“What are your conditions?”
“You were right about the industry being a bitch. I didn’t get anywhere in nine months. I want word spread that we’re back together again. I want the names and numbers of everyone you do business with. And I want your backing.”
“I’m a respected businessman, Valentina. I will not give the weight of my name to any harebrained scheme of yours that is sure to embarrass me and sink in a few months. If you want my money, you have to wait until the divorce is final to get your hands on it.”
“Non! Not money. I want access to your rich friends and their wives. Or their mistresses. I don’t care how you put it forward. Tell them your juvenile, impulsive bratty wife is putting together a shoot and you’re indulging her. Tell them it’s the way I’m whiling away my useless life. Tell them it’s your way of indulging my tantrums. I don’t care what you tell them. I need to put together a portfolio and a shoot. I need to get word of mouth going that I’m offering my services as a personal stylist to anyone who’s got reputation, status and money.”
“A personal stylist?”
“Si.” She raised her hand, cutting him off. “If you’re going to use me, Kairos, I will use you, too. At least, we’re finally speaking the same language.”
“And what language is that, Valentina?”
“The language of transactions. You never do anything without some advantage to yourself. Our marriage has taught me one useful thing at least.”
“You’re playing a dangerous game, pethi mou, hurling accusations at me. You can only push me so far.”
“I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but I’m not doing anything to provoke you, Kairos. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking with my head. I’ve looked past the surface and not liked what I see in myself.
You have made me face reality. And for that, I shall always be grateful to you.”
“You want a divorce because you’re grateful to me?” The stony mask of his face belied how angry he was with her again. No, not anger. But he was affected by her decision.
“Just because I’ve realized what was wrong with me doesn’t mean you were right, does it? I will never give you power over me again.”
For all her brazen confidence, she’d never stripped before him, because she had thought her body imperfect, not made to his specifications and preferences.
Or maybe because she had always wanted to be perfect to please him—perfect straight hair, perfect dress, perfect posture.
It had got her exactly nowhere with him.
Without waiting for his response, her breath suspended in her throat, she picked some underwear. Her back to him, she dropped the towel. The soft exhale behind her pulled her nerves taut. Somehow, she managed to pull her panties up the right way and hooked her bra on.
The intensity of his gaze on her body burned over her skin, as if he was stroking it with those clever fingers. But she was determined to see this through, to prove to him that he wouldn’t always have the upper hand.
With barely a glance in his direction, she pulled on a pair of capri pants and a white silk top.
And then, head held high, she walked out to the main cabin, her heart a deafening roar in her chest.
She was tweaking the tiger’s tail, true. But she had to do this. She had to prove to him that she was made of stronger stuff. And then, when the three months were up, she would have his respect and then she would walk away.
THEY ARRIVED AT a large estate on the island of Mykonos around six in the evening in a tinted limo.
A grove of dark green olive trees beckoned as the car drove up the curving driveway.
Lush green surrounded the whitewashed villa nestled in a picturesque setting. Blue beaches stretched as far as the eye could see.
But Tina barely took it in for her gaze stuck to the myriad expressions crossing her husband’s usually expressionless face.
His chest had risen and fallen with a deep breath at the first sight of the villa. His jaw clenched tight at the sight of a green sports model Beetle. Tenderness and ache and grim determination flashed across his silver eyes at the sight of the three people—an older man and woman and a young woman—waiting at the top of the steps.
Tina felt as if she was standing in a minefield. She’d never seen Kairos show so much emotion, much less such varying reactions.
“Kairos?” she said softly, loath to disturb the glimpse she was getting into a man she’d thought felt nothing, held nothing sacred.
His gaze turned to her from the opposite seat. And in the seconds it took him to focus on her, his expression became blank, as easily as if he’d donned a mask, completely shutting her out yet again.
But she couldn’t scream or fight him for his usual response. “What exactly does this debt to Theseus entail, Kairos?”
Hesitation like she’d never seen flickered across his face. “There are some duties I need to fulfill. That’s all you need to know.”
Curiosity ate through Tina even as she told herself to stay out of it.
In ten months of marriage, all she’d learned about him was that he was an orphan who had grown up on the streets of Athens. That he had had a mentor who had given him an education. That was it, no more.
Getting her husband to talk about himself, his past, or his emotions was like getting blood out of stone. She’d honestly never met a man who talked so little.
Something about the tension wreathed in his face made her say, “You’re not going to murder someone and ask me to lie for you in court, are you?”
His mouth twitched. “So you haven’t stopped watching American soap operas.”
“Sell me to land a business deal like that guy did in Indecent Proposal?”
He laughed. The warm sound enveloped her in the dark interior.
“Oxhi... No,” he clarified. “Even if I wanted to, I don’t think there’s a man living who’d know how to handle you, Valentina.”
“I know oxhi means no,” she said, trying to think of his statement as a compliment. “I plan to say it quite a lot to you over the next few months. In English, Italian and Greek,” she added for good measure.
Memories permeated the air between them, bringing a smile to her own lips.
For the first month of their marriage, they had had hilarious moments, teaching each other Italian and Greek. But they had both settled on English in the end.
Except when he made love to her. Then he slipped into Greek—guttural, pithy words that even now sent a shiver through her insides. Words she’d never hear again.
No, words she didn’t want to hear, she clarified for herself.
“Cold?” he asked, his head dipping down toward her as she exited the car.
She shook her head but he draped a muscled arm around her shoulders, pulling her flush against his side. A clamor of sensation rose inside her. But still, she was aware of a pair of eyes drilling holes into her.
The younger woman, she knew instinctually.
A sliver of apprehension clamped her spine. “Kairos, this feels—”
He cut her off with the press of his