The Art of Loving a Greek Billionaire (3 page)

He nodded. “Would you like to come with me?” He paused. “If you’re not too busy trying to find work?”

She forced a laugh. “I can put it off,” Mairi said airily. She would never ever tell him about the countless rejection letters she had received via her email, all of it proof that the Kokinos and Esther Leventis’ threats about blacklisting her in Greece had not been just words.

Something that felt like distaste soured his tongue, but Damen ignored it, telling himself that there was nothing wrong about Mairi living the life of an idle billionaire’s wife. For that was what she could be as the woman he loved.

Mairi asked awkwardly, “What about you? Don’t you have work to do today?” There were so many questions she wanted to ask. What did his board have to say about the impact of his broken engagement on the planned merger between the two shipping empires? What measures had he taken to address the sliding prices of his company’s stocks? Had he met with his publicist already and strategized about reputation management?
 

She wanted to ask so many more, but Mairi managed to hold her tongue. Damen Leventis was a proud man and she did not want him to think she was doubting his ability to solve his problems.
 

Was that all she was going to ask?
Did she really care about him? And why were all these doubts surfacing
now,
when he had already made his bed and the whole world expected him to lie on it with his American schoolteacher?

Damen forced a smile. “You’re marrying a billionaire,
matakia mou.
Have you forgotten that fact?”

Was it just her imagination or did his words seem…loaded? She shook the thought away. “My bad,” she answered lightly. “I did forget that the great and mighty Damen Leventis is indeed one of the world’s richest men.”

Her exaggerated tone made him laugh.

Rolling her eyes at him, she asked, “But really, where are you going? Can I come with you?”

Chapter Two

One moment, Mairi was staring white-faced at their guides as they let her and Damen loose, the strong winds speeding up their ascent, her feet barely touching the floor of the speedboat. It felt like a giant invisible hand was pulling the parachute strapped to their backs. The next moment, they were flying—

“Aaaaaaah!”

Her Greek billionaire, gorgeous, sexy
jerk
that he was, simply laughed in the face of her fear.

Ignoring Damen, Mairi slowly opened her eyes, looking down to see how high off the ground they were.
 

Too high.

She closed her eyes again. What she had gotten herself into? And why, oh why had she been silly enough to think she could do parasailing—

“
Matakia mou,
” a sweetly dark voice murmured. “Open your eyes.”

Ah, yes, now she remembered.
 

It was because Damen Leventis had wanted to do this with her, and Mairi could not resist anything he asked.

One strong hand cupped her cheek, stroking the soft skin gently. “Come on, Mairi.”

Strong winds continued to whip them from behind, making her feel like they were going to be blown away anytime. Her feet dangled in the air, and after what she had seen, Mairi did not like to think about how
much
air there was between them and the ocean.

And yet—

That voice.

It was the most beautiful sound on earth.

She opened her eyes and stared straight into his. “I. Hate. You.”

Damen laughed again.
 

Ah, dear Lord, would she never tire of hearing that sound?

Damen Leventis was not the man who laughed easily or often. But that he did so with her – even if it was usually Damen laughing
at
her – never failed to make…

His eyes moved down briefly before returning to her face. “Your toes are curling,” he remarked, a sly smile that was also irritatingly sexy forming on his thin beautiful lips.

“It’s because I hate you.”

His knuckles brushed her cheek once more in response. “Do you really?”

He was blatantly seducing her.

And she was, darn it, happy to be seduced.

“I—” Her words were cut off by a sudden loud creaking sound from one of the metal chains that kept them connected to their parachutes.

Damen saw Mairi’s face turn white.
 

Knowing she was seriously scared now, he asked tautly, “Mairi, look at me.”

She raised fear-darkened eyes to him.

Ah, shit. Why had he thought to take her parasailing when she was clearly scared out of her mind? What an asshole he was. This vacation on Crete was supposed to be an unforgettable memory for them, not a fucking nightmare for her.

“You’re safe with me.” He spoke in a quiet and firm voice, an unconscious reminder that he was her rock and he would do anything to protect her.

She nodded, the movement slight.

“I’m going to wave to the guides now,” he told her. “I’ll get them to reel us down—”

Mairi quickly shook her head. “No, I’m okay. Just…” She smiled weakly. “Talk to me while we’re here?”

“Talk…to you?”

“It could be anything. I feel…” Color stained her cheeks as she mumbled, “I won’t be so scared if I hear you talking.”

Ah, fuck.

How quickly she could disarm him, her words something that not even the most professional gold digger could ever say convincingly. When she said things like that to him, when she looked like that at him, Damen’s cynicism disappeared like it had never existed.
 

When she was this fucking sweet, the past would come back to him but they were not memories that haunted Damen’s mind. Instead, they worked like fucking sunlight, making him remember that the person in front of him was no ordinary girl.

This was
Mairi.
 

The girl who had never stopped loving him, not even when the whole world believed he loved another woman.

“Sometimes,
matakia mou,
I hate you, too.”

Mairi’s eyes widened, her face paling even more.

“I hate that with so few words, you have me twisted in knots. I hate that just by looking at you, I feel scared like I have never been scared before. I’m fucking terrified that one day you will wake up…” An ironic smile flitted over his hard, handsome face. “…and
wise up
to the fact that you’ve fallen in love with a bastard.”

As he paused, there was no other sound apart from the gentle whistling tune of the dying winds. Around them were blue skies, dotted by fluffs of white clouds and emerald peaks of mountains that rose proudly from the islands’ powdery white sands and turquoise waters.
 

Surrounded by such breathtaking beauty, the ugly memories of the past faded. Here, there were no sleazy reporters hounding them, no contemptuous gazes accusing them of infidelity – no one to tell them that they were not meant for each other.

Damen wiped the single tear that trailed down Mairi’s cheek. “Are you crying because I hate you so much?”

She nodded.

“And if I ask you to marry me,” he asked unevenly, “because I want to keep hating you for the rest of our lives—”

Mairi’s lips parted in shock, disbelief written all over her face.

Uncertainty and fierce need turned his voice rough. “Will you marry me, Mairi?”

She stared at him.

 
“Mairi?”

Her lips tightened.

“Mairi?” he growled again even as he started to feel sick to his stomach. She would answer yes, of course. She loved him, didn’t she? And if she said no, it might just be because she was acrophobic and was not thinking too clearly.

Below them, the guides were waving at Damen and Mairi, indicating that their fifteen minutes were up and they would be reeled back down to the speedboat slowly.

Mairi was still staring at him.

What if…what if she was just staring at him because she couldn’t find the words to tell him he was asking too soon? He tensed at the thought. Was it too soon?

He swallowed thickly. “Mairi, if you…”
If you say no, I don’t think there’s any point in living
? Too fucking sappy even if it was true.

Their feet grazed the surface of the water.

Everyone could see them now. If she said no now, everyone would know, too.

He took a deep breath—

“Whoa!” the guide exclaimed as he and his companions pulled on the ropes to make sure Damen and Mairi didn’t crash into the roofed area of the speedboat. They worked fast afterwards, untying and unlocking to release them from the parachute.

And then they were free.

Mairi threw herself into his arms, surprising Damen so much that he found himself falling and landing on his back, Mairi on top of him.

In a rush, she told him, “I couldn’t answer earlier because I was airsick and I was in serious danger of throwing up on you if I opened my mouth and if that happened, that would be so gross since just earlier I ate an entire bottle of fresh olives and oh my God what if I threw up all those olives on you—”

His head reeled, but before he could make sense of her rambling answer she was already kissing him. “Yes, Damen,” she whispered, her eyes shining so brightly it made Damen swallow. “Yes, yes, yes.”

Chapter Three

It was a rainy day when they flew back home, with the many calls coming from Damen’s headquarters in Athens forcing them to cut their vacation short. And yet, although their flight had not been planned at all, the paparazzi was in full force when Damen’s private jet landed.

Her phone beeped as the crew opened the jet’s main door and she and Damen stood in front of it, waiting for the ground staff to roll the mobile staircase towards them. Checking her phone, Mairi saw that it was from Aunt Norah.
You look good on TV.
 

She automatically forced a smile on her lips, knowing that the message was a subtle reminder from her aunt to stay strong, or at least look strong in public.

“We hope you had a pleasant flight, Mr. Leventis, Ms. Tanner.”

Mairi nodded her thanks, her stomach queasy at the thought of once again coming in close contact with the press. Damen squeezed her hand. “Just stick close to me. Do not look at them, do not talk to them, and it will be fine.”

She nodded. It was all she could manage.

They came down, Damen moving steadily and confidently and Mairi doing her best to keep a calm appearance.
Alina Kokinos would have done so much better than Mairi if she was the one in this position
, Mairi thought miserably.

The flash coming from the press’ huge camera bulbs was so blindingly bright Mairi had to shield her gaze against them, forgetting the fact that the hand she was using to protect her eyes was—

Seeing what his fiancée had just done, Damen smirked and pulled Mairi close to him. “You’ve done it,” he told her.

“Done what?”

The shit hit the fan.

As Mairi and Damen got off the last step of the jet’s staircase, everyone started trying to outshout each other with their questions.

“WHEN DID YOU GET ENGAGED?”

“WHAT MADE YOU CHOOSE MS. TANNER OVER THE KOKINOS HEIRESS?”

“IS SHE THAT GOOD IN BED?”

“WHAT DOES IONIKO VLAHOS HAVE TO SAY ABOUT YOUR ENGAGEMENT?”

Mairi stumbled at Ioniko’s name and the reporters tried to press forward like hounds sensing a kill, wanting to capture any kind of look on Mairi’s face. But Damen had schooled her well, and she kept her face down, not looking at any of them.
 

If only
, she thought wistfully,
she could be as cool as Damen
. How did he do it, walking like it was normal to wear dark glasses on a rainy day? It didn’t make sense but he made it look like it was
the
fashionable thing to do.