Page 85 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Something exquisitely sad moved over Jolie’s face at that, and as if she knew it, or sensed it, she looked away. Out the window toward another bright and sunny Mediterranean day unfolding spectacularly before them. The sunlight outside fell on her face and he was struck once more by the fact that this woman was truly flawless.

That even bright, direct light did notrevealher. It only enhanced her beauty.

“I made a practical decision,” she told him, as if this topic made her tired. “And I would make the same decision again.” She looked back at him then, but the expression on her face had changed. It was more opaque now. There was no trace of anysadness. “I had no idea you were such a romantic, Apostolis. I confess, I’m shocked.”

“The chasm between mercenary and romantic is almost as vast and wide as your capacity for lying,” he said, but almost...conversationally. As if they were having a friendly chat.Almost. “What I wonder is if you’re lying to yourself as well as everyone else.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but that was the only reaction she saw on her face. Her lovely, flawless face, like a work of art.

“Mercenary is such an interesting word,” she murmured.

She crossed her arms in that neat way she had that made it look like an elegant way to hold them, not a gesture stemming from any kind of anger or negative feeling. Everything with her was that kind of performance, he knew. Everything about her was calculated.

He wasn’t sure what the matter was with him that he should find that something to admire.

“Is it really all that interesting?” he asked. “Or does it describe a set of behaviors—for the sake of argument, let’s sayyourbehaviors—perfectly?”

She let her mouth curve into something gracious. She did not unfold her arms. “For the sake of argument, let us take the son of a very wealthy man. A case study, if you will. A son who had the very best of everything, always. An upbringing of well-documented ease, waited upon hand and foot by servants, and then sent off to some of the finest schools in the world.”

She lifted a hand and he realized that he was frowning. Possibly even scowling. “This is not to say that there were not stumbling blocks,” she allowed. “Or periods of grief and disappointment. It is a life, after all. But let’s say that time goes on for our wealthy man’s son. Some people would be forced to find employment. Others might decide that they need employment. Not for money, in the case of our heir to everything, but because every person needs some form of industry to feel fulfilled as a human.” She shook her head, almost fondly. “But not our golden son. He prefers instead to live off the proceeds of his various trust funds. He wafts about, making a case for gluttony and self-indulgence, year after year after year. Because, of course, there is no point in him chaining himself to some other profession when his true profession awaits. Like any little princeling, his entire life involves marking time, waiting for his father to die. Only then can he assume control of the whole family fortune, not merely his little sliver of it. Only then can he trulydo somethingwith his life, such as it is, and assuming he knows how to go about it after all that laziness.”

Again, that curve of her lips. “But you have the audacity to callmemercenary.”

The urge to simply strike back at her was so intense that Apostolis was shocked it didn’t take him from his feet.

Instead, he thought of her hand, tracing its way down the length of his torso. He thought of the way she had gripped his sex, just enough to make him imagine the kind of things that they could do to each other—and in more detail than he already had by that point.

He had thought of little else since.

And it was growing harder and harder to convince himself that these thoughts had a basis in anything but the most intense desire he had ever known.

Then again, Apostolis acknowledged that sometimes, choosing the less obvious weapon was the better strategic choice. It couldn’t all be rocket launchers and carpet bombs.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you are so imaginative,” he drawled, choosing not to focus ondesire. “It almost hurts me to tell you that I’m afraid you’ve got it all wrong. I’ve never touched any of the money held in trust for me. And not, I can admit, by my own choice. Not at first.”

He was questioning the wisdom of this line of conversation, so he turned away from her, going over to look out of the window himself. The Andromeda rose, stately and reserved, as if some kind of counterweight to all of that impossible Mediterranean sunshine that streamed all around it so recklessly.

While in the distance, always, glinted the deep blue of the sea.

And as always, these things soothed him. No matter how many ghosts there might have been hanging about. No matter how many memories and regrets seemed to sink into his skin, simply by his being here again.

“Old Spyros felt that my attitude was lacking,” he said, staring out at the sea but seeing only those ghosts and regrets. Those memories he’d never been able to shake. “Or perhaps, that week, he didn’t like my tone. It’s so hard to remember. But at some point, not long after I left university, he decided that cutting me off would be the making of me.”

He looked back over his shoulder to find her watching him, and decided that it would do him no good to attempt to categorize the expression she wore her face just then. It would haunt him enough as it was, with that ferocious way she was listening to him. As if it took the whole of her body.

“The irony, you understand, is that Spyros himself never worked a day in his life,” he continued. “He was committed to behaving atrociously right up until my grandfather died. Entirely to be done with him, some claim. But by the time I had the temerity to enjoy myself, too, he fancied himself quite the man of business. No son ofhis,etcetera. So there I was. The princeling you imagine, but tragically with no access to the funds that could keep me in the lifestyle I preferred.”

“He cut you off?” She was frowning now herself. “That’s not the way he told it.”

“As such a fan of great fictions yourself, I would have thought you would understand by now that there were few more dedicated storytellers than my father. Particularly when it came to his own behavior.” He turned to face her fully then, leaning back against the windowsill and watching the sunlight dance all over her, lighting her up. “I could have come back here and spent the past years loafing about the islands, making myself disreputable beyond any reasonable doubt. Instead, my friend Alceu, no stranger to familial disputes himself, suggested that rather than waste our twenties in the manner of so many of our peers, we might go about making our own money. So that whatever happened in the future, we would never have to depend on handouts ever again.”

He was shocking her, and he liked it, though it did make him wonder what exactly his father had told her.

Not because he cared what Spyros had said about anything. That realization surprised him, because it came with another, even more shocking one. It was because he cared whatshethought.

That this was a clear indication that he was, perhaps, not as in control of this particular skirmish as he might wish was obvious. But there was no stopping now. “Alceu is formidable. Always. I am...charming. Together, we make a rather devastating team. No one ever sees us coming.”

“What is it you do?” she asked.

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