A Perfect Love: International Billionaires VI: The Greeks (3 page)

She didn’t even bat an eye at the nickname. Somehow, during the time she’d spent consulting with the doctors, the hours she’d guarded the boys from him, the minutes she’d taken inside the old man’s hospital room…somehow she’d gathered herself. She’d built inner walls and barriers. The surprise of his appearance had been enough to crack her open for a while. Yet now the toughness and steely will he’d seen in her the last time, the time when she’d rejected him, had come back.

With a vengeance.

He hated these walls inside her. He would break through them somehow. He wanted to see her tears again and hear her wail once more and make her suffer. The compulsion wasn’t reasonable or civilized. It was primitive, this seething mass of emotion roiling in him. It was barbaric.

Fight me, Tamsin. Fight me so I can conquer you once and for all and destroy the memory of you in my charred and broken heart.

“The boys will be going back home with me.” She began to walk away as if he had no say and no claim.

Grabbing her arm, he yanked her to a stop.

“There is no home to go back to,” he muttered into the pearled shell of her ear. How had he come so close to her? Too close to temptation?

“Take your hand off me.” She didn’t even glare at him or try and pull away. If he didn’t feel the warmth of her skin beneath the white wool of her jumper, he’d swear she was some ancient Greek statue.

She shifted in his grip and a whisper of her scent floated around him, encircling him with memories. Fresh. Clean. Not soap or perfume or lotion. No, only pure Tamsin. When he’d been a fool, he’d allowed himself to breathe her in, imagining how her naked skin would smell on his. He’d spent hours by her side, satisfied with virgin kisses and soft, gentle touches because her scent and her skin had entranced him into wanting to keep her fresh. Keep her clean.

What a fool.

He dropped his hand and stepped back.

“Thank you.” She held herself with rigid pride and began to walk away once more.

“Tamsin.” He sucked in a breath of air that didn’t hold her scent anymore. With the clear air came renewed determination. “I’ve evicted you.”

Twirling, she glared at him. “I never saw any notices, any papers. I run the hotel. I should have been—”

“Drakos is the owner and he was served.” He stopped himself from sliding into pity because this woman was now homeless. She didn’t deserve pity. “It’s not my problem he kept the news from you. I can order you out anytime I want to. And I want to. You’re evicted.”

He felt the hit inside her. She finally believed the words he shot at her. Accepting them, she knew her home was lost. Her face crumpled, and then she lifted one graceful hand and swept it across her eyes, hiding her anguish from him.

Unacceptable. He needed to see her suffer. She owed it to him. “Look at me.”

Her hand dropped. She’d recovered with startling speed. The only thing he saw now was hardness in her gaze, like sharp shards of jade striking back at him. “All right. The boys and I will go somewhere else.”

“I don’t care where
you
go—”

Was that a tiny flinch? A microscopic gram of satisfaction for him?

“—but my nephews are coming with me.”

“No.” Pacing in front of him, resolve lined every inch of her body. “We’ll take our things and find another place to live.”

“Right at this moment, my staff is packing your belongings and the twins.”

“You have no right—”

“I have every right. I own the building.” He slipped a shaking hand inside his pocket. “You should be thankful.”

“Thankful?” Stopping short, her sharp laugh filled the hallway with a harsh, rough noise.

“Thankful I’m delivering your belongings to you here instead of throwing them in the trash. The boys’ belongings are being packed for the trip to Greece.”

“You might own our home now. And you can do whatever you want with our stuff.” The delicate edge of her jaw clenched. “However, you don’t have ownership of the boys.”

“Not yet.” He slid his mobile phone from his pocket and flashed the screen of emails at her. “But I will. One of these emails is from my solicitor.”

“So what?” The curve of her shoulders shrugged, but he detected the tension in them.

“Who has prepared paperwork demanding a DNA test.”

Her voice quivered. “If what you say about the boys is true—”

“I’ve said it before, I don’t lie.”

“Then you should have their best interests at heart.”

“I do.”

“They have a family. Me.”

“No.” He wanted to march over to her and shake her until she understood. Understood he won, all the time now. Yet he stayed away. She was too tempting, too treacherous. “I’m their family going forward.”

“They don’t know you.” The paleness of her skin only highlighted the pure smoothness, the classic beauty of her features. “They don’t know Greece. They don’t know your mother or Rhachel or…Rhouth.”

The slight pause before speaking his sister’s name—her once-upon-a-time best friend’s name—the pause did not escape him. “Ah,” he said with a sneer. “You even remember Rhouth?”

“Of course I remember her.” Her arms came up to hug herself, her hands tightening, shining white in the harsh overhead light.

“Then you will remember how sweet and caring she is.” A picture of his sister flashed through his brain. The memory of her tears years ago. The memory of her questions about where Tamsin went. The memory of her sorrow at the loss of her friend. Every one of the memories crowded in his mind and if he’d had a heart anymore, it would have turned to cut stone. “You will remember how
loyal
she is.”

“I remember.” Her hands fell, leaving her unguarded. Her chin lifted and her eyes turned dark. “I remember everything.”

Her actions and words disturbed him for some reason. The emotion filling her expression was not embarrassment or fear or regret. The way she lifted her chin gave him the sense she was proud, noble, had nothing to ask forgiveness for. The behavior and attitude enraged him, firing the torment inside. “Then you will know the boys will be fine with my family. They will be well taken care of. They will be loved.”

“They will be lost without me.” She kept going, kept kicking at the inevitable. “I’m the one who has taken care of them these last years. I’m the one who’s loved them and fed them and taught them. I am everything to them.”

The pride was evident in the clarity of her voice. For a moment, he let himself feel
her
. Understand
her
.

Ii̱soús.
Jesus
.

She’d been only sixteen. With two three-year-olds depending on her. Only her.

He’d had enough exposure to her worthless mother to know Skylla hadn’t lifted a finger to help. Even in the sun-kissed summer of pretend love, when he’d been in a haze of passionate ecstasy, he’d noted the mother’s inattention to her boys. But then, there’d been servants. There’d been a nanny and a housekeeper. Haimon had been riding high, successfully wheeling and dealing his dirty business.

But later? Later when the family had moved to London and their fortunes dwindled?

A slither of respect, unwanted and rejected, writhed in his gut.

His security team had spelled it out, the entire situation, before he’d ever entered the cursed building he now owned. He’d focused on what was important—destruction—not the reality of what the information had meant.

To Tamsin. To the twins.

“She takes care of everything.” The head of his security said as he’d delivered his final report. “She runs the place and takes care of the boys.”

At the time, the information had been mere spikes in the battering ram he was fashioning to destroy the Drakos family. Now the pieces of information came together to paint another picture. No longer a picture he relished of a family in decline, in desperation, ready to be destroyed. Now the information swirling in his brain painted a picture of a young girl spending ten years of her life taking care of everyone.

She takes care of everything
.

The picture penetrated his gut and lay there, a sick brew of admiration.

“You have to see.” Her voice shook for a moment before firming into a tight tone. “They belong to me.”

Her words shocked the pictures right out of his head. Cold determination swallowed the sick brew in a wash of icy disgust. For a moment, she’d had him, hadn’t she? For a second she’d managed to sway him off his course. However, he was no longer the boy wrapped around her female finger. No longer.

He took the chance of getting too near. Stepping right into her space, he glared into those pure green eyes. “What I see is two boys who look exactly like Vounós.”

She held her place, did not back away. Yet her expression suddenly filled with a mixture of fear and acknowledgement. “Maybe—”

“No maybes.” The blood in his veins pumped with lust. With hate. “Admit it. They are carbon copies of Ben.”

“I—”

“Of me.”

C
arbon copies
.

Of Ben?

A memory of a young man whipped through Tamsin’s brain.

Ben
. Rafe’s beloved brother. She’d met him only once, when she’d been invited by her love to his family home. She’d noted the bond between the brothers, even though the elder one seemed a bit of a poppycock.

Raphael’s older brother and her mother?

She stepped back, trying to push away the thought.

Still, the man in front of her was merciless. “Apparently your mother was not content to chase after my father—”

“Stop it.” Embarrassment flooded through her body along with the memories she’d locked deep inside. The agonizing moments she’d endured when she’d watched her mother flirt and flutter around Loukas Vounó as he tried to politely ignore her. The way Skylla Drakos had thrust herself into tight dresses and paraded in front of the good doctor like she was selling her wares. Her mother’s actions had been the one blight during the summer when she’d fallen in love.

Rafe had never said a word. Not until this moment. She’d naїvely assumed he hadn’t noticed, that perhaps she’d been the only one to see. Yet he’d always been more aware than most, certainly most young men. He’d sensed many of her secrets and dreams and hopes even before she confided them to him. She’d been foolish to think he wouldn’t have noticed her mother’s behavior.

“Never mind.” His mouth twisted, as if, incredibly, he regretted bringing the subject up. “None of that matters now.”

It mattered. All of the events of ten years ago still mattered to her.

He took a step closer, leaning in to stare with determination into her eyes. “What matters is the boys are obviously Vounós.”

His words hit her heart.

They are carbon copies. Of me.

The boys. Raphael.

Yes.

The truth of what he said, the undeniable, unacceptable truth, cut her breath from her throat. Cut her heart from her body.

Was this why she loved the twins with a fierceness which sometimes stunned her? At sixteen, she’d taken them on without a moment of doubt or a moment of anger. She’d taken them to her heart as if they were her own and she’d never begrudged a single minute of her time. She’d never ranted in private at the unfairness of giving her youth to these two small boys. She’d never once wavered when she’d watched kids her age going to parties and having fun.

Never. Never.
Never.

Had she somehow intuitively known they were a part of Raphael? The only part she had left? Had her spirit connected with some unfathomable well of wisdom, running past her brain and her body to embrace two children with a love so wide and deep and long and vast she would sometimes sit in her bed at night and weep because she had them?

At least, she had
them
.

“The boys are
mine
.” The fervor in Raphael’s tone matched her fierce love. Tamsin saw it in the black of his eyes. The commitment, the connection. The determination.

“What’s going on?” A young voice cut through the electric current running between them. “Tam?”

She swung around. Aarōn stood in the doorway of the waiting room, Isaák right behind him. Both boys appeared wrinkled and tired and upset. And unbearably lovable. “I…we…”

“What does he mean?” Isaák piped in. “We’re his? He’s our uncle?”

“Who are you?” His twin frowned. “More importantly, what are you saying to our sister?”

The question shot at Rafe like a poisoned dart. Both of the boys suddenly bristled, hands fisted, shoulders hunched. She’d been amused during the last year as they’d started to walk from childhood into strutting youth. Aarōn had taken to dogging her steps, telling her she needed to be more careful when she went shopping alone. Isaák had announced only last week it was time he and his brother took on more of the work with the hotel so she could have some time with friends. Her non-existent friends.

The boys glared at Raphael Vounó as if he was a threat. To her.

He
was
a threat. To them.

“As I told your brother.” The man standing before her didn’t flinch from the boys’ inspection. He turned and met their glares head on. “I’m your uncle. I’m Raphael Vounó.”

“No way.” Aarōn wasn’t having any of it. “We only have Tam. She would have told us if—”

“She didn’t know.” He strode to the twins and stood right in front of them.

Seeing the three of them together, so close they could touch, stunned her anew. A huddle of maleness, a circle of resemblance, of family. It couldn’t be denied. She saw it in the way they all held their stance—proud and masculine. She saw it in the sameness of the ebony locks; the way they tumbled on the boys’ foreheads and were ruthlessly controlled on Rafe’s. She saw it in the impossible, indefinable way they silently communicated with each other.

She didn’t need a DNA test to know her new reality.

But she needed to demand the test to buy herself some time. Time to analyze how she was going to handle this new reality. This ugly, awful, new reality.

“That doesn’t make sense. Tam knows everything.”

A curl of a scorn appeared on Rafe’s mouth.

Both boys straightened, anger flashing across their young faces at precisely the same time.

Their uncle wasn’t intimidated. He sneered at her, the hate for her clear in his expression. “Does she now? Well, she didn’t know about this. No one did. Not until two weeks ago when I went through your father’s, your real father’s, mementos.”

“Mementos?” The word struck her, hard. “Ben’s mementos?”

“Ben’s mementos.” Those black eyes never left her face, watching as she put two and two together.

“Ben is…dead?”

“
Nai.
” The blackness of his grief swallowed her, sucked her under into his private hell.

“I’m so sorry—”

With a jerk, he turned to the twins, leaving her to stumble back from her attempt to console. Just once, she wished she could console him. Yet clearly, he wanted none of it, none of her. “Ben was my brother. Your father. He died in a motorcycle accident two weeks ago.”

The boys looked stunned, not sad, but overwhelmed by the amount of information flying at them. Her motherly instincts kicked in with a wrench. “Enough. This is too much for—”

“Stop babying them.” He didn’t glance at her. Still, his words slapped her with a crack. “They are men, now. Not babies.”

“They are not men—”

“Don’t worry, Tam.” Aarōn glared a challenge. “We can handle him and anything he says to us.”

“Yeah.” His twin backed him with a snarl.

“Good.” Rafe’s voice was smooth and satisfied. “I can see you are worthy to be Vounós.”

“We’re Tam’s. Not Vounós.” Aarōn’s voice rang in the hallway like a call to arms.

“Whoever the Vounós are.” Isaák would not be left behind.

At their declarations, Rafe stiffened. A warm wash of vindication ran through her. He couldn’t take the boys from her. No matter how many DNA tests he took or how many solicitors he had. The boys were hers.

Then, Rafe cut through her relief with a knife of hard, implacable intent.

“The Vounós are your family now. I will be taking you to meet them. In Greece.”

“
W
ow
!”

Wow was exactly the right word. Not that Tamsin would echo Isaák’s exclamation. Not in front of Raphael Vounó.

The hotel entryway boasted soaring glass windows looking out on the bustling streets of London. The last few days of icy rain had turned into a brilliant late-spring day and the sunshine flecked the gold carpet beneath their feet with rays of light. Splashes of reds and blues in the art deco paintings brightened the arching white walls behind the lobby desk. A line of smartly dressed bellhops clothed in sleek grey suits trooped past her and the boys. In their wake rolled silver chrome luggage carts stacked with cardboard boxes and old, ratty suitcases.

Everything she and Aarōn and Isaák owned in the world. Stuffed onto four utilitarian carts being marched through an impressive hotel lobby towards a long line of swishing elevators. All because of the man standing beside her.

Who’d taken her home away and given her an ultimatum.

Either you and the twins come with me or I begin proceedings to declare you and Drakos unfit.

What choice did she have?

The boys needed to sleep. Somewhere safe.

And she needed time. Time to figure out how to handle this threat.

“Stay here,” Raphael growled into her ear before he strode towards the concierge desk.

“He sure likes issuing orders, doesn’t he?” Aarōn’s surly tone snapped her gaze away from its slide down Rafe’s long legs.

The boys’ instant dislike of their uncle had not gone over well. Tam wondered if Rafe had been so clueless as to think he’d be able to bound into their life and take them away without a quiver of questions or a cry of complaint. Evidently he had because his reaction to their rejection had been one of blatant astonishment. If she hadn’t been so exhausted and afraid, she would have been amused. True, when he’d announced he was taking them back to Greece the boys had been unwillingly intrigued. But when he had made the mistake of telling them about his plan to leave her behind, he’d been met with out-and-out rebellion.

He hadn’t been happy.

“This is totally cool.” Isaák’s head jerked back and forth, trying to take in the details of an environment he’d never been exposed to. Extreme wealth. Unbelievable luxury. Something she hadn’t been able to give them.

A pinch of regret tightened in her chest. Tam tried to ignore it. Money wasn’t important. She’d given them what really mattered, love and attention. She’d given the boys good morals and taught them to be considerate. This, all this over-the-top elegance, was only a charade. This wasn’t real life.

“It’s okay.” Aarōn shuffled at her side, his hands stuffed in his jean pockets. “If you like this kind of thing.”

His twin snorted. “Who wouldn’t like this?”

“No arguing.” She watched the female concierge put a hand on Raphael’s arm, the bright pink of her nail polish flashing in the sun.

“I wonder if this place has a pool.”

It was Aarōn’s turn to snort. “Of course this hotel has a pool, idiot.”

“Boys.”

They both grumbled under their breath at each other before subsiding in slouched surliness by her side.

They were tired. She was tired. After eighteen hours of waiting in the hospital, it wasn’t a surprise the twins were grumpy and grouchy. They needed rest. A bed. And since the man striding toward them with a scowl on his face had evicted them from their own, she figured the least he could do was provide them with another one.

Temporarily.

She didn’t have a plan yet. Once she got some sleep, though, she’d calculate some way to get rid of Raphael Vounó and start a new life for her and the boys. She’d have to find a new home, find a new job, evaluate how to take care of Haimon—

“The rooms are ready. Time to go up.” Rafe’s anger bristled from him, his dark eyes flashing, his big body rigid. Apparently, he wasn’t used to any opposition to his wishes. The fact this opposition came from his nephews as well as her didn’t seem to matter in his behavior towards her. In any other circumstance, she’d object to his arrogant command, the bite in his voice. However, all the fears and thoughts and emotions running through her swamped her ability to confront this man.

Later, she’d fight. Right now, she only wanted a bed and some peace.

“
Eláte
.” He waved at them impatiently as he marched past.

Come
.

She hadn’t spoken Greek in years. Speaking the language had been too painful, filled with memories of soft whispers and passionate promises which would never come true. She’d found it far easier to fall back on her native English tongue, the language of her natural father who’d faded in her memory to a blur. Unlike the sharp burr of the memories of Greece.

And the man striding across the lobby.

Eláte. Come.

The first word he said to her when they’d met.
Come with me
, as he led her onto his family’s terrace, holding her hand in his, tugging her forward with a shy smile.
Come by me
, he’d said as he waved at her with a grin, organizing a team for volleyball in the pool.
Come to me
, as he opened his arms and took her into his grasp, giving her his kiss for the first time.

“Tam.” Aarōn touched her arm. “You okay?”

“Sure.” She pushed the tears away, breathing through her nose. “I’m fine.”

“Come, Tamsin.” Rafe didn’t even glance back, but he’d stopped in the middle of the lobby. As if sensing his displeasure, the other patrons and bellboys and even the flirtatious concierge gave him a wide berth. “Or don’t come at all.”

“Let’s get out of here. We can find somewhere else to stay.” Isaák’s voice drifted into her ear like a siren call. “We don’t need him.”

The boy’s suggestion echoed through the lobby. The words wafted to Rafe and his back stiffened. Then, he turned to face them.

He was so different. Achingly different.

Yet, she read him still. She knew what he thought and felt.

Hurt
. Raphael Vounó was hurt by what her half-brother, his nephew, had said.

A mask of contempt and command came over his face, hiding what she knew,
she knew
she’d seen. “Well, Tamsin?”

“Come on, boys.” Tightening her hand around her leather purse, she stepped forward. The decision to follow Rafe’s rude demands was the wrong one. Surely it was. She should set down some boundaries and make some requirements of her own. But she couldn’t keep the thought of his hurt out of her head and heart.

Following him into the enclosed space of the lift felt like walking into a steel cage with a hissing, poisonous snake. Yet, she did it. Because he’d been hurt and because she could not pluck another plan from her head at the moment.

The boys shuffled in behind them and the doors closed.

A dead silence filled the small space. Tam propped herself on the cold wall and shut her eyes. Bed. After sleep, she’d be back in fighting form and would have a strategy. A strategy to defeat this man and his determination to take the twins.