The Art of Forgiving a Greek Billionaire (5 page)

The rational side of his mind told Damen that he was worrying over nothing. That if something had happened to Mairi, then her two American aunts would not have been living their lives normally. He knew from the investigative report he had ordered that the two older women loved Mairi fiercely – perhaps just as fiercely as he loved Mairi. They would not be able to pretend everything was fine if something bad had happened to their beloved niece.

But the irrational part of Damen?

It worried, desperately, and it made up the larger part of his mind. It told him that if Damen had not had a single inkling of Mairi’s suffering when she was fighting off Cleon Frangos, how could he allow himself to believe that it would be different this time…that he would
know
if Mairi was suffering now?

Tearing his gaze off his reflection, he bent down to splash cold water on his face, needing himself sober. After switching the tap off, he grabbed the towel hanging from the rail and patted his face dry, feeling more and more awake with each passing second.

By the time Damen sat down in front of his laptop, his mind was completely alert, his body alive, and his heart remained beating with the hope that there would come a day he would see Mairi again.

He began to type.

Dear Mairi,

I’m not sure if you will be able to read this letter. On the off chance that you are and this is the first letter of mine that you are able to read, I want you to know that I’m sorry.
 

I wish there’s a better way of putting it, but there is none. There are no excuses for my foolishness and cruelty. I have failed you. I failed to trust you when you never gave me any reason to distrust you. I failed to believe you when you have always been true, even in the times that I did not deserve your loyalty and faithfulness.

I hurt you, deliberately, mercilessly, and cruelly, and till the day I die I will always remember and never forgive myself for it.
 

I doubted you, I hurt you, and I know I do not deserve to say the words, but I will because I am and have always been a selfish bastard and I cannot just let you go without trying – without giving up my life trying to make you take a chance on me again.

I love you. Even when I hated you, when I thought that you only wanted to be with me for my money, I loved you. You are always in my thoughts. I see you wherever I go, I hear your voice even when all is silent, and I feel you now even if you only exist in my memories.

I will not give up searching for you. I will never tire of looking for you because I need to know you are fine – that you have survived despite my worst attempts to drown you in the pain of my cruelty.
 

I hope and I pray to all the gods in heaven that you are indeed able to read this letter because it means that you are alive and well. If you are fine, please – I know I do not deserve your pity, but please, I beg of you – let me know that you are fine. I need to know you are fine.
 

I love you.

I know I’m not making any sense – I started my letter like I know what to say but as I end it, my thoughts are jumbled and all I can write are those three words.

I love you.

They are all I have left.

Yours forever,

Damen
 

His gaze was blurry when his fingers moved away from the keyboard. Damen struggled to breathe, his emotions weighing heavily on him.
 

I love you, Mairi. I love you. I love you.

Sometimes, he just had to say the words, even if it was only in his mind. He felt like he was going to explode if he didn’t.

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Slowly, his fingers moved back to the keyboard.

He typed a postscript.
 

Forgive me. Please. I am yours to punish, forever if you want, but please just let me stay by your side.

Damen hit Enter and the email was sent.

He knew there would be no reply, as there had been no reply to his other emails. But he waited anyway. He would wait forever if he had to. It was better than thinking something had happened to Mairi.

Seconds turned into minutes, which then turned into hours. He only closed the laptop when morning became noon and it was time to leave. He would never tire of waiting for a sign that Mairi was fine – would more than welcome any news of Mairi perhaps celebrating as she drank to her freedom from her hellish life with him. But for now, there was a place he needed to go so he could fulfill his vow.

****

Cleon Frangos was indeed a stupid and foolish man. When weeks turned into a month and he still had not heard from Damen Leventis, he convinced himself that he had nothing to worry about. Slowly but more carefully this time, he began to rebuild his life.

Sadly, there was no way to reclaim his old job. The board had fired him, and Cleon had at least been smart enough to know that appealing his case would have been useless. Ioniko Vlahos’ mother was one of the school’s board members, a fact that made getting his job back an impossibility.

He was not without friends though, and by pulling a few strings, Cleon had gotten one of his older cronies to smooth his way into getting a job as faculty head in an all-girls school outside Athens. The pay was pathetic for a man of his stature, but the number of girls that he would be in control of was good recompense.

A knock sounded on his door, and Cleon wetted his lips in anticipation. He had recently convinced the guidance counselor to send her most troublesome students to him, and today he would be “consulting” with the first of them.

“Come in,” he called out, keeping his voice deliberately abrupt so he would instill fear in the girl outside his room.
 

The door opened.

Cleon’s face blanched.

The door slammed shut.

“No—” Panic made him turn to the windows behind him and claw them open. If he had to jump out of his office windows, so be it. Anything was better than facing the man—

Hands so strong they felt like steel settled on his shoulders and spun Cleon around, and he forced himself to look into the dark eyes of Damen Leventis, which glittered with rage.

“Please,” he blubbered, “I haven’t contacted Mairi, never even spared her a thought—” Damen’s gaze darkened even more at his words, and Cleon’s voice faded.

“Do you think I will be pleased to know that you are the kind of man who does not spare a thought for his victims?”

Cleon gulped. “I didn’t mean it that way. I just—”

“Shut up,” Damen snapped. He hauled the hefty man away from the windows, his rage lending him strength, enabling him to easily toss Cleon over his desk.

The heavy man fell to the floor in a loud thump as pens and papers from his desk rained everywhere.

Cleon heard something drop next to him with a clattering sound. When he opened his eyes, he saw that it was a sharp knife, sharp enough to cut through flesh.

“Take it,” Damen said coldly. “I want you to fight me with the knife. It is the only way I will have any satisfaction beating you into a pulp.”

Cleon did not hesitate. He grabbed the knife and, pushing himself to his feet, he lunged wildly at Damen. Panic made him move faster than usual, allowing him to slice the flesh of Damen’s left thigh open. He laughed maniacally, thinking he had won, but his laughter died when he saw not a flicker of expression pass through Damen’s face.

He realized then that Damen Leventis really did mean every word he’d said.

The other man started for him.

Cleon’s hold on the knife shook. “Don’t come near me or I’m going to kill you.”

Damen was just a step away from him now.

Again, panic struck and he lunged forward, going for Damen’s throat, but Damen met Cleon’s thrust with his own hand.
 

Pain didn’t seem to register with the other man as he held Cleon’s knife by its blade, its sharp side pressing hard into his palm. Blood started to flow, endlessly, but Damen didn’t seem to feel a thing.

Cleon whitened. “S-stop—”

Damen’s bleeding hand moved again, so fast that the next thing Cleon knew, Damen managed to pull the knife out of his hold and throw it away.

He looked at his attacker wildly. “No! Please! I’m begging you—”

A fist smashed into his face, hard enough to throw Cleon back to the floor. Before he could gasp out in pain, the same fist drove into his face. Again. And again. And again.

****

The next day, shock rippled through Greece’s high society as they read the headlines emblazoned in every newspaper.
 

A certain middle-aged professor named Cleon Frangos had been arrested for subjecting women ranging from ages 13 to 34 to sexual harassment and, in some of the worse cases, repeated incidents of rape. His last victim, the only one who had managed to fight him off, was allegedly Mairi Tanner, the woman believed to be Damen Leventis’ fiancée once.

When asked why he had thought he could get away with attacking someone connected to such a high-profiled individual, Cleon, whose face was badly beaten and nearly unrecognizable, had given a short answer. “I thought no one would help her since everyone in Athens knows doing so would make them an enemy of the Kokinos and Esther Leventis.”

Damen

~ Six ~

News of Cleon Frangos’ arrest and the story behind it spread like wildfire, and before the day was over the entire country knew about it. The masses were in love with the story. They thought it romantic that a Greek billionaire like Damen Leventis would do everything to protect the woman he loved.

Those who belonged to Greece’s wealthier classes were, however, divided. Half were quietly dismayed at the results of the black propaganda that Esther Leventis and the Kokinos clan had launched against an American nobody. The entire incident was very bad business, as they knew how patriotic American businesses could be. In public, they swore about having nothing to do with the conspiracy and nepotism implied in the article. But in private, they simply washed their hands of the matter. They would not take sides. They would not be involved. They would simply wait and see which of the two warring parties would win.

The other half, however, were acutely appalled. These families did not hesitate to offer Damen Leventis their support as well as the promise to shun the opposing camp, exactly the way Esther and the head of the Kokinos clan had once conspired to make everyone shun Mairi.
 

The tide was slowly turning against his enemies, but victory was bittersweet for Damen.

Nothing truly mattered if he did not have Mairi by his side, and Damen remained indifferent as he watched the press conference that his mother’s PR team had quickly set up to prevent her name from being thoroughly dragged through the mud.
 

It was the same for the Kokinos, and its cold-hearted patriarch Yehor was rumored to have suffered from a near heart attack due to rage upon finding out that his own daughter and heiress Alina had allied herself with Damen Leventis.

Her interview had been short, but it was clear for anyone to see that she had been extremely shaken upon learning of the fate that Mairi had almost suffered in the hands of Cleon Frangos.

“I am ashamed that my own family had a hand in this. If I have played any kind of role that could be attributed as a cause for Ms. Tanner’s pain or suffering, I publicly beg for her forgiveness.”

****

It took less than a day for the scandal to leave the continent and explode in the United States as its own network of media companies picked up the news. Tabloids, gossip websites, and TV shows – all of them did their own coverage of the controversy, and in every report Damen Leventis was painted as the big bad wolf, a heartless billionaire who had made fun of a romantic dreamer.
 

Damen did not feel anything as insult after insult was hurled at him by the American media. He forced himself to watch every show and read every article, and the only time he felt himself nearing the breaking point was when some of the more creative outlets would include a reenactment of what had happened between Cleon Frangos and Mairi.