Page 193 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
Billion-Dollar Dating Deception
Clare Connelly
To Kel, a bestie I would do anything for, the Lottie to my Jane, and my forever SLSM.
PROLOGUE
Zeus Papandreo hadalways loved the way the moonlight hit the dark timber floors of his father’s study. As a young boy, he’d stood in this very same spot, looking out on the distant ocean, imagining that instead of being confined to an office, he was on a boat, at sea, free and wild, king of the ocean—king of everything.
Power had throbbed through him, even then.
Power, strength, determination.
In contrast, on this night he felt impotent. Robbed not only of his sense of power, but also of breath.
‘She’s twenty-three.’
Zeus closed his eyes against that, wishing his father had chosen another way to deliver this news. In writing? Over the phone? Anything that would have given him a little longer to absorb the body-blow-like information before responding.
‘Her name is Charlotte.’
He wanted to punch something. To shake something, or someone. His father. He whirled around, obsidian eyes sparkling with ruthless distaste as he quickly did the requisite calculations.
‘You are telling me you cheated on my mother, while she was in chemotherapy?’
Aristotle Papandreo paled perceptibly. ‘It was not… Yes. I cheated.’ The confession seemed to sap the older man of strength completely. He dropped his head forward, chin connecting to his chest.
A muscle jerked in Zeus’s jaw. Three months ago his mother had died, after a decades-long struggle with cancer. A fight she’d taken head-on, waged countless battles against, determined to eke out as much of her life as she could, even when that life caused her so much pain in the end. Her courage and strength had been monumental, and Zeus couldn’t help but draw his own strength from her.
Zeus swore loudly, the word satisfyingly crisp in the darkness of the office.
Aristotle flinched.
‘And thewoman,’ he infused the word with disgust, ‘that you slept with conceived a child.’
‘Your sister.’
‘Don’t!’Zeus cursed once more. ‘Don’t call her that.’
‘She is your sister, Zeus. She should know that.’
A muscle throbbed in Zeus’s jaw as he clenched his teeth together. He strode to his father’s liquor cabinet and poured a generous measure of Scotch.
‘I couldn’t tell you this while your mother—’
‘She never knew?’
‘Of course not.’ Now it was Aristotle’s turn to mutter something dark. ‘I could never have put her through that.’
Zeus’s eyes glittered. ‘But sleeping with anything in a skirt was fine?’
‘There was only one,’ Aristotle corrected, holding up his finger.
‘Oh, well, in that case, it’s totally fine.’
‘You do not know what it was like back then, Zeus.’
‘Don’t I?’ He threw back a handy swig of Scotch, continuing to stare down his father. ‘I was nine, but I remember.’
