is it your own position that worries you?’ Alekos cut across her, a new fury firing his voice. He’d thought he’d put this anger far, far behind him. But now, seeing Iolanthe here, knowing she had profited from his inventions, his work and life’s blood, all the while married to that leech Callos, sleeping in his bed—
Rage was not a strong enough word.
It had taken a while for him to realise that Lukas Callos was the technical genius behind Talos Petrakis’s business savvy; to understand that Callos had been the one to copy his design, at Petrakis’s behest, all those years ago. And Iolanthe had been sharing his bed, the pampered, spoiled wife.
‘How dare you accuse me?’ Iolanthe whispered, the words a breath of fury. ‘You, of all people—’
‘Clearly you hold me in low regard,’ Alekos drawled in a bored voice. ‘But it is of little consequence. The liquidation will go forward immediately.’
‘I think we should all take a moment to—’ Metaxas began, but Iolanthe cut across him, taking a step towards Alekos, one slender hand balled into a useless fist.
‘You can’t. Petra Innovation belongs to me.’
He stared at her, unmoved. ‘Not any more.’
‘My whole life, my son’s life—’
He’d heard she’d had a son by Callos. He’d never seen the boy, of course, and didn’t even know his name. And what did he care of his enemy’s birthright? His own had been taken from him when Petrakis had kissed him on both cheeks and then stolen his idea. His illusions had been ripped away first by the father, and then his daughter. He had none left.
‘I hope you are both adaptable,’ Alekos said coolly and Iolanthe let out a choked cry.
‘When I first met you, I thought you were a good man. You have proved me wrong again and again.’
Alekos stamped down on the flicker of regret he felt, a tiny, unfortunate flame that he quickly quenched. ‘Then perhaps you are a fool,’ he said coldly. ‘To believe something when the evidence proves otherwise. Or,’ he suggested, iron entering his voice, ‘perhaps you should question which is the good man and which is the bad in this scenario. Good day.’ Not trusting himself to say any more, he nodded tersely to both Metaxas and Iolanthe before turning to leave the room.
‘HOW WAS IT?’
Amara, Iolanthe’s housekeeper and closest confidante for the last ten years, having cared for her since she was a child, met her at the doorway of the town house near the Plaka that she’d lived in since her marriage.
‘Terrible.’ Iolanthe only just managed to choke out the word. An hour after meeting Alekos and she was still caught between fury and fear.
Amara’s face paled as she took Iolanthe’s coat. ‘Let me get you a warm drink.’ Amara’s solution for everything was a cup of Greek mountain tea, considered a panacea in the region of central Greece from which she came. Over the years Iolanthe had learned to like the herbal tea, made of ironwort and flavoured with honey and lemon.
‘Thank you, Amara,’ she said as she moved past the housekeeper to the kitchen, the heart of the house. ‘But I’m afraid a cup of tea is not going to solve my problems now. Where is Niko?’
‘Upstairs, on the computer.’
As he so often was. Her son spent most of his time either reading, playing with his electrical gadgets, or on the computer. People and social situations were a continual struggle, despite Iolanthe’s determined and increasingly desperate attempts to have him socialise.
She sank into a chair at the kitchen table and pressed trembling fingers to her temple. She was shaken in more ways than she cared to admit by seeing Alekos again. Not just by his awful plans for the company, but by the sheer presence of the man himself. He was just as darkly and devastatingly attractive now as he’d been ten years ago, when he’d stolen both her heart and her innocence. Even more so, more forbidding, with no hint of a smile to curve that once mobile mouth, no promise of laughter to lighten those topaz eyes. He’d looked like an angry god from the old myths and legends, someone come down from the stars to wreak his vengeance. And he had. Oh, he had. How could she lose Petra Innovation?
Amara busied herself at the range, plucking the roots and stems of the ironwort plant she always kept in supply and boiling them in a little brass pot on the stovetop. ‘What has happened?’ she asked as she plucked a mug from the rack and squeezed lemon juice and honey into it. ‘I thought you went to speak to the solicitor as a matter of course.’
‘So did I.’ Iolanthe leaned back in her chair and briefly closed her eyes. It felt like an age since she’d taken a taxi to Metaxas’s office, blithely thinking he would simply number her assets. Instead he’d told her she might as well not have any.
‘Well, then?’ Amara asked, a touch of impatience adding to the anxiety in her voice. She’d been part of Iolanthe’s household for her entire marriage. ‘Tell me what has happened.’
‘Alekos Demetriou has taken over Petra Innovation.’ Amara’s eyes widened with surprise. No one knew that Alekos was Niko’s father, no one save her, her father, and Lukas. It had been an agreement they had made when Lukas had agreed to take Iolanthe as his wife. He would raise Niko as his own, and to the whole world they would present a happy, united front. Or at least try. In the end, Lukas had not tried very hard at all.
‘And what does this Demetriou intend to do with it?’ Amara asked.
Briefly Iolanthe told her. Amara listened in silence, setting the mug of hot, fragrant tea in front of Iolanthe before sitting across from her with her own cup.
‘Very well,’ she said when Iolanthe had finished. ‘But it is not so terrible, surely? Forty per cent should see you and Niko cared for, and you never had anything to do with the company.’
‘The company is Niko’s birthright,’ Iolanthe returned with feeling. ‘My father lived for that company, and so did Lukas.’ She took a sip of tea, swallowing the honey-sweetened liquid along with her bitterness. ‘Niko has always looked forward to being a part of it.’ Talos had, in the last years of his life, mellowed in his disappointment and anger towards Iolanthe, and he’d sometimes taken Niko to work with him, shown him the inheritance that shimmered so promisingly. Lukas had always ignored his cuckoo son, and Iolanthe suspected that Niko cared so much about Petra Innovation because he wanted to impress the man he believed to be his father. Now Lukas was dead, and the company was all her son had. ‘I can’t give it up without a fight. For Niko’s sake I need to try.’ She glanced up at Amara, forcing back the threat of tears. ‘You know what it means to him.’
Amara sighed. ‘Yes, but he is only nine.’
‘All he has ever wanted is to work for Petra Innovation,’ Iolanthe answered. ‘To make his father and grandfather proud.’ The tears she had blinked back now thickened in her throat. Niko had so many struggles, and only one hope. How could she take it from him?
‘And if you have no choice?’ Amara asked grimly.
‘I do have a choice,’ Iolanthe returned, and then closed her eyes against the realisation. She could tell Alekos
