“He’s nothing like me.”
“No?”
“Like I said. He’s honest to a fault.” Aristides definitely was authentic, that was true. He never tried to be anything but who he was. Social niceties like courtesy and kindness were utterly unknown to
him.
“Really?” Holly said doubtfully, looking at him.
Stavros gave a humorless smile. “Really.”
He tilted his head, waiting for her answer. On the other side of the towering Christmas tree, he could hear jaunty, festive music played by a brass band. How strange it would feel to see his father after all these years.
If he did, he would feel nothing. It had all happened so long ago. Stavros was no longer the boy who’d desperately craved a father’s love, and been ruthlessly rejected. He was strong now, untouchable, with a heart of stone.
Taking a deep breath, he exhaled a cloud of smoke in the cold air. The tension eased in his shoulders. Feeling nothing was what Stavros did best.
Holly glared at him, gritting her teeth. “Fine,” she sighed. “He can meet the baby.” She paused. “Where? When?”
“He lives in Greece, I’m afraid.”
“Greece!”
He gave her a smile he didn’t feel. “The Minos villa on Minos Island.”
“You grew up on your own island?”
“Until I was eight.” Pulling his phone from his pocket, he dialed his pilot’s number before she could change her mind. “We’ll leave at once. My jet is waiting.”
“I can’t just leave,” she protested weakly. “I’m the caretaker of my old boss’s chalet.”
Covering the phone’s mouthpiece as the pilot answered the other end of the line, Stavros told her, “I’ll handle it.”
And he did. When she said their baby couldn’t travel in the Rolls-Royce SUV without a baby seat, one miraculously materialized five minutes later. Before they’d returned to the chalet, where she packed an overnight bag for herself and the baby, Stavros had personally contacted the chalet’s owner in London. The man sounded frankly astonished to get a direct call from the famous tech billionaire. “No one needs to stay there, really,” he told Stavros. “It was empty for a year.” And just like that, it was done.
“Does everyone do what you say?” Holly said resentfully as the SUV drove back over the winding road toward the private airport in St. Moritz. He lifted an eyebrow.
“Everyone but you.”
“Everyone including me,” she said softly, staring out her window at the snowy Alpine valley, with its picturesque, colorful chalets beneath sharp, brooding mountains. He watched her silently, hoping it was true.
She believed that they were heading to Greece for one night, which they were. What she didn’t know was that, after their brief visit to his father’s villa, Stavros intended to take both her and the baby back to live in New York.
He’d make her his wife. By any means necessary.
When they arrived at the tiny airport, his driver opened the SUV’s door, then took their bags and folding stroller from the trunk. Holly carried the baby across the tarmac and up the air stairs to his new Gulfstream G650ER. As Stavros followed her, his gaze fell on the sweet curve of her backside in the snug black leggings, and he felt a flash of heat.
Eleven months. That was how long he’d been without a woman.
His night with Holly had been the most incredible sexual experience of his life.
She’d ruined him for all other women.
It was strange. He’d never thought of it in those terms. He’d assumed his lack of desire had been caused by radiation and chemotherapy treatments, while keeping up his workaholic schedule so no one would guess at his illness. Sex had been the last thing on his agenda.
But from the moment Holly had answered the door of that snowy chalet, her cheeks rosy and her sweater and leggings showing off her perfect hourglass shape, the whole past year of pent-up desire had exploded inside him with a vengeance.
Great, he thought resentfully. Now his libido chose to come alive? With the one woman on earth who seemed immune to him?