The apparent sincerity in her soft voice almost touched him, but he refused to be taken in by her act a second time. She was no more the vulnerable innocent than he was a gullible fool. “I think you will be, Savannah.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice quavering in a way that annoyed him while she brushed a lock of wheat-colored hair away from her face.
What did she think he was going to do? Hit her? The thought was so ridiculous, he dismissed it out of hand. She had reason to be concerned, if not afraid. He did have plans for her, but they had to wait. “Never mind. I have to go.”
She nodded. “Goodbye, Leiandros.”
He inclined his head, refusing to utter a farewell he did not mean. After he expressed his respect for Petra with a year of mourning, Savannah would be seeing him again.
Then she would be made to pay for all that she had cost his family…all she had cost him.
CHAPTER TWO
SAVANNAH could hear the happy chatter of her daughters playing in their bedroom as she settled into the creaking desk chair in the small, cluttered study of her home in Atlanta, Georgia.
She stared at the letter from Leiandros Kiriakis, feeling as if it were a black moccasin ready to strike. In it he requested her presence in Greece for a discussion regarding her financial future. Worse, he had demanded Eva and Nyssa’s presence as well.
He would be freezing Savannah’s monthly allowance until such a discussion occurred.
Panic shivered along her consciousness.
After the trial of attending Dion’s funeral a year ago, she had promised herself she would never have to see anyone Kiriakis again. Okay, if not never, then at least for a very long time.
The girls would have to be introduced to their Greek family someday, but not before they were old enough to deal with the emotional upheaval and possible rejection of doing so. In other words, not until they were confident, mature adults.
She wished. She knew that wasn’t realistic. Not after the revelations Dion had made in that final phone call, but she had intended to put the trip off for a while. Like until she had a secure job and her Aunt Beatrice no longer needed her.
Her mouth firming with purpose, she decided Leiandros would have to have his discussion with her over the phone. There was no earthly reason for her to fly all the way to Greece merely to talk about money.
Savannah’s confidence in Leiandros’s reasonability was severely tested ten minutes later when his secretary informed her he would not take Savannah’s call.
“When would you like to fly out, Mrs. Kiriakis?” the efficient voice at the other end of the line enquired.
“I don’t wish to fly out at all,” Savannah replied, her southern drawl more pronounced than usual, the only indicator the conversation was upsetting her. “Please inform your boss that I would prefer to have this conversation by telephone and will await a call at his convenience.”
She rang off, her hands shaking, her body going into fight or flight mode at the very thought of confronting Leiandros Kiriakis again in the flesh.
The phone rang ten minutes later.
Expecting Leiandros’s secretary, Savannah picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“You are due to receive your monthly allowance tomorrow.” Although he had not bothered to identify himself, there was no mistaking the deep, commanding tones of Leiandros’s voice.
It was a voice that haunted her dreams, erotic dreams that woke her in the middle of the night sweating and shaking. She could control her conscious mind, stifling all thoughts of the powerful, arrogant businessman, but her subconscious had a will of its own. And the dreams did nothing but torment her, as she knew without question she would never again experience those feelings outside the subconscious realm.
“Hello, Leiandros.”
He didn’t bother to return the greeting. “I won’t be sanctioning that deposit, or any other until you come to Greece.” No explanation, just an ultimatum.
The exorbitant prices Brenthaven charged for her aunt’s care and the expense of attending university had prevented Savannah from accumulating more than a few weeks of living expenses in her savings. She needed the deposit to make her monthly payment to Brenthaven, not to mention to buy mundane items like food and gas.
“Surely any discussion we need to engage in can be handled via the phone.”
“No.” Again, no explanation. No compromise.
She rubbed her eyes, glad that he could not see the gesture that betrayed both physical weariness and emotional weakness. “Leiandros—”
“Contact my secretary for travel arrangements.”
The phone clicked quietly in her ear and she pulled it away to stare at it. He’d hung up on her. She said a word that should never pass a lady’s lips and slammed the phone back into its cradle. Shocked rigid by her own unaccustomed display of temper, she stood motionless for almost a full minute before spinning on her heel to leave the now stifling study.
She’d reached the door and opened it when the phone rang again. This time it wasn’t Leiandros or his secretary. It was the doctor in charge of Aunt Beatrice.
Savannah’s beloved aunt had had another stroke.
Savannah tucked her daughters into bed, telling them their favorite rendition of the Cinderella tale for their bedtime story before ensconcing herself in the study to make the dreaded call to Leiandros.
She pulled up her household budget spreadsheet on the computer and ran the numbers one more time. Nothing had miraculously changed. She needed the monthly allowance. Even if she could manage to land a full-time job the very next day, starting wages in spite of a degree in business were not going to be enough to cover their household expenses and the increased cost of Aunt Beatrice’s medical care.
Savannah picked up the phone and dialed Leiandros’s office.
His secretary answered on the first ring. The conversation was short. Savannah agreed to fly out the following week, but she refused to bring her daughters. The secretary hung up after promising to call back within the hour with an itinerary.
Savannah was making herself a cup of hot tea in the kitchen when the phone rang only minutes later.
A sense of impending doom sent goose bumps rushing down her arms and up the backs of her thighs. She just knew the secretary wasn’t calling back with travel plans already.
After taking a steadying breath, she picked up the phone. “Yes, Leiandros?”
If she’d hoped to disconcert him, she was disappointed as there wasn’t even a second’s pause before he started talking.
“Eva and Nyssa must accompany you.”
“No.”
“Why not?” he demanded, his Greek accent pronounced.
Because the thought of taking her daughters back to Greece terrified her. “Eva has almost two weeks left of school.”
“Then come in two weeks.”
“I prefer to come now.” She needed the money now, not in two weeks. “Besides, I see no reason to disrupt the girls’ schedule for what will amount to an exhausting, but short trip.”
“Not even to introduce them to their grandparents?”
Fear put a metallic taste in her mouth. “Their grandparents want nothing to do with them. Helena made that clear when Eva was born.”
She’d taken one look at Savannah’s blue-eyed and blond-haired baby and decreed the child could not possibly be a Kiriakis. Eva’s eyes had darkened to green by the time she was a year old and her baby fine hair