The Latin Lover

She walked into the drawing room and found her mother pacing back and forth, practically yelling into the phone. Tabloid and more reputable newspapers were stre

wn over the sofa as well as the coffee table. The thing they all had in common was that each one was graced with pictures of Dimitri with a woman Phoebe assumed must be Xandra.

Some pictures showed them sitting together at a café table. Some showed them in an obvious argument. Next to these images—and it appeared to be in every single paper—was a photo of Phoebe from her university yearbook.

She picked up one of the tabloids and started to read. The lurid headline had nothing on the baseness of the article itself. It implied everything from her being a duped innocent to being a participant in a sleazy ménage à trois. She picked up another paper and read its article. This one focused on Xandra’s “supposed” pregnancy and her recent disappearance. Foul play was alluded to, and the reporter couldn’t decide if Phoebe or Dimitri was the most likely culprit.

Several of the articles speculated about the monetary aspect of her merger with Dimitri, and some went so far as to suggest her father’s company might not be as solvent as it appeared. Since it was not a publicly held company no one had been able to get any firm numbers to back up the theory, but that didn’t stop them from guessing.

She had no doubt her father’s pride was taking a severe beating today. Her mother was almost incoherent in her upset, but Phoebe couldn’t tell if it was on her daughter’s behalf or simply her own. Obviously the articles were embarrassing for everyone involved. Including poor Dimitri—and he was carrying a big enough burden of Petronides’ guilt as it was.

She really pitied him. But judging from her mother’s continued haranguing of her father things weren’t going to be cherries and ice cream around here either.

“I can’t believe you didn’t warn me,” her mother said in an aggrieved voice, several decibels down from when Phoebe had first entered the room. “You told me there wasn’t going to be a wedding, but not about this. It is a disgrace.”

Phoebe didn’t stick around to hear more of the same. If the knowledge that his grandson was backing out of the marriage had sent Theopolis Petronides into heart failure, she couldn’t imagine what these news stories were going to do. She needed to call Spiros.

Spiros stared at the ringing phone, but could not make himself pick up. The caller I.D. said it was Phoebe’s cell phone. He’d wanted to talk to her for the last two weeks, but not right now.

Right now he was trying to deal with his fury at his brother for making such a mess, and with his own out-of-control emotions. The news articles were bringing back so many bad memories.

The Petronides name had been dragged through this kind of foul-smelling refuse by the media by his mother. She had not been discreet in her liaisons, and had been ignorant or simply uncaring of the effect her indiscretions had had on her family.

He remembered listening to his grandfather and father having shouting matches about it. Grandfather had not approved of Timothy taking his wife back after every infatuation burned itself out. He had argued that for the sake of their sons his own son needed to stand firm as a man, and if not divorce his wife at least separate from her.

Papa had countered with the argument that he loved his wife, tacking on as an afterthought that he might not have full access to his children if he separated from her. This last was what had always swayed his grandfather, however. To Timothy’s claim of love he had always replied that he’d loved his wife more than life itself, but would never have tolerated her behaving in such a dishonorable way.

The thing about Mama was that she had not been a witch…she’d been lovable, and her sons had loved her. In spite of everything they had missed her when she’d left with her paramours, and prayed for her to come back. The last time she hadn’t…and neither had their beloved if ineffectual father.

Spiros had vowed never to treat his family with such contempt—and never to allow another to do the same to him. Now his older brother was doing it—and not just to him and their grandfather, but to Phoebe as well. He knew it was unintentional, but that wasn’t doing much to mitigate his anger at the moment. Dimitri had been Spiros’s hero his whole life. How could the older man have been so stupid in his dealings with women?

If Dimitri had not wanted to marry Phoebe he should have had the guts to say so and call the promise off. Instead he had allowed them all to believe Phoebe was spoken for…off-limits.

If Spiros spoke to Phoebe right now she’d probably yell at him for being too hard on his big brother. Only Spiros had been through hell for years, trying to keep his hands to himself where Phoebe was concerned. And he’d done it. For four long years. Only to be tossed into a whole other kind of purgatory when he’d betrayed his brother and finally kissed Phoebe so passionately.

He’d spent the last two weeks trying to figure a way out of the marriage between Dimitri and Phoebe for her sake, convinced he’d lost his one chance at having her himself.

He had always been Phoebe’s protector and he had failed her. That day in his office and in the two weeks since. He should have told her about the blackmail. Maybe she would have understood better about his own position. Maybe she wouldn’t have hated him so much.

And now there was only one thing that could right the wrong his family had done to hers. Marriage.

Certainly not between Dimitri and Phoebe.

She deserved better. She deserved a husband who would not be pining for another woman while taking her to his bed.

She deserved Spiros. But he was certain she no longer wanted him.

No doubt her father would only be too happy to agree to new terms—the company was still in deep water financially, after all. And her mother would be grateful for an action that would separate Phoebe’s name from Dimitri’s. But what would Phoebe think?

Somehow Spiros did not think she would be falling all over herself with thanks. In fact he had no doubt that he had his work cut out for him if he wanted to convince her to go along with the idea at all.

He wouldn’t consider the possibility that he might fail. He’d spent enough time pining for Phoebe. Now he was going to have her. Somehow he would make it up to her so she was happy to have him too.

Not only was she not grateful, but his lifelong friend, the woman who had haunted one too many of his dreams lately, was as coldly withdrawn as a marble statue.

He’d never seen her like this. Not when she was angry. Not when she was hurt. Not when she was disappointed. But that spark that had been missing the past couple of weeks was still hiding, and in its place was an icy core that was nothing like his Phoebe.

“So you are offering to marry Phoebe in your brother’s place?” Aristotle asked, with his own lack of warmth.