The Greek Tycoon Box Set: The Complete Serial: Books 1-10 (12 page)

The flight passed with blissful ease, as Dios slept quietly and Carla read a novel, her hand never leaving Atreus’s. In the cool luxury of the private jet, Carla found the silence calming, though it made it all too easy to ruminate on how their visit might go.
Will they like him?
Carla wondered, looking at Atreus, who absentmindedly checked his email beside her.
Will they approve of Atreus, and Dios? Will they understand how this happened so quickly – how we fell in love so hard, so fast? Is it insane to expect them to be happy for me?
Mary had sounded positively ecstatic on the phone, but it could have been all in Carla’s imagination.
And what about when I tell them that I’ll be moving to Greece?
That was the biggest question of all.
Will it break their hearts?
 

*****

The Simpsons lived in Turnham Green, to the west of the city. As the trio approached the quaint bungalow, with its red-brown brick and white roof, Carla hugged Dios to her chest anxiously. This was the house that she remembered from childhood, from spending summer days in the garden with her parents and grandparents, from cozy Christmas nights spent huddled around the fireplace with cups of cocoa and Christmas crackers. Without her parents by her side, not to mention the addition of Atreus and Dios, her unlikely family . . .
Well, it’s bittersweet
, Carla thought, breathing in the wet clean scent of English air.
 

“This is it,” Carla said to Atreus. “I spent half my childhood running around this house. It’s been in the family for ages. I know it isn’t quite the villa . . .” She shifted Dios on her hip, and Atreus placed his hand on the small of her back.
 

“It’s lovely,” he said. “Just like you.” Carla took a deep breath.

“Okay,” she said to Dios. “Here we go!” The family approached the door and Carla raised her hand to knock.
This is it
, Carla thought.
One rap on the door and my two worlds collide
.

It was thrilling, and scary, but before she could go through with the motion, the door flung open.

“
Carla!
” Mary Simpson burst forth to embrace her granddaughter, followed immediately by her husband, Charles. A small, squat woman with a pleasant patrician face and a mess of curly white hair, Mary’s eyes were the same as Carla’s behind her wire-rimmed glasses. Beside her, Charles was taller, though hunched slightly, and wearing suspenders that ran across a belly suggesting years of pints at football games. Overwhelmed with joy, Carla found herself tangled in the arms of her only remaining family by blood. Mary was crying, and holding Carla’s face in her hands, although her granddaughter was significantly taller than she. “I can’t believe you’re really here, love.”
 

“It’s so good to have you home,” Charles added, positively beaming.
 

“Gran,” Carla said, pulling away and towards Atreus. “Granddad, this is Atreus Kostas and his son, Dios.” Carla held her breath, waiting for any sort of unexpected reaction to come her way.
 

Instead, Mary and Charles threw up their hands and grinned. “
Atreus!
” They cried, rushing the bronzed Greek man in the same fashion they had Carla. Mary kissed both his cheeks while Charles excitedly shook his hand.

“Are you sure they are not Greek?” Atreus laughed amid all the affection. “They would fit right in at the villa!”
 

“It’s so good to meet you, sir. I read all about Kostas Shipping and your stock holdings in the paper, I do. You’ve made some wise choices, wise choices, my boy.” Charles was still shaking Atreus’s hand.
 

“Sir?” Atreus asked, incredulous. “It’s I that should be calling
you
sir. And the wisest choice I’ve made yet is this woman here.” He gestured to Carla, but she was utterly distracted by Mary cooing over Dios.

“Look at you, little fellow! Aren’t you handsome? Would you like to have a new great-grandmummy? Would you like that very much indeed?” Mary played with the child’s toes, and he seemed smitten. “Can you say ‘great-grandmummy’? Can you, my darling?”
 

“Gwee gwah-moo!” Dios said, and Mary’s enthusiastic response made him smile and clap.
 

“Mary, for Heaven’s sake, let’s take them inside. We can’t stand about the garden all day.” Charles had finally let go of Atreus’s hand, and Atreus gave Carla a highly amused grin.

“Of course, you must be exhausted! Come in, come in. Do you want some tea?” Before they could answer, Mary had swept them inside the house and into the kitchen, where she started pouring four cups from the kettle on the stove.
 

“Welcome to England,” Carla murmured as they settled themselves around the simple dining table. “I think you’ll really like them, if they let you get a word in edgewise.” Atreus was only half listening, his eyes scanning the walls that were laden with photographs from Carla’s childhood. There she was, resplendent in her Year Three photograph, and there she was again, covered in leaves and beaming towards the camera in an autumnal jumper at the playground. She was adorable, and Atreus had fallen even more in love with her just for knowing her family.
 

“I think I already like it here,” Atreus said, graciously accepting the cup of tea from Mary’s eager hands.
 

*****

Chapter 4

The older couple spent the afternoon around the table with the younger, talking of Greece and love and marriage. Mary desperately wanted to know if they’d set a date yet, and when the pair admitted they had not, she plunked a calendar onto the table and offered to help. Charles had to practically pry the tome out of her hands, and Carla felt a wave of emotion at the sight of her gran so willing to plan her wedding. They told Atreus stories from Carla’s childhood, like the time she lost a tooth eating naan at the local Indian restaurant, and stories about her parents.
 

“They would have loved you,” Mary said earnestly, her eyes growing wet. “My son was a gentleman, just like you, and my daughter-in-law was as gentle and beautiful as Carla. They would have seen themselves in the two of you, they really would have.” Carla had to hold back tears, only able to nod in response to her grandmother. Atreus seemed genuinely touched.

“I only wish, for Carla’s sake, that they could have been here for our wedding. And for my sake too – I would love to meet the people who raised such an exquisite daughter. But then, it seems those people may be sitting right in front of me,” Atreus said, and Mary and Charles exchanged a bashful look.

“We only watched Carla when she was small. Everything she is, everything she does . . .” Mary looked at Carla with the utmost fondness. “That’s all her parents, completely.”
 

“I am lucky to have you both,” Carla said, moved. “No matter what.”
 

“No matter what,” Atreus echoed softly. On Carla’s lap, Dios cooed, and tried to chew on Mary’s necklace. The group laughed, endeared by the boy. Charles rose from the table with a kind of faux-regality, and motioned to Atreus.

“Mr. Kostas, if you would join me in the other room for a cigar? I’d like to have a word.” Atreus smiled and obliged, standing from his seat at the table.

“Please, Mr. Simpson, call me Atreus. And yes, of course I’ll join you – as it so happens, I have a question I’d like to ask you.” He waggled his eyebrows at Carla and Dios, who giggled, and followed Charles out of the room. Mary sighed.

“I always knew you’d find a good husband, but I never would have guessed I’d live to see the day you marry a foreign billionaire heartthrob!” Mary laughed. “Oh, don’t blush, darling. I’m old, not dead! I’m allowed to tell you he’s gorgeous.”
 

“He’s wonderful, Gran. I can’t tell you how well he’s treated me. From the very first day in his home, I was like family to him and his mother. And to Dios!” She gestured to the child in her lap. “I was worried what you might think – my going abroad and coming back with a whole new life, but . . .” Words failed her as she tried to describe what she felt for Atreus Kostas and his infant son. Mary knew the look in Carla’s eye well.

“I think it’s splendid, love. These things, they just happen. You don’t expect them, you’re not even sure you want them at first, but then, when it happens to you – it’s like a fairytale. You ought to feel like Cinderella at the ball.” Carla smiled.

“I do,” she said. “Every day.”
 

*****

Charles Simpson puffed on his cigar a few times to get it started before lighting Atreus’s. In the cozy interior of the living room, out of earshot of the womenfolk, Charles settled in to the settee while Atreus found a spot in the arm chair across from him.

“Cigars, to me, always spell ‘celebration’.” Charles mused. “Weddings, births, holidays – they’re a marker of good things happening, and good things to come. Don’t you agree?” Atreus nodded.

“I do,” he said, taking the cigar out of his mouth to examine it for a moment. “There’s nothing quite as dignified as smoking a cigar on happy occasions.” Charles grunted in approval.

“Mary seems quite convinced that this is indeed a happy occasion,” he said, looking Atreus in the eye. “And I have to admit, the thought of having Atreus Kostas, of Kostas Shipping, in
my
family!” Charles’s eyes were wide with disbelief as he shook his head and puffed. “But I want to talk about our girl.”

“Carla,” Atreus murmured, loving the sound of her name on his lips, as he always did. Charles nodded.

“Carla,” he echoed. “I want to know what your intentions are with my granddaughter. My son, God rest his soul, can’t be here to vet you, so I’ll have to do it on his behalf.”

“Well,” Atreus began. “I should tell you that this will not be my first marriage.” Charles nodded again.

“It was in the papers,” he said. “And your divorce is only very recently final, yes?”

“Yes,” Atreus agreed. “But to tell you the truth, sir, it had been over for a long time. Well before Carla came into my life.”
 

“Still,” Charles said, blowing smoke into the air. “You can understand my concern.”
 

“Carla arrived at the villa at a very . . . chaotic time in my life; that is true. But I can promise you, on everything I am as a man, that my feelings for her are not fleeting. She is the kindest, most gentle person I have ever met, and the love I feel for her is . . . it’s unlike anything I’ve ever known. I would die for that woman. You must know that.”
 
Atreus’s eyes were pleading, as though it were the first time he truly entertained the notion that Carla’s family may not approve of their union. Charles appraised him silently. Finally, he spoke.

“I believe you, my boy.” And Atreus breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “But you must understand something, as well. Carla is not like the other women you have known, of that we can both be certain. But what that means is – well, if I may be frank?” Atreus nodded, and Charles continued. “She’s not like your first wife. She isn’t going to run off with some other fellow and she certainly isn’t going to leave you. For girls like Carla, marriage is a serious thing – it’s a once in a lifetime thing. As well it should be! But I have to ask . . . are you as serious about it as she is?”

Atreus furrowed his brow in confusion. “I don’t know what you mean, sir,” Atreus replied. “I have every intention of making Carla my wife.”

“And I’m sure that’s true,” Charles said. “But do you intend on keeping her your wife?” Before a stunned Atreus could answer, Charles leaned forward in his seat. “What I mean to say, my boy, is that Carla is a simple woman. She’s smart and kind and a million other wonderful things, but she isn’t fast, like that Serene of yours. She wants a home and a family, not parties and yachts. And at the end of the day, it is you who must be content with that. Can you honestly say that you could stand by a woman who is neither famous nor rich, nor high-born or well-connected, for the rest of your life?”
 

The pause after Charles’s question was heavy and still. Atreus didn’t know whether to be angry or passionately indignant or somewhere in between.
 
A simple life with Carla
, he thought.
Isn’t that every man’s dream?
He imagined lazy Sunday mornings and pancake breakfasts, picnics at the park and excursions to museums. He thought of afternoons spent napping alongside Dios, and family trips to amazing places.
Can I picture myself at Disney World, a smiling fool beneath a mouse-eared hat?
The image was undoubtedly amusing, but with Carla – and
for
Carla – and Dios, he would make a fool of himself a hundred thousand times over.
You know it won’t be all play, though,
he thought, acutely aware of the tug of his business on his life. There would be many days of rising early and coming home late, of not being home to tuck Dios into bed or kiss Carla goodnight before she fell asleep. There would be fights, he was sure, about working too much, about feeling detached, about missing one another.
It will not be perfect,
Atreus thought.
But it is perfect for me.
 

“Yes,” Atreus said finally, definitively. “I can. And I will. She’s the love of my life.”

Charles smiled. “Good,” he said. “Now, was there something you wanted to ask me?”

*****

Carla left her grandparents’ home that night overjoyed, utterly elated that their visit had gone so well. When they departed after dozens of kisses and promises to ring up to make plans, she watched her gran and granddad’s smiling faces grow smaller and smaller as they drove off.