Page 194 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
Aristotle glanced down at his hands. ‘Mariah—Charlotte’s mother… It wasn’t planned.’
‘I do not want to hear about it.’
‘She is your sister,’ Aristotle said again, more firmly. ‘And it’s time for her to become a part of this family.’
Zeus held the Scotch glass so firmly he was surprised it didn’t shatter. ‘Not my family.’
‘I am meeting with my lawyers next week to go over things. I want to ensure she has what is owed to her.’
Zeus straightened.
‘You’re talking about leaving money to her?’ Money, he didn’t care about. Money, they had more than enough of.
‘She is a Papandreo,’ Aristotle insisted. ‘This is her birthright, too.’ Aristotle waved around the room, but they both knew he wasn’t talking about the mansion in which they stood, but rather, the company that had been in their family for generations.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ Zeus expelled a slow, angry breath. ‘This ismybirthright. Not hers. Mine.’
‘She is your—’
‘Don’t. Just because you couldn’t keep it in your pants twenty-three years ago, does not mean you can foist her on me now.’
‘Oh, and you’re one to talk?’ Aristotle demanded sharply, for Zeus’s dating history was littered with a string of short-term affairs. The older man expelled a rough sigh, dragged a hand through his hair, as if to reset himself. ‘Have you forgotten the terms of company ownership, Zeus?’
Zeus squared his shoulders, meeting his father’s gaze without hesitation. The antiquated term of company ownership was something he had never given much thought to, for the simple reason there’d never been anyone else in contention to inherit it. At sixty-five, his father was still young, and fit, and though Zeus had taken over the role of CEO some five years earlier, his father remained active in the company.
So the fact that some ancient Papandreo forebear, hundreds of years earlier, had had it written into the legal documentation of the company that the sole owner of Papandreo Group, as it was now known, had to be married had been neither here nor there to Zeus. For one thing, he had many years to find someone he could be bothered marrying. For another, there was no one else with a legal claim on the business who might challenge his inheritance.
At least, there hadn’t been.
‘That is an ancient, stupid term,’ he muttered. ‘No way would it stand up in court today.’
‘I have tried to change it,’ Aristotle said. ‘It cannot be done.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then do your best. Change it. Either way, Charlotte is my daughter, and I owe it to her to explain all of this.’
‘You are saying that if she were to marry before me, you would be happy for her to inherit this? To run it, rather than me?’
‘My preference would be for you to work together,’ Aristotle contradicted.
‘Impossible,’ Zeus spat. ‘She is nothing to me.’ He slashed his hand angrily through the air. ‘Nothing but proof of your infidelity.’
‘You are angry—’
‘No kidding.’
‘I understand. I’m angry, too. I have been angry with myself for a long time, for that weakness of character. I did everything I could to hide Charlotte away, to spare your mother the pain of knowing what I’d done. But she’s gone now, Zeus, and Charlotte deserves to come home.’
A muscle jerked low in his jaw.
‘As for the company…’ Aristotle looked at his son with something like sadness. ‘If you are determined to be the one to inherit it, then you know what you must do.’
Zeus was very still as the reality of that splintered through him, shocking him to the core with a visceral sense of rejection.
‘Marry someone?’
‘Before she does,’ Aristotle confirmed.
