The Greek Billionaire and I (14 page)

And then they were alone.

“Let go of me, please,” she said stiffly.

“Only if you promise to hear me out,” he said tautly. “Just hear me out, Velvet. I won’t force you to do anything. Just hear me out.”

Slowly, she made herself nod. She would agree to practically anything just to get his hands off her.
 

Swallowing at the revulsion on Velvet’s face, Mykolas slowly released her, and his fists clenched as she immediately took a step back, as if wanting to put as much distance between them.

“I want to explain about the last time—”

The words made Velvet blanch. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t think there’s anything to explain—”

“It wasn’t what you—”

She covered her ears, screaming, “I don’t want to hear you say it!” Her voice cracked. “
Please
! I don’t want to remember that time—” Sobs choked her voice and she squeezed her eyes shut, but still the tears kept falling. “If you want me to beg then I’m begging you. Please, don’t make me remember—”

So much fucking pain
, he thought in agony as he looked at Velvet’s tormented expression. So much fucking pain and he was the cause of it. Tearing her hands off her ears, Mykolas said roughly, “Listen to me, Velvet! It wasn’t what you thought! I did it because I thought you had betrayed me.”

Her head shot up at his words, her voice filled with anguish as she cried out, “Why would I betray you when I loved you?”

The fact that she had used the past tense when referring to her feelings for Mykolas terrified him, but he did his best to move past it because he still owed Velvet too much. He said in a hard voice filled with self-loathing, “Because I thought you were having an affair with Wayne Garfield.”

“
What
?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing, couldn’t believe that Mykolas even knew her father existed. “
Why
?”

“Before we were to leave for Santorini, I came across your phone—”

Realization hit. “You read one of my lawyer’s emails,” she finished dully.

 
“I didn’t know he was your father then. When I read his email, I thought…I thought he was your lover and the two of you had been scheming behind my back to steal my money.” He forced himself to meet her gaze. “I thought you didn’t love me at all. But I also knew you were proud, and so I did that, knowing it was the only way I could hurt you…”

“I…see.” But she didn’t. And she didn’t want to. She was just over this.

“I know everything now. About your parents, about why you changed your name. About the non-profit you wanted to put up…about Chantal.”

His last words made her cringe in humiliation. He really did know everything, even her last bit of idiocy.

“Say something,” he begged rawly. “Please. Say anything. Shout at me. Curse me. Just please fucking let me know what you’re thinking…”

But she could only look at him. There were no words enough to express how much she had died when she saw him with another woman.

Something in her eyes made him desperate, made him realize that even when they were standing in front of each other, Velvet had never been so far from him as she was now. “I love you, Vel—” Mykolas’ voice trailed off when Velvet shot him a look of despair.

“You don’t get to say that, Mykolas. You just
don’t.”
Everything inside her was crying out in pain at hearing him say the words, knowing that he could never be trusted again, no matter how much she wanted to.

“But it’s true,” he said fiercely. “It will always be true and even when I thought you betrayed me, I loved you and I knew I wouldn’t really stop.”

She could see that Mykolas believed he meant those words, but she also knew that she would be a fool to believe he did. “I’m sorry.” A look of utter devastation crossed his face, and God help her, it hurt her knowing that she was causing him pain. Even after everything, she just couldn’t bear the thought of him hurting.

And when he started to sink to his knees, when it was clear that he was about to beg her, she cried harder and reached out to him. “
Stop
.”

Mykolas stilled.

“Please stop. Please don’t do this. Please let’s just end this.” Each word was ripped out of her throat.

His face was gray by the time she had finished. “Just one more fucking chance, my love…”

“Mykolas, no…”

He swallowed. “Outside this bar, the whole world is waiting. I made an announcement earlier, told them I had news to share about our marriage.” Slowly, he took out the papers he had kept inside his back pocket. Unfolding it, he gave them to Velvet.

She took them with fingers shaking so much it was hard to keep the papers still enough for her to read them. And when she finally did, a silent gasp burst from her.

He had changed his name to Lambert.

Mykolas laid his heart out. “You’ve risked too many things for me, my love. And this was the only thing I could do to show you that I’m willing to take every goddamn risk to prove to you that I love you, and that if you just give me one…” His voice shook and became raw with emotions. “Just one chance, my love, and I will love you like no man can ever love you. I’m yours forever, no matter…no matter if you have me or not.”

Velvet closed her eyes. She didn’t want to see his face as she whispered, “Or not.”

And then she was turning her back on him, walking away, and he didn’t make even one sound. She wanted to look back but she forced herself not to, telling herself it was better this way. Blindly making her way to the back exit, she found herself stunned to see Mykolas’ manservant, Dodds, waiting for her.

“I was instructed to wait for you in the event that you went out through here, Mrs. Sallis. He believed you would be more comfortable with someone you know to drive you to your choice of destination.”

She allowed the older man to walk her to a waiting car, and a hysterical laugh started to bubble inside her when she saw that it was a limousine. Of course it had to be a limousine. Mykolas Sallis was a proud Greek billionaire. Only limousines were worthy enough for his butt. He was that proud – so proud he had changed his name to hers. For Velvet.

No, no, NO!

She was not going to think along those lines.

It was better this way.
 

Inside the car, Dodds had used his own set of controls to switch the TV open. She started to tell him that she wasn’t interested in watching it when she realized that the sneaky old man had chosen the channel where a live interview of Mykolas was being broadcasted.

Oh God.

She shouldn’t watch this. It would only complicate matters. She knew all these but she just couldn’t tear her gaze away the moment the camera focused on Mykolas’ face. He looked haunted, grief-stricken, and her heart squeezed hard.

“Is it true that you’ve changed your name to Lambert?”

“What does this mean? Should we call you Missus now since we know who’s wearing the pants in the family?”

“We heard your wife left you for another man and she got half of your fortune in a Swiss bank account. Anything to say about this?”

More questions were shot at him in rapid succession, all of them viler than the last. But throughout it, Mykolas remained stoic, as if he was punishing himself…

A strangled sob escaped her throat.

It was as if he was punishing himself, turning the tables around so he could feel how she felt when he had tried to hurt her that night, when he had tried to humiliate her and accused Velvet of so many things she didn’t understand because she hadn’t done anything wrong.

“What happened to the part of your vows about sticking together through thick or thin, better or worse, richer or poorer?” Another reporter jeered.

Someone laughingly answered, “Or not.”

The whole crowd laughed.

Except for Mykolas.

For those two words had broken him where all other insults had failed.

I’m yours forever, no matter…no matter if you have me or not.

Or not.

She looked at Dodds. “Please take me back to him.”

“Right away, Mrs. Sallis.” And with a swift turn of the wheel that had her clutching the handlebar for support, Dodds drove them quickly back to the bar and made a turn so they could get to where Mykolas was.

His security team immediately allowed them to pass, and she realized that the press had only been able to get close to him because Mykolas had allowed it. Fresh tears stung her eyes as she came to understand that it was yet another way for him to punish himself.

When Dodds stopped the car, she threw the door open and jumped out. Dodds started honking his horn, creating a furor that allowed Velvet to force her way to the front. She was so bent on reaching Mykolas that when she finally found herself past the crowd, she lost her footing and ended up crashing into him.

Mykolas looked down at the woman who had crashed into his arms and was stunned to find a crying Velvet meeting his gaze. He said dazedly, “Velvet?”
 

“L…L…L…” God, it was so hard to say the words even though she knew this time she had to. Because this time, she also knew that how she felt about Mykolas was the same way he felt about her.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded hoarsely.

“L…L…” She looked at him, begging for him to understand. But it was as if he didn’t want to allow himself to hope, fearing that if he did and it wasn’t true, he would never be able to get over it.

Velvet swallowed, inhaled, and tried again. “L…L…Let’s fuck?”

WHOA.
Camera bulbs started flashing more quickly, the whole crowd suspended in disbelief at her words, which she had apparently spoken more loudly than she meant to.

Mykolas on the other hand was looking at her as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. “You want to fuck right now?”

She stammered, “No, I mean, yes…” She glared at him in frustration.

Mykolas felt like she was waiting for him to say something, but damn if he could figure it out. All he knew was that she was here, and he might…he might still have a chance. “I love you, Velvet,” he whispered. He couldn’t help it. “You are and will always be my love.”

Oh.

She threw her arms around him, and suddenly the words were so easy to say. “Love you,” she whispered. “So much.”

Epilogue

“Happy first monthsary, Mr. Lambert!” Velvet jumped out of her hiding place.

“What the fuck?” Since all the lights in their living room were closed and it was a few minutes past midnight, his wife had almost succeeded in giving him a heart attack, coming out like a ghost from one darkened corner. “You gave me the scare of my life…”

The lights switched on, revealing Velvet’s crestfallen face.
 

“…my love,” Mykolas hastily ended. God, he kept forgetting pregnancy had made her sensitive and moody.

When her face lit up with a beaming smile, Mykolas knew he had done the right thing.

“I just wanted to surprise you,” she admitted to him with a pout.

The pouting lip never failed with him, and in seconds he had her in his arms and was kissing her hard. He was aroused, too, very much so, if the way his cock was practically grinding into her pussy was any indication.
 

And that was a good thing
, Velvet thought with a sigh as Mykolas lifted his head, considering what her gift to him was. “I have another surprise for you,” she told him excitedly and immediately pulled him towards the stairs.

“Just remember I’m a lot older than you are,” he reminded her half-seriously.

Velvet only snorted. “You just turned thirty.”

“With the way your surprises turn out, I’m thirty going on sixty.” It was not an exaggeration. Last week’s surprise had started with Velvet bursting into tears while they were having a candlelit dinner in a fancy restaurant. With everyone glaring at them, Mykolas had felt like the world’s greatest jerk even though he had no fucking idea what he had done wrong and was even more clueless and desperate about what he should do to make Velvet feel better.
 

It was only when he was about to go insane with worry did she stop crying long enough to tell him she was pregnant.