took a deep breath. ‘No, I want to talk about what’s going to happen now.’ Of course he couldn’t understand her perspective. He’d never been interested in her point of view, in her as a person. He’d taken her virginity and then kicked her to the door. And now he had the gall to blame her for everything. ‘Why are you here, Alekos?’
‘I want to meet my son.’
The starkly stated desire had Iolanthe stilling in shock. Yet what had she expected? That Alekos would keep Petra Innovation for Niko but walk away from the boy? She’d known what she was risking by telling Alekos the truth. She just hadn’t let herself face it.
‘You won’t deny me that,’ Alekos added, an ominous note entering his voice.
Iolanthe crossed the room to sink onto one of the velvet sofas. She felt as if her legs couldn’t hold her weight any longer. ‘No, I won’t deny you that,’ she said after a moment, when she trusted her voice to sound steady. ‘I knew in telling you, you’d want access to Niko.’
‘Access?’ Aleko repeated, and Iolanthe heard derision. ‘You think I want access?’
Iolanthe gazed at him uncertainly; his hair was still sticking up and his mouth was twisted with contempt but even so he looked shockingly handsome. The plain grey T-shirt clung to the sculpted muscles of his chest and the faded jeans moulded to his powerful legs. He radiated angry authority, barely leashed power. She admired his form even as she quaked inwardly. He scared her.
‘I thought that was what you were saying...’
‘If you think,’ Alekos said, taking a step towards her, ‘that I’m going to settle for some arrangement of occasional supervised visits with my son, you are more naïve than you were ten years ago.’
‘We can discuss the arrangements, of course,’ Iolanthe said after a pause. Alekos was glaring at her, his fists clenched, everything about him angry and accusing, and she had the terrible suspicion that she’d made things worse by telling him the truth of his son. Much worse. ‘Antonis, my solicitor—’
‘Don’t bring your damned solicitor into this, Iolanthe.’
She blinked, struck by his savage tone. ‘Naturally we’ll have to negotiate—’
‘No.’ The word was flat, unyielding, without so much as a whisper of compromise.
Iolanthe drew herself up. She wasn’t twenty years old and cringingly naïve any more. ‘This isn’t another corporate takeover, Alekos. You can’t bully me. We’ll agree to terms—’
‘You forfeited the right to agree to terms when you hid the truth from me for ten years,’ he cut across her, his words like a whip, scourging her and making her flinch. ‘I don’t negotiate, Iolanthe. Not in business and definitely not about this.’
She stared at him, her stomach churning so hard she felt she might be sick. She pressed her hand to her middle and took a few needed deep breaths. ‘You have to admit to some compromise, Alekos,’ she said as evenly as she could. ‘It doesn’t do Niko any good for us to be fighting over every little thing.’
‘We won’t fight.’
She eyed him in disbelief. ‘All we’ve done since we laid eyes on each other again is fight.’ She shook her head, fatigue warring with frustration. ‘I don’t even know why you seem to despise me so much.’
Alekos didn’t answer and Iolanthe glanced at him, surprised to see an emotion other than anger etched on his face. He almost looked...sorry.
‘I don’t despise you,’ he said gruffly.
‘But we’ve never been friends.’ Wearily Iolanthe parroted back his earlier words. ‘Still, for Niko’s sake, we need to make this as friendly as possible. You must see that, Alekos, no matter what you say about not negotiating.’
‘We’ll keep it friendly,’ Alekos promised, and for some reason his words caused alarm to ripple through her.
‘Thank you,’ she said, even though she felt as if she was waiting for the next blow.
‘We’ll keep it very friendly,’ Alekos continued. ‘Because I’m not going to be sidelined out of my son’s life.’
‘I never said—’
‘What were you thinking?’ Alekos demanded. ‘A weekend here, an evening there?’
Iolanthe blinked at him. ‘I wasn’t really thinking at all,’ she admitted. ‘Not that practically. I just wanted to keep Petra Innovation for my son.’
He let out a harsh laugh. ‘So at least I know you weren’t thinking about me.’
‘I’m sure that’s a relief,’ Iolanthe returned. ‘You made it clear you didn’t want my affection—’
‘Ten years ago,’ he finished, his tone one of curt dismissal. ‘You do realise that Niko is the heir not just to Petra Innovation, but Demetriou Tech?’ Alekos met her gaze, his eyes like burning embers, singeing her.
Shocked realisation sliced through her. ‘You would make him your heir...?’
‘I don’t have another.’
‘But you might marry,’ Iolanthe protested. ‘You might have other children—’
‘I will marry,’ Alekos affirmed. ‘And I will have other children. But Niko is my firstborn son, and he will be my heir.’
The coolly stated fact that he would marry put both Iolanthe’s head and heart in a spin, which was ridiculous, of course. Alekos was thirty-six years old. Of course he would marry at some point, and probably soon. Maybe he even had a woman already, waiting in the wings, ready and eager to become Kyria Demetriou. It had nothing to do with her.
‘You sound very sure,’ she said after a moment. ‘You haven’t even met Niko.’
‘I know he’s my son.’
Iolanthe tried to gather her scattered thoughts. ‘But what about this potential bride of yours? She might want the children you have together to—’
‘My potential bride,’ Alekos cut across her, his voice like a blade, ‘will want Niko as my heir.’
Iolanthe stared at him, flummoxed. ‘How—?’
‘Because,’ he continued implacably, ‘my prospective bride, my only bride, is you.’
FOR A FEW stunned seconds Iolanthe thought Alekos was joking. He had to be joking—and yet looking at the steel that had entered both his jaw and his eyes, his arms folded across his chest, his gaze clashing with hers... There was nothing funny about this situation. This was no joke.
Still she gasped out, ‘You can’t be serious.’
‘I assure you I am.’
‘Marriage? Alekos, you don’t even like me.’
‘We will put our differences aside for the sake of our son.’
‘By your decree?’ Iolanthe rejoined. ‘I don’t have any say in this?’
‘I assume you want what is best for Niko.’
‘Emotional blackmail,’ Iolanthe stated flatly. Just as her father and Lukas had both done, in their different ways, forcing her into a marriage she hadn’t wanted. The thought of another loveless union, and this time to Alekos, made her feel faint and sick. ‘You know I want what’s best for him,’ she managed shakily. ‘Of course I do. But marriage to you is not necessarily it.’
‘I think it is.’
Her temper began to flare. ‘Then maybe we’ll have to disagree.’