Page 39 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

“Vasilios,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice level and willing her cheeks to stay a normal colour rather than blushing to a deep crimson. “Hang on, let me read the article.” She turned to the headline. BILLION DOLLAR DEAL SET TO GO AHEAD AFTER LAST MINUTE CRISIS TALKS.

Emma’s heart sped up and she partly wished she didn’t have to read the article aloud first, because she wanted to skim it quickly to understand it all herself, but Costa was also impatient, so she began to read, the gist being that a real estate deal had almost stumbled at the last hurdle, had threatened to fall over, because of a dispute over terms, but that Vasilios had been able to negotiate the last details.

“I’m glad,” Costa said with a nod of approval. “He has been working on this contract for years.”

Emma nodded, quickly reading on, down to the final paragraph which added, as an aside, “At one point, Mr Valenti was rumoured to be engaged to the daughter of property scion Luigi Larini, and there is some speculation that their relationship may be what brought about the success of this deal.”

At this, Costa barked, a sharp laugh, apparently totally oblivious to the way Emma’s heart was speeding up. She quickly looked at the picture once more and wondered how she hadn’t seen, at first glance, the woman just behind Costa? A beautiful red-head with a svelte figure and—yes—her hand was curved around his arm, one hand lifted to shield her eyes from the cameras.

Emma’s stomach twisted and shock pummelled her.

“You don’t believe it?” She asked Costa with an embarrassing degree of hope.

“That Costa would use that poor girl’s love for him to get the deal through? Oh, I believe it. Have you met my grandson,cara? He will stop at nothing to achieve his goal, and he has wanted this merger to go through for years.”

“How do you know she’s in love with him?” Emma asked breathily.

“They used to date,” Costa said with a shrug, reaching for his own coffee. Emma watched as he took a drink, her mind in a total tailspin.

“Did they? Was it serious?” Of course it wasn’t serious. She’d asked Costa herself if he’d ever been in love and he’d answered in the decided negative. So this poor woman might love Vasilios, but no way did he love her back.

“I think they were engaged, for a time. I don’t remember the details. It was years ago.”

Emma stared at him, totally shaken. “Engaged to be married?”

Costa laughed. “No, engaged to farm chickens. Yes, of course engaged to be married. She’d have been a good match for him, too.”

“But it didn’t work out,” Emma pushed.

Costa shrugged. “Sounds like it still might, eh?” He pressed his coffee cup to the table slowly. “I’d like that, you know. To think of him married. I know I didn’t give the best example of what that involves, but when I’m gone, he’ll be all alone. I’d like to think of him having someone in his life, someone to rescue him from becoming a total workaholic. There’s more to life, you know?”

Emma nodded, incapable of offering any speech in return when her nerves were so shredded.

“I guess you can ask him when he gets back,” she murmured, closing the newspaper and rising, needing now, more than anything, to be alone.

Vasilios read the article with a muttered oath, staring at the words and then looking to the small window of his jet, at the ocean beneath him.

Bloody newspapers, even the good quality business ones, were always trying to infuse a hint of the personal angle into articles, those salacious details apparently appealing to even the driest of readers. But Costa could have done without either that photograph or the illusion to Veronica Larini running in the article. It was enough that he’d pulled off the godforsaken miracle of getting the deal formalised. There’d been so many issues outstanding, he had no idea how he’d achieved it.

Naturally they’d gone out to celebrate, but it hadn’t been just Veronica and Vasilios, so much as a group of them, including the c-suite from both companies. The merger was a big deal. Him and Veronica, less so.

As his plane cut through the air towards Italy with elegance and speed, all Vasilios could ask himself was if Emma had seen the article and if she’d believed the worst. And would she even care, anyway?

Costa hadn’t known when Vasilios would come back. Nor had Emma. So as they sat down on the terrace in the evening, watching the sun’s progress towards the horizon, the last thing Emma expected was for footsteps to sound behind them and a moment later, before she could even turn around, for Vasilios to speak.

“Mind if I join you?”

Costa half-turned, a look on his face that could only be described as incredibly proud. He held out one hand. Vasilios moved towards the older man, but his eyes were locked to Emma, studying her, reading her, seeing way too much. She looked away, sat up straighter, awkwardness in all the lines of her body.

Her heart was racing extra fast, so she could hardly hear anything above its thunderous cacophony.

“Good news on the deal,” Costa squeezed Vasilios’s hand tight.

“You heard?”

“We read,” Costa said with a nod. Emma kept her gaze averted, until Vasilios moved right in front of her.

“You read, too?” He prompted, and there was such an intensity in his gaze that Emma knew he was asking for more than confirmation of her having seen the article. He wanted to know if she’d gotten right to the end. Emma blinked away.

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