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Kostas's Convenient Bride: Kostas's Convenient Bride / Desert Prince's Stolen Bride
Kate Hewitt

LUCY MONROE


Kostas’s Convenient Bride by Lucy MonroeHer boss needs a bride…Can she step out of the shadows and down the aisle?Discovering her boss, billionaire tycoon Andreas Kostas, must marry is devastating for Kayla. Then Andreas proposes that Kayla wears his ring! Having experienced the incandescent pleasure of his touch, she’s hidden her yearning for him ever since. It’s the proposal Kayla’s always dreamt of, but dare she risk her body and heart to become a convenient wife?Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride by Kate HewittHe’ll do anything to wed his princess…Even if it means stealing her away!Shy palace governess, Olivia Taylor, spends her life being overlooked. Until the night brooding Prince Zayed spirits her away! To reclaim his country, Zayed must wed his betrothed. But when it becomes clear that Olivia is the wrong bride, can they put their mistake right? And with such heated chemistry between them, do they want to…?







About the Authors (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

USA TODAY bestseller LUCY MONROE lives and writes in the gorgeous Pacific Northwest. While she loves her home, she delights in experiencing different cultures and places on her travels, which she happily shares with her readers through her books. A lifelong devotee of the romance genre, Lucy can’t imagine a more fulfilling career than writing the stories in her head for her readers to enjoy.

After spending three years as a die-hard New Yorker, KATE HEWITT now lives in a small village in the English Lake District with her husband, their five children and a golden retriever. In addition to writing intensely emotional stories, she loves reading, baking and playing chess with her son—she has yet to win against him, but she continues to try. Learn more about Kate at kate-hewitt.com (http://www.kate-hewitt.com).


Also By Lucy Monroe

Heart of a Desert Warrior

Not Just the Greek’s Wife

Million Dollar Christmas Proposal

By His Royal Decree miniseries

One Night Heir

Prince of Secrets

Ruthless Russians miniseries

An Heiress for His Empire

A Virgin for His Prize

Also By Kate Hewitt

Larenzo’s Christmas Baby

Inherited by Ferranti

Moretti’s Marriage Command

Demetriou Demands His Child

A Di Sione for the Greek’s Pleasure

Engaged for Her Enemy’s Heir

The Innocent’s One-Night Surrender

Seduced by a Sheikh miniseries

The Secret Heir of Alazar

The Forced Bride of Alazar

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Kostas’s Convenient Bride/Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride

Kostas’s Convenient Bride

Lucy Monroe

Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride

Kate Hewitt






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


ISBN: 978-1-474-09559-4

KOSTAS’S CONVENIENT BRIDE/DESERT PRINCE’S STOLEN BRIDE

Kostas’s Convenient Bride © 2018 Lucy Monroe Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride © 2018 Kate Hewitt

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Table of Contents

Cover (#u4bd5de25-9235-5860-b1e0-b0cdbdf90f88)

About the Authors (#u0ed5f73c-b73f-5991-ad53-cfee76dead2a)

Booklist (#u32d809a4-fdd8-59a9-b4aa-7cae72ce5a4d)

Title Page (#u2d5d2922-b00b-535c-9e0f-35815777ef49)

Copyright (#u7c1b23d4-cf07-5bd0-9425-3cb02a483e47)

Kostas’s Convenient Bride (#ud34618cb-ddbc-5254-a4e7-49ae7eb4b9e0)

Back Cover Text (#ucd531f78-e1e4-5a59-91b3-c64b81d489fb)

Dedication (#uaacf7712-dd4c-5004-860b-cc6e9fbc676a)

CHAPTER ONE (#u7354fc79-14cc-5eb1-98c7-d1b237624b2b)

CHAPTER TWO (#ud5fd90fa-7d41-5f42-bc5e-edebd3461617)

CHAPTER THREE (#u3d379338-1376-5883-881a-8140aa462b78)

CHAPTER FOUR (#u1f738f6f-c37b-5aba-ba9a-dbed54abaad9)

CHAPTER FIVE (#ucb74ead0-d09d-5029-84b9-52ddf863899b)

CHAPTER SIX (#ue10aacf2-ab60-5274-a1c1-1fecd4b4cc67)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

Desert Prince’s Stolen Bride (#litres_trial_promo)

Back Cover Text (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)


Kostas’s Convenient Bride (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

Lucy Monroe


Her boss needs a bride...

Can she step out of the shadows and down the aisle?

Discovering her boss, billionaire tycoon Andreas Kostas, must marry is devastating for Kayla. Then Andreas proposes that Kayla wear his ring! Having experienced the incandescent pleasure of his touch, she’s hidden her yearning for him ever since. It’s the proposal Kayla’s always dreamed of, but dare she risk her body and heart to become a convenient wife?


For a UK reader who has become a long-distance friend, Catherine Bent.

Thank you for reading my books, for caring about my characters and for sharing my obsession with BC as well as many smiles. Meeting you in Edinburgh was a highlight of our trip to Scotland and your boys are delightful!


CHAPTER ONE (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

KAYLA JONES HOP-RUSHED from the computer lab toward Andreas’s office, buckling her denim wedge sandal as she went. She’d stripped out of her clean-room bunny suit in less than a minute, but re-dressing took longer.

Late for a high-priority meeting with the type A, ultra-alpha president of KJ Software was nothing Kayla wanted to be.

Even if he was her business partner. Technically.

He’d been weird lately. Cranky. Even more exacting than usual.

Andreas’s twentysomething, superefficient male admin made a stopping motion with his hand. Kayla stopped but let her own widened eyes let him know how little she wanted to.

I know, he mouthed, sympathy imbuing his expression as some complicated sign language finally clued Kayla in to the fact that her peach cardigan knit jacket was on inside out.

She flipped it with rushed, jerky movements and then Bradley waved Kayla through with a significant nod toward her waistband. She looked down and realized the button at the top of the zipper on her peach damask-on-denim skirt was undone.

With a harried smile of thanks, she quickly fastened it as she opened the door to the big man’s office. “Sorry I’m late, Andreas, I was supervising tests on Dolphin.” She preferred to name all their projects after marine life, and Andreas indulged her whimsy.

Kayla stopped abruptly as she realized her boss wasn’t in his usual spot behind his big chrome-and-glass desk, but sitting at one end of the eight-person smoky-glass-topped meeting table.

A woman was with him. Blond hair piled in a sleek, professional updo and wearing a stylish white suit, she gave Kayla an assessing look.

“This is your business partner?” she asked Andreas, her tone tinged with disbelief.

“Yes.” Andreas frowned at Kayla. “I told you this meeting was high priority.”

“Technically, my smartphone told me. You flagged it.” Who was this woman and what kind of meeting were they having?

Andreas gave her that look, the one that said Kayla was being a tad too literal again. She stifled the urge to apologize. She’d been working on that.

Not apologizing for being herself.

“Well, she’s here now,” the woman pointed out. “I presume we can get started now?” Her words were take-charge, but her expression toward Andreas was nothing but deferential.

“Get started on what?” Kayla asked as she settled into one of the leather high-backed chairs on Andreas’s left, across from the stranger.

Apparently, he wasn’t done glowering about Kayla’s tardiness, because he did not answer.

Kayla rolled her eyes, absolutely refusing to utter the “I’m sorry” on the tip of her tongue. While he had marked the meeting as a priority, he’d had Bradley insert it into Kayla’s schedule when she’d already blocked off the time prior for the Dolphin tests. She could wait out Andreas’s snit. She’d done it before.

With a sound of impatience, the woman spoke. “We are here to discuss how Andreas’s search for a wife will impact his business.”

Everything around Kayla came into sharp focus. The sound each of them made as they breathed in the quiet of the room. The floral musk of the other woman’s perfume that smelled out of place. The fingerprint smudges on the glass in front of the blonde that indicated she’d pressed her hands on the table for some reason. Kayla wanted to wipe them away, erase the evidence of the woman’s presence, even as she sat there.

Kayla shook her head. Denial a scream inside her. That could not be right.

Andreas was no help. He still sat there with his stony “you were late” expression on his handsome, angular face, his green eyes snapping with disapproval.

“Search for a wife?” Kayla’s breath ran out on the final word, her entire body going cold and then hot with the implications.

Andreas finally deigned to nod, not one strand of his dark hair going out of place with the short movement. “It’s time.”

“It is?” Kayla hadn’t noticed Andreas being any less focused on business. Any more open to interpersonal relationships.

She would have noticed. She’d been watching for just such a change in him for the past six years.

In fact, lately, he’d been more driven and working even longer hours than usual and expecting her to do the same, wanting Dolphin’s launch on time and without a single hiccup.

“I’ve exceeded my father’s net worth. A wife and family are next on the list.” He didn’t shrug, his perfectly tailored suit-clad shoulders remaining ramrod straight, but the sense of dismissal was there in his voice.

Like this decision wasn’t something life changing, monumental and the one thing Kayla had been hoping for since they broke up to become business partners.

Kayla looked at the woman who had informed her of Andreas’s plans. Who was she? And why did she know Andreas’s personal plans when Kayla, a friend, had not?

A truly horrifying prospect popped into Kayla’s mind. Was this woman a matchmaker? It would be just like Andreas to hire a professional to find him a wife.

Not that he needed one.

While Kayla had been practically celibate the past few years, the same could not be said of Andreas. He’d taken many beautiful women to his bed, each and every one a risk to Kayla’s hopes for the future. But he’d never gotten serious, his heart and Kayla’s deepest desires remaining unchanged.

“That’s what I’m here for,” the sleek blonde said confidently, clearly thrilled to have a client of Andreas’s stature on her roster.

“You’re a matchmaker?” Kayla asked for confirmation, still trying to come to terms with that possible reality.

The woman nodded. “I own the Patterson Group.”

It sounded like a firm of lawyers, not a service designed to bring people together in wedded bliss.

“She specializes in millionaires,” Andreas added, like that was important.

“You’re a billionaire.” On paper anyway.

KJ Software was obscenely successful, just like Andreas had said it would be. The company, of which he owned 95 percent, was valued at over a billion dollars. Not bad for six years of blood, sweat and sleepless nights working.

The matchmaker nodded, her expression showing how much she appreciated the distinction and the fact Andreas was her client. Kayla knew being a billionaire rather than just worth millions mattered to Andreas too. A lot. That valuation was what had spurred this particular move toward domestic harmony, after all. He was finally worth more than his father, but still had more to prove.

Andreas was giving Kayla that look again. “Don’t be so literal. The point is Miss Patterson—”

“Genevieve, please.” The blonde’s smile was all polish, no substance.

“Genevieve...”

Kayla wondered if Genevieve noticed the short pause and the way Andreas’s square jaw tightened when using the more personal address. “...specializes in matching wealthy men with women who will make them the ideal wife.”

Kayla was appalled and made no effort to hide it. “I don’t think it works like that.”

She wasn’t opposed to matchmakers, was sure that there were plenty in the business who really believed in matching two people meant to be together, but this woman? She was every bit as predatory in her way as Andreas. Kayla had learned to read people very young.

If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have survived her childhood.

Genevieve of the Patterson Group did not read as caring about long-term happiness or emotional harmony by any stretch of the imagination.

“My track record speaks for itself,” the woman said now, superiority in her tone and the tilt of her head. So, impressed and happy to have Andreas as a client, but arrogant and utterly sure of herself, as well.

“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t consider your twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

Kayla gasped. “I’m pretty sure you can buy a bride who looks like a supermodel for that kind of money.”

Or, you know, marry the woman who had loved him for the last eight years and waited in hope for the past six.

“Your employer isn’t looking for a trophy bride, he’s interested in finding someone to share his life with.” The matchmaker’s self-righteous rhetoric would be a lot more convincing if she’d protested as vehemently at Andreas referring to finding a wife as the next item on his goal list.

If Andreas was really looking for a soul mate, he wouldn’t look beyond the one woman he’d called friend for nearly a decade. Would he?

They hadn’t broken up because they weren’t good together. They’d ended their sexual relationship because Andreas had very strict views in regard to business and personal relationships. They’d never had what one might term a romantic relationship.

It had been friends with benefits.

Kayla had thought that was changing, that their relationship was morphing into something deeper.

She had been wrong.

Andreas had wanted to morph it all right, but not into something more personal. He’d wanted her senior project software design as the cornerstone for his new digital security company. And he’d made it very clear that he valued her skills as a programmer above her willingness to share his bed.

The six-year-old rejection she’d thought dealt with and dormant erupted with the power to leave her heart in ashes.

She had to get out of there.

Forcing her emotions behind the blank face she’d carefully crafted during a childhood bouncing from one foster home to another, Kayla asked, “Why am I here? What do you need from me?”

“You are my business partner,” Andreas said, like that explained everything.

“Five-percent ownership hardly makes me a material partner.” It was an old argument, one Andreas had never given in on.

The expression on the matchmaker’s face said she agreed with Kayla, though.

Andreas frowned. The man didn’t like being corrected and barely tolerated it from Kayla, but she never let that stop her from saying what needed saying. At least when it came to the business.

“You are my partner and this change in circumstance will affect the business and therefore you, by default.” Andreas’s tone brooked no argument.

Kayla was still confused, though, something she was used to when it came to interpersonal relationships, but not their company. “Why?”

She wasn’t in the running. This whole “pay a matchmaker ridiculous amounts of money” thing made that very clear. And it hurt. Badly.

But she was confident Andreas had no clue. So, why was he so convinced Kayla’s life was going to be impacted?

Once again, he was giving her a look that said she’d missed something. Since he’d missed the fact she’d been in love with him since the beginning, she didn’t feel as badly about that as she usually would have.

Genevieve spoke, her tone one you might use with a small child. “Marriage brings about significant changes in a person’s life and since Andreas is the heart and blood of this company, it stands to reason his marriage will have a significant impact on the company and its higher-level employees.”

Andreas’s eyelid twitched at the familiar address, or maybe it was the reference to employees rather than partners, but he didn’t correct Genevieve.

“Are we going public, then?” They’d been discussing it, or at least Andreas had been telling her he was thinking about it for the past year.

Doing so would make him a billionaire for real, not just net worth. Kayla wouldn’t do badly out of it either. She’d be able to fund an entire chain of Kayla for Kids facilities, instead of the single local group home for foster children, with neighborhood after-school activities, she currently did.

“No.” Andreas frowned. “I answer to no one.”

Now, that didn’t surprise her. While she might have dreams of funding Kayla for Kids houses in every major city, she knew how unlikely that really was. Andreas did not want to answer to shareholders, or a board of directors. His father had dictated things about Andreas’s life when he’d had no way to stop the overbearing Greek tycoon, and no way would her Greek-American business mogul ever tolerate someone else having major say in his life again.

“Perhaps you should consider selling the company outright as you spoke about at our first meeting. It would free you up to make your search for the right marital partner,” Genevieve suggested, her tone implying she thought it an imminently practical solution. “Being a liquid billionaire wouldn’t hurt your chances in the dating pool either. I’m sure we could snag you royalty.”

So much for not looking for a trophy wife.

Kayla couldn’t get a full breath. “You want him to sell the company?” So he could buy a princess?

“It is one solution.”

“To what?” So far, Kayla didn’t see a problem that needed solving.

Except the whole buy a bride thing. And Andreas had plenty of money to do that without selling their company. Without ripping out from under her everything she’d spent the last six years building.

“Andreas cannot continue to put in twelve-to sixteen-hour days. It’s part of the agreement with my firm.” Genevieve tapped her tablet with one long fingernail.

“You signed an agreement?” Kayla asked Andreas.

He gave her that look. The one that implied she was a few steps behind in the business side of a discussion. It had happened before.

But this was crazy.

“That limits the number of hours you work?” she clarified.

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to consider selling the company.” Andreas wouldn’t give in on this particular issue, would he? It was too important.

He might not love Kayla. Heck, maybe he’d never even really cared about her as anything but a brilliant programmer with a new idea, but he cared about their company. It wasn’t just Kayla who’d found stability and a purpose with KJ Software.

Andreas had always been crazy protective when it came to the company and pure predator in his role as president. The idea that he would even consider selling it should be ludicrous. Only, the calculating expression in Andreas’s green gaze made Kayla’s short nails dig into suddenly sweaty palms.

No. He’d made comments over the past year. Sarcastic one-offs about selling KJ Software that she’d given the credence they deserved.

None.

Andreas might be the lifeblood of the company, but Genevieve had gotten it wrong. Kayla’s job might technically be director of research and development, but she was KJ Software’s heart and she couldn’t be that when her own stopped beating. Didn’t they realize that?

“Are you all right, Kayla?” Andreas asked, handsome features etched with concern.

She stared at him, not sure she could answer. Her entire world was imploding.

“We’ve done what we set out to do with this company.” Andreas leaned back in his chair, his big body relaxed, his tone satisfied...like his words weren’t slashing jagged wounds right into her heart. “Sebastian Hawk has approached me about a merger with his security firm.”

“A merger or a buyout?” she demanded.

Andreas winced, perhaps recognizing his news was not as welcome as he’d expected it to be. “A buyout is the most likely final scenario.”

“Why?” Owner of one of the largest security firms worldwide, Sebastian Hawk was one of their biggest customers and had been since the beginning. “He already licenses our software.” For his own company and in a secondary capacity for his own clients.

Andreas replied, “He wants to own it.”

“He’s a control freak, like you.”

Andreas shrugged. “He has three children and a legacy to leave them.”

“What about your children?” Presumably if Andreas was ready to get married, he was looking forward to parenthood, as well.

He had often said the only reason he would ever marry was to have a real family. Didn’t he want a legacy for his own children?

“I’m thinking about going into venture capital investments.”

“You’ve been watching that show again, haven’t you?” she asked, referring to a favorite reality television show of his.

They’d watched the show about venture capitalists who invested in and mentored start-up businesses together many times. Andreas prided himself on being able to guess which entrepreneurs were going to get multiple offers from the “sharks” and which would leave the “tank” without a single offer at all.

“As fascinating as all this is, we need to wrap this meeting up.” Genevieve’s voice grated in unwelcome reminder of her presence as she glanced at her designer watch. “I have another client meeting.”

Really? Lots of superwealthy guys were looking for bride pimps? “How many clients do you take on at a time?”

“That is privileged information,” Genevieve informed her haughtily.

But Kayla had spent most of her life in the foster care system. Haughty wasn’t going to intimidate her. “Not with the kind of retainer you charged Andreas.”

“I was under the impression you paid out of your personal account?”

Andreas’s expression filled with annoyance. “Of course I did.”

“Then, I do not see where this is any of your business.” The matchmaker’s condescending tone might have annoyed Kayla, but she had concerns much closer to her heart right now.

She stood on shaky legs. “You’re right. It’s not. In fact, I still don’t know what the heck I’m doing here at all. If you’re going to sell the company, my tiny minority percent isn’t going to stop you. If you want to pay this woman more than a lot of people make in a year to find you some dates when I don’t see you struggling for company now, that’s none of my business.”

The cold inside her grew with every word, but so did Kayla’s resolve. “I do not appreciate being called away from my work for something you could have handled in a text.” I’m hiring a matchmaker.

“You expected me to tell you I was selling the company in a text?” Andreas demanded, sounding shocked.

“I didn’t expect you to sell the company at all, certainly not to tell me about it as a fait accompli in a meeting with a third party.” Dismissing Genevieve’s presence, Kayla met Andreas’s gaze. “But I’m realizing now I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.”

He’d said this meeting was about the matchmaker. The selling of the company had come up as part of the discussion. Or that was how it had seemed. But apparently, it had been part of his agenda all along.

Kayla turned on her heel and walked out of the office, the numbness spreading with the cold. She’d been like this a few times before in her life.

The day she realized her mom was not coming back. She hadn’t spoken for two years after.

The day her foster mom died and she was placed in the first of another string of homes.

The day she realized Andreas wanted her for her programming skills more than her place in his bed, or even their friendship.

Andreas’s personal assistant stood up as Kayla came out of the office. “Are you okay?”

She just shook her head.

“What’s going on?”

“He’s getting married.” Kayla wasn’t going to mention the possibility he was going to sell their company. After all, that wasn’t supposed to have been the reason for the meeting.

“To her?” Bradley’s eyes widened, his face going slack.

“She’s the matchmaker.”

Bradley laid his hand on Kayla’s arm. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t say anything else, but he’d been working for Andreas from the beginning. Other than Andreas, Bradley knew Kayla better than anyone else alive. Maybe better, because he’d realized the first year they worked together that she was in love with the oblivious Greek.


CHAPTER TWO (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

A COUPLE OF hours later, Kayla was lost in the code of a program they’d scrapped the year before as unfeasible when a hand landed on her shoulder. She knew immediately whom that hand belonged to. “I’m busy, Andreas.”

“You’re not on a development team right now.”

“I’m the director of research and development. That means I get to choose what projects I work on.”

“So, what are you working on?”

“A program that will make Sebastian Hawk another hundred million if I can get it working.”

“We haven’t sold our company yet.”

“But we are selling it.”

“I don’t know, are we?”

She spun around to face Andreas. “Don’t play games with me, Andreas.”

He sighed, running his fingers through his jet-black hair, his green eyes troubled. “Yes, we’re selling.”

“When were you going to tell me?” She wanted to scream, to rail at him and demand answers to how he could rip everything out from under her on one go, but she wouldn’t.

For one thing, he wouldn’t understand. The fact they were standing here having this conversation at all told her that. For another, if she let out some of the pain, it would all come out and she wasn’t about to let that happen.

“After our meeting with Miss Patterson.”

“Why did you pull me into that?”

“She wanted to ask you some questions.”

“Why?” Kayla did her best to stop that one word coming out sounding like the pain-filled cry it was, but she could hear the ragged edges to her voice if he couldn’t.

Andreas winced. “You’re my closest friend.”

“And she interviews your friends?” How invasive was that?

“Yes.”

“What happened to separating personal from business?”

“We’ve managed to stay friends.”

They had until today.

Did he have any idea how arrogant he sounded, or how hurtful his words were? No, of course he didn’t. Andreas was so far removed from human feelings, it was scary sometimes.

“We’re such good friends, you didn’t bother to tell me you wanted to get married. That you’d hired some high-priced matchmaker to make it happen. You didn’t talk over the plan with me, much less the plan to sell our company. Yeah, we’re great friends.” The sarcasm was so thick in her voice there was no way even Mr. Clueless himself could miss it.

“I did tell you about Genevieve.” He frowned, completely ignoring the issue of KJ Software. “Today.”

Kayla felt a headache coming on behind her left eye. “Friends talk about that kind of thing before they do it.”

“How would you know?”

“I just do.” She might not have a lot of friends, but she had more than he did. “I know how to be a friend.”

His green gaze narrowed. “Are you saying I don’t?”

“Unless it comes to throwing money at a problem, I’m going to go with no on this one.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that because I am aware you are upset over the sale of the company.”

How magnanimous of him.

She rubbed her temple. It didn’t help the growing headache. Only one thing would. Ending this conversation. “Bradley would have told me.”

“I pay him well, but not enough to hire Genevieve Patterson’s services. It would not have come up.”

“He doesn’t need them.” When Bradley decided to settle down, he would do things the old-fashioned way. He’d look for someone he loved.

“Is that relevant?”

Her hand tightened around the stylus she’d been using to take notes. “To you? Probably not.”

“Bradley is not my friend. He is my employee.” Andreas grimaced.

“He’ll figure that out right away when he finds out you’re selling the company and making his position redundant.”

“I plan to take Bradley with me.”

She wasn’t surprised, but looked into Andreas’s green gaze for confirmation of his words. Her trust factor was at an all-time low with this man right now. “Into your venture capital firm?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” She wanted Bradley to be okay. And he worked well for Andreas.

Andreas smiled, that winner’s grin. The one he used when he was sure things were going his way. “You’ll have enough from the sale of the company to participate materially in the new company.”

“No.” She’d made plans for the money going public would give her. Changing the source of that windfall to an outright sale wouldn’t change her plans.

“We make a good team.”

“No.”

For the first time, Andreas looked disconcerted. “You haven’t even heard me out.”

“There’s nothing to hear. I’m not interested in changing careers. I love what I do and I plan to keep doing it.”

“You’d start a new business in competition with Hawk? Do I need to remind you that business is not your strong suit?”

Oh, if she were a violent woman! He’d have a hand-sized print on his cheek right now. Just to take that smug look off his face. “No. If I wanted to start my own software development company, I’d find a partner. But I don’t see any reason to leave this one. Sebastian Hawk respects my abilities and I’m sure he realizes that without me, the software development department would be crippled.”

Especially if she took the team with her.

“You have a high opinion of your abilities.”

“You used to too.”

“I still do.”

She didn’t reply to that. In fact, she was done talking. Kayla turned back to her computer and changed a line of code before inserting the new series she’d written over the last hour.

“Kayla.”

“Go away, Andreas.”

“Genevieve wants to meet with you.”

“I don’t know why. Anything she needs to know, she can send me an email.”

“I thought we could meet together.”

Because that went so well the first time around. “Go away, Andreas.”

If she kept saying it, he would eventually obey. Everyone did. Even Andreas.

He said her name again. She ignored him, putting in her earbuds and turning on her favorite work playlist. She began typing.

He stood behind her a lot longer than she expected, but after the second song, he was finally gone.

Kayla’s shoulders sagged and her heart hurt in her chest.

She looked at the computer screen that had been designed to be unreadable by anyone not directly in front of it. It was filled with a series of lines that all said the same thing. “I need you to go away.”

She carefully deleted the dozens of lines saying the same thing, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not get back into programming mode.

She needed to know what her future held, now that she realized it wasn’t going to have Andreas Kostas in it.

She left her development station with the computer with no conduit to the internet and moved to her desk and tablet. It was a lot easier than she expected to find a flight to Sebastian Hawk’s headquarters the following day.

Kayla marked herself as out of the building the next day, canceled the one meeting she had to attend and sent off two emails requesting coverage for the others she wouldn’t be at.

* * *

Andreas swore as he read the gushing but uncompromising email from Genevieve telling him he had to fill out the entire personality and interests form before their next consultation. He’d thought the intake form had asked everything pertinent.

Apparently, the matchmaker did not agree.

If Kayla wasn’t pissed at him, he could have asked for her help. As awkward as she could be socially because of her overly literal mind, she got stuff like this with surprising understanding.

The meeting between her and the matchmaker could have gone worse, but he wasn’t sure how. Both he and Genevieve had gotten Kayla’s back up.

It had been a couple of years since she’d tuned him out with earbuds. But when she did it, there was no point trying to communicate with her.

Kayla had a stubborn streak that could outlast his own when the issue mattered to her.

She was angry he’d decided to sell the company, that she’d learned today in the meeting.

Telling Genevieve his plans to sell before talking to Kayla had been a mistake. He could see that now.

He owed his partner more respect than that.

It was also clear that she believed as his friend, he should have talked to her about hiring the matchmaker ahead of time too.

He didn’t see it.

If anything, Kayla should have realized this was the next step. She was the only person he’d ever shared his plans with, but he had shared them.

A long time ago, when their friendship had included sex and no business partnership.

He didn’t like knowing she was upset with him. Kayla Jones was the only person whose opinion really mattered to him.

Breakfast apology éclairs might be in order tomorrow.

Hell, why not deal with it tonight and take her to dinner at that Vietnamese place she liked?

Kayla wasn’t in the computer lab when he got there and didn’t answer her phone when he called.

She was still ignoring him.

Too bad for her, he wasn’t in the mood to be ignored.

He’d just go by her condo. It wasn’t exactly a trip, a few floors below his penthouse that was double the size of her small one bedroom. At least she’d moved into his building and out of the hopeless apartment in an unacceptable part of town.

Forty-five minutes later, he sent a short text. Where the hell are you?

When she didn’t reply in five minutes, he sent another one. I can keep this up all night until your damn phone’s batteries die from all the alerts.

He was surprised when she didn’t reply after that one. Andreas didn’t make idle threats, though. He proceeded to blow her phone up with texts every five minutes, even more shocked when the first few did not elicit a response and moving into downright worried by the time his phone rang forty-five minutes and eight texts later.

“Stop!” Anger and exasperation warred in her shout.

More than a little annoyed himself, he demanded, “Where are you?”

“You’re not my keeper.”

Knowing he did not have to be worried for her safety allowed him to ratchet back on the irritation. He went for calm, rational. “We need to talk.”

“Maybe you should have thought of that little thing before this minute, you think?”

“We would have talked this afternoon if you hadn’t thrown a hissy fit and stormed out of my office.” Okay, maybe not so calm.

“That? Was not a hissy fit. I do not lose my cool, storm anywhere and I never throw fits, hissy or otherwise.” Oh, hell. Her voice had gone cold and devoid of emotion, like it did when she was protecting herself.

He didn’t like thinking she felt the need to protect herself from him. “Be reasonable, Kayla. You’re blowing this all out of proportion.”

“What exactly? The fact you’re planning to take my home away because that wife pimp says you need to?”

“I’m not doing anything with your condo.”

“Don’t play the idiot!” Kayla’s shout stunned him into silence.

She was right; she didn’t lose her cool. The only time he’d ever heard her raise her voice was when they used to sleep together. And no matter how good a lover he was, the times she let herself go enough to scream were few. Allowing himself to remember their sexual past was not productive, as he had learned early on after taking her on as a business partner.

He could not afford that kind of distraction from his goals.

Right now, his goal was figuring out what was going on with his best friend. “Kayla?”

“I’m taking the day off tomorrow.” The even tone of her voice after that primal scream of pain was almost worse than the shout itself.

“Why?”

“I have things to do.”

“What things?”

“How did your wife pimp put it? None of your business, Andreas.”

“Kayla, stop it. I don’t know what has gotten into you—”

The low beep that indicated the call had been ended interrupted Andreas. Damn it. She should know he wouldn’t sell the company without an after plan for both of them.

He hadn’t expected her to want to go into venture capitalism herself, not really, but she was brilliant at computer code and not just that related to security. Kayla would be a stellar value add as an adviser and contributor of modified or original programming for any company he might be interested in investing in.

Once she calmed down, she’d see that.

Until then, he should probably make sure she got both “I’m sorry” éclairs and coffee from her favorite bistro in the morning.

He’d drop them off on his way to work. Maybe he should reorganize his morning so they could spend a couple of hours together.

They hadn’t had off time together in a while.

It was just that spending time with her away from work came with temptations he had to fight. The uncontrollable passion they’d once shared had to be kept locked up tight. That kind of attraction didn’t lead to anything good. It was exactly what had been his mother’s downfall and the reason his father, whom even Andreas could acknowledge was generally an honest, if bullheaded man, had an illicit affair.

Keeping their past firmly in the past should have grown easier as the years progressed, but the opposite was true. Andreas found himself admiring Kayla in a very personal, very sexual way at the least convenient times.

But he could not allow his own weakness to damage their friendship. He’d worked too hard to find a place in his life for her more permanent that bed partner.

* * *

Kayla turned on her phone as she stepped off the commercial flight into the tunnel leading to the JFK airport. One long beep indicated multiple text messages and another different tone told her she had at least one voice mail.

She looked for someplace to step out of the flow of busy foot traffic and spied an area set aside for business travelers to work. Making her way across the wide hallway, Kayla barely missed bumping into a woman pushing a stroller at a faster clip than Kayla usually jogged.

A man in sweats and sandals bumped into Kayla, knocking her right against a wall. She waved away his hurried apologies, more bothered by the idea of having to talk to a stranger than the sore spot on her shoulder from hitting the wall.

Kayla hated traveling alone and missed Andreas’s commanding presence that always seemed to create an opening, no matter how many people crowded the walkways. The traitor.

Kayla’s phone buzzed as she reached the relative safety of the business area. She grabbed it and was relieved to see Hawk Security. She’d emailed Sebastian Hawk the night before, but hadn’t heard back and wasn’t even sure he’d be able to work her into his schedule.

Kayla answered quickly. “Hello.”

“Miss Jones?” a female voice asked.

“Yes, this is Kayla Jones.”

“I’m calling for Sebastian Hawk.”

Her gut clenched with both hope and trepidation. “Yes?”

After telling the secretary that Kayla was in New York now, she learned Sebastian Hawk wasn’t, but was expected back that night. And while he always spent his first day back from any business trip with his family, he could fit her in for a lunchtime meeting the day after.

“That would be great.” She made no effort to curb the enthusiasm she felt from showing in her voice. She was grateful and she let it show. Her home was on the line and even if Sebastian Hawk didn’t know it, Kayla did.

“If you’ll give me your email address, I’ll send you the calendar invite.”

“Thank you.” Kayla recited her particulars, thinking Sebastian Hawk’s secretary might actually be as organized as Bradley.

Kayla ended the call and looked around the airport, wondering what she was going to do with two days of no work and for the first time in six years. Deciding to check her other messages, she discovered that Andreas had texted her multiple times. Bradley had texted her twice and there were three voice mails. At least one of those was from someone besides Bradley and Andreas.

Kayla listened to the voice mail from the project lead on the revamp of their school security software. Ten seconds into the message, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to laugh or cry.

Not that Kayla cried anymore. Crying never changed anything and it gave her a headache.

Her project lead was calling on behalf of Bradley, who was basically begging her to save his sanity by calling Andreas.

Kayla shook her head, but she dialed Andreas’s private number.

He picked up on the first ring. “Where the hell are you?” His voice boomed across the line, laced with a heavy dose of worry.

“I told you I was taking the day off.”

“You weren’t home this morning when I stopped by.”

“So? Maybe I spent the night in someone else’s bed.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she didn’t regret the words.

Dead silence met her words and Kayla even checked her phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

“Andreas?” she finally prompted.

“You don’t sleep with strangers. Hell, you don’t even talk to them.”

“Casual sex doesn’t require a long conversation.”

“You would know this how?” he demanded.

“You sound like a jealous lover.” And while they might have been lovers at one time, he’d never been jealous.

He’d been very careful to explain that while he expected monogamy, it wasn’t because they were in a romantic relationship. It had been a matter of health safety.

“I sound like a concerned friend.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Who won’t tell me where you are.”

“You don’t need to know my every move.”

“You are being obstinate.”

“I’m—” was all she could get out before Andreas interrupted her.

“What the hell are you doing in New York?”

“How do you know where I am?”

“I used the locator function on your phone.” Which he hadn’t been able to do while she’d had it off on the plane.

“I didn’t give you the code so you could track me like an errant child.”

“I did no such thing.”

“What would you call it?”

“A concerned friend and business partner.”

“Well, now you know where I am.”

“But not why you are there.”

“Why do you think, Andreas?”

“You’re meeting with Hawk?”

“Yes.”

“But he’s out of country.”

“Until tonight.”

“You only took one day off.”

“I’ll be taking the rest of the week off.”

“What? You can’t do that!” The genuine shock in Andreas’s voice was laughable.

The fact he was shouting would have alarmed her if she wasn’t numb. “In fact, I can.”

“You never have before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“What are you going to do with Hawk out of town?”

“Whatever I want. I’m taking a page out of your book.”

“I don’t take time off without notice.”

“You’re selling the company, that’s the biggest abandonment I can think of.”

“I’m not abandoning anything. Part of the purchase agreement between Hawk and myself is a guarantee of employment for the current employees, provided their performance continues to meet expectations.”

“How nice.”

“You didn’t need to meet with him to confirm that,” he said, sounding hurt.

“I’m not meeting with Hawk to make sure the other employees have jobs on the other side of this buyout.”

“Then why are you meeting him?”

“To make plans for my future.”

“I already have plans for your future!”

“How interesting, since you haven’t brought any up to me.”

“I did. I want you to go into business with me again.”

“No.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” She’d never meant anything more.

He must have heard the conviction in her voice, because Andreas didn’t come back with an instant rejoinder.

“You’ve made plans for your future and your bride pimp is so right. They are not my business, but my future and the plans I make for it are mine.”

“She was wrong.”

“Maybe you should have told her that and I would believe you.”

“I do not lie.”

“You just keep things from me. Important things.”

“I told you, I was going to talk to you about it.”

“If my opinion, much less my feelings, mattered, you would have talked to me before you talked to Sebastian Hawk.” Before he hired Genevieve.

“Is that why you insist on meeting with him? Paying me back?”

“I’m not that petty. This is about my survival.” As the words came out of her mouth, she realized how very true they were.

Andreas wouldn’t understand. As hard as it had been to lose his mother, as much as he despised his father’s hypocrisies, Andreas had never been without a home to call his own. He had not been a three-year-old little girl left in the bathroom of a truck stop. He didn’t know what it was to have his entire world ripped out from under his feet, not once, but twice before reaching the age of eighteen.

If he did, he wouldn’t be selling the company that gave Kayla her first sense of belonging and security since the death of the foster mother who had coaxed Kayla back to speech.

“I would not leave you without resources. Have I not proven that to you?”

“No. You’ve pretty much proved the opposite, Andreas.” Pain coalesced in her throat, making it tight.

But she would not cry.

“No, Kayla...that is not what this is about.”

“I have to go, Andreas.”

“To do what?”

“Get a clue, Mr. Almighty Kostas. My life is none of your business anymore.”

“Why? What is really going on here?”

“I’m dumping a relationship that is toxic to me.”

“I am not toxic. I am your friend.”

She couldn’t take another word, not without losing it, and she hadn’t lost control of her emotions in years.

“Goodbye, Andreas.”

She ended the call before he could reply. Now she just had to check into a hotel. Then she was going to do something. She didn’t know what, but her time of waiting for Andreas Kostas to wake up and realize they were meant to be each other’s family was over.

They weren’t even friends, no matter what she’d always thought. If they had been, she’d have known he planned to buy a wife.

* * *

Andreas heard that ominous beep that indicated Kayla had hung up on him again and shouted, “Bradley!”

His PA came rushing into the office. “Yes, boss?”

“Get me to New York right the hell now. Charter a jet, whatever it takes.”

“On it.” Bradley turned to go.

“Keep tracking Kayla’s phone.”

Bradley waved his hand in acknowledgment.

“And find out what hotel Kayla is staying at. Book me a room beside hers. I don’t care if they have to move other guests. Make it happen.” He heard his father’s voice coming out of his mouth and for the first time in Andreas Kostas’s life, realizing a similarity with Greek shipping tycoon Barnabas Georgas didn’t bother him.

If it took acting like an arrogant bastard to handle this situation, then arrogant bastard he would become.


(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER THREE (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

PUSHING HER SUNGLASSES up on her head, Kayla laid her driver’s license down in front of the desk clerk at the hotel on Times Square she’d made reservations at before she’d left Portland. “I know it’s not 3:00 p.m. yet, but I was hoping a room could be found for me.”

She’d booked a single with no frills and didn’t care what floor they put her on. Unlike Andreas, Kayla didn’t care if she got concierge level with turndown service. She just wanted some time in her room to unwind away from other people. She fully intended to turn off her phone too. No interruptions between her and her thoughts.

And maybe even a nap. There was a first time for everything.

The desk clerk typed something, presumably Kayla’s name, into the computer, then straightened her shoulders. “Oh, yes, Miss Jones. Your room is available immediately if you like.”

“That’s great.” After her conversation with Andreas, she was feeling drained. The cross-continental flight hadn’t helped either.

The young woman waved at the concierge and suddenly there was a bellhop there ready to take Kayla’s bag.

“Oh, I can get that.”

“Let me, Miss Jones, please,” the smartly dressed man who looked more like an extra in a mob movie than a bellhop said.

Kayla shrugged. She wasn’t sure what it was about her pale melon wrap skirt and gray tank under a dark melon hi-lo knit jacket that said “wealthy lady who needs help” to the bellhop. Her comfy travel sandals weren’t even from the designer side of her closet, but Kayla wasn’t going to argue about it.

She just hoped she had appropriate cash in her Michael Kors backpack for the tip.

When the bellhop used Kayla’s key to access the upper floor of the hotel, she got an inkling that he wasn’t taking her to the original room she’d booked herself. When they got off on the top floor, she was sure of it. The smell of roses when she entered a spacious sitting area of what was obviously a superluxurious two-bedroom suite had Kayla cursing Andreas’s name.

The bastard. He’d had Bradley change her reservations. Of course he had. The Greek tycoon was a control freak of the highest magnitude. And he was on his way to New York. Of course he was. Obviously, he intended to stay in the beautifully decorated suite with Kayla.

Andreas wouldn’t see any problem with that. He hadn’t been carrying a torch for Kayla for six long, interminable years.

She shouldn’t be surprised. She really shouldn’t. This was just like something the overbearing Greek tycoon would do.

Only she was. What did he think he was doing?

He had meetings. Much more important than hers. And a bride to find. And a matchmaker to make happy. And Kayla’s darn business to stay the heck out of!

That last was the most important.

She was here to establish the rest of her life without Andreas Kostas in it. Didn’t he realize that?

Maybe he did.

Cold chills washed down her body.

Maybe he wasn’t as ready to let go of their friendship as she was.

Well, he was going to have to get over that little problem. He’d had a total of eight years, two of which included amazing sex, to figure out that they could be something more. What had the idiot done, though? He’d gone and hired a matchmaker, that was what!

He’d decided to sell Kayla’s home! Her one place she felt safe.

Well, she wasn’t putting up with that. He could go off and get married and have all the business challenges he wanted. Kayla might even come to the wedding, but they were done. Done as business partners. Done as best friends.

Just done.

When the bellhop asked what room to place her bag in, Kayla waved at the one on the left. She didn’t care. What did it matter? This room, no matter how swank, was no more sanctuary than her condo back in Portland. The only sanctuary she had was her office and lab back at KJ Software and she wasn’t going to lose that.

Kayla grabbed her phone out of her bag and tossed it onto the table.

To heck with staying here and waiting for Andreas to show up. She was going out.

She looked down at herself. Right. First stop, the Garment District. Shopping cured a lot of frustration. At least it did when you had money, and ever since she’d started working for KJ Software, Kayla’s bank account had never been empty like back in the days when she’d been alone in the world without the company.

She was in a small start-up designer’s boutique, trying on a dress that hugged her curves in a way that would require another layer. Maybe a jacket? A long vest? But it was her signature color. The perfect shade of melon in a ruched silk that made Kayla’s breasts look a cup size larger and her bottom look like it was padded.

She turned to get another angle from the three-way mirror when a sound of masculine appreciation came from her left.

“Very nice.”

She spun to face a blond who looked vaguely familiar. “Thank you, but I think it needs a long vest.”

“To hide that gorgeous body? I don’t think so.” Blue eyes tracked her with heated approval that managed to feel like a compliment and not something smarmy.

Still, she rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to pick me up?”

He laughed, the sound genuine and amused. “I haven’t noticed anyone giving you the attention you deserve.”

“You’re saying you noticed I’m alone.”

“Yes.”

“A woman can shop alone.”

“Could you please tell my sister that? She insists not.”

A young woman who also looked familiar in that way people do who could be celebrity doppelgängers said, “You like shopping.”

“In women’s clothing boutiques?” the flirtatious man demanded.

The younger woman laughed. “Okay, maybe not so much. Anyway, Chantal is coming, so you’re off the hook. BTW, that dress looks killer. You’ve got to buy it.”

Kayla looked back at the mirror. She did like the dress. She nodded. “I think I will.”

Mr. Blue Eyes gave her another appreciative look. “Wear it tonight when we go out.”

“You are trying to pick me up!” Kayla laughed, not at all offended.

He was too charming and good-looking. Besides, his sister was there. Said sister exclaimed, “Oh, you’ve got to go out with him, everyone wants to be seen with Jacob.”

“Why? Is he somebody famous?” Kayla joked.

Jacob put a hand to his heart and staggered back, like he’d taken a shot. “I’m hurt. You don’t recognize me?”

“You look familiar. Does that make you feel better?”

His sister burst into gales of laughter. “Oh, this is fabulous. The one woman in New York who doesn’t know who you are.” She whipped out her phone. “Just wait until my followers hear about this.”

Kayla frowned. “I’m starting to feel like I’m really missing something here.”

“I’m the lead in...” He named a new and rising-in-popularity Broadway production. “And the brat doing the tweeting? She’s my twin, but she’s also a famous model. Just ask her.”

The beautiful younger woman put her phone where Kayla could see the screen. “It’s true. See? I have over a million Twitter followers.”

“I’m a software designer. I don’t get out much,” Kayla muttered.

Both Jacob and his sister laughed, clearly more amused than offended.

“So, you’ll let me show you my city?” Jacob asked persuasively.

His supermodel sister grinned and winked. “Oh, do say yes. It’s been an age since he’s been out with anyone who wasn’t a total sycophant.”

She didn’t want to go back to the hotel, where Andreas would be soon. “Maybe I will.”

“Maybe we can start our evening early.” Jacob jumped onto Kayla’s tentative agreement.

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m not done shopping.”

“I make a great shopping buddy.” He smiled engagingly. “Just ask my sister.”

“He really does,” said the woman, still very busy with her smartphone.

And that was how Kayla found herself spending the next several hours in the very pleasant company of a Broadway star. It was kind of amazing. Other than a couple of people asking for Jacob’s autograph, people mostly left him alone. New Yorkers took his presence and even Kayla’s with him in stride.

“Do you want to stop at your hotel and get ready to go out?” he asked solicitously later.

No, she really didn’t, not and risk running into Andreas. Kayla’s backpack had everything she needed besides the clothes and shoes she’d bought while out shopping.

“It might make more sense to get ready at your place so you could get ready at the same time,” she offered.

“I like the way you think.”

He put the arm not carrying packages for her around her shoulder. “Don’t take that as some kind of invitation.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” The laughter in Jacob’s voice mocked her.

But Kayla smiled anyway.

Jacob lived in an older, secure building, not far from the theater district. Jacob came out of the bedroom dressed in designer jeans that showed off his manly assets in delicious ways and a white silk shirt.

He approached Kayla, who had changed into the new dress in his tiny bathroom and applied makeup before pulling her tight curls into a messy bun on top of her head. Masculine approval glowed in his blue eyes. “You look amazing, Kayla.”

“Thank you.”

Jacob put his hands on her shoulders, intent unmistakable in his eyes.

Pounding on his door startled them both. Jacob jumped back. “What the hell?”

“Open the damn door,” Andreas bellowed from the other side.

Kayla gasped. “Andreas.”

More pounding. “I know you are in there, Kayla. Tarkent, open this door!”

Jacob’s last name was Tarkent?

“Do you know who that is?” Jacob asked.

“My boss.”

“Your boss?” Jacob asked. “Not your boyfriend.”

“No. Boss.”

“He sounds like a pissed-off lion.”

The door shook with the force of Andreas’s pounding. “Kayla!”

“Um, yeah.”

“Do I open it or call the police?”

“I wouldn’t call the police.” She’d never seen Andreas in this mood. She didn’t know what he was capable of, but she did know theater productions needed backers and backers meant money and Andreas knew how to manipulate money.

“Are you afraid of him?”

“Afraid of him?” Sudden fury filled Kayla and she marched to the door. “The day I’m afraid of Andreas Kostas is the day I stop being Kayla Jones. I am not afraid of that man, or any other man, Jacob Tarkent.”

She threw the locks and yanked the door open. Then stood there, her arms crossed, glaring at her boss, not moving one inch backward.

Andreas had to pull his hand back from another set of furious pounding. “There you are.”

“Here I am. The question is, what the heck are you doing here, Andreas? I don’t believe you were invited on this date.”

“You can’t go on a date with him. You don’t know him!” Andreas looked as disheveled as Kayla had seen him in a very long time. His tie had been loosened to dangle away from his collar, the first button on his shirt undone. His hair looked like he’d been running his fingers through it, his face showing the signs that he’d missed his second shave of the day.

“I met his sister. I spent the day with him. I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.” Andreas managed to maneuver his way into the apartment. “You are coming back to the hotel with me and we are talking.”

“I am going on a date with Jacob. Then if I want to I am spending the night with him. If I come back to the hotel, whenever that might be, you can explain to me how you found me here.” She turned to face Andreas, bothered by the fact that he was now inside Jacob’s apartment and that had not been Kayla’s intention at all.

“He had to have set private investigators on you. They probably found you through my sister’s tweets,” Jacob said.

“Did you?” Kayla demanded, fury riding her like it hadn’t in years.

Andreas’s cheeks burnished red in admission of guilt. “I am not leaving you here,” he insisted stubbornly, without bothering to answer the accusation.

Jacob came up beside her, putting his arm around her shoulders possessively. “You are not invited on our date.”

Andreas’s jaw twitched.

Kayla wanted to feel something at having an attractive man’s arm around her, some spark of desire and sexual appreciation. She didn’t. She didn’t even feel truly comfortable. If she wasn’t so annoyed with Andreas and wanting to make a point, Kayla would have stepped away from Jacob’s hold for her own sense of peace.

“Kayla, you and I need to talk.” Andreas had that tone and expression he used when he was trying very hard to be reasonable but was a nanosecond away from losing his Greek temper.

“Not tonight,” she denied.

“I canceled everything.”

“Funny. I did the same thing. Only I’m on vacation time. Do you know what that means, Andreas?”

“No,” he gritted out.

Andreas Kostas was a man who disliked not having all the answers. Who was she kidding? He hated not having just one answer out of a hundred questions. The man defined overachieving perfectionist.

“Oh, I know the answer to this one,” Jacob drawled, not realizing what dangerous waters he was swimming into. “It means, Mr. Armani-Suited Businessman, she’s not obliged to spend her off-hours with you. Talking or otherwise.”

“Kayla is not merely my employee, she is my business partner.”

Kayla snorted at that stretching of the reality of their situation.

“Am I lying?” Andreas demanded, his voice gone dangerously soft.

“Can I stop you from selling the company?” she demanded back.

Andreas’s face went stiff, the color draining from his naturally olive complexion. “It is not uncommon for one partner to have controlling interest.”

“Ninety-five percent is more than simple controlling interest.” Her 5 percent still gave her leverage, though. With Sebastian Hawk, if not with Andreas.

“We built that company together.”

“I used to believe that too. Until you decided on your own to sell it.”

Jacob’s arm fell from around her waist as he moved to stand between Kayla and Andreas. “As fascinating as all this business talk is, I get one night off per week and I plan to spend it showing Kayla the best side of my city.”

“That is not going to happen.” Andreas’s tone had gone hard and icy.

Kayla could hear the warning in it if Jacob couldn’t.

“That’s not your decision to make,” the Broadway actor said to prove his deafness.

Kayla almost groaned.

Andreas turned the full weight of his glacial green gaze on the other man for the first time since arriving at his apartment. “You would be smart to stay out of this.”

“Are you threatening me?” Jacob asked, sounding unimpressed.

Andreas stepped forward so he towered over the other man. “My suit is bespoke, not Armani, and if you knew the difference, you might understand that I would make a very unpleasant enemy.”

Kayla laid her hand on Jacob’s arm before he could reply. “Don’t. He’s right. He’s talking about major money, Jacob.”

“I don’t care about his money, Kayla.”

She smiled up at the actor, really liking the man, wishing again she felt even an inkling of sexual attraction to go with the liking, something that would make fighting Andreas worth it. But she wasn’t putting Jacob’s career at risk for principle alone.

“No, I know. You’re a special guy. Good to your sister. Fun.”

Andreas made a displeased sound.

Kayla ignored him. “I would have enjoyed tonight more than I think either of us could imagine.”

“I’m an actor, I have a great imagination.” Jacob’s drawl was only slightly less suggestive than his wink.

She laughed. “I bet, but if I go with you, he’s just going to follow us around. He’ll figure out a way to ruin our evening.” To ruin Jacob’s career, or at least his current role.

“That sounds like pretty stalkerish behavior for a boss.”

“He used to be my best friend.”

“Until when?” Jacob asked, with surprising insight and compassion.

“Until yesterday morning when he told me he was selling our company out from under me.”

Andreas made a sound that could have been hurt, but Kayla refused to look at him.

Jacob nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you. For what it’s worth, I was really looking forward to tonight.”

“I don’t think it was going to end like I was hoping, though.” There was no accusation in Jacob’s tone, just rueful disappointment.

She shrugged, but she couldn’t lie. “Probably not.”

“It would not,” Andreas butted in with his obnoxious Greek hobnailed boots. “She doesn’t do casual sex.”

She rounded on him. “You are such an ass.”

“And you are the best woman I know. Apprizing Jacob of the fact you are one of the best women he has had the honor of meeting is not a bad thing.”

Kayla stared at Andreas, speechless.

Jacob burst out laughing. “You are one clueless bastard, aren’t you?”

“I am a brilliant businessman.” The bewildered offense in Andreas’s tone was almost funny.

Jacob pulled Kayla to him and laid a screen-worthy lip-lock on her. “It really was a pleasure meeting you, Kayla Jones. If you can get away from your boss while you’re in town, call and we’ll do something.”

She grinned. “I will.”

Andreas glowered at Jacob the entire time Kayla collected her things, giving the actor one-word answers to his conversational forays, if the Greek deigned to answer at all.

Andreas put his hand out imperiously for her bags. “Let me help you.”

“I’m fine.”

He didn’t bother to argue, just waited for her to pass the packages over. Andreas had an innate sense of courtesy that her own sense of independence had never been able to win against.

He somehow managed to get between her and Jacob so the other man could not kiss her again before they left either, all the while avoiding shaking the actor’s hand in farewell because of the packages Andreas had taken from Kayla.

“You think you’re a slick operator, don’t you?” she demanded as they rode the elevator downward.

“I know what I want.”

“Really? What part of what you want has you in New York right now, Andreas? Because I really don’t understand. You want to sell the company? I can’t stop you. You want the bride pimp to find you a wife? I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen while you’re here. So, what purpose is you being here going to serve?”

“I’m here for you,” he said, like it should be obvious.

“But why?”

He didn’t answer. Not in the elevator, not when they walked out onto the crowded New York streets, not when they got into the cab he hailed. In fact, Andreas remained stubbornly mute until the cab stopped in front of their hotel, where instead of letting her out, he imperiously waved at the doorman.

The man came over and Andreas handed over Kayla’s packages with instructions for taking them up to the suite along with a generous tip.

“Where are we going?” she asked when Andreas got back in the cab.

“You were going to dinner. I would not deprive you of nourishment.”

“We could have ordered room service.”

“You were looking forward to a night out on the town.”

Was he kidding? “Not with you.”

“We are still friends, Kayla.”

“I’m not sure we are, Andreas.” It hurt to say.

The tightening of his jaw said he didn’t like hearing it either. “Do no say that.”

“Don’t pretend like it matters to you.”

“Of course it matters!” he roared.

Kayla jumped, shocked. Andreas did no lose his temper. Not with her. Not like this.

“Six years ago, you told me how much I mattered to you. I was just too desperate to believe something else.”

“What? What are you talking about six years ago?” He turned to face her in the back seat of the cab, green gazed laser-like focus entirely on Kayla. “I thought you were angry about the meeting yesterday.”

Kayla could feel the tears at the back of her throat, burning in her eyes. “I did too, but it’s all part of the same thing, isn’t it? I’ve never been more than a means to an end to you. What I don’t understand is why you’re here, why you tracked me down to Jacob’s apartment, why you had to ruin my night with him. I guess I’ve never really known you, have I? I never thought you were petty.”

“Petty?” Andreas demanded in a near roar. “The only reason that damn playboy still has his coveted role on Broadway is because he tried to protect a woman I care about very much.”

“You don’t care about me. You have never cared about me.” Of that one fact Kayla was absolutely certain.

She’d been the piece of the puzzle Andreas needed to get his business off the ground. The brain behind the software to make the dream a reality so he could thumb his nose at Barnabas Georgas and prove that Andreas Kostas didn’t need his father’s money or his name, or anything else from the family that had hurt him so much.

“Turn this cab around!” Andreas sounded as out of control as she’d ever heard him, his big body fairly vibrating with stress.

“What do you mean?” The cabbie’s hand gestured wildly. “I can’t do no U-turn. This is a one-way street, buddy.”

“Take us back to the hotel,” Andreas demanded in only slightly lower decibels.

Kayla crossed her arms over her chest and glared. “I thought we were going out to dinner.”

“We are not having this conversation in front of a room full of strangers.”

“Sounds more like a fight from where I’m sitting,” the cabbie piped in.

Andreas ignored him and shook his head at Kayla. “You don’t understand.”

“On that we agree.”

He didn’t look calmed by that acknowledgment. The silence between them on the ride back to the hotel seethed with resentment and things left unsaid.

Kayla was terrified that after tonight the only person she’d considered family wouldn’t be anything but a bad memory. But if she was right, if her place in his life was what she thought it was, that was all he’d been for six years and she’d been fooling herself all along.


(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER FOUR (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

ANDREAS HADN’T BEEN this out of control since his father had come storming into Andreas’s life, demanding he move to Greece, forcing him to use the Georgas name, pretending it meant something that they were blood.

When it hadn’t meant anything at all. He’d hated being a Georgas. Hated living in that mausoleum mansion that had been the family home for generations.

Formally recognized as heir to the Georgas shipping empire, Andreas had been trained to his father’s likeness, all the while planning his escape.

He’d wanted nothing of the man who could so callously discard the woman who had loved him with her whole heart. Melia Kostas had been an amazing mother who had not allowed a broken heart or the rejection of her family to stop her from raising her son to believe he had value and that he was worth every sacrifice she’d had to make to give him a different life.

She’d immigrated to America, only to die when Andreas was a teen, leaving the door open for Barnabas, that bastard, to come swooping in. That was the one time in Andreas’s life that he’d felt completely helpless. He’d done a lot of yelling before settling down to plan.

Not until today had he felt so completely at the whim of another again. He had not felt such fear since the day his father had him physically carried onto the Georgas private jet and forced to fly to Greece against his will. Kayla leaving Portland, leaving Andreas, had paralyzed him. They were a team. Didn’t she realize that?

Clearly not.

Never was his temper so close to the surface, so beyond his control.

But seeing that playboy actor’s lips on his Kayla’s face? That had made Andreas see red. She deserved better.

Kayla Jones deserved the best.

Maybe once Andreas was settled down with a wife who would complete his revenge plan on his father, he would hire Genevieve to find Kayla her own Prince Charming. A man who would care for her like she deserved. Someone who could appreciate the rare gem that she was.

Not some damn New York actor just looking to add another beautiful notch to his bedpost.

Andreas shifted in his seat, trying to control his urge to demand Kayla explain her remark about six years ago. It wasn’t just a restaurant full of strangers he didn’t want witnessing their very private conversation.

Andreas had no intention of giving their nosy cabbie any more fodder for his curiosity.

When they arrived at the hotel, Andreas waited on the sidewalk for Kayla to scoot out of the back seat. He would usually go ahead of her, trusting her to follow, but in her current state, he wasn’t taking anything for granted.

She stopped in front of him, tugging the hem of her sexy little dress down. It hugged every curve, reminding him of how beautiful she was, that no other woman had ever measured up to the perfection of Kayla Jones since that first day he’d seen her across the quad at university.

He shoved those thoughts away. “Are you ready to go inside?”

“Do I have a choice?” she asked, 100 percent attitude.

Rather than grab her, he shoved his hands into his pockets. “You act like I’m some kind of tyrant.”

“Do I need to remind you of the events of the last hour?” she asked in that sarcastic tone that made him want to do things he’d made himself forget.

He forced an even tone. “None of which would have happened if you had been waiting in the suite when I arrived.”

“That was not going to happen.”

“So, you wanted to go shopping.” It had not surprised him to find out she was in the garment district. Kayla liked to shop when she was stressed. She’d worked out a few knotty computer codes with “shopping therapy,” as she called it. It was discovering she was with Jacob Tarkent that had Andreas’s blood pressure spiking. “Did you have to pick up a date?”

Kayla stepped past him with a saucy sway of her sexy hips. “He picked me up.”

“I figured.” Andreas followed, forcing himself to ignore the way her dress and attitude were affecting his libido.

He had six years’ experience ignoring these sexual urges. It shouldn’t be so damn hard.

“So? I’m single. It’s allowed.”

“You are in a strange city. He could have been anyone.”

“But he’s not.”

“No.” As soon as he’d known whom she was with, he’d had a background check run on Jacob Tarkent, by Hawk’s company coincidentally.

They were very thorough and fast.

“So, you knew I was safe.”

He put his hand on her arm, stopping them outside the doors to the hotel. “You didn’t.” And that was the damned point, even if she wanted to ignore it.

“I did.” Oh, she sounded so sure.

“That’s right, you think you can read people.”

“I can. It’s a skill you learn in foster care.” Her feisty expression dared him to contradict her.

“It’s not one hundred percent.”

“Nothing is.” She glared up at him, everything in her demeanor defying him, and that should not have been a turn-on. “Are we going to stand out here discussing this?”

“At least you are finally admitting we need to discuss things between us.”

She rolled her eyes, her lovely latte skin flushed with anger. “I’m really annoyed with you, Andreas.”

“I think you are understating the case.” Furious seemed more like it.

Her gray eyes narrowed further. “Maybe.”

“Definitely.” That was okay. He was pretty pissed off himself. Not that he wanted to examine why. He just wanted to fix it. All of it.

They were friends. She was all he had left of family.

Even if she didn’t realize it.

“Let’s go inside.”

“Whatever you say, Commander.”

“You are skating on thin ice.”

“Oh, I’m shaking in my boots.” Kayla did sarcasm better than anyone he’d ever met.

“You only ever say that when you aren’t wearing any.”

“The irony is all the stronger in that case.”

He shook his head and took her arm again, needing to know she was with him. She didn’t pull away from his hold, and the gratitude he felt was all out of proportion.

They rode in tense silence to the penthouse-suites floor. The old-fashioned apricot roses he’d had delivered earlier filled the sitting room with their heady fragrance. He’d noticed that Kayla hadn’t bothered to read the card Andreas had included with the flowers.

He frowned. She’d also ignored the box of her favorite chocolates on the table.

A bottle of sweet champagne chilling in a standing ice bucket and a platter of fruit had been added to the offerings.

Kayla’s gaze took all this in and then snapped back to him. “What is all of this?”

“I wanted you to be comfortable.”

“With roses, champagne and chocolates?” she asked with clear disbelief.

“There’s fruit too.”

“Isn’t that a little romantic for your employee?”

“You are my friend, my business partner, not simply an employee, and it’s not about romance. It’s about offering your favorites.”

“Typical.”

If by typical she meant he somehow screwed up and then made things better with an offering of food, then yes. It was typical. And usually, she allowed the gesture as the olive branch it was.

She gave a disdainful glance to the champagne.

“I’d rather have tea.” Her tone said she wanted all her wits about her.

He’d thought he could use the advantage of alcohol, but then again, maybe he needed his wits about him too. He definitely didn’t need alcohol lowering his sexual inhibitions around her.

“Do you want to call for it, or shall I?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I could eat right now.”

She never ate when she was stressed.

“I’ll munch on the fruit if I get hungry.” His appetite, on the other hand, never got affected by emotions.

Emotions had no place in life at all.

She would be better off if she could push hers aside too, but then she wouldn’t be Kayla.

She nodded and then crossed plush white carpet to order her tea. Once she’d done that, she headed to the bedroom her luggage had proclaimed to be hers. “I’m changing into something more comfortable for this talk.”

“You look great.”

“Yeah, well, I was dressed for a date. This is not a date. I’m changing.”

He didn’t know why the words offended or he felt the need to argue that point. Andreas clamped his jaw and refused to allow the words of denial to pass his lips.

If the woman wanted to change, let her.

Six years ago, it had taken him some time to overcome urges like this too. That was all it was, the reminder of the sexual relationship they used to have.

Nothing else.

They’d been lovers for two years. She’d been the most satisfying sexual partner of his life, but he’d realized she was something more important. She was a friend he didn’t want to lose, so he looked for a role she could play in his life that would keep her in it. Because lovers didn’t last.

He’d finally figured it out.

A business associate. He knew that meant they had to stop their sexual relationship, but the sacrifice would be worth it. By changing the nature of their relationship, he was guaranteed of keeping Kayla in his life long-term. Lovers came and went, but if she came into his budding company with him, she would be with him for the long haul.

It had worked too.

They’d been best friends ever since.

Only now she was saying they weren’t friends anymore, because he was selling the company. Didn’t she realize he had plans for both of them? Didn’t she trust him at all?

She came out of the bedroom as a knock sounded on the door. Andreas went to answer it though it might have been natural to let her do so.

They were in a large city and though the hotel should be secure, he would not have her answering the door here.

He opened the door to the waiter carrying a tray with Kayla’s tea things. Andreas directed the man to place them on the table before signing the ticket.

He waited for Kayla to fix her drink just the way she liked, with milk and an even teaspoon of sugar, before speaking again. “Explain what you meant about six years ago.”

Her hand trembled as she picked up her cup, but she managed a sip. Then she looked at him, her beautiful gray eyes filled with pain and a determination that scared him.

Nothing scared Andreas anymore.

He was his own man.

No one could ever take that away again.

She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs. Classic Kayla self-protection pose. Even her sweats and hoodie were what he considered her armor.

Most women dressed up when they wanted to feel safe, but not Kayla. She dressed down, in sweats, a hoodie, thick socks. And as far as he knew, Andreas was the only person who knew that.

Her gray gaze regarded him somberly. “Six years ago you figured out a way to use me for your company.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.”

“Is there another?” she asked, sounding like she thought she knew the answer.

“I found a way to keep you in my life longer than a lover would have lasted.”

Her eyes widened, her expression mirroring shock and a little incredulousness.

“I liked you more than any woman I’d ever had in my bed. I had more tender feelings for you than anyone else, like I’d only ever allowed myself to feel toward my mother. I didn’t want to lose you out of my life entirely.”

“But as your lover I had a sell-by date that was fast approaching,” she said, as if with dawning understanding and no small amount of horror.

It was true none of his other lovers had lasted as long as she had. “I didn’t know how much longer we would be together as sexual partners, but I knew as business partners our relationship would last longer.”

“And it did.” She said this with a strange, very un-Kayla-like tone, like she was adjusting her thoughts, but not like the adjustment made her happy.

“It was a good move. We started working together, became friends. Best friends. We’re in each other’s lives in a good way. A long-term way.”

“Not anymore. You’re selling the company. You’re walking away.” Kayla’s voice was filled with such sadness, such finality.

It chilled Andreas right through. “I want you to walk with me.”

“I’m not leaving KJ Software.” There was no doubt there. No give. Absolutely no compromise.

It was like she’d written code with no if...then statement. In Kayla’s mind, this was a closed loop of program.

“You don’t mean that. There’s so much more you could do. So many more puzzles you could solve.” Didn’t she realize? “You’re brilliant. The whole world of computer programming is open to you. It doesn’t have to be cybersecurity.”

“I like the puzzles I solve now. That company is my home. I feel safe there.”

Her home? It was just a company.

But looking at Kayla, for the first time, he realized they looked at KJ Software with completely different eyes. He might own 95 percent, but Kayla was invested in the company in a way he never would be.

Something cold opened up inside Andreas. It had never occurred to him that when all was said and done he would not be able to convince Kayla to move on to the next venture with him.

“No, your home is your condo.” That should be true.

She shook her head, her expression repudiating his words before she ever spoke. “That’s just where I sleep. Not where I feel safe.”

“Don’t I make you feel safe?” If he wasn’t her safety, what was he to her? He wasn’t just her boss.

She stared at him, something he couldn’t read in her gray gaze. “You’re getting married.”

“That doesn’t mean things between us have to change.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No. I say what happens in my life.” He’d made that truth in his life since he’d left the Georgas family and Greece. She had to know that.

“You’re making a new family. I won’t be in it.”

No. Those words weren’t true. He wouldn’t let them be true. “You are part of my life.” Part of his family, but for some reason he couldn’t say the words out loud.

“Maybe we still can be friends, but you can’t be my safety. That wouldn’t be fair to your new wife, to the children you’ll have together. It’s just not the way it works, Andreas. The company. It’s all I have. I have to talk to Sebastian Hawk and make sure he’s not going to take that away from me.”

Realization hit Andreas hard. And it was one he did not like. Kayla needed security he, Andreas Kostas, could not give her. She felt threatened by the loss of the company and his marriage happening at the same time. Both were necessary for Andreas’s final plan to prove to his father and the Georgas family that he did not need them in any shape or form.

Had never needed them. Would never need them.

The only way to give Kayla what she needed was to put off one or both of his stratagems and Andreas simply could not do that. He had worked too hard to make his plans a reality. Besides, he was finished with KJ Software. He’d been itching to move on to something bigger and better for the last year.

Kayla knew that, even if she was struggling with accepting it.

It had never occurred to him that she’d want to stay on. That the company itself had taken on a surrogate family role to her. That she considered it her stability factor.

“I wanted you to keep working with me,” he told her baldly.

The look of utter sadness and acceptance in her expressive gray eyes said it all. “You want to keep building bigger and better businesses.”

“Yes.”

“Sometimes, businesses fail.”

“Mine won’t.”

Her pretty lips tilted in a half smile. “You’re so confident.”

“You’ve called me arrogant a time or three in the past.”

“Well, you are,” she teased in the old way.

He shrugged.

“I’m not leaving the company with you.”

She meant it. She really wanted to stay with the company and had every intention of doing so.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.” Maybe they wouldn’t work together, but they still lived in the same building.

She drank her tea and stared at him for a lot longer than he thought it should take to answer that statement, but finally she set her cup of tea down and nodded. “I guess you’re right about that. Friendship isn’t about always getting what you want. It’s also about being there for the other person. And I suppose in your arrogant, pigheaded way, you need me.”

“Enough with the name-calling.”

“You broke up my date.”

“I was worried about you.”

“You could have been worried about me tomorrow.”

“Stop pretending like you were going to have sex with him.” The idea was an anathema.

“You don’t know what I was going to do. You think you know me, but let’s face it, Andreas, you thought I’d be okay with the bride pimp and I’m so not. You thought I’d be okay with selling the company and I still kind of want to shred your closet of suits over that one. You thought I’d want to leave KJ Software to start a new company and you couldn’t have been more wrong about that. I’m not sure you know me very well at all.”

He couldn’t argue a single one of those sentences.

And something about six years ago had gone down very differently than he’d thought too, or it wouldn’t have come up today. Andreas had the unpleasant sensation that she was right and that he did not know Kayla Jones nearly as well as he thought he did.

And if he didn’t figure her out, he was going to lose the one person he still considered family.

That was not going to happen. Andreas Kostas had lost all the important people in his life he was going to let go of.

Kayla Jones was never going to be one of them.

* * *

Andreas finished answering emails, ignoring yet another text from Genevieve. He’d had no idea she was so demanding when he hired her. She’d acted very accommodating and happy to have him as a client. Her tenacity was well-meaning no doubt, but he had other things on his mind at the moment. Her in-depth questionnaire and business-mogul makeover were going to have to wait.

Why did he need to change his clothes and haircut anyway? He didn’t have any trouble finding companionship dressing like a high-powered businessman. When he’d mentioned that to Genevieve, she’d replied he was looking for a wife, not a hookup.

He was still unconvinced.

He didn’t want a wife who expected some laid-back guy who was going to spend every evening and weekend playing happy families. That wasn’t Andreas.

Dismissing thoughts of his matchmaker, he replied to another text.

Satisfied with his morning’s work, he was considering ordering breakfast and waking Kayla when the second bedroom door in the suite slammed open. She appeared, no wakeup knock necessary, her curls tied up in one of the scarves she wore to bed to keep them tamed. Its bright color at odds with the dark visage of her face. Her glare shot around the sitting room until it landed on him with the weight of a fully locked-and-loaded missile.

Gray eyes narrowing even further, she stomped toward him. Her body moved in ways his couldn’t help taking an interest in, what with the way her peach satin sleep shorts and silky spaghetti-strap sleep top clung to her bouncing curves.

Damn it, he needed to remember that the passion they’d shared had been too consuming for good decisions.

She slammed her beloved smartphone down in front of him. “Fix it.”

The phone beeped, indicating a text.

“Fix what?” They’d long ago established she was the more technically savvy of the two of them.

“That!”

The phone beeped again.

“What?”

She shoved it in his face.

His eyes focused on the screen. The text was from Genevieve. Demanding Kayla get Andreas on the next plane back to Portland.

“You gave your bride pimp my phone number.”

“Yes.” It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

“Call her right now and tell her to stop using it.”

“Just ignore her texts.”

“That’s what you’ve been doing.” Damn, Kayla’s voice could register pissed-off woman when she wanted to, with a heavy dose of disapproval. “And her phone calls, I bet.”

“She’s not on this morning’s agenda.” And Genevieve needed to learn that Andreas dealt with things in his time, not someone else’s.

Kayla’s glare went nuclear. “Well, putting up with her harassment isn’t on my agenda at all. Call her off, Andreas. Right now.”

“You’re in a bad mood this morning.”

“I was woken out of a sound sleep by incessant calls and texts from someone I shouldn’t have to speak to at all.”

“I told you she wanted to talk to you.”

“Andreas, I’m not kidding.”

“You never sleep this late.” Kayla was an early riser, like him.

“I wanted to sleep in. That’s my prerogative. I’m on vacation.” She looked at him like he was the one who was acting entirely out of character and suddenly not making sense.

Andreas didn’t know what Kayla saw in his face, but whatever it was, she got that supremely annoyed, impatient “I’ve had it” look. He’d seen it very rarely, but when she got it, he knew things were about to go pear-shaped. He despised that look.

The one person in the world he actually minded being at odds with was Kayla Jones. “Listen, Kayla—”

She put up her hand, cutting him off. She didn’t say anything, just made a production of turning off her phone and dropping it onto the table in front of him. Then she went back into her bedroom and slammed the door.

Since the day before she’d left her phone in the suite and gone off exploring New York alone, that didn’t bode well. Andreas had been forced to resort to other means of tracking Kayla down. Means he preferred not to rely on today.

Not to mention, he did not like thinking of her being without a means of communication.

He picked up his own phone and dialed Genevieve’s number.

“Finally,” the woman exclaimed. “Andreas, you have to treat this endeavor with more respect than you have done so far.”

“I did not give you Kayla’s number in order for you to harass her. Do not use it again, for any reason. In fact, I want it deleted from your file immediately.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Andreas. Clearly, contacting your assistant got your attention.”

“She is not my assistant, she is the director in charge of research and development. Show her the respect she deserves.”

“Be that as it may—”

“Delete the number.”

“Excuse me?”

“I will not. Your behavior toward Miss Jones has been in every way rude and unforgivable.”

“You left in the middle of your own bride search. Matchmaking is a delicate and complicated process. It requires your full attention.”

“No, it requires your full attention. That is why I paid you such a high retainer. I explained that I had a business emergency.”

“Since your Director of R & D is there, can’t she handle the emergency?”

“We are handling it together.”

“I’m sure—”

“That you will take care of your business while I take care of mine.”

“Part of my business requires your participation, Andreas. Had you forgotten the makeover? I suppose I could fly out there and do it in New York.”

“No. There will not be time.” Andreas didn’t feel in the least guilty putting Genevieve off. “I will call you when I return to Portland.”

“What about the questionnaire? Will you have some time for that?” she asked, trying to sound ingratiating, but only managing to be annoying.

“I will get to it when I can.” Andreas allowed his growing irritation to leak through.

“I can’t help feeling you’re not as committed to this as you originally led me to believe.”

“Genevieve, you will learn that I do not like being questioned.” He allowed his displeasure at the continued questioning of the parameters he had already set to ice his voice over. “I will speak to you when I return to Oregon.”

He set his phone down and noticed Kayla standing in the doorway to her room, her expression no longer all narrow-eyed anger. Andreas wasn’t exactly sure what that particular look meant, however.

“Was that Genevieve?”

“Yes.”

“Did you tell her to stop calling and texting me?”

“I told her to remove your number from her files.”

“If I was home, I could take care of that myself.”

He had no doubt Kayla could do exactly that. You didn’t become a world-class designer of security software without being able to circumvent it. “You scare me sometimes.”

“Nothing scares you.”

Nothing he was going to admit to. “How easily you get into other people’s computers and phones is going to get you into trouble.”

“It’s a natural by-product of designing the best security software.” She stretched and yawned, her breasts pressing enticingly against the silk of her pajama top. “I’m going back to bed.”

“What about breakfast?”

She shook her head at him, a barely there smile playing at the edge of her lips. “Nothing is stopping you from ordering.”

“But you are going back to bed. How long will you sleep?”

“As long as I want, I’m on vacation.”

“But if we are not at the pier in in an hour, we will miss the harbor cruise.”

Kayla’s generous lips thinned. “Harbor cruise.”

“I thought you’d like to see a little of New York while we are here.” She kept harping about being on vacation.

“Jacob was going to show me the city last night.”

The unnecessary reminder set Andreas’s teeth on edge. “He wanted to show you his bedroom.”

“Maybe it had a great view.”

Andreas stood up, suddenly too restless to sit. “Maybe if you want some good views you should get in the shower and get dressed so we can make the harbor cruise.”

“I never said I was going with you.”

“Don’t be stubborn for stubborn’s sake.”

She frowned. “I was going back to bed.”

“You can sleep later. Right now, we have sights to see.”

“No wonder you’re not wearing a suit.”

He’d put on slacks and a button-down shirt, no tie, no jacket. He was dressed down. For him.

“You still look like a power broker.”

“I am a power broker.” And it would do her little actor friend well to remember that.

Andreas Kostas might not recognize Barnabas Georgas as family, but there was no denying the bastard’s blood ran through his veins, as did his ruthless nature.

Kayla sighed. “I didn’t plan on staying here in the hotel with you.”

“Where would you go?” Andreas demanded, not liking the sound of her plans at all.

Kayla got harebrained ideas in her head and sometimes she stuck with them. It had taken him three years to convince her to move into his condominium building and only after he persuaded the complex to offer her a unit at a significant discount that he secretly subsidized the purchase of. She could never find that out, or she’d move out of spite.

The woman had an independent streak a mile wide.

“A hotel without you in it.”

“Am I really so abhorrent to you?” he asked, hurt in ways no other person would be able to cause.

Her mouth twisted and she stepped away from the door, toward him, like she couldn’t help herself. “Of course not. It’s just...” She looked up at him, appeal in her big gray eyes. “This is hard for me, Andreas.”


(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER FIVE (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

“ME SELLING THE COMPANY?” Andreas asked.

“All of it.” Kayla bit her lip, her body taut, her arms wrapped around herself, like she was protecting herself. “I feel like I’m losing you and the company all at once.”

“You are not losing me.”

She shook her head, her expression saying he just didn’t get it.

“Kayla, you persist in seeing family in a way that neither you nor I have ever experienced.” He frowned down at her, stepping closer to her to make his point. “In a way I do not intend to live. My wife will not supplant your place in my life.”

“My place in your life. As your friend.” She said the word like it left a bad taste in her mouth. Was his friendship something she preferred to leave behind?

That was not acceptable.

She belonged to him. Kayla was part of Andreas’s life and she was not leaving it.

“Yes.”

The distaste that flitted across her face was barely there, but he’d seen it.

“Damn it, Kayla, we’ve been friends since college, suddenly that relationship disgusts you?” he demanded.

“I didn’t say that.” She turned. “I’ll get ready to go.”

“We’re not done talking.”

“We are if we’re going to make the harbor cruise.” Her bottom shook in ways that gave him ideas he had no business thinking as she walked toward her en suite.

Memories assailed him and suddenly he wanted her like he hadn’t allowed himself to in years. His dick pressed against his trousers, the urge to follow Kayla both so strong and so shocking, he almost gave in to it.

Damn it. It had been a while since he’d noticed Kayla the way he was noticing her now. What the hell was going on with him?

Whatever it was, he had better get it under control. Kayla had a place in his life and that place was not his bed.

Damn it. He needed Kayla to stop acting crazy so he could get his libido back under control once and for all.

* * *

Kayla wasn’t sure why she’d agreed to go on the harbor cruise with Andreas, except she’d overheard him telling Genevieve to lose Kayla’s number.

Just like she’d asked. And she’d realized just how important their relationship was to him. He’d left work, he’d left his big plans to find his perfect little wife. He’d left everything to chase Kayla down and when he found her, he’d stayed.

Was staying until she returned. She really didn’t understand why.

It was as if Andreas was afraid that if he left without her, she wouldn’t come back, and for some reason that mattered to him. A lot.

He’d had breakfast delivered when she came out, dressed in her teal skinny trousers, tan-and-white-striped tank and carrying a white knit jacket, which she would put on when they left. The only things in her signature color were her coral brushed leather flats and chunky necklace, but the slacks did great things for her thighs and bottom. It didn’t hurt that the tank molded to her breasts just right without looking like she was trying too hard either.

The outfit would be wasted on Andreas.

“Do we have time for breakfast?” she asked as she walked into the sitting room.

Andreas looked up from reading the paper on his tablet. His green gaze flared with something that looked like lust, but that couldn’t be right. “That is what you are wearing?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little...casual?” he finally asked after a significant pause.

“To play tourist on a harbor cruise?” she asked right back. “No.”

Andreas frowned. “Are you trying to get picked up? Again?”

“What are you talking about?” Seriously. What was the man’s problem?

“Your outfit. It’s sexy. Last night, you were dressed like a woman ready to seduce. Is something going on here that I do not know about, Kayla?” Andreas did not look happy at the prospect.

“The only thing going on is that you are being an idiot, Andreas. This outfit is not sexy.” Just attractive. Darn it. “So, it looks good on me. It’s not a walking invitation for sex.”

“From where I’m standing, it is.”

“You’re sitting and you’re still being ridiculous.”

“Don’t be pedantic.” He stood and pointed down to his obvious erection. “As I said.”

“I’m not responsible for your...for you...for that.”

“The point is, in fact, you are.”

She didn’t know how she felt about the hard-on in Andreas’s pants. Clearly he wasn’t happy she’d given him one. A few days ago, she might have been hopeful in this situation, but knowing what she now knew about his plans for the future, she realized any attraction he felt for her meant absolutely nothing. Less than nothing.

“That is your problem, Andreas. I’ve worn more revealing clothing than this in front of you. If you’re that hard up, maybe you should spend the morning doing something other than sightseeing with me. I can call Jacob and see if he’s still interested in spending time with me after how rudely I left him last night.”

“You are not replacing me with Jacob.” Andreas was suddenly looming over her, his body practically vibrating with the ferocity of his feeling.

Wow. Reaction, much? “Well, I’m not changing my clothes either.” She glared up at him defiantly.

His hands fisted at his sides, his big body one large, muscled mass of tension. “Let’s eat breakfast.”

“So, we have time?”

“Yes,” he gritted out.

“Good. I’m not always rational when I’m ‘hangry.’”

He almost smiled at that. “I know.”

They sat down to eat, the tension between them stretched taut. She couldn’t help wondering if his not-so-little problem of an erection continued to persist and what it meant. Had he gone without sex that long? Was it a requirement of the matchmaker’s?

From their past relationship, Kayla knew that Andreas was highly sexed. It had been a rare day they hadn’t made love more than once, much less let a day go by without having sex. If Genevieve had Andreas on a no-sex diet while he auditioned wife candidates, then that would explain how he was desperate enough to get excited by Kayla.

She was careful to keep her distance while in the elevator later and in the car on the way to the harbor. Andreas gave her several brooding looks. He’d approved her jacket, but cursed in Greek when he followed her out of the top-floor suite and said something about the fit of her pants. She’d ignored him, but couldn’t help smiling to herself, whatever the reason for the uncharacteristic attention.

When they arrived at the harbor, the line to get on the ship was long and Kayla told herself the cruise would be worth it. However, when they stepped out of the black luxury car, Andreas led her past the long, winding queue of people to a man in a white uniform. Andreas showed his identification and soon after they were shown their way onto the ship.

“VIP treatment?” Kayla asked.

“You know I do not like waiting in lines.”

“I’m sure the people down on the dock do not either.”

“We could have taken a private tour.”

“I wouldn’t have liked that.”

“I knew that. For some strange reason, you like doing regular tourist-type things.”

“So, you booked us on a public cruise, but arranged to board before the rest of the passengers.”

“That about sums it up.” Andreas led her to outside seats near the bulkhead. Kayla would be able to get as many pictures as she liked.

“You are a strange man.”

“Says the woman who could live like a queen, but prefers to live like a peasant.”

“Just a normal person. You’ve got a medieval streak a mile wide.”

“Hardly.”

“I choose to spend my money funding the shelter.”

“And I have told you I would match your funds, but you turned me down.”

“It was too much, and would have set back your plan to prove your worth to your family.” Besides, Kayla for Kids was hers. In the beginning, she’d needed something that Andreas didn’t have a part of. “Besides, I let you donate later.”

Just not match her funds.

“I am not proving my worth to them.” Offense laced every word of Andreas’s reply.

Kayla just shook her head. “Then who are you trying to prove it to?”

“I know my own worth.”

“I would have said so, yes, but this whole plan, it says otherwise.” She’d never spoken so frankly to him, not about this, but she really had nothing left to lose.

Literally.

His plan was taking it all away.

Andreas stared at her like maybe she’d turned from Perl to Python programming language before his eyes. “My plan will show the Georgas clan once and for all that a Kostas does not need them to make his way in the world, that I am better than anything they could have ever made me into.”

“Your father was a jerk, both when he rejected your pregnant mom with a payoff and when he came swooping in after her death to take you back to Greece, no matter what you wanted. But you’ve already proved you don’t need him. You took back your mother’s last name. You’ve made a life for yourself in America, not Greece. You made a success of KJ Software beyond anything they could have imagined. There’s nothing left to prove.”

“I will show them that I can make my own family without them.”

And with those words, Kayla lost any hope that Andreas might not go through with his buy-a-bride plan. Genevieve was going to find him some ideal woman with a perfect pedigree, certainly not a mutt brought up in foster care because her own mother couldn’t be bothered to raise her.

No wonder he’d dumped Kayla six years ago. Not only did he not love her, but she would never fit Andreas’s vision for his life. She’d never even been in the running. Kayla would bet she wouldn’t even make it past Genevieve’s first screening process.

Not that Kayla cared.

She might not have all the credentials to be considered something special in Andreas’s eyes, but she’d made something of herself too, despite her lousy childhood. And she was proud of that fact. It was why she was so committed to the shelter. She believed that given a chance, other kids could make good choices too.

Kayla felt the final death rattle in her heart for any chance at a future with Andreas and forced herself to look at the man next to her as the one thing he insisted on being. Her friend.

She dredged up the sincerest smile she could. “I wish you happiness with your future, Andreas.”

“What just happened?” He searched her face as if trying to read her thoughts.

But Kayla pulled her emotions deep inside, where no one could hurt her, not even Andreas.

“Stop it, Kayla. Whatever is going on in your head.” He grabbed her shoulders, his look intent, bordering on worried. “Damn it. Stop it, right now.”

“Relax, Andreas.” She pulled out the smile. The one that had always fooled the social workers. “Everything’s fine. So, what are we going to see on this tour?”

“Don’t give me that fake smile. Something just happened and I want to know what.”

People started pouring onto the deck, filling the chairs around them, and even if Kayla had been inclined to answer Andreas, which she was not, there was no way it was happening now. He realized it too.

She gave a pointed look to his hands on her shoulders and he released her, his reluctance clear.

That look of frustrated endeavor on his face would have been humorous under any other circumstances. Some answers Andreas Kostas would just have to learn to tolerate going without.

They all had lessons to learn in life and he’d taught her one of the most painful.

Sometimes, you had to give up on dreams. Full stop.

Despite its tense beginnings, Kayla ended up enjoying the cruise very much. She snapped picture after picture on her smartphone as they approached the Statue of Liberty.

“You’re going to run your battery out taking all those photos,” Andreas teased.

She turned to him, unable to suppress a delighted grin. “Tell me this doesn’t touch even that stone-cold heart of yours. Your mother immigrated to the US.”

“Not via Ellis Island.” But there was an expression on his face that said he was more moved than he wanted to acknowledge.

“Coming to America was a big deal for your mom, wasn’t it?”

Andreas shrugged. “She had no life for her back in Greece. Her lover had paid her off, expecting her to get an abortion, something her faith would never allow her to do. Her entire family had rejected her.”

“Because she was pregnant with you?”

“Because Barnabas Georgas was their livelihood and she was an embarrassment to him.”

“That sucks.” But Kayla knew firsthand that parents didn’t always put their children’s interests first.

Andreas gave a bark of a laugh. “That is succinctly put, Miss Jones.”

She smiled, a blush warming her skin. She loved making this man laugh. It did not happen often.

Andreas’s brilliant green gaze sizzled across her skin. “You are so beautiful when you do that.”

“What?” she asked, feeling like somehow the oxygen had gone missing from the fresh sea air around them.

“Blush. It’s lovely against your café au lait skin.”

“That’s a pretty way of saying mutt.”

Andreas went rigid, his emerald eyes snapping with unexpected fire, his jaw hewn from granite. “What did you just call yourself?”

“I didn’t call myself anything.” She rolled her eyes. “Stop pretending you don’t know what I mean. I’m not all pure Greek like you. My mom was some kind of mix of white whatever and my dad was clearly at least part black, or where did these lovely kinky curls come from?”

“That makes you typically American. Not a mutt.” Oh, his voice was serious, each word pronounced with exaggerated care.

“Right. Whatever, Andreas.”

His hand came up to cup the back of her neck, his other landed on her thigh, warm and heavy. “Not whatever, you will never use such a derogatory term in reference to yourself again.”

“I bet it’s exactly how Genevieve would describe me.”

“If she ever made the mistake of doing so, not only would I fire her but I would make sure every businessman of my considerable acquaintance knew not to engage her services.”

“Yikes, dial it back a notch, Andreas. She didn’t say anything.” Despite how the other woman clearly looked down on her.

“You are my friend, Kayla.”

“The way you’re holding me feels like more than friendship, Andreas.” Kayla’s heart was running way too fast, her breath coming in short little bursts.

If he didn’t move away from her, she was going to make a fool of herself and do something spectacularly stupid. Like kiss him or something.

“It does, does it not?” Instead of moving away, he leaned closer.

The announcer said something about the statue and a flurry of photography went off around them, but Kayla could not make herself look away from Andreas. The expression in his eyes was one she’d seen many times before, but not for six years. She was afraid to trust her own eyes now. What if she was seeing what she had wanted to see for so long? What she’d absolutely given up on altogether not an hour past?

What if that look wasn’t what she thought it was at all?

But she was no virginal teenager. She knew this feeling well.

The tension surrounding them had nothing to do with being right in front of the Statue of Liberty for the first time. It had everything to do with his lips being mere inches from hers, his torso being so close, she could feel the heat of his body.

“What will this feel like, I wonder?” he asked.

Then his lips covered hers before she could ask what he meant. And for the first time in six years, Kayla felt at home. Safe. Connected. Andreas’s mouth moved against hers and Kayla kissed him back, shock giving way before the absolute rightness of the feeling of his lips against hers. Andreas kissed her deeply, his hand on the back of her neck holding her in her in place for his mouth to plunder hers, to stamp determined possession, the hand on her thigh moving up to her waist and around to her back until she was completely surrounded by her former lover.

The sound of clapping, wolf whistles and laughter finally broke them apart. Only then did Kayla realize what a spectacle they’d made of themselves and that the cruise boat was treading water in front of the statue for the tourists to take pictures. Many of whom were way more interested in her and Andreas.

The blush that burned her cheeks this time was hot and uncomfortable, prickling all over her body. Andreas, the jerk, just laughed, looking for all the world like he got caught kissing in public places like this all the time. Which she knew was not the case. Not even close.

She glared up at him. “Fix this.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Make them stop staring and saying those things.”

“It is okay, Kayla. We were doing nothing wrong.”

“We were kissing like a couple of teenagers.”

“I’d forgotten how much I enjoy kissing you.”

“I know.”

“You sound annoyed by that fact.”

“I’m not the one who decided we made better friends than lovers. Oh, darn it.” She looked around frantically, hoping no one had overheard what she’d just said.

No such hope. There were way too many people avidly interested in her and Andreas, hanging on their every word.

She bit her lip and stared up at him. “This is so embarrassing.”

“Being my lover is embarrassing?” he asked, sounding offended.

She was going to beat him, she really was. “We aren’t, not anymore.” She wasn’t saying that word again. Grown woman or not. Thank you very much.

His look was way too speculative for her liking, but all he said was “I think you’d better get your pictures if you plan to get any.”

“You expect me to take pictures after that?” Her hands were shaking.

He smiled that brilliant smile he shared so rarely with others and pulled his own smartphone out, then proceeded to take several snaps of the statue, making sure she was in the foreground of a couple of them. He even did a selfie shot with them both. It was surreal and Kayla wasn’t sure what was going on.

When the captain started the boat going forward again, Andreas put his arm around Kayla’s shoulder like it was the most natural thing in the world. His thumb brushed up and down her neck, sending shivers along her nerve endings.

“What the heck are you doing, Andreas?” she asked, not even embarrassed when her voice went pitchy.

This? This deserved pitchy!

He kissed her temple and pointed at something on the shoreline. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

“Where is all this affection coming from?” Kayla started to wonder if she was in one of those dreams. The ones where you thought you were awake, but really you were still sleeping.

She’d never had one, but she’d heard of them.

“I like touching you. I had forgotten how much.”

“Did you take seasickness pills or something this morning?”

His laughter was rich and warm and all hers. A sound he shared with so few people she couldn’t help reveling in it, even if this was a superelaborate, really vivid, overly detailed dream.

“Or something.”

She turned her head so their gazes met, knowing it was risky, but unable to have this conversation without eye contact. “What does that mean?”

“I’ve had a revelation.” His grin was all straight, white teeth and positively blinding.

“What kind of revelation?” she asked suspiciously.

How could she be anything else? He looked like the kid who’d gotten the last cookie in the jar and knew where the others were hidden besides.

“I’ll tell you when we return to our hotel. This is not a discussion we need to have in such a public place.”

“Says the man who kissed me in front of an entire shipload of people.”

“Only half the ship’s passengers are on this deck.”

“You’re being facetious.”

His smile was positively sinful and then he kissed her. Again. Not a passionate one, but certainly nothing platonic either.

Kayla gasped, floundering with feelings she’d barely held in check for years. Her mind fought with her heart and sadly her mind was not winning at the moment.

Still, she said, “You have to stop kissing me.”

“The taste and feel of your lips says otherwise.”

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“I assure you, I am not.”

“Andreas!”

He squeezed her neck, like he was comforting her. “Do not worry, Kayla. It is all going to be all right. I promise.”

“You can’t promise that. Everything is messed up.”

“Not anymore.”

“How can you say that?” Nothing had changed. Except maybe he’d lost his mind. “I’m dreaming, right? That’s what’s happening here.”

He kissed her again. Seriously. His lips against hers were firm and strong and possessive and real. Very real.

He broke the kiss only to kiss the corner of her lips like he always used to do. “There, does that feel like a dream?”

“I’m not answering that.”

He made a pained sound. “I too have had dreams, but I have done my best to forget them in the morning.”

“Andreas! There are children around.” And avidly interested adults.

“As I said, a conversation for later.”

“I’m not dreaming.”

“No, Kay-love, you are not.”

“I never understood why you used that endearment when you don’t believe in that feeling.” And he hadn’t used it in six years. Now all of a sudden they’d had a mind-blowing kiss and he was using it again.

He shrugged. “It is just a word.”

It wasn’t to her, but maybe that was why he used it. Love was just a word to him, like honey or sweetheart. It meant nothing more, but maybe it meant nothing less either and that was what she should be focused on. Something was happening here.

Something weird.

Something he wasn’t going to discuss around others, which made her think it involved sex. Andreas wanted sex with her. Did she want sex with him? Knowing he planned to marry some paragon of perfection for a business mogul’s wife somewhere down the road?

Kayla deliberately turned her focus back to the view outside the boat and listened to the history behind the bridge off in the distance. Its architectural significance wasn’t enough to get her mind off the idea of sex with Andreas, but she tried.

What was she supposed to do?

Could she have a final hurrah with Andreas without breaking her own heart? He’d broken it once, six years ago, and she’d never mended. It was still too cracked to even consider falling for someone else.

Would giving in to him give her that illusive thing called closure or do her irreparable harm?

How hard would it be to turn him down? The warmth of his arm around her shoulder, the way her body responded to that simple touch told her extremely hard. Leaning toward impossible.

But did she have a choice?

Would she survive a night of casual sex with Andreas Kostas and watching him walk away after like nothing important had happened?

If six years ago had taught her anything, it had been that watching Andreas walk away after intimacy was more painful than losing any foster family. Because he felt like family. He felt like he was supposed to be hers. Only he wasn’t. Not really. They were friends. And that was all Andreas would ever allow her to be.

For him that was clearly an important role. Important enough for him to drop everything to follow her and stay with her until she returned where he considered she belonged, but he didn’t want the kind of belonging that she’d always craved. He didn’t want to be her family.

“New York is a beautiful city. If it was not so full of people, I could live here, I think.” Andreas’s words broke into her musings.

She gathered her thoughts and pressed them back into the recesses of her mind and heart, where they had to stay, just like they had for six years. “It is. I never realized how beautiful. I think I’ll always fit with Portland best, but I could visit New York again and stay longer.”

“Perhaps we will.”

She didn’t reply. They’d traveled together before. Maybe they would again. Maybe his wife wouldn’t care who traveled with the couple on their trips. Maybe Kayla would get to the point that seeing Andreas and his wife didn’t rip through her insides with all the pain of a serrated knife.

Maybe never.


(#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)CHAPTER SIX (#u89921092-0748-5178-aaca-d0e4c0453361)

DESPITE THE AMAZING scenery and the fascinating narration, the rest of the cruise passed in a blur for Kayla.

Andreas never let up on his affectionate touching, eliciting a reaction in her body she did her best to ignore. Because the longer it went on, the more convinced she was that she had to tell him no.

No sex. No last night together before he moved on to marry someone else.

“Do you want lunch?” he asked as they were led to early disembarkation ahead of the other passengers.

She was about to answer in the negative when her stomach growled.

He smiled. “It seems you do.”

“Let me guess. You’ve already got reservations.”

“Naturally.”

There was no car waiting for them, but a pedicab driver stepped forward. “Mr. Kostas?”

Andreas nodded.

“This way.” The man indicated a newer cab with red leather seats and a motorized bicycle attached.

“We’re taking a pedicab?” Kayla asked.

“I thought you would enjoy the experience.” Andreas handed her up into the cab, for all the world like they were on a date.

Not that he ever treated her with a lack of courtesy, but things were feeling distinctly personal and guy-girl in the guy-expecting-sex-at-the-end-of-the-date kind of way.

The pedicab driver started peddling, weaving in and out of traffic in a truly alarming way.

Kayla gasped at a close call and Andreas took her hand. “It is all right, pethi mou.”

“Greek endearments? Really?” He was pulling out all the stops.

Andreas laced their fingers. “This is one of the company’s best drivers. I made sure of it.”

“I have been driving cab here for two years,” the man said with a slight Eastern European accent.

Kayla asked about it and learned he was from a small village in Russia. He had his engineering degree, but had to take more schooling to qualify for the jobs he wanted here in the States.

Kayla was fascinated and asked more questions until Andreas interrupted, clearly annoyed. “I believe you know enough of his life story.”

“I do not mind your lady’s interest, Mr. Kostas.”

But for some reason Andreas did. It was almost as if he was jealous, which Kayla knew was ludicrous. He was not the jealous type.

“We should be at the restaurant soon,” Andreas said to her, ignoring the cabbie’s comment.

Kayla frowned. “Don’t be rude, Andreas. That is not like you.”

Which was not strictly true. He could actually be really rude when he wanted, but he tended not to be impolite to people in a position like the cabbie’s. Andreas didn’t throw his weight around with what his family might consider the servant class. He’d seen enough of that living in Greece, he’d confided to her once.

“I will tip him extra if that will make you happy,” Andreas replied grumpily.

She frowned. “You are being crass.”

“Nothing I say will please you, but you hang on his every word.” Oh, her ex-lover sounded seriously annoyed.

“I already know your history,” she tried to explain.

“So, now I bore you?”

Oh, man. He was determined to take offense, wasn’t he? “That is not what I said.”

The cabbie coughed in a way that sounded suspiciously like he was covering a laugh.

Andreas gave him a suspicious look and Kayla knew things were going to go downhill fast if she didn’t do something.

“What restaurant are we going to?” she asked with desperate enthusiasm. “Is it another tourist attraction?”

“Not exactly.” Andreas turned his attention full on her.

She smiled up at him.

“I know when you’re faking your smiles, you know that, right?” he asked with a clear frown.

She rolled her eyes. “Give me points for trying and tell me about the restaurant.”

“I want your smiles to be real when they are pointed in my direction.”

“I cannot guarantee that.”

“That is not acceptable to me.”

“Get over it.”

“I will not get over it. You will stop giving me those fake smiles, Kayla. Save them for other people.”

“Andreas, you are not being reasonable.”

“I am eminently reasonable.”

She laughed. Loudly. She could not help herself. “I’m sure that’s exactly what Jacob thinks.”

“Jacob has no place in this discussion.”

“You do not get to tell me to just forget about someone like he never existed.”

“Watch me.”

“Watch me ignore you.”

This time the cabbie’s coughing could not hide his laughter.

Andreas glared at the hapless man and Kayla had never been as happy to arrive at her destination. The pedicab came to a stop in front of one of New York’s many tall buildings, the walls seemingly made of glass.

“You will love the view at this place. Men, they take their women here to impress them,” the cabbie said to her as he turned around to them.

Andreas grunted. It could have been agreement. It could have been Mind your own business.

“I’m sure you are right. Andreas is very good at guessing what I’ll like.” Except when it came to selling their company and uprooting her one certain sense of security.

* * *

The restaurant turned out to be on an upper floor with a view every bit as amazing as the cabbie had implied. Designed with the feel of Asian-modern fusion, the waitstaff were all dressed in crisp black and white and offered the kind of service found in only the most elite dining rooms.

They were perfectly solicitous, making sure she and Andreas had everything they needed. Kayla got the feeling that if they’d asked for something completely outside the restaurant’s purview, the smart maître d’ would have made it happen. The food was fantastic.

Andreas did his best to be an entertaining companion and that was doing nothing for Kayla’s determination to tell him no about the sex thing.

At one point she glared at him. “Would you just stop?”

“Stop what?”

“Being so nice.”

“You do not want me to be nice to you?” His brilliant green eyes widened with disbelief.

“No.” She let out a huff of frustration when his whole body got into the incredulity thing. “I know what you want and the answer is no.”

“Do not be so sure on either count, pethi mou.”

“Stop with the Greek endearments too. They aren’t going to work.”

“Work at what precisely?” he teased, his eyes glinting with devilment.

She humphed at him. “Whatever your plans are for later.”

“I assure you, you will like my plans.”

“You always think that. You are not always right.” The past forty-eight hours should attest to that definitively.

“I am almost always right.” The humor was there in his voice, right under the surface.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Maybe a little. Relax, Kayla. You are perfectly safe in this nice restaurant.”

“It is a nice place. Very nice. It’s a date kind of place, or the kind of place you take a client you want to impress. I’m neither.” Both of them needed the reminder. “I’m not even sure how you got reservations on such short notice.”

“Maybe you are simply a woman I care about, whom I would also like to impress, hmm?” he said, ignoring her comment about the reservations.

But that was a real thing, so he had to have exerted some kind of influence to get them. It made her feel more special than she wanted to. “Right. The day you care about impressing me, I’m going to eat my straw walking hat for breakfast with hot sauce.”

“I hope you like hot sauce because I have always cared about impressing you.”

“Don’t be dumb, of course you don’t.”

“You are the only living person I do.”

“That’s... I...” She just didn’t believe it.

“You know I do not care if I impress my Greek family.”

“And yet you have this elaborate plan designed to prove to them how great you are.”

“Or rather how much I do not need them.” He said it like she should know this. She supposed he’d said it often enough.

She shrugged. She simply didn’t believe him.

He raised his brows. “Who else do I care to impress?”

“Your future wife? Genevieve? Other billionaires? I don’t know.”

“None of the above.”

“Then why would you care what I think?”

“Because you are my friend.”

“You say that like you don’t have any others and we both know that isn’t true.” Well, sort of. He wasn’t a social guy.

Andreas Kostas was focused on his goals.

“Acquaintances, contacts, even casual friends maybe,” he listed. “But not people whose opinions will ever matter to me enough to change the course of my life.”

“Mine doesn’t either.”

He looked around them, then at her, his expression belying her words. “And yet here I am, in New York, when I am supposed to be in Portland having a makeover with the matchmaker.”

“I wonder if she’s going to give you hair extensions and a man bun. They’re pretty popular right now.”

Andreas shuddered. “Not going to happen.”

“Oh, I know, she’ll put you in jeans every day and those graphic tees that cling to your muscles and show off all the goodies.”

“You like to tease me.”

“Well, she’s not going to leave you in your perfectly tailored bespoke suits and an overpriced businessman’s haircut.”

“Why not?” Andreas demanded, aggrieved.

“How should I know? You’re the one who said she insisted on a makeover.” Kayla thought he was plenty devastating just the way he was.

“Genevieve believes I am not approachable enough for husband material.”

“What kind of husband does she think you need to be?”

“That is a good question and perhaps one I should have asked before paying her a twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer.”

“You think?” Kayla asked with heavy sarcasm.

Andreas frowned at her. “It is not as if I asked her nothing.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Kayla started ticking off on her fingers. “Can you find me a bride who will fit these requirements? Will she be an asset to my business? She must be of a certain age and come from an acceptable background.”

“You know I am not seeking to marry some wealthy socialite.”

“That’s not what I meant by acceptable background. I know you well enough to know your list of background attributes ran more to the lines of came from a stable home so she knows what good parenting looks like for when you have children.” Which left Kayla out of the running right there. “Has an education, but isn’t a PhD because you’re enough of a chauvinist it would bother you if your wife was more educated than you.”

“It doesn’t bother me that you are smarter than me.”

“I’m smarter at computers, not more intelligent and we have the same number of years in our degrees. Do not tell me if I had a PhD in engineering it wouldn’t bother you.”

“I would be proud of you. Do you wish to go back to school?”

Sometimes Kayla did. She loved learning, but more because she thought maybe someday she’d like to teach at the adult level. She didn’t say that now, though. She just stared at him.

“What?” he demanded.

“My future plans aren’t your concern.”

“I do not agree.”

“Andreas, you’re going to be way too busy with your new venture capital firm to worry about what I do on the daily with my life.”

“That is not true.”

“You’re so stubborn.”

He laughed. “Have you met yourself?”

“Seriously, Andreas. You have this picture of how everything is going to be and you assume everyone is going to fall into it. That’s not the way the world always works.”

“As you have proven. We are in New York.”

“So you have reminded me.”

“It is a fascinating city, but I had no plans to visit this week.”

“Neither did I before you dropped your bomb.”

“It was not my intention to explode your life.”

“Just move yours forward. I know.”

“In my defense, I believed I was moving both our lives forward.”

“Because you are arrogant and believe you know what is best for other people.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight with me?”

“No. Just not letting you get away with anything. It’s what I do.”

“It has been too long since we shared a meal like this.”

“You’ve been busy the past couple of months.” She looked at him as the pieces started to fall into place. “Getting ready for the sale to Sebastian Hawk, right?”

Andreas grimaced. “You make it sound like I was sneaking around. I did nothing in secret.”

“Then why didn’t I know about it?”

“Because neither did I advertise the fact.”

Kayla just shook her head. “Sneaky.”

“No.” His phone buzzed, indicating a text message of low priority, but then it chimed with Bradley’s tone and Andreas looked at the screen, his face taking on a thunderous appearance as he read.

“What’s the matter?” Kayla asked.

He looked up at her, his jaw set. “I’ll explain in a moment.” Then he dialed a number on his phone.

The sound of a woman’s tones answering could be heard. If Kayla wasn’t mistaken it was Genevieve.

Andreas barely listened for a second before saying, “You are fired.”

Outraged squawks followed.

“I do not care what you saw on some social feed. I do not answer to you for my time and I will not have my instructions ignored or questioned by those who work for me. I expect a breach-of-contract portion refund of my retainer. Our business dealings are at an end.”

The woman was no longer yelling, clearly trying to cajole Andreas into changing his mind, but Kayla could have told her it was a waste of her breath. He had made up his mind before making the call. Whatever she’d done had pissed him off on a level that there was no coming back from.

Not in Andreas’s world.

“Goodbye, Genevieve.” He ended the call without any more words.

Kayla stared at him. “What was that all about?”

Andreas looked pained. “You sure you want to know?”

With that look on his face? “Definitely.”

“Genevieve wanted to come to New York to give me the infamous makeover, but I told her no. She decided this morning to ignore my wishes and come anyway. Bradley learned of her plans because my administrative assistant has ears everywhere and gave me a heads-up. Not that Genevieve hadn’t told me herself in a text.” Oh, Andreas sounded pissed.

“What would make her think that would be okay with you?”

“More like what made her think she might be losing a lucrative client?”

Kayla had a bad feeling. “And what was that?”

“Someone posted a picture of us kissing to one of those social media sites.”

“But how would she have seen that? Surely they didn’t know our names.”

“A stroke of bad luck, I think. First an enterprising social media paparazzo saw you with Jacob and made it her mission to find out who you were, which wasn’t hard after his sister apparently dissed you on Twitter for bailing on your date with him. The social media paparazzo happened to be on the cruise with us this morning. She decided to update the scandal of your botched date with Jacob by posting the picture of you and me kissing this morning.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Improbable. Ridiculous timing. But not impossible.”

“And Genevieve found out already?”

“She’s a shark and stuff like this is blood in the water to her.”

“Wow.”

“That is no excuse for her ignoring my instructions.”

“She was clearly worried about your commitment to finding a wife.”

“I’m not married yet. I’m not even dating any of her candidates.”

“Still.”

“Still nothing. I fired her and she’ll refund at least eighty percent of that retainer or she’ll learn why there are risks involved targeting my demographic as her clientele.”

“Okay, relax, Andreas. She told you all that just now?”

“She wanted me to know what a bad risk you are for involvement.”

“That wasn’t very nice of her.” Not that Kayla expected any different.

“She’s not a very nice person, but she is efficient.”

“That’s good I guess.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic.”

“You’re the one who fired her.”

“You know I don’t tolerate being ignored.”

“I ignore you, you’ve never fired me.”

“You are the exception to the rule.” He winked at her and was too darn sexy with it. “Don’t let that get out.”

“We can’t have anyone thinking you are a pushover.” Kayla couldn’t help the warmth that filled her at this reminder of her unique place in Andreas’s life.

“Because I am not.”

“No, you are not.” He was selling the company out from under her after all. Andreas was no sentimental pushover.

“Have you finished?” Andreas asked, indicating her mostly eaten plate that she hadn’t touched in over ten minutes.

“Yes.”

“Are you ready to do some more sightseeing?”

Funnily enough, she’d expected him to ask to go back to the hotel. The sexual tension in the air was thick enough it should be an opaque cloud around them, but it was as if he was intent on building the anticipation to maximum levels.

He used to do that, back in the day, when they’d been lovers.

It had driven her crazy, in the best possible way.

* * *

A new-model, dark sedan was waiting for them when they reached the street.

“Where to now?” she asked as he handed her into the back seat, her slacks sliding easily over the plush leather seats.

There was something odd in his expression, almost hesitant as he joined her. “I thought the Brooklyn Bridge. You were fascinated by it this morning on the tour.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“And you like bridges.”

Portland had its own fair share, and she’d spent enough time exploring them, photographing them, walking across the ones with pedestrian ways and lost in contemplation staring at the river from their heights.

She shrugged. “They’re like code, you know. They make a way between where you are and where you want to be.”

“Your mind is unique, Kay-love. You realize this?” His voice was warm with approval.

And she wasn’t sure what to do with that. “I know I don’t think like normal people.”

“What is normal?” His dark Greek brow creased. “Are we supposed to strive for average? I do not think so.”

“Your arrogance is showing again.” But she knew he absolutely believed what he said.

Andreas Kostas had never strived to be like other people. He’d forged his own path and taken Kayla down it with him.

He reached out and took her hand, his fingers warm and strong as they curled around hers, giving her a sense of reassurance and other feelings she did not want to examine right then.

It was too dangerous for her equilibrium.

His emerald gaze locked hers in place. “If honesty is arrogance, so be it, but you should never think less of yourself because you do not fit the mold of normal.”

“You’ve gotten very affectionate all of a sudden.” Not to mention complimentary.

Color slashed his masculine cheekbones.

“What?” she demanded.

He shook his head. “It is nothing.”

But it was clearly something.

“You’re losing your contractions again.” It was a funny quirk of his, when he was really worked up. She wasn’t sure if it was a speech pattern he’d gotten from his mother or something he’d picked up in Greece, but Kayla had always found it endearing.

“Do you think the way I dress makes me unapproachable?” he asked, apropos of nothing.

“Are you serious right now? Where did that come from?”

Andreas’s lips gave a sardonic twist. “You know.”




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