Page 29 of 10 Days to Ruin

“‘Love’?” He digs the heel of his hand into his eyes. “Your mother and I loved each other. For a while, at least.”

The implication is that it didn’t matter in the end. That fate destroyed them, so it can’t possibly be his fault.

“And that worked out great for everyone involved,” I spit with fifteen years’ worth of sarcasm and resentment.

“Sometimes, the heart follows the head. Sometimes not.”

I grit my teeth. “I don’t give a fuck what follows what. No part of me is going into this willingly. You can’t just sell me off like?—”

“What if—” He stops and taps his fingers on the desk. “What if there was a compromise?”

I snort. “Since when do you compromise?”

“Since my daughter came back to me.” His voice is soft, almost pleading. Something else I’ve never heard from him before. “Give it time. Just… a little time.”

“I don’t need time. I’ll never change my?—”

“Ten days,” he says suddenly.

I blink in confusion. “What?”

“Spend ten days with him. Let Sasha show you… whatever it is young people show each other.” He waves a hand, awkward, gruff. “If you still hate him after ten days, we’ll talk.”

“And Gina?”

Baba hesitates. In that hesitation, I see it—the man who taught me to ride a bike, who bandaged my knees after I jumped off the garage roof chasing Jasmine, who hummedNani Nani to Paidi mouwhen thunderstorms kept me awake.

“Ten days,” he repeats.

The silence stretches, thick with unsaid things. It’s nowhere close to the promise I want, but it’s all I’m going to get. Finally, I step back. “You’re a bastard, Leander Makris.”

He rises, slow and pained, and rounds the desk. For a wild moment, I think he’ll reach for me. Instead, he stops an arm’s length away, the scent of tobacco and burnt sugar wrapping around us.

“You have your mother’s eyes,” he murmurs. “Her stubbornness, too.”

“Don’t—”

But he’s already leaning in, pressing a dry kiss to my cheek. The gesture is stiff, foreign—a ghost of the man who once spun me in the air until I shrieked with laughter.

And yet, goddamn him—I can’t pull away.

The elevator ride down is a blur. At the foot of the stairs, the guards leer and chuckle. The smirker says something in Greek that sounds likeSee you at the wedding,but I ignore him.

I walk back to my car, putting that warehouse behind me one step at a time. But just before I turn the corner, I look back, because I’m sentimental and stupid and I never, ever learn my lesson. And as I do, I catch a flicker of movement in the sixth-floor window. A shadow, watching.

For a second, I almost wave.

11

SASHA

Date the girl.

What a fucking joke.

Leander wants me to wine and dine his spoiled little princess of a daughter for ten days straight. The old man is losing his edge.

My mood is black. But one of the perks of havingCEOon your business cards is that I can clear an entire floor of the Ozerov Industries skyscraper for myself. No buzzing worker bees here to distract me. Just silence.

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