The Latin Lover

Something he had vowed to himself would not happen again after the death of his parents. He had been helpless in the face of his mother’s behavior, which had torn at the moorings of his family. Then death had snatched away the two most important people in the world to him.

Since then he had not wanted to give anyone the power to hurt him. He had maintained a certain emotional distance, even from his older brother and grandfather. But Phoebe had climbed the walls around his heart as surely as she had climbed his body like a jungle gym when he was a boy and she just a toddling baby girl. No matter how much distance she thought they needed, this was too much.

The prospect of her hurting and him having no way to fix it made him cranky as hell. His secretary hid from him, and the managers under his authority walked a wary path around him right now.

He was not used to getting this sort of treatment. Of the two of them, he had always been more personable and approachable than his brother. But he’d overheard one of his employees saying she would happily transfer to Dimitri’s division just yesterday.

Spiros sighed. Now, that was as good an indication as any that he was on the slippery slope to the most overbearing of Petronides male behavior.

And damned if he could do anything about that, either.

Phoebe read the announcement of her upcoming marriage to Dimitri in the society section of the paper. Everything about it was in order…was exactly as it should be, in fact. The only abnormality in the situation would not show up on the printed page. Though readers might find it odd that two individual pictures of the parties involved had been included rather than a joint one. Since she had yet to see Dimitri since agreeing to go forward with the marriage, that small anomaly could not be avoided.

It was strange to her how the people around her acted like this should be a huge celebration, as if her and Dimitri’s marriage was the romance of the century. When in fact it couldn’t be further from that. Her mother and Theopolis Petronides were planning a wedding fit for royalty in one of the largest Greek Orthodox cathedrals in Athens. And though it felt like such a farce to her, she simply didn’t care.

It was not her fault that a ceremony that should be sacred was going to be conducted for the sake of business.

It wasn’t the first time such a thing would happen and it would not be the last. She would play her part, but she would not pretend to the role of blushing bride when she was simply a form of barter—surety on a loan, the connection of two old and powerful business families.

Her plan to starve the love from her heart was in full swing.

She’d done a pretty good job of avoiding Spiros, keeping busy working with her father. His request that she work on the recovery package for Leonides Enterprises was no doubt an attempt to make up to her for selling her into marriage in order to save the company. But she found the work challenging, and felt a measure of gratitude for having it to keep her occupied.

Not only did it make a good excuse to avoid Spiros, but she had immersed herself so completely in spreadsheets, industry research, meetings and the like that she had managed to duck out of almost all of the wedding plans. She’d also spent minimal time with her family in the past two weeks, eating only one dinner at home and leaving for the office before even her father did so.

Papa had chastised her once for neglecting her family. She had apologized, and then continued on as she had been doing. Her mother had tried to get her involved in the wedding plans, but Phoebe refused to engage. Though she was very careful not to hurt her mother’s feelings, she refused to pretend like everyone else that this was her chance at happiness.

Her life was forfeit for the well-being of her family, and while she did not begrudge them that—she loved them, after all—she would not buy into a fantasy that had no basis in reality. She had done that with Spiros, and would never again set herself up for the kind of di

sappointment she had experienced upon her return to Greece.

Phoebe walked into the very exclusive and equally elegant restaurant. She had come directly from the office, taking a few minutes to freshen up before leaving the Leonides company headquarters.

Her father and mother were at the table already. Her mother was beaming; her father wore the stoic expression he had begun to adopt the last week or so. He was under a tremendous amount of pressure—more than she could have envisioned, having only academic experience in business. But she understood what had gone wrong, and how a couple of poor decisions could lead to the decline of an otherwise solid company if those decisions were big enough. Papa’s had been.

He carried the weight not only of bringing the company back, but of knowing he was directly responsible for the place it had gotten to. She did not envy him.

Her brother was here as well, and he smiled with a typical teen look of borderline cynicism when he saw her. She smiled back, glad that he seemed unaffected by the stress pressing down on her and Papa.

Her gaze scanned the others at the table, her smile sliding from her face. Spiros was there. Images and remembered passion swirled through Phoebe’s mind and body and she fought to tamp them down. How could the wall she’d fought so hard to build around her memories crumble so easily?

He chose that moment to look up, his eyes catching hers. He was trying to convey something with his, but she refused to attempt to decipher what it was. She simply nodded in greeting, then went to say hello to her family, giving each one the traditional kisses on cheeks. Her brother, characteristic of his age, was less than enthusiastic in his teenage affection for an older sister.

Just to torment him a little, she chose to sit beside him, so he wouldn’t be able to avoid all the hoopla dinner was destined to be.

“I do not rate a real hello?” Spiros asked from a couple of seats away on the round table.

“Good evening, Spiros.”

His eyes narrowed, letting her know he was aware she knew exactly what he’d meant by a hello, and it had not been the word. But she wasn’t doing physical affection with this man. Just seeing him was putting her hard-won composure at risk. She was not putting it to further detriment.

“Have you heard from Dimitri?” Spiros asked. “He and Grandfather were coming together.”

“I haven’t spoken to Dimitri in nearly a year. I would not expect him to call me and explain his tardiness to his engagement dinner.”

Spiros looked shocked. “You have not seen him since…since…?”

“Since the last time our visits to our home country coincided.”