Page 6 of The Billionaire's Seduction Revenge

Vasilios was not a man to show emotion and so he simply nodded once, eyes locked to Costa’s.

“Do you really think I am capable of what you’re accusing me of?”

“I believe she’s capable of being everything a man like you could want at this time of your life,” Vasilios said quietly. “She’s beautiful, intelligent, fiery, and clearly dotes on you. Your ego must be soothed, but you are too smart to believe a young woman like Emma would be romantically interested in you for any reason besides financial.”

“Damn it, Vas,” Costa slapped his palm against the table top, surprising them both with the outburst of strength. “I appreciate that you think you have all the answers to everything in life but this is very much not the case. I am still your elder, and you will still address me with respect, and you will speak of Emma with respect, too. She works for me; that’s the end of it.”

Vasilios found it impossible to believe. How many beautiful women had Costa installed in the pool house over the years? True, he was now eighty seven, but old habits died hard and keeping a mistress was the habit of a lifetime for Costa.

“I do not know her personal circumstances,” Costa continued after a brittle silence had stretched to breaking point. “But I know she does not need money. She has her own. More than enough.”

There was a lot for Vasilios to examine in these statements but he latched onto one fact and worked it with his mind. “Then why work for you?”

“Because she wants to,” Costa snapped. “Because I offered her a home when she was in need.”

“You just said she has money,” Vasilios pointed out. “Why could she not obtain her own home?”

Costa hesitated, and Vasilios’s alarm bell grew louder. His grandfather was hiding something, or working out if he should continue to hide something. At length, he leaned a little closer. “Did you come here, Vasilios, to interrogate me about my personal life?”

“So you admit she is a part of your personal life?”

The older man shifted his jaw a little.

Vasilios sighed heavily. “Answer my question and I’ll let it go.”For now.

Costa’s eyes narrowed. “She wished to avoid the complications of putting her name on a lease,” Costa said.

Vasilios’s blood pounded. “Costa,” he said, quietly, careful to rein in his impatience. The older man would not like to feel patronised. “Can you think of any reason for a person to want to avoid putting their name on a lease that does not have its roots in some form of criminal enterprise?”

“She is not a criminal.”

“I see,” Vasilios murmured. “And you know this for sure?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I trust her.”

“Why?”

“I just do.”

Vasilios stared at his grandfather as though he’d lost his mind. He knew that trust was a commodity in which he was particularly lacking, but this seemed, nonetheless, foolhardy. “And you’ve known her for how long?”

“Three months.”

“Three months,” Vasilios nodded, mentally tabulating the various medications he knew his grandfather was on. Was it possible that these drugs were inhibiting his ability to think clearly, to be rational?

“You may not like it, Vasilios, but Emma is staying.”

Vasilios pressed his fingertips to his kneecap.

“Or would you rather I left too?”

Vasilios glared at his grandfather. “Don’t be absurd.”

“It is not absurd. If you return here and dictate who I can and cannot have as a guest, then naturally I will no longer feel myself to be welcome in this home.”

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