The Renegade Billionaire

s.

The only thing that brought him any pleasure right now was spending every bit of time on his new business. Stavros’s company wouldn’t be in competition with his family’s, but there would be fireworks when they found out he’d gone ahead with production. One of theirs was doing something on his own and they couldn’t tolerate it. But it shouldn’t be a surprise to them. He rarely bowed to the dictates of his autocratic father or his great-uncles.

For his mother’s sake, he’d tried where Tina was concerned. But once she’d learned that her younger son wasn’t enamored of the Nasso girl, he’d found disfavor in her eyes too. He took a deep breath. Today had turned out to be a day like no other. From here on out, his life was going to go in directions no one would be happy about except him.

So be it!

On his way to the kitchen to quench his thirst, his cell phone rang. If it was Tina calling because he hadn’t answered her text, she would find out exactly how he felt when she realized he intended to go on ignoring any and all phone calls or texts from her.

But when he looked at the caller ID, he saw it was the manager of quarry three on Thassos Island phoning on his private line. He clicked on. “What’s up, Gus?”

“Kyrie Konstantinos?” Kyrie being the Greek version of Mr. “A situation with one of the student-teacher groups from PanHellenic Tours has arisen. A teenager is missing. Now the police are involved.”

This was all Stavros needed to hear, especially since he’d been the only one on the board in favor of allowing tour groups to visit the quarry. The program had been working well since March with no incidents, until today...

Stavros gripped the phone tighter. “Have the police started a search?”

When he heard the particulars, he grimaced. A helicopter would have an almost impossible struggle to see any movement beneath the dense green canopy of the forest.

“What do you advise, Kyrie?”

“I’ll be there ASAP.”

He returned to the bedroom and dressed quickly before he dashed out the door to his car.

It had been his hope the quarry experience would broaden the students’ education and spread the word about job opportunities.

Forty percent of the marble in Greece came from an almost inexhaustible supply in the Thassos region, much of it being shipped to China, Asia and Europe. Because of this abundant natural resource, more jobs were available, which would improve the Grecian economy, a major aim of his.

With that argument, his grandfather, who’d recently passed away, had been persuaded that the free publicity generated by various tour groups from foreign climes might be a good idea. At that point the rest of the board offered their reluctant acceptance on the condition that it would be for a trial basis only. One problem with the tours and they’d be given no more access.

This particular quarry—one of many owned by the family throughout northern Greece—was on the other side of the summit, just ten minutes away. He knew the police lieutenant well and would ask his cooperation in keeping the press at bay for as long as possible.

The crisis needed to be averted before the media got hold of it. Once they turned it into an international circus, the island would be crawling with unwanted spectators. Though the staff at the quarry wasn’t responsible for what had happened, the public wouldn’t see it that way. Publicity of this kind was never good.

To his mind, the teacher was ultimately responsible for this type of situation and could be facing charges. Six high school groups of six on the bus with their individual teachers? How hard was it to keep track of half a dozen students?

Gus had said the teen’s teacher was a younger, nice-looking American woman. Maybe too young to handle a bunch of teens? Stavros pressed on the gas as he rounded a curve in the road. He was in a mood.

Once the family found out about this crisis, they’d put a stop to the tour groups. Since he’d announced his resignation from the corporation and the board, he would no longer have a say. But for the time being he felt the responsibility heavily. Someone’s teenage son was missing in a foreign land and needed to be found.

* * *

Panagia was Andrea Linford’s favorite village on the Greek island of Thassos. After flying from Thessaloniki to the nearby airport of Keramoti on the mainland, she’d come the rest of the way on the ferry to Thassos, the capital city many referred to as Limenas. From the water, the island looked like a floating forest because of the pines and olive groves covering it.

She’d rented a car and driven to Panagia, ten kilometers away. Named after the Virgin Mary, it was built on the side of the mountain. From the wooden terraces of the villas with their painted ceilings and schist roofs, one had a fantastic view of the bay and the sea beyond, where other emerald-green mountains rose to fill the eye. The sight of clear, ice-cold water bubbling up from the natural springs to run down alongside the narrow streets delighted her.

Andrea had spent time in its church of the Virgin Mary, which had been built in l831. She loved its impressive baronial style, constructed by stones from the ruins of ancient temples. The exterior and cupola were a pale blue and white, absolutely exquisite.

She’d been in a lot of churches around the world, but the interior of this particular church was like a fabulous treasure. It contained a banneret dating from the time of the Crusades. She felt there was a spiritual essence she hadn’t found in other churches. If she were ever to get married, this would be the spot she would choose, but of course that was a fantasy, just like the village spread out before her.

Today she didn’t have time to linger.

For the past year and a half, Andrea had worked for PanHellenic Tours, in their main office located in Thessaloniki. They were one of the biggest tour operators in Greece. Having obtained her humanities degree from the university there, she had been hired to do translations and help develop tour itineraries by researching everything thoroughly.

Andrea was the person who’d first suggested the company include a tour of the quarry she found fascinating. Her boss, Sakis, was so taken with her idea, he’d made it part of their latest itineraries for this year. But word had gotten back to him that there’d been an incident involving an American student visiting the marble quarry on Thassos. The boy had gone missing and the police had been called in.

Because Andrea was fluent in English and Greek, and because she’d been the one to make the initial arrangements with the quarry manager, Sakis had sent her to do the troubleshooting, then report back her findings.