The Art of Loving a Greek Billionaire (9 page)

Not wanting him to know she was hurt by his words, she said flippantly, “Too much partying.”

His lips tightened, but he chose not to comment, knowing if he did it would not be nice words. Again, he was tempted to ask for a report from the bodyguards he had tailing Mairi. But nowadays, it had become a matter of trust and pride.
 

Esther made constant digs about Mairi in the office and the words inevitably reached him, too.
Did her son really know what that American whore was up to when he was away from home?

No. He did not. But he loved and trusted Mairi. He would not let Esther ruin things for him. And if she continued pushing him, one day she would push him too far and she would regret it.

“Are you going to the office?” She wished she could tell Damen that she missed him, but the words were stuck in her throat. More and more, she felt like Damen was withdrawing from her and she had no idea how to stop it.

“Yes. I don’t have any pressing meetings today, but I like to spend a few hours in the office all the same.” He added smoothly, “I like making good use of my time.” The barb hit home. He could see that it did with the way Mairi’s face whitened, but he wasn’t pleased it had.
 

Was being underpaid for hours of copywriting a good use of her time? Someone like Damen Leventis probably wouldn’t think so. He would think she was being an idiot to enslave herself like this. But what else was there for her to do?

She said hesitantly, “When I’m here at home I normally—” She stopped, seeing Damen take a discreet look at his watch. “You should leave now,” she said instead. “It’s not good for the boss to be late and set a bad example.”

His answering smile was brief. “Thank you for being understanding.” He stood up and went around the breakfast counter to press a perfunctory kiss on her forehead.

“I love you.” She just couldn’t help saying it.

“I love you, too.” He smiled again, but this time it didn’t reach his eyes.
 

She quickly looked down and concentrated on her toast as Damen walked out, one teardrop falling silently on her plate. He didn’t want to hear how her days went. Mairi took deep breaths, trying to convince herself that it was only because he was being subjected to too much pressure at work.

Thousands of people depended on him for their livelihoods, and yet his ability to pay for wages had been undermined and challenged when he chose to tell the world he loved her. Whatever he did now, she mustn’t forget that. It would excuse…everything. It had to.

****

I love you.

I love you, too.

Damen was still unable to get the words out of his mind even as he made his way to his office.
 

His employees scurried away at the sight of him. They knew from experience what the Greek billionaire looked like when he was in a black mood, and today was one of those days.

If he closed his eyes, his love for Mairi was pure and beautiful, a miracle that he had a thousand reasons to be thankful for. His chest would tighten up at the mere thought of losing her, and yet when he opened his eyes and saw reality for what it was, why did he feel such anger at himself and her?

Always he could not help but feel that she was hiding something from him, but what was it? And why would she have something to hide?

An hour later, Damen had successfully pushed the thoughts out of his mind by concentrating on his work. There was a knock on his door before his secretary came in. “Sir? Someone is here to see you who’s not on your appointment book. Her name’s Farah Jenkins—”

Damen looked up impatiently from the proposal documents he was perusing.

“—and she says she is an old high school acquaintance of Ms. Tanner.”

About to tell Bart to get rid of his unexpected visitor, Damen’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes narrowing, he said expressionlessly, “Let her in. If I buzz you, it means you should come in and make the necessary excuses to get her out of my office.”

“Understood, sir.” Bart’s head bobbed several times as he retreated. He came back a moment later, opening the door for a petite strawberry blonde with hard china-blue eyes. She was dressed beautifully and expensively, but he knew her type. She was rich but
not
that rich to rub elbows with his kind, and she would do anything to make that possible.

He sincerely hoped she was indeed a mere acquaintance, and that Mairi had not been fooled into being her friend.

But are you sure they are not the same kind, only Mairi is more adept at hiding her true colors?
The tone inside his mind had him stiffening.
 

“Thank you for allowing me a few moments of your time, Damen.”

The woman’s voice had Damen looking up. Her voice was sweet and husky, but it also had a practiced tone to it, like it was something she had perfected. Her sense of overfamiliarity was repulsive, but his feelings about it did not show on his face as he inclined his head in acknowledgment of her words.

“It is my pleasure to welcome any acquaintance of my fiancée.” Walking around his desk, he gestured towards the living area of his office. “Shall we?”
 

She walked ahead of him, her hips swaying seductively as her perfume wafted towards him.

He became even more repelled. This woman, whoever the fuck she was – Damen had already forgotten her name – was no different from the countless beautiful women who tried to seduce him. Their type believed that their pretty faces were more than enough to enslave men.

“Would you like to drink anything?”

She shook her head, surprising him. “I don’t intend to take too much of your time.”
 

She took a seat on the couch and he took the leather armchair adjacent to it. “What may I do for you then?”

“Oh, it’s more a matter of what I have come to do for you.” Her smile became brittle. “I flew here as soon as I could upon reading the news about dear little Mairi. Stavros Manolis is your friend, isn’t he?”

He said evenly, “You already know the answer to that.” The sound of her laugh was hollow, and his skin prickled in warning at hearing it. This was not going to end well. He couldn’t yet figure out why, but he was fucking sure of it.

Damen stood up. “If you came here to play games—”

Farah snapped, “I came to prevent you from being conned by a gold digger.”

“You have overstayed your welcome,” he bit out. “Leave before I have security escort you out.” Turning his back on her, Damen stalked back to his desk, intent on buzzing Barry to get the woman out of his sight before his temper exploded.

“I’ve brought proof,” the woman half-screeched at him.
 

Suddenly she was in front of him, pulling out a medium-sized envelope from her purse. Flinging it at him, she said, “She stole the man I loved from me!”

There was a demented look in her eyes that almost had him cursing. Not bothering to answer her, he pressed the buzzer for Barry. When his assistant hurried in, Damen cut off whatever excuse Barry had planned and said curtly, “Get rid of her.”

The woman seemed to lose it at his words and began cursing him. “You’re a fucking idiot like Stavros! You don’t see her for what she is! You don’t know how to appreciate a real woman!”

As a tortured-looking Barry grabbed hold of her arms from behind, she went wild, struggling to get away. “She doesn’t deserve to have a billionaire when she took mine away from me!”

It became clear then. “So you are the woman who had caused her to be expelled.”

She laughed maniacally. “Oh, that’s goddamn rich. And it’s just so like the ever-perfect Mairi Tanner to put the blame on me. I was suspended. She was expelled. And you know why? Because I may be a flirt, but I wasn’t a gold-digging whore—”

“Apologies for this, sir,” Barry mumbled just before he finally dragged the woman out of Damen’s office and closed the door.

Damen expelled his breath as a heavy tense silence settled around him. He had not realized he hadn’t been breathing the entire time the woman had been talking.

His gaze was inevitably drawn to the envelope lying discarded on the floor.

Chapter Eleven

Two hundred fifty-six dollars!

Oh my God, had she really been able to write 256 articles in such a short span of time? Mairi couldn’t help making a face at the thought. Considering she had also lost about five pounds in the same period of time, maybe it wasn’t too surprising. She had worked backbreaking hours for those articles, but it was all worth it.

Tomorrow was their first month anniversary. Did he realize that?
Probably not
, she thought glumly. There was noise all around her as she walked further into the city’s central market, which had a thriving and bustling atmosphere. And since it was morning, the busiest time of the day, the area was also crowded, requiring Mairi to squeeze her way into the alleys that led to the fish section.

Fish vendors were typically the noisiest, and Mairi had to smile at the way the vendors good-naturedly attempted to out-market each other with their claims. Her boots squished with each step she took. Wearing boots to the fish market was a lesson she had learned from her first visit. Then, she had worn flip-flops – a decision that ended with Mairi submerging her feet in water mixed with rose oil for a few hours. It had been that dirty and smelled even worse.

“Mairi, over here!”
 

She smiled in greeting as she hurried towards Phil – short for Philemon. He was waving at her exuberantly, his fisherman’s hat in his hand. He was white-haired and burly, with a smiling weathered face. He could be anywhere between fifty and a hundred, but he moved about like he was in his thirties.
Eating several kilos of olives sure had its perks
, Mairi thought with a secret smile.

“
Kalimera
,” she greeted him good morning cheerfully, wiping the sweat from her forehead as she did. It was an exceptionally hot morning, and with the nonstop flow of people, she was ruefully aware of how much she was sweating under her knee-length cotton rompers.
 

He immediately grabbed her hand and gave it a brisk and enthusiastic shake. She shook his back, not losing her smile even though she knew it meant having her hand smell like a dozen different types of fish after.
 

“The package arrived as scheduled. Are you ready to see it?” he asked with a grin as he released her hand.

Mairi forgot all about her now-greasy and smelly hand. “Totally!”
 

He waved for her to walk inside his booth as he walked towards the end and opened one of the crates. “Here they are!”

A few hundred of doctor fish were swimming lazily inside the crate, their tiny black bodies making Mairi almost swoon in delight. Oh my God, Phil had really done it! “They’re really from Turkey?” she breathed.

“They are indeed.” Phil crossed his fingers behind his back. The nice little girl meant Turkey – the country – while he meant Turkey, the name of the pet shop in a neighboring town, but it was really all the same. And sure, these were truly not doctor fish or
garra rufa,
but that should not be a problem either. These black ones were practically the same.
 

“And the aquarium?”

“Bought it as well.” He was eager to show this one off since he had truly bought this one, having generously decided that he would not cheat Mairi twice for the same deal – something he normally did for most other customers.

Waving at her to check out another crate, he took off the old tarpaulin cover and presented his purchase with flourish. “It is beautiful, ne?”

Mairi’s jaw dropped.

There was no denying that the aquarium was indeed brand new, with not even the tiniest scratch marring its glass walls. But the top two inches of the walls were also painted with pink…
breasts
and blue…
nipples?
She rubbed her eyes before taking a closer look at it, hoping she just hadn’t seen it right. Maybe they were like pink cupcakes with blue icing—

Her heart sank.

Nope. They were what they were, giving new meaning to “aquarium porn”. Where in heavens had he bought this?

“It is nice, isn’t it?” he boasted. Phil was extremely proud of the deal he had made. It was just his luck to bump into Lazaro, who owned the stripper club a few blocks away from his home. Lazaro had been telling him about the aquarium he had custom-designed for customers to pay to peek into live boobs – it had been a very strange story, the mechanics of which were lost on Phil. But none of it mattered anyway. All he had heard was that the aquarium was new and unlikely to be used because none of Lazaro’s girls had wanted to be a part of it.