tried to cling to her anger. Anger that would hopefully be much more powerful than the attraction that was still surging through her. What was her problem? She was supposed to be cured. She was supposed to have inoculated herself to all future Apollo encounters. Cure yourself from a snakebite with snake venom, and all that. But she didn’t feel cured. She did not feel at all inoculated. In fact, she felt a little bit dizzy.
“Of course you can’t,” she said, the words coming out harsh. “No one can guarantee a profit increase. But trust me, if we keep on going in this new direction—”
“This isn’t about trust. It’s about the bottom line. I have a great deal more experience in business than you do, Elle.”
Those words rankled. In part because they were true. In part because they dug beneath the suit of armor she had worked so hard to put into place today. It hit the wound beneath it that twinged every day. That she was her father’s second choice through and through. When she failed at this, she would prove that she never should have been here in the first place. That if her father had had his way he would have put someone else in her position. That if Apollo weren’t too important for it, if Apollo hadn’t turned against them, it would likely have been him.
You decided failure be damned, remember?
Yes. She had. But it was difficult to feel committed to that now.
“But I care about this company.”
“As do I. It’s a part of my bottom line, and there is nothing I care about more than my bottom line.”
“Well, Matte is only part of your bottom line because you set out to acquire it when you saw that it was floundering. You knew what you were getting.”
“And without my influence this company would probably already be six feet under. Like the rest of the holdings I bought from your father.”
“You fired the final shot into them.”
“A mercy killing,” he said, his tone hard. “Don’t oppose me, Elle. I am not doing this for my own amusement. If I succeed, you will succeed along with me. I am not the enemy that you set me up to be.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Except, it was a disagreement they were not going to settle. Not without blood anyway. “Yes, but you said you were standing there ready to pull the plug, so let’s be honest. You aren’t a savior, either.”
“I never claimed to be.”
“Well, don’t stand there and pretend that you aren’t the villain.”
“Oh, did you think that’s what I was doing? You’re wrong there. I know full well that I’m the villain here, agape. If I had a mustache I would twirl it. Alas. You will have to settle for the assurance that I know full well where I stand in this little play. However, we do not have to oppose each other. I know that my presence is sinister. However, there is nothing you can do to fight it. But understand I will save Matte if it’s at all possible.”
“You’re here to announce cuts today, aren’t you?”
“Surprisingly, no. But I did come to discuss something with you.”
“What?” she asked, feeling suspicious.
“I would like for you to come to my European headquarters. To get a little bit of an idea for how things run, to attend to some meetings there, and to attend a certain number of charity events.”
“What?”
“What I would like to do is help revitalize the image of Matte. I would like to bring you into the public eye. Have you as the public face, so to speak. With a little bit of help you could provide a facelift all on your own. And then, maybe we would be able to avoid cuts.”
She hadn’t expected this. She was, in fact, struck dumb by the fact that he was extending a hand out. That he was offering her a chance to not only save the company, but to do it in such a public way.
She had been prepared to be the one left standing in the ashes. A phoenix who was not poised to rise. She had been prepared to go down in flames, with her hands on Apollo’s naked body.
And now...now he was changing things. Again.
“You just expect me to pick up and go to Europe with you?”
“Yes. And I don’t exactly expect you to have a major issue with being asked to spend some time in Greece with me.”
“Your headquarters are in Greece still? Are you the last remaining corporation in the country?”
“I am successful. Worldwide. It would be a poor thanks to my homeland to remove the jobs and revenue I provide simply because there’s been some unrest.”
“Please, don’t tell me you have a heart. Only a moment ago you were telling me that your decisions were based on the bottom line.”
“I don’t have a heart. I simply have a strong liking for dolmas and ouzo.”
“That I can believe.”
He smiled, and for a moment, she felt like she was looking back at the boy he had been. The boy she had known all those years ago. The one who had captivated her from the first moment she had laid eyes on him.
The boy she had proceeded to snipe at and torture with flippant remarks every chance she got. Reminding him that he wasn’t really a St. James. Because she’d been nothing more than a little girl with a crush and she’d handled it like they were on the playground.
But though things had never been easy between Apollo and her, he’d been very close with her father. But as close as Apollo and her father had once been, they were just as distant now.
And she had been thrown into the middle of that divide. Tossed into a storm she could never hope to weather. Between two alpha males locking horns. One defending his turf, the other intent on destroying it.
So take control. Do this.
“Well, I’m not going to complain about a free vacation,” she said, trying to keep her tone light. She wasn’t going to show her hand. Not to him. Wasn’t going to let him see that this mattered to her. That she was going to use this—whatever it was to him—to gain a handle on things again.
To redeem herself.
“Oh, this isn’t going to be a vacation,” he said, rounding the desk and making his way toward the door. “We will go to Greece and work. Additionally, there is a charity event in Athens that we will attend together.”
“As business associates,” she said, “I assume.”
She couldn’t even imagine her father’s reaction. If he had any idea that she and Apollo— He would be furious. Disgusted.
The idea of disappointing him like that...of losing him altogether, was something she couldn’t fathom.
Her mother had left when she’d been a child. She could barely remember her. But she remembered the hole left behind, because it was still there.
She couldn’t go through that again.
Apollo
