Page 15 of Below Deck Billionaire
‘Maybe something out there, the muses perhaps’ – he side-eyed the sky before returning his gaze to her – ‘guided you here. To?—’
The words cut off, the silence even louder for the abruptness, and for a crazy second, Tiffany thought he was he going to sayto me.
‘The boat. To theNerida.’
For a woman who’d grown up in the hard world of beef cattle where things as fanciful as muses – as Mikey could attest – didn’t exist, Tiffany liked the idea of that far, far too much…
6
Ignoring the question, Tiffany glanced his way. ‘Tell me, Theo, are all Greek men this whimsical?’
Just as she hadn’t answered his question, he didn’t answer hers. He just grinned and rolled onto his back and stared at the sky again. So she changed the subject.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘What did you want to be when you grew up?’
His mouth broke into a grin, which ruffled like the breeze through the muscle fibres low and deep in Tiffany’s belly. ‘Would it surprise you to know exactly what I’m doing?’
‘Cruising the Greek islands in a giant phallic symbol of a boat?’
He laughed out loud and it was just what was needed to burst the strange sense of intimacy that had sprung between them as they’d shared stories from their childhood.
‘You are hard on a man’s ego, you know that, right?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Just as well you have the ego of ten men.’
He laughed again before he continued. ‘Not the cruising, no. Well, actually, yes, that too.’ His hand moved to splay against his abdomen, which was exceptionally distracting. ‘But I meant running the company.’
‘Oh, come on.’ It was Tiffany’s turn to laugh. ‘Surely little four-year-old Theodorus didn’t want to run a multi-conglomerate.’
‘Four-year-old Theo wanted to be whatever his belovedpappouwas. I am the first grandson and he doted on me. Still does.’ He broke into an unabashed grin. ‘He says he doesn’t have any favourites among his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but that he did love me first. I was his shadow, his… how did you say it? Little buckaroo?’
Tiffany nodded, smiling a little at the very Australian word given a romantic twist in the hands of his slight accent. On paper, she and Theo could not be more different. Greek versus Australian. Billionaire versus working class. Owner of a mega-international company versus owner of things that could fit in two suitcases. Loving – from what she could gather – family versus complicated family. Yet they’d both had similar experiences in their childhoods, which somehow bridged those divides.
‘He took me into work often, into the office and down to the port, introduced me to everyone and never considered me too young to learn anything. And when my father stood down due to ill health when I was twenty-three, I was ready.’ He shrugged. ‘I never thought about being anything else.’
As a child, Tiffany had thought she’d stay on Balmain Downs forever. She’d been born there and she’d figured she’d die there, too. Luckily, life on the land teaches a person to be adaptable. ‘What would you do if you weren’t CEO? If you didn’t have Oceanós. If you weren’t a Callisthenes?’
Pursing his lips, he thought about it for long moments. Possibly for the first time in his life if what he’d said about his CEO aspirations was true. ‘I’d be a fisherman.’
Tiffany frowned. She’d been expecting a much grander answer. ‘Do you mean own fishing trawlers instead of cruise ships?’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘I mean just me, a small boat and the sea. Sitting with the old men in the evenings smack-talking about the tourists ruining the ambience and the football scores and the weather. A simple life.’
Okay, she definitely hadn’t been expecting that. Or the image currently in her head of him similarly dressed to the way he was now – no shirt, no shoes – standing in the well of a bobbing boat, his hair blowing in the wind, his skin burnished to an even deeper shade of bronze from days in the sun, every muscle in his body rippling as he threw out a net.
Yeah, she could see it for sure. But… it was hard to believe.
‘I don’t think many of them are rich?’
‘You think I can’t not be rich?’
He sounded amused more than affronted as Tiffany made a show of looking around his superyacht. Nothing like the simple tin boats powered by outboard motors she’d seen puttering out to sea from the multitude of Mediterranean harbours she’d visited over the past seven years. ‘I think you might find it a difficult adjustment.’
Theo wasn’t like his grandfather. He’d been born into money.
‘Maybe,’ he laughingly conceded. ‘But I think I could be happy. Sun on my face, fish in my belly. Walking to work, the sea surrounding me? There are worse things.’
‘True.’
