Page 22 of Her Greek Billionaire

"No," he said in answer to Rowan's question. "I choose my business partners carefully." And his brother was not a good bet.

For many more reasons than the family drama.

"Not too carefully, or you wouldn't have had to sever ties with a company that has connections to an organization that thinks threatening you will get you to back off on your clean energy stance," Rowan pointed out with sass.

Lysander frowned, not enjoying this reminder of his fallibility, despite how charming he found her teasing. "That was an unfortunate oversight on the part of one of my upper managers."

Rowan's eyes widened. "Does he still have a job?"

"Yes, but he has been demoted and placed under the mentorship of a director I know I can trust." The remaining acquisition managers had been required to do additional training in asset assessment as well.

Lysander wasn't risking the same thing ever happening again.

"You thought you could trust this man."

Lysander shrugged. "I don't pretend to be perfect."

Something shifted in Rowan's gaze, almost like she admired him all the more for having made an error in judgment. She didn't react like other people, and he liked that about her.

"No. You don't pretend anything," she said with satisfaction. "But there are a lot of tycoon level businesspeople who think they can do no wrong. It's nice knowing you can acknowledge your mistakes."

"If we cannot learn from our errors, we cannot grow." No matter how good a person was at something, there would always be those moments when they fumbled. "For the sake of my employees and shareholders, I try to manage the risk so mine are not catastrophic."

Her eyes shone with approval that he was fast growing addicted to. "I love that you included your employees in that statement."

"Of course I do. The people I employ are why I am where I am."

"I don't think many billionaires would say that. I know a few millionaires who definitely wouldn't."

She was talking about her father and Cyrus. "You cannot judge all businessmen by your father and my half-brother."

"I'm not. I've been around men like my father my whole life."

"And still you married Cyrus."

"We're doing this now?" she asked.

CHAPTER 8

"It appears we are." He had a hard time understanding how a woman like her had ended up with a waste of space like Cyrus.

"My parents coached him on how to win me over. I didn't know they were feeding him intel on my likes and dislikes. I'm still not sure why everyone was so vested in me marrying Cyrus, but even my older brother got in on it."

His own father would have no qualms about betraying his own child in the same way. Lysander's mother, on the other hand, would sooner kill a user like Cyrus than help him marry her daughter.

Lysander had no siblings, but he knew his mother would have done her best to protect her daughter, just as she had him.

"How did you find out?"

"After we'd been married a while, I pushed Cyrus to explain why he'd changed so much. It was one of our rare fights, not because we agreed on all things but because we didn't have a relationship in which open and honest discussion was encouraged. Anyway, he let it slip that he'd done what he had to make me fall in love with him."

"You stayed."

"I did, but my love died when I realized that the man I thought I loved didn't exist and never had."

"And still you stayed."

"I made promises."

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