The Sarantos Secret Baby

Aris was barely aware of him as he answered it, his senses captive to Selene, until a fed-up growl broke through his fugue.

Nikolas passed Selene as he strode out of the room, muttering, “I have to go, Selene. Leave our gate-crasher to conclude his unwelcome visit and go back to the party. There are plenty of important or at least bearable people to mingle with.”

Aris kept his eyes on Selene as Nikolas disappeared, monitoring her expression, trying to fathom her thoughts.

She was acting as a Louvardis, the professional whose family had decided to take him to war.

This had to be a facade. It wasn’t possible the hunger gnawing at him wasn’t in part in response to her own.

But she was turning away, taking her expression out of his scrutiny’s reach.

“You’re being an obedient kid sister and doing as your oldest brother told you?”

His words stopped her midturn, gained him her first direct look. Something quivered in his chest at the electric touch of her gaze, the exhilaration of capturing her attention, forcing her acknowledgment.

She huffed in ridicule. “You’re taunting me into staying?”

He shrugged as he began to eliminate the gap she’d widened. “Whatever works.”

Her lush lips twisted. “Yeah. That is your M.O.”

He came to a halt one step away, barely stopped himself from yanking her against his buzzing flesh. “Give me one reason you shouldn’t stay.”

“I can give you an alphabetized index.” He almost shivered with pleasure at the delicious sarcasm that roughened her voice, the deep blue fire that sparked in her eyes. “But one reason suffices. The first thing I advise my clients against is direct contact with an adversary.”

He felt his lids growing heavy, his lips tautening with the growing stimulation. “We’re not adversaries.”

That gained him a borderline snort. It revved his excitement to higher gear. “Right. A week after my father’s death, when you couldn’t get around his standing orders, you maneuvered everyone into opting for another outfitter. No doubt as a first step toward removing us from your path once and for all.”

“I didn’t want someone else.” Her eyes jerked wider at that. And he succumbed, wrapped aching fingers around the resilience of her arm. She lurched back a step, the look in her eyes zapping the current inside him to a higher voltage with the turbulence she could no longer disguise. He leaned closer. He wasn’t letting her get away. Not again. “I still don’t. But he—all of you—left me no choice. Leave me one now. I don’t want us to be enemies.”

And as she had that night she’d offered him solace, companionship, then mind-numbing passion, she did the unexpected again.

Instead of shaking him off, she stilled in his hold, then nodded as if to herself, before giving him a solemn glance.

“This needs to be settled.”

She stepped away and started walking, heading out of the foyer and deeper into the mansion.

In minutes, he followed her into her father’s old office.

It looked as if it had been kept as a shrine to Hektor. The older man’s presence permeated the place. He could imagine Hektor striding in like a lion into its den any moment now, flaying him over some new disappointment.

Next second, his senses reconverged on Selene.

She was turning to him. “My father’s will had something to do with you. Instructions about what to do with you.”

He approached her again, delighting in the way she didn’t let his encroachment intimidate her, met her defiance with his goading. “Is there an explanation for these instructions? Anything you agree with, or are you just following them blindly?”

She leaned back against her father’s desk as if she needed the support, shrugged those strong, elegant shoulders. “He wanted to stop you from getting too big. He believed that if you did, it would cause worldwide damage to the shipping business. We agreed with each of his detailed reasons.”

Aris again closed in on her. “You should at least state the charges against me before pronouncing the sentence. And then, even if I were the monster he painted me to be, knowing you, you’re the expert in leashing all sorts of terrible entities, harnessing their potential damages into benefits for all.”

Those magical eyes of hers grew opaque as she shook her head. “The decision has been made.”

“Then let’s unmake it. I give you my word, and any other guarantees you’d like, that what happened a year and a half ago didn’t mean I wanted to be rid of you.” Flames sprouted to life in the gaze entwined with his, as again bringing up the professional aspect of their relationship tripped the wires of their brief but explosively personal one. “You don’t have to make a desperate dash for survival by fighting me to the death.”

Her gaze flickered, echoing her waning resolve. Then she at last exhaled. “I will draft a new set of rules for our side of the operations. They’ll be fair, but strict and nonnegotiable and will protect us against any future betrayals. If your claims are true, you’ll agree to them.”

He didn’t hesitate for a second. “I will.”

“If you do, I will recommend to my brothers that they resume dealing with you.”

He felt the elation of wrestling with her spread through him, the fluency of their interaction, the give-and-take, which had been fully echoed in the bedroom.

His lips spread on the first real smile he could remember in years. “Then it’s settled. And now that we’ve gotten business out of the way, let’s move on to a more important topic. Us.”

Her eyes became as dark as a moonless night, their temperature plunging to an arctic chill. “Listen, Sarantos—”

“Aris,” he whispered. She’d called him nothing but Sarantos during their weekend together. While that had been arousing as hell, and he wanted her to keep calling him that at choice moments, he wanted to take this relationship to the next level. He wanted her to call him the nickname he’d always preferred, but that he’d never felt close enough to anyone to let them use. “That’s the name I want to hear on your lips.”

She pursed her lips in an attempt at severity, only making them more luscious and kissable than ever. “I prefer Sarantos. And to end this conversation.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Give me one good reason to do that.”

“Because I want to.”

“And I want one thing. You.”

That had her lost for words. When she finally answered, it was a cold drawl. “Why? You have another weekend to while away?”