Damen’s deep voice sounded behind her.
She turned suddenly, and struggled to smile but failed. “I don’t know that I’d call them second thoughts, but certainly, this view gives me pause.” Her head tipped as she studied him. “And you? Buyer’s remorse?”
“You’re a woman, not livestock. I haven’t bought you.”
“But I’m not the woman you wanted.”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“I don’t blame you for being disappointed. Elexis is stunning.”
“She looks like your mother.”
Kassiani stifled the pain. “And I take after Dad.” She was grateful her voice sounded light, and breezy. She’d never want him to know how much it hurt being the Dukas her father called “pitiful.”
“I didn’t choose Elexis for her beauty.”
Kassiani smiled politely. She didn’t believe him for a moment. “Either way, I suppose it’s a moot point now, isn’t it?”
He looked from her to the Cape of Sounio, glowing gold with its famous marble temple built in 440 BC. It was remarkable that so much of the ancient temple remained.
“Did she ever intend to marry me?” he asked quietly.
Yes. No. Kass drew a deep breath. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Elexis is a bit of an enigma.”
“So there is more than what the eye sees?”
“No. The enigma is that she is just what you see. Beautiful.”
His gaze narrowed and then he gave a half shrug. “It’s been hours since breakfast. You must be starving—”
“Do I look as if I’m starving?” she interrupted with a faint smile.
He gave her another assessing glance. “I’ll have a tray sent to you.”
“Are you not eating?”
“I have things to take care of.”
He didn’t want to dine with her. Even though it was their wedding night. It shouldn’t bother her. She shouldn’t be attached to the outcome. She was here, the substitute bride, out of obligation, not affection. He was the humiliated groom. She shouldn’t be surprised that he wanted to keep his distance. “A tray would be lovely.” She nodded toward the glowing point. “Could I eat out here?”
“I’ll have my steward set up a table.”
She started to thank him but he was already walking out, and she watched him go, a lump filling her throat. This was not going to be easy.
* * *
Damen’s office on the second deck was similar to his bedroom—a wall of windows, another wall of bookshelves and then large art pieces here and there. His oversize desk faced out, because he always preferred working with a view of the water. His parents might have preferred the land, and the olive groves they considered home, but he needed the sea. He craved the sea. It was when he faced out, toward the horizon of blue sky and blue sea, he could relax and breathe.
He ate only a few bites of his dinner before pushing it aside to concentrate on the agreements he’d pulled up on his laptop.
Agreements and contracts dating back three years, even though the discussion regarding merging Dukas and Alexopoulos began five years ago when Elexis was just graduating from college. Kristopher had been the one to approach Damen, suggesting that while each family was successful, they’d be even more powerful together, marrying the two families, and merging the two shipping empires, creating a truly remarkable empire. They’d be a world power together, controlling shipping lanes across the globe.
Damen had been intrigued but not sufficiently tempted because he knew Dukas’s reputation. Dukas’s deals could be shady as he tended to play a little too fast and loose. Damen might be ruthless, but he also knew that one’s word mattered and he ran his business with integrity.
But two years later when Damen heard that Kristopher was dangling his daughter again, trying to find another Greek shipping company as a potential partner, he acted, flying out to San Francisco to discuss mutually beneficial scenarios. All of which included marriage to Dukas’s daughter Elexis.
Damen wasn’t emotionally attached to Elexis. She was simply a means to an end. And yet when he finally met Elexis, and saw how people responded to her, he was reassured, realizing she wouldn’t just be a wife and mother to his heirs, but a valuable asset. The fact that people were drawn to her would be useful when entertaining clients. She could concentrate on the social niceties, leaving him free to focus on business.
Love never entered the equation because Damen didn’t love people. He needed certain people in his life to get things done. He respected some of those he worked with, but tended to ignore most, having very little tolerance for people’s weaknesses and idiosyncrasies. The more someone could prove beneficial, the more value he placed on them. It was cold, and unfeeling, but that was who he was and he wouldn’t ever apologize for being pragmatic and strategic.
It was what had taken him from the olive groves on Chios, to the helm of Aegean Shipping, which he renamed Alexopoulos Shipping of the Aegean after the elder Mr. Koumantaras died. The Koumantaras family wasn’t happy that Mr. Koumantaras Sr. had left control of his business to the outsider, upstart Damen Alexopoulos, but Damen felt no remorse. Koumantaras’s children had no desire to work for the family business. All they wanted was to live off the profits. So why should they care if the company changed its name?
One day Dukas Shipping would go the way of Aegean Shipping—the name would drop and the company itself would fold into the more powerful Alexopoulos Shipping.
Damen closed his laptop to look out the window at the now dark sky. At midnight the lights on the Temple of Poseidon would go out, but as it was only ten, the temple still glowed from the spotlights.
Damen tapped a finger on the arm of his chair, trying to ease the tension bottled within him. He hated how Kristopher Dukas had played him. He hated the feelings flooding him. He didn’t like it when his temper flared. He had a hot temper. He used to have a horrendous temper. It had taken years to learn how to manage his anger, but today was testing him. Today made him want to let loose, and level something.
He thought of Kassiani in the master bedroom and closed his eyes and shook his head.
He didn’t know why he’d allowed the steward to take her there. Kassiani should have been taken to a guest room. Somewhere out of his way. Somewhere he could forget her.
Instead she was in his room, waiting for his return.
His gut cramped.
He didn’t want her. He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but he didn’t want her. She wasn’t the bride he’d been promised. Kristopher had promised the best daughter, and Damen had believed him, investing heavily in Dukas Shipping’s West Coast ports, building them up, buying new ships, aware that the heavy cash investment now would stabilize both of their businesses in the future. But the deal was off.
The marriage would be annulled.
And the contracts would soon be voided.
He’d already emailed his attorney to start the process of dissolution. Now it was just a matter of returning the Dukas girl to her father and moving forward the necessary legal action.
* * *
Her meal finished, Kassiani left the table and retreated inside to study the luxurious master bedroom. At least, she assumed it was the master bedroom, which meant Damen would be returning at some point, and they would be alone. Here. In the bedroom.
She, who had only pecked Damen on the lips at the chapel, needed to find the confidence to sleep with him. Correction, not sleep, but have sex with him, because if the marriage wasn’t fully consummated, Damen could annul it and then the Dukases would lose everything.