A Perfect Man: International Billionaires IV: The Greeks (25 page)

Alex wouldn’t forgive her. Not for a long time, and perhaps not forever. He would be extremely angry. In that anger, he’d strike out. At her. At her bakery.

Her steps stuttered to a stop.

She could lose the bakery. She could lose her business.

I need you.

It was as if he called the words to her in this very room. She felt the need, the pain inside him as if he’d transmitted them into her as they made love.

She loved him. Even more than her business.

The crowd suddenly surged, and parted, and right before her stood her fake fiancé. The man she’d fallen in love with forever and the man she’d be betraying in a few seconds.

If she had the courage.

“Sophia.” He waved his brute hand her way. “Come over here and meet someone.”

The man standing beside Alex was blond too. And sleek too. Almost perfect except for the way his dark gaze held only coldness and the way his mouth was edged with cynicism. Walking toward them, she tried not to notice her lover’s eyes were just as dark and his mouth just as cynical.

“Sophia, this is Aetos Zenos.” He tugged her into the place right between his arm and his body. The place she felt as if she completed. The place from where she could so easily stab him straight through his heart.

“Aetos, this is Sophia, my fiancée.”

He’d switched back to her full name. She knew what that was. He was pulling back from her, pulling away from her unspoken anger and unexpressed worries for his future. The wall between them came at her, impossible to climb, impenetrable to cut through.

“A pleasure.” The man reached over with a polished, smooth move, his Armani coat sleek and silky, his manner a combination of charm and glamor. He took her hand in his and looked straight at her. “Stravoudas has found a treasure.”

Yes. He had. But he was about to lose it.

Because what she saw in this man’s eyes was enough to have her courage soar back into the stratosphere.

The man’s eyes were dead. And deadly.

She was not going to let her Alex become like this man. Not if it was the last thing she did in her life.

“Aetos buys buildings.” Henry boomed into the conversation.

“Does he?” She showed the man her teeth.

Zenos arched a gold-tinged brow and stepped back. “Nice to meet you, Sophia.”

He left.

He might be a dead man walking, but he was smart.

At his departure, her anger dissipated, replaced with regret. She couldn’t protect Alex from predators like Zenos forever. Even when she’d done her dastardly deed tonight, he could simply pick himself up and find another doting woman to hang on his arm. He could surely figure out a way to get another thousand architectural contracts worth millions and still build his enormous, ugly dick buildings across the entire world.

She peered at him and confronted the bland blueness he’d used when they first met. She wanted to find her biggest rolling pin and bang him on the top of his head, but what good would it do? Perhaps she should stay quiet and hope for the best.

“Sophie!” Henry boomed again from the other side of Alex. “Your timing is impeccable. You’re here with your fiancé just in time for the countdown.”

A numbness, a cotton-ball stupor, fell over her. She cut the frustrating contact with Alex’s gaze and stared at his red power tie instead.

Could she do it? Could she blow them both up?

Would it end up saving him after all?

“Ten!”

The crowd roared the number out. Laughter and the clinking of glasses competed with tiny horns and thrilled chatter.

“Nine!”

“Come here.” His arm, warm and strong, came around her shoulders. He fit her right into his side, his heat and scent swirling around her.

“Eight!”

Henry said something to Alex, yet Sophie didn’t understand, couldn’t take it in. The only thing she could take in was this could be the last time she’d be here by his side, in the place she was meant to be. The solid knowledge of this realization sank into her being like a lead weight.

“Seven!”

He probably wouldn’t forgive her this time. This time she wasn’t only blowing up an engagement, she was blowing up his entire career. A career he held onto with a desperate grip that involved his father, but how?

She still hadn’t figured that out and now, likely never would.

“Six!”

“Smile, Sophie.” Henry’s grin was wide and happy. “A new year is about to be born.”

She didn’t glance at Alex’s face. Either he’d be frowning at her disobedience or have that fake smile on she’d come to despise. Instead, she stuck her nose into his chest and closed her eyes. She had seconds. So she’d take those seconds.

“Five!”

Her courage slipped as she took in Alex. Took in the way his muscles tightened under her cheek. Took in the smell of him, rich and elegant. Took in the way she fit into his side, like one flesh.

“Four!”

A well of tears threatened to wet his shirt. She sniffed it back. Only a few more seconds and she’d lose this, him. Her heart cracked into tiny little pieces.

“Three!”

His hand tightened on her arm as if he sensed the struggle inside her. And the thought of these hands—these bruising, ugly hands she now saw as beautiful—stopped her sliding courage. Because these hands made magic, created love when they did what they were supposed to do. These hands needed to be free to design what he was born to imagine and not what he had to do to protect his reputation.

“Two!”

Sophie straightened in his arms and forced herself to look into his face. His eyes were filled with ugliness and torment. So much so that the blue appeared fogged into bitter black.

“Alex,” she whispered. “I love you.”

“One! Happy New Year!”

Her words were drowned out by the roar of the crowd. Horns blasted, a cheer rose, and the couples around them fell into each other’s arms with hugs and kisses.

“We need to kiss.” His lips twisted in a wry grimace. “Even though you’re mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at you.” She put her hand on his heart, asking it silently to forgive her. “But you will—”

Dipping down, he caught her words with his mouth. A flutter of hope beat inside her as she took him into her. He sucked her lips as if he’d gone without water for weeks. His tongue stroked the inside of her mouth as if he’d dreamed of kissing her for days. And the way his arms encircled her, pulling her into his body made her feel like he’d missed her as much as she’d missed him.

She’d lose all this. In a few short seconds.

Her courage, her knowing this was the right thing to do, withered inside.

“Sophie.” He leaned back, ending the kiss, yet keeping her tight in his arms. “I know you don’t understand,” he murmured into her ear, brushing the sounds of the crowd aside. “But I have to build this skyscraper.”

His voice, the voice she’d come to know well in every one of its variations, shot right through her like a steel sword. Her courage reared forward, ready to do battle.

For him.

Because his voice was raw and weary. An edge of fear, of desperation, curled on the end of each word, as if he begged her to save him.

So she would.

Perhaps this explosion wouldn’t save him forever, but at least she’d buy him some time. Time he might use to figure out who he really was. Time to find his soul and embrace it. Time to realize he only had to be himself, not someone straining to fulfill everyone else’s image of who he was.

She placed a kiss right in the center of his chest and then straightened from his grasp.

“Sophie?” His arms dropped to his sides.

Looking down, she slipped his ring, the big, clunky thing that now was so dear to her, off her finger.

“Sophia?” His voice went hard, implacable.

But she knew the inside of him. She knew.

“I’m breaking up with you.” She met his gaze and held out the ring.

The crowd around them, in the inevitable way of humans sensing a train wreck or a car crash, stilled and went quiet.

“You promised.” His eyes retained the ugly, although the hot fire of anger now bubbled in the center.

The ugly pushed her forward.

“I’m breaking my promise.” Grabbing his hand, wanting this to be done, she placed the ring in his palm.

“This is going to ruin the deal with the emir,” Henry exclaimed at Alex’s side. “We’ll have to postpone the public—”

“Shut up, Henry,” his partner snarled, his heated gaze never leaving Sophie. “That’s not what’s important right now.”

The crowd murmured around them.

“Correct.” She never let her focus waver from Alex. “Maybe you’ll finally figure that out once and for all.”

A shiver went through her because she saw in his blue eyes what she’d never wanted to see again. Hate. Pure hate.

The hair on the back of her neck told her to beware.

“You’re doing it again.” His mouth, the wide mouth that had given her so much pleasure and so much pain, went from tight to a sneer. His lean body changed, too, going from taut and tense to the easy, languid pose he showed the world when he wanted to pretend everything was fine, everything was perfect. “Making all the decisions for everyone, right, Sophia?”

The accusation cut right to the bone. She’d known he’d attack and she’d been prepared for it, but the words still hurt and crushed. For a moment, her confidence, along with her courage, teetered.

“You’re wrong this time.” He kept coming at her, just as she’d known he would. The man would fight until the end for this stupid farce of a life he didn’t belong in. “You’re all wrong.”

She was all right, completely right for him. For the man who laughed on his horse and wore ragged jeans and drew beautiful, simple designs. She was all wrong for this man standing before her. For the Perfect Man with his need to dominate, his desire to destroy his very soul.

“You’re right.” She tucked her hands under her arms and took in a deep breath. “I’m all wrong. For you.”

The crowd around them muttered and questioned. Was this only an argument? Was this just a lovers’ spat?

But Alex knew better. She saw it in the line of his tight jaw and the hate in his eyes. “Why, Sophia? Why?”

“
Pour l’amour de l’amour.
”
she said simply. “For love’s sake.”

I
t was a very
good thing Sophia Charlotte Feuer always took the first week of January off. Because if she’d been obliged to drag her sorry body and broken heart to the bakery in the state she’d been during the last few days…

She’d have preempted any action by Alex to shut her down by accomplishing it herself. She’d have thrown salt into the mixer instead of sugar or baked her fruit tarts with spoiled strawberries.

So it was a good thing she’d been sitting in her lonely apartment surrounded by tissues and chocolate and liquor.

None of which seemed to have done the trick of brightening her outlook on life.

Because every day, like a fool, she checked the internet. Finding story after story about her ex-fake-fiancé.

The Perfect Man Gets Dropped Again!

Perfect Couple No. 2 No More!

Top Chef Splits With Alexander The Great!

Those headlines were bad enough. They hurt her heart, but not her brain because she realized, after a long week of introspection, that the Alex she knew wasn’t what she wanted even if he came on bended knee. No, the man was confused in his head and heart. She deserved the best of a man, not the worst of two competing souls in one body.

This didn’t mean the tears hadn’t fallen. They had. They’d been tears of disillusionment and disappointment, though. Alex Stravoudas had decided to stifle himself in a suit of perfect armor—armor that prevented him from becoming who he really was. The man she’d fallen in love with.

She cried. For a week.

And stupidly kept reading the internet.

The headlines that hurt her heart
and
her brain were the ones coming from the financial sector.

Stravoudas and Kluge, Inc. Lose a Mid-East Deal

IPO for Architectural Firm Delayed Indefinitely - Finances Rumored to be Tight

Firm Partnership Might Shatter Over Direction of Company

Granted, she’d hoped the deal with the nasty emir and his nastier son would fall apart. She’d admit that. Still, she hadn’t wanted to ruin Alex completely. She didn’t want his company to go under or his friendship with Henry to come apart.

What had she done?

Plucking another tissue out of the box, Sophie pressed it on her eyes.

Far worse than any of the tabloid or financial headlines were the ones that had come during the last few days.

Stravoudas Disappears in the Midst of Crisis

The Perfect Man Makes a Perfect Getaway

Partner, Kluge, Left Holding the Bag

It wasn’t like Alex to walk away from a fight. She’d expected him to launch a fierce battle to keep the deal and become a fiery landlord threatening to throw her out. Instead, she, and everyone else apparently, had been met with silence. A cold, hard silence.

The silence scared her.

Squawk
!
Squawk
!

She dropped the tissue-filled hand to the cushion and looked at her cell phone.

Squawk
!
Squawk
!

Her mother. For the hundred and thirtieth time in the last seven days. Of course, the news had spread to Florida via Aunt Eileen’s subscriptions to every New York tabloid that existed.

Of course.

Sophie tried to ignore the call as she’d ignored every other one. She had left soothing voice messages in the middle of the night when she knew her parents would be asleep. She didn’t want her mom and dad to get so agitated they’d take the next flight to New York. Right now, talking to her emotional mother on the phone would only make her cry harder. The thought of talking to her mother in person would drive her into a deeper depression.

She should answer the phone.

On the other hand, she could always leave another soothing message later tonight.

Squawk
!
Squawk
!

The call finally, mercifully, went to voice mail. She didn’t have to reach over and listen. She’d only hear the same thing.

What happened
?

He was perfect for you
!

You would have had such lovely children.

She thumped her head back on the sofa. Her mother had wanted grandchildren since the moment Sophie had graduated from college. The topic had been an ongoing thread in every conversation she’d had with her mother during the last seven years. She hadn’t wanted kids, she’d wanted her bakery. Kids were something for the future—the far-off future. The thread, and her mother, had irritated her to the point of madness. But this time, this one time, the yearning in her mom’s voice had made the tears well in her eyes instead of the red heat of aggravation.

Alex’s children.

She could see them even now. Their lean, lithe bodies dancing in the Greek snow. Their wide mouths filled with her baking. Their bright, blue eyes peering at her as she read them stories by the fire. The blond mops of curls nestled in their pillows.

She needed another tissue.

A thundering
bang, bang, bang
came from her front door.

“Sophie?” Mel’s voice rang with threat. “Open this door.”

“Come on, girlfriend,” Jade cried. “Time to face the music.”

Sam’s voice joined the fray. “We’ve called a MUST meet which means you
must
be a part of it.”

She’d successfully put them off for an entire week. She’d pleaded for time alone and time to think and time to heal. She’d said she was fine with everything and only needed some rest. Clearly, her friends’ patience had come to an end.

“We know you’re in there,” Jade’s voice escalated up a notch. “We quizzed your neighbors.”

Sophie snorted. She had exactly one nosy neighbor who would open the door to strangers—Mr. Elgin, who lived across the hall and could be forced to tell all with a simple box of cookies.

“Come on, Soph.” Sam’s voice drifted through the door. “We need to see you and know you’re okay.”

Dragging herself off the sofa, she shuffled to the front door. She figured she looked like crap; her hair in a straggly, sloppy ponytail, her old flannel nightgown stained with the chocolate ice cream she’d just eaten, her eyes and nose red from her stupid weeping. But these were her friends and friends would accept her, warts and all.

Like Alex
.

The thought zipped right from her head to her heart and made her stumble to a halt.

She knew, right at the center of her heart. If he stood in front of her at this moment, he’d tease, he’d push her into the shower, and he’d find a way to make her mad instead of sad. After all was said and done, though, he’d accept her as she was however she wanted to be.

But she hadn’t done the same for him, had she?

A deep, dark pit opened in the center of her heart.

“I’m going to break this door down if you don’t open it in five seconds.” Jade’s menacing tone made her legs move.

“You look like hell,” Mel said as she glided into the messy apartment.

“This place looks like hell.” Jade marched in behind.

“Soph?” Sam stopped in front of her and grabbed her arms. “You okay?”

“No.” The word ended in a wail and the tears fell once more. This time, they were ones of confusion and dismay.

Had she done the right thing? Or had she done precisely the wrong thing when Alex needed her? Had she judged him instead of loving him?

“It’s okay.” Samantha wrapped her arms around her and rocked.

“I’ve brought your favorite,” Jade crooned at her side. “Rice and beans will make you feel better right away.”

“You need a shower,” Mel observed. “That will make you feel better.”

Sophie found herself stuffed into her bathroom and by the time she got out of the shower, she did feel slightly better. A big bowl of Jade’s famous rice and beans made her feel marginally human again. Now she only wanted to climb into her bed and sleep for a thousand years.

“You start work tomorrow, right?” Sam chirped from her perch on the sofa.

Laying her head on the kitchen table, she closed her eyes. “I don’t think I can go in.”

“Don’t speak nonsense.” Jade hustled over from the stove and slapped the top of her head. “That bakery is at the center of your heart.”

“Not anymore, huh?” Mel’s hand came to rest on her shoulder and squeezed. “Alex is.”

“The man didn’t know how lucky he was,” Jade stated. “He doesn’t deserve our girl.”

“But he wasn’t the one who broke the engagement,” Sam pointed out.

“The relationship was fake.” Sophie raised her head and forced herself to meet her friends’ wide eyes. “It was a contract.”

“What?”

“I don’t get it.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

She made them see sense. There was no reason to keep any of this mess a secret any longer. Alex was eventually going to come around and kill her business—what did it matter if her friends knew the real story? What more could he do to retaliate?

“He must have been really mad at you, Soph.” Sam stared at her, a contemplative look on her face.

“I can’t believe he would act that way,” Mel chimed in, her expression one of amazement. “He’s not that kind of guy.”

“Mr. Charming has a bad temper.” Jade’s dark gaze sparkled with interest. “Who knew?”

“He’s not what he appears. All that perfection is a façade.”

Her three friends eyed her with speculation.

“He’s stuck in…”

“Yeah?”

“What?”

“And?”

“He’s just stuck.” Sophie abandoned any attempt to explain. They wouldn’t understand. Alex, himself, didn’t understand. Why should she expect her friends to? “All I know is I broke the contract and he’s going to find a way to close my bakery.”

“I don’t think so.” Mel sat down at the kitchen table and brushed her hand along the edge. “I might not know him as well as you obviously do, but I don’t think he will do that.”

“He hasn’t so far.” Jade leaned on the counter, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “If he were going to make a move, you’d have heard something by now.”

“I agree.” Samantha slid off the sofa and walked to the table. “I mean, look what he’s done instead. He’s disappeared completely.”

She knew where he was with a certainty. And her silly heart yearned to go to Greece and talk with him, make him see what she plainly saw. Yet he’d reject her. He’d reject himself.

“He’s hurting,” Mel said with a decisive snap. “Which means he has feelings for our girlfriend.”

“I saw the way he looked at you during the New Year’s party.” Sam’s gaze was piercing. “He loves you.”

Sophie gulped. She’d accepted her love but had never gotten to the place where she’d expected his. All her old patterns with men, mixed in with all of Alex’s confusion about himself, had led her to stand back and not move forward. “Even if he does, it doesn’t matter.”

“Love always matters.” Jade’s voice came sharp and clear. “So what if your relationship started with a stupid contract. Somewhere along the way, girlfriend, you both fell in love.”

“I didn’t say—”

“Come on.”

“You can’t fool us.”

“Sophie, get a grip.”

She sighed. “Okay, okay. I do love him and that’s why I split with him. He would have been miserable doing that dick skyscraper.”

“Fine.” Mel stood and glared down at her. “You accomplished what you set out to do. His deal is in shambles. Still, that doesn’t mean this relationship is over.”

“Nope, it sure doesn’t,” Jade slotted in.

“You love him. He loves you.” Sam slanted closer, her expression filled with hope. “That’s more important than anything else.”

“What are you going to do about it?” The usually mild-mannered Mel looked like a sputtering spitfire.

Sophie’s hands tightened in her lap. During this entire week, she’d wallowed in self-pity and righteous dignity. She’d thought of herself as some weepy heroine who’d sacrificed herself on the altar of love. But now, now she wavered. Maybe she’d done this completely wrong. Perhaps she should have stuck with Alex and believed in him enough to let him make his own decisions. Possibly, she needed to rethink everything.

“This isn’t like you, Soph.” Mel continued her relentless grind. “Do something.”

“
N
othing
in the newspapers about Mr. Perfect.” Jorge huffed, the steel chair scraping on the cement floor as he bent down to grab another tabloid. “Can’t think where he’s gone.”

Sophie slid a pan of cappuccino shortbread out of the oven. She didn’t respond because she had nothing to say about Alex or the situation. The
something she needed to do
had eluded her for three straight days. Rather than continuing to drive herself crazy at home, she’d tromped to her bakery and let Jorge and her assistants drive her crazy instead.

“But he’s so hot,” Megan had wailed.

“And he’s so rich,” Tamika had moaned.

“I knew he was no good from the moment I saw him,” Jorge had pitched in.

Then they’d all argued about the perfections, possibilities, wants and warts of Alexander the Great for hours on end until Sophie threatened to pour buttermilk over them.

Her assistants had taken the hint and left for the day.

Jorge was made of sterner stuff.

“I bet he’s gone down to Mexico.” He rustled the papers, plainly not at all worried about a rainfall of buttermilk. “That’s where everyone goes when they are hiding from the law.”

She snorted.

“Ah.” The old man’s twinkling eyes appeared above the top of the newspaper. “Finally, I get a response from you on the topic of Mr. Perfect.”

“He’s not perfect.” Leaning down, she sliced the bread into triangles. Focusing on her work didn’t always keep thoughts of him from drifting into her head, yet she’d found that the baking helped her, eased the turmoil inside.

She’d been working Christmas hours during the last three days.

“Nope, he’s not.” The newspaper rustled again. “My bet is he’s got something to hide.”

Alex was certainly hiding, not only physically, but emotionally. Up to this point, she couldn’t figure out if she should do something about it or not.

This isn
’
t like you, Soph. Do something
.

Mel’s words rang in her head for the thousandth time like an irritating, clanging buzzer. A buzzer that became louder and louder and louder.