded himself.
Although she avoided eye contact with him on the few occasions they met after that, she’d still had an appealing vibrancy and beauty which made him understand why Dion stayed with her even after she had shown herself unworthy of her husband’s respect and love. At least for the first year, but the one time Leiandros had seen her the second year she lived in Athens, she had changed beyond recognition.
Her green eyes had dulled to the point of lifelessness. Had guilt over her lovers done that? Her demeanor had completely lacked emotion—except when she looked at her daughter. Then a love Leiandros had envied—and hated himself for doing so—had suffused her face and brought life back to her green eyes. No wonder Dion ran wild with his friends. His wife had reserved all her emotion for the daughter she bore as the result of a liaison with one of her lovers.
Leiandros had chided Dion for showing so little interest in fatherhood after Eva’s birth. Dion had cried when he told Leiandros that his wife had claimed the baby was not his. If Leiandros had ever doubted Savannah’s culpability in their shared kiss the night they met, he doubted no longer.
Remembering that encounter, his body tensed with anger. “Perhaps you are right. You have no place at my wife’s funeral. One display of false grief within our family is enough.”
Her eyes widened with what he could have sworn was fear before she took yet another step away from him. “I’m sorry Petra died, Leiandros.”
The apparent sincerity in her soft voice almost touched him, but he refused to be taken in by her act a second time. She was no more the vulnerable innocent than he was a gullible fool. “I think you will be, Savannah.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice quavering in a way that annoyed him while she brushed a lock of wheat-colored hair away from her face.
What did she think he was going to do? Hit her? The thought was so ridiculous, he dismissed it out of hand. She had reason to be concerned, if not afraid. He did have plans for her, but they had to wait. “Never mind. I have to go.”
She nodded. “Goodbye, Leiandros.”
He inclined his head, refusing to utter a farewell he did not mean. After he expressed his respect for Petra with a year of mourning, Savannah would be seeing him again.
Then she would be made to pay for all that she had cost his family…all she had cost him.
CHAPTER TWO
SAVANNAH could hear the happy chatter of her daughters playing in their bedroom as she settled into the creaking desk chair in the small, cluttered study of her home in Atlanta, Georgia.
She stared at the letter from Leiandros Kiriakis, feeling as if it were a black moccasin ready to strike. In it he requested her presence in Greece for a discussion regarding her financial future. Worse, he had demanded Eva and Nyssa’s presence as well.
He would be freezing Savannah’s monthly allowance until such a discussion occurred.
Panic shivered along her consciousness.
After the trial of attending Dion’s funeral a year ago, she had promised herself she would never have to see anyone Kiriakis again. Okay, if not never, then at least for a very long time.
The girls would have to be introduced to their Greek family someday, but not before they were old enough to deal with the emotional upheaval and possible rejection of doing so. In other words, not until they were confident, mature adults.
She wished. She knew that wasn’t realistic. Not after the revelations Dion had made in that final phone call, but she had intended to put the trip off for a while. Like until she had a secure job and her Aunt Beatrice no longer needed her.
Her mouth firming with purpose, she decided Leiandros would have to have his discussion with her over the phone. There was no earthly reason for her to fly all the way to Greece merely to talk about money.
Savannah’s confidence in Leiandros’s reasonability was severely tested ten minutes later when his secretary informed her he would not take Savannah’s call.
“When would you like to fly out, Mrs. Kiriakis?” the efficient voice at the other end of the line enquired.
“I don’t wish to fly out at all,” Savannah replied, her southern drawl more pronounced than usual, the only indicator the conversation was upsetting her. “Please inform your boss that I would prefer to have this conversation by telephone and will await a call at his convenience.”
She rang off, her hands shaking, her body going into fight or flight mode at the very thought of confronting Leiandros Kiriakis again in the flesh.
The phone rang ten minutes later.
Expecting Leiandros’s secretary, Savannah picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“You are due to receive your monthly allowance tomorrow.” Although he had not bothered to identify himself, there was no mistaking the deep, commanding tones of Leiandros’s voice.
It was a voice that haunted her dreams, erotic dreams that woke her in the middle of the night sweating and shaking. She could control her conscious mind, stifling all thoughts of the powerful, arrogant businessman, but her subconscious had a will of its own. And the dreams did nothing but torment her, as she knew without question she would never again experience those feelings outside the subconscious realm.
“Hello, Leiandros.”
He didn’t bother to return the greeting. “I won’t be sanctioning that deposit, or any other until you come to Greece.” No explanation, just an ultimatum.
The exorbitant prices Brenthaven charged for her aunt’s care and the expense of attending university had prevented Savannah from accumulating more than a few weeks of living expenses in her savings. She needed the deposit to make her monthly payment to Brenthaven, not to mention to buy mundane items like food and gas.
“Surely any discussion we need to engage in can be handled via the phone.”
“No.” Again, no explanation. No compromise.
She rubbed her eyes, glad that he could not see the gesture that betrayed both physical weariness and emotional weakness. “Leiandros—”
“Contact my secretary for travel arrangements.”
The phone clicked quietly in her ear and she pulled it away to stare at it. He’d hung up on her. She said a word that should never pass a lady’s lips and slammed the phone back into its cradle. Shocked rigid by her own unaccustomed display of temper, she stood motionless for almost a full minute before spinning on her heel to leave the now stifling study.
