Blackmailed By The Greek's Vows

A blaze lit up in his silvery eyes, tight lines fanning around his mouth.

He tugged her and Tina fell onto him with a soft gasp. Hard muscles pushed against her breasts, sending shock waves through her. “Believe me, pethi mou, if there is one aspect of our marriage that both of us agree on, it is in bed.”

His fingers wrapped around her nape in a possessive hold, a flicker of arousal and something else etched onto his features.

“You’re the one who broke our marriage vows, Valentina. You’re the one who avowed her love in passionate statements and sensational gestures, ne? Again and again. All I wanted was a civil marriage. Then, the fickle, spoilt brat that you are, you ran away because your little fantasy world where you rule as a queen and I fall at your feet crumbled. You leave no note. No message. You tell my security guard you’re visiting your damned brothers. I imagined you kidnapped and waited for a ransom note. I imagined your body lying in some morgue because you met with an accident. I imagined one of the women or men you insulted with your cruel words may have been pushed to the limit and wrung your pretty neck.”

Heart thundering, Valentina stared.

His fingers dug into her tender flesh with a grip she was sure would leave bruises. She’d never seen him like this, smoldering with a barely banked fire. “Until Leandro took pity on me and informed me that you had simply walked out on me. On our marriage.”

Tina sagged against the wall, a strange twisting in her belly. He had been worried about her safety. Terrified for her. “I’m... I’m sorry. I didn’t think...”

“Too little, too late.”

He was right. If nothing else, he deserved an explanation. “I was furious with you and with Leandro. I had just learned that I was not a Conti but a bastard child my mother had with her chauffeur. That you married me as part of a bloody deal. You’ve had nine months to come after me.” The words slipped past her tongue, desperate, pathetic.

And just like that, any emotion she had spied in his eyes was wiped away. He stared at his fingers pressing into her flesh, his other hand kneading her hip.

His eyes widened fractionally before he stepped back. Stopped touching her. “The moment Leandro informed me what you’d done, I stopped thinking of you. I had other matters—urgent, important matters—to deal with rather than chase my impulsive brat of a wife through Europe.”

A fist to her heart would have been less painful.

But this was good, Tina reassured herself. She’d needed this talk with him. She’d needed to hear these words from Kairos’s mouth. Now, she could stop wondering—in the middle of the night, alone in her bed—if she’d made a mistake.

If their marriage deserved another chance.

After tonight, she wouldn’t have to see him again. Never hear those hateful words again. “Bene. You had important matters and I had enough time to think my decision through. I had nine months to realize what I did on impulse was right. I do not care whether you pay me alimony or not because I would not touch it. I intend to make something out of myself.”

“By whoring yourself out to Russian investors? By dressing like a cheap tramp? Admit it, Valentina. You’ve gotten nowhere in nine months except ending up with that buffoon who wants to get in your pants. You have no talent. No skills. Your connections were the only things of value about you.”

“I know that. Believe me, I have learned a lifetime’s worth of lessons in these nine months. The only good thing about this is that whatever connections you thought I would bring you as the Conti heiress are now lost.”

“Your brothers haven’t disowned you.”

“I have cut all my connections with them. With that life. I’m of no more use to you.”

“Ah...so that is your petty revenge? To deny what I planned to get by cutting yourself off from your brothers temporarily?”

“You give both me and your role in my life too much credit, Kairos. I love my brothers. Every day I spend away from them tears my heart. But it is the price I have to pay to face myself in the mirror.”

Finally, it seemed that she was getting through to him. And still, ruthlessness was etched onto his every feature. “This marriage is not done until I say it is done.”

“All I want is a teeny signature on a piece of paper. Ask me to sign away that alimony Leandro set up and I will. I will do anything you ask of me to be released from this marriage. You already wrote me out of your life when you decided not to come after me nine months ago, Kairos. I was nothing but a disappointment to you. So why drag this on? Is it just because your masculine pride is dented? Is it because, once again, I made you lose your rigid self-control?”

“Whether you want it or not, whether you touch it or not, half of what is mine will be yours for years to come. If I’m going to pay through the nose for the mistake of indulging you in your foolish fantasies of everlasting love, for putting up with your temper tantrums, for the pleasure of having you in my bed, I would like three more months of marriage, agapita. And maybe, a little more of you for that price tag.”

“A little more of me for that price...” Tina whispered, his words gouging through her already battered heart.

Her hand flew at him, outrage filling her every pore.

His lightning-fast reflexes didn’t let her slap land. With a gentleness that belied the hard, wiry strength of his body, he held her wrist between them, crowding her body against the wall until it kissed the line of her spine.

Hardness and heat, he was so male. Her five-inch stilettos made up for the height difference between them until she was perfectly molded against him. Muscular thighs straddled hers. His granite chest grazed the tips of her breasts, making her nipples tighten and ache. And against her belly... Maledizione, his arousal was lengthening and hardening.

Damp heat uncurled between Tina’s thighs. A whimper flew from her mouth—a needy and desperate plea for more. She clenched her thighs on instinct. “I do not even use my hands or my mouth. Yet you’re damp and ready for me, ne?”

Breath shallow, she fought for control over her body, over the hunger he lit so easily. “As you said, it’s why other men follow me around. I’m hot and uninhibited in bed, si? I could always match your sexual appetite and we both know it’s insatiable. That I’m like a bitch in heat right now is not a point in your favor. You give good sex, Kairos. It was the one place where I was happy as your wife.”

A lick of temper awakened in his silver eyes. “Tell me, Valentina. Do you get hot like this for any other man? For the fool lying in the bed behind us?” He twisted his hips in that way of his.

His erection rubbed against the lips of her sex and she jerked.

Pleasure was a fork in her spine, setting fire along her nerves. She could feel that thick rigidness inside her, could see the tight control etched onto his features as he moved inside her. She craved the softening of his gaze, the few moments of the real Kairos, tender and caring, that she used to glimpse after he found his release.

And she still wanted that man. Like a puppy that had been kicked but still came back for more.

His mouth was at her cheekbone and his stubble chafed her lips. A wet, open kiss at her pulse. “I have other uses for you, wife...along with a few more months in my bed.” His hands moved to cup her buttocks and pulled her against his hardness.

His mouth trailed lazily along her jawline, heading for her lips—the depth of her want, the fire along her skin—and she could taste the release in her fevered muscles.

“Admit defeat, Valentina. You can pretend all you want but your best bet is to be a rich man’s trophy wife. It is not a bad role for you. Accept your limitations. Adjust your expectations. Just as I did when your brother Luca stood in the way of the Conti board CEO position. I want nothing more from a wife, and who knows? You can maybe even persuade me to give this marriage another try.”

He was angry she had walked out.

No, not angry, she realized, running shaking hands through her hair.

He was furious with an icy, cold edge to it. Every word and caress of his was meant to provoke her with its cruelty. She’d never seen him like that.

It was more temper than she’d seen of him in all of their relationship so far—and, by God, she’d done every awful thing she could think of to provoke it.

But he wasn’t asking her back. He didn’t want to give their marriage another chance. He didn’t want to give her a chance.

No, all he wanted was a sop to his male ego. All he wanted was to punish her for daring to leave him, for calling him out on his ruthless ambition.

That pain gave her a rope with which to climb out of the sensual haze. To deny herself what she’d never been able to before—his touch.

“Please, Kairos, release me.”

The moment the words were out of her mouth, he let her go. Pupils drenched with lust, he stared at her as if he couldn’t believe she could put a stop to it.

Shaking but determined to hold herself up, she met his gaze. “What do I have to do to get you to agree to a divorce? To get you to leave me alone?”

He looked taken aback but recovered fast. “Three months as my wife.”

“Why? Why do you need me now? Other than because you want to punish me for walking out on you?”

“I have a debt to pay to Theseus.”

“The man who brought you home from the streets, the one who adopted you?”

“Ne.”

“And for this, you need to have a wife?”

“Yes. His daughter Helena—”

“Is causing trouble between you and him? You want me to take her on? I don’t understand how your wife’s presence will help...” The words trailed away from her lips as she saw his closed off expression. A mocking laugh rose. “Non, I’ve got it, I think. The daughter wants you and you want to say no without hurting anyone’s feelings. How noble of you, Kairos.”

His brow cleared, relief dawning in his eyes. “Theseus deserves nothing less from me.”

The depth of his sincerity shook Tina. She had never seen Kairos feel that strongly about anyone or anything. Except wealth and power and the amassing of it.

“This is the only way you get your divorce, Valentina.”

“You cannot drag me back into that life against my will.”

“But I can fight the divorce proceedings. Make your life into the media circus that you suddenly appear to abhor. And even worse, one wrong word or move from me toward you will bring forth your brothers’ fury upon me and their interference in your life...if you truly intend to make it on your own, that would be hell.”

Tina stared at him, amazed despite the anger pouring through her. He was calling her bluff about all this—the new direction she wanted to take in life.

She was damned if she answered it, damned if she didn’t. She didn’t want to spend another moment with him and yet he had left her no choice.

She sighed. “You will release me when things are clarified?”

“When things are clarified to my satisfaction, yes. No sooner. I’m warning you, Valentina, I want a perfect wife. No tantrums. No reckless escapades. You could even leave with the fat settlement the divorce will award you with the satisfaction that you’ve truly earned it. A novel feeling, I assure you.”

“And if I sleep with you to earn it, you will have truly made me a whore, si, Kairos? Will your dented ego be repaired then? Because, hear me out, Kairos. My body might be willing but my heart is not.”

The growl he swallowed down filled her with vicious satisfaction.

Valentina smiled for the first time in nine months.

Now all she’d have to do was convince herself of what she had told him.

CHAPTER THREE

WHAT DO I have to do to get you to leave me alone?

She truly wanted out of their marriage.

The realization moved through Kairos like an earthquake as he stared down at her sleeping form in the rear cabin of his private jet.

He’d only thought of how he would punish her when he found her. How good she would feel under him once again. How he would provoke her temper until she came at him all explosive fury and uncontained passion.

But she’d done nothing of the sort.

Oh, she’d lost control a couple of times and given him back as much as he’d deserved, but that was nothing to the Valentina he had known.

It was as if he was looking at a stranger.

If I sleep with you to earn it, you will have truly made me a whore.

Christos, only she could find such an appalling twist to what he had suggested.

But then since he was blackmailing her into his bed, was it any wonder that she had fought dirty?

He should have been impervious to her passionate, fiery declarations after ten months of living with her and her infamous tempers. Should have been unaffected by the sounds of her moans, the slide of her lithe body against his when he touched her.

That he wasn’t, disconcerted him on a level he didn’t understand.

His physical need for her and only her, and the fact that neither the sweet Stella nor any of the women who had readily offered him a place in their bed in the nine months since Valentina had walked out on him had remotely even tempted him, he could still somehow explain.

Like she had so crudely pointed out, Valentina was explosive in bed. He had been more than surprised when he’d discovered her virginity on their wedding night.

Valentina, as he’d quickly learned to his tremendous satisfaction, was an utterly sensual creature. Whatever he had taught her in bed, she’d not only taken to it enthusiastically but her innate curiosity for his body, her relentless eagerness to return every pleasure he had shown her. That she had remained untouched had been a shock.

She possessed a quick temper and an even quicker sexual trigger, and Christos, he’d reveled in making her explode to his slightest caresses. Tender and drawn-out, or explosive and fast, her passion had matched his own.

No man could be blamed for becoming obsessed like he had.

He needed Valentina with a fervor he didn’t care or need to understand, and he would have her.

But the hurt in her eyes as he had dealt one cruel statement after the other, hoping to get her temper to rise, festered like an unhealed wound in the hours since he’d arranged for them to travel to Greece.

He should be grateful that the blinders were torn from her eyes. That she would not look at him anymore as if he were her knight in shining armor. Or the man who’d fulfilled all her romantic fantasies.

Whether they divorced or not, it was a good thing she had finally learned the truth.

He had no familiarity or place in his life for tender feelings or love. They demanded a price he couldn’t afford, however wealthy he had become.

But the sight of her huge brown eyes as he’d torn her into shreds with his words wouldn’t leave him alone. He hadn’t pulled any of his punches and she had taken them as if they were her due.

He didn’t believe for a second that Valentina would stick to her chosen path or that she had what it took to succeed in her career.

She was just too undisciplined, too impulsive, too spoilt for the hard work it entailed. But still, for the first time in his life, Kairos felt as if he had stood up to the title that had haunted him all his childhood.

Bastard.

He was a bastard.

For even knowing that she would end up in his bed, even acknowledging that something intrinsic had changed in Valentina and he was the one who had caused it, knowing that he would hurt her, he still couldn’t walk away from her.

Neither would he keep her.

For all that she’d professed her love for him, she had proved that she was like the rest—using love as manipulation, and then breaking her word.

No one was important enough for him to risk that, to forget the lesson he had already learned.

Love was nothing but a game.

* * *

For all your avowals, you left. You proved how little your words mean.

The words and the sentiment behind them stung Tina as she lathered up in the small shower cubicle.

Had there been an infinitesimal thread of complaint in Kairos’s tone? Was she just reading too much when there was nothing again?

She had, at every available moment and opportunity, prostrated her feelings at his feet. Made a spectacle of herself.

How dare he think she’d given in too easily?

She wrapped a towel around herself, and stepped out.

Designer-label bags in every size and color covered the bed.

Mothership to Valentina... Calling now.

A soft sigh emerged from her lips.

She lasted nineteen seconds before she pulled the soft tissue out of the first bag and discovered a black cold-shoulder blouse and white capri pants. More casual pants and blouses. She counted four dresses ranging from a cocktail dress to a pale pink ball gown that would show off her tan beautifully.

Small, silky tissue bags of underwear and everything in her size. Makeup bags with her favorite lipsticks and perfumes with designer labels.

The bras were from the designer label she loved and sinfully expensive—two of them she had discovered recently would pay for her food for a month. And of the push-up kind she’d always preferred to make the most of her nonexistent boobage.

Sliding to the bed in her towel, Tina fingered the butter-soft cushioning of a push-up bra. In some throwaway remark he had made once when they’d watched an old Hollywood movie, she’d realized her husband had a thing for big breasts.

And hers were meager at best. So, like an idiot female, she’d gone on a rampage with lingerie, bras especially, and in the end there had been more cushioning and padding in her bra than flesh on her body.

One evening, she’d gone with an extreme push-up bra to a party—her boobs, exposed by a low neckline, almost kissing her chin and barely covering her nipples. Kairos had blown his top and called her entire outfit trampy—the first time in their marriage that he’d lost it.

He’d said, in clipped tones, that her need for every man’s attention made her the shallowest woman he’d ever met. And then he’d walked out for the night.

She frowned.

For all his smarts, hadn’t Kairos realized that she’d gone from one outrageous outfit to the next to get a rise out of him? To make up for what she thought she was lacking, for him? That from the moment Leandro had introduced her to him, she hadn’t thought of another man ever again?

Why did she have to go to such extremes to please him?

Why was she even now, making such a big deal about the fact that he’d remembered the size of her underwear, of all things?

Kairos had a mind like a super computer, remembering every small detail that went in. It had no significance.

“A starved dog would look at meat scraps with less hunger,” said a dry voice from the doorway.

Tina stood up and tugged the towel up.

He had also changed—a gray V-necked sweater that hugged his biceps and chest and dark jeans that caressed his muscular thighs. She had to swallow the feminine sigh of appreciation that wanted to come out.

“Old dogs can learn new tricks,” she said repressively.

His laughter pervaded the small cabin. Grooves etched in his cheeks, his eyes alight with humor. “I think the saying says the opposite.”

“I don’t want the clothes.”

“No choice. My wife, the fashionista of Milan, can’t dress in trashy clothes that better suit a street walker or...” he picked up the worn-out denim shorts and loose T-shirt that she had put out “...hand-me-downs. Wow, you have really taken this role to heart, ne? You would have turned your nose up at these a few months ago.”

“I would have, si. But it is not a joke, Kairos. Those are clothes that I could afford on what I made.”

He threw the shirt carelessly aside. “You have to look the part, Valentina. Believe me, you’re going to need the armor.”

She frowned at the thoughtful look in his eyes. Armor for what? She’d been so caught up in staying strong against his onslaught she hadn’t delved too much into the details. “I want to discuss this after I dress.”

A brow raised, Kairos stared at her leisurely. Water drops clinging to her skin should burn and singe for the lazy intensity of his gaze. “Still so modest, Valentina? I have seen, touched, licked, sucked every part of you, ne?”

She glared at him. “I was willing then. Not anymore.”

“But I can see you if I close my eyes.” He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall. A wicked smile dancing around his lips. “The mole on the curve of your right buttock. The mark you have on your knee from skinning it. The silky folds of—”

She pressed her palm to his mouth and whispered, “Stop, please.”

Unholy humor glinted in his silver eyes. “That’s not all. I have the sounds you make, the way you thrust your hips up when I’m deep inside you, I have them all in my head.” He tapped his temple, his nostrils flaring. “They’re the first things I recall in the morning when I wake up with—”

She drew her hand back, burned. But even beneath the sensual web around them, it was the humor in his eyes that threw her. “You’re shameless.”

His eyes followed a drop of water from her neck to the tight cinch of her towel. A devilish smile glinted around his mouth. “You know how I get in the morning, ne? You left me with no recourse.” He pulled up her left hand and frowned. “Where are your rings?”

“In my bag.”

With purposeful movements, he looked through her bag. Stalking back to her, he pushed the rings on her finger. Another sleek box appeared from somewhere.

Her heart thundered as he pulled out a simple gold chain with a diamond pendant.

The pendant was a thumbnail sized V in delicately twisted platinum and gold with tiny diamonds lining up the branches. She had seen it at a jewelry store once—on one rare occasion when they’d been out shopping together to buy a gift for her niece Izzie. Buying it with her credit card—against Kairos’s dictate that she stop spending Leandro’s money—would have been easy.

But already...something had changed in her back then.

Clothes and shoes and jewelry had begun to lose their allure. Because none of those, she had realized, made a difference in how her reserved husband saw her.

And yet he’d noticed her watching it.

She met his eyes over the fragile chain dangling in his fingers. “I... I have a lot of funky jewelry to dress the part. I can’t stand the thought of fake gifts.”

“I bought it for you. We might as well use it.” With one hand, he pushed the swathe of her hair aside, then his hands were gentle around her neck. His warm breath feathered over her face, his arms a languorous weight over her shoulders. “Throw it away after we’re done with this for all I care.”

The pendant was cold against her bare skin. Tina licked her lips, warmth pooling in her chest. “When?”

His fingers lingered over the nape of her neck, straightening the chain, but still her heart went thud against her ribcage. “When what?”

“When did you buy it?”

“When you were waiting outside, in the car. I meant to give it to you on—” he laughed, and yet beneath the mockery Tina sensed self-deprecation, even anger “—the ten-month anniversary of our wedding. I feel like a fool even saying that.”

“Then why did you buy it?” Her tummy rolled at his proximity, at the revelation. “You called me a sentimental little fool when I bought you gifts on that date. A child who celebrates every little thing.”

“Maybe you finally wore me down. But then you left two days after that shopping trip, so maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t change too much for you, ne?” he said, looking away.

This time, there was no doubt that he was angry, even bitter that she had left him. That she had given up on their marriage. She must have changed him a little if he had truly thought of giving her a gift on that date. Maybe just a little.

But still, he hadn’t acted on that anger. He had simply written her off, like a bad asset. He had only come for her when he decided he needed her. She had to remember that.

“The clothes, the shoes, everything will stay.” He walked away, a faint tension radiating from him. “I want the classy, stylish Valentina. The adoring, loving wife.”

“I can’t force the last part.”

“Pretend then. For months, you did just that anyway. Do you need anything else?”

“Underwear. Bras, to be exact,” she said the first thing that came to her lips while her mind whirled. Had he cared about her just a little? Had he bought her the necklace to make her happy?

Did his humiliating proposal that she could persuade him to try again hold a hint of what he wanted?

“The ones I have are plain cotton and will show—”

“Things I’d rather not have anyone but me see in those slinky dresses,” he finished for her, possessiveness ringing in his tone. He frowned and looked at the reams of new bras. “I had my PA order those from the boutique you spend a fortune in.”

She sighed—she really did like how big those push-up bras made her breasts look. No, what she liked was that they had made her feel like he would like her more. But no more of her crazy shenanigans. “Those don’t...fit anymore.”

His gaze moved to her chest like a laser beam. The wicked devil! “I can’t tell from under that towel.”

She picked up a pen and notepad and wrote down her size.

“No underwire, no padding, no lifting. All you’re going to get is my tiny boobs as nature made them,” she muttered to herself.

He laughed, half choking on it. She jerked her head up, realizing too late he’d been standing far too close. He stared at her as if she had grown two horns. “What?”

She pasted a fake smile to her lips. “My sanity returned nine months ago. I can’t wait for the next three months to be over.”

He scowled. Didn’t even bother to hide it.

“Fortunately, I know you well enough not to trust a word out of your lovely mouth,” said the blasted man.

If a shiver claimed her spine, she didn’t let it show on her face.

A few more months in my bed...

A rich man’s trophy wife...

Kairos would never see her as anything else.

She’d seen how he behaved with her sister-in-law Sophia, one of his oldest friends. A woman he’d proposed to before he’d decided on Tina herself.

Sophia was the smartest woman Tina knew. And she commanded Kairos’s respect. Even Leandro’s wife Alexis had Kairos’s regard.

Both women, so different, and yet they had one thing in common that she did not have.

They were successful in their own right—strong, independent women who were more than enough to take on her powerful brothers Leandro and Luca.

That was what Tina wanted to be. That was what she wanted to see in his eyes when he looked at her.

If he was going to tease and torment her for three months, then she would earn his respect, his regard. She was Valentina Conti Constantinou and she would have her own form of revenge by succeeding beyond his wildest dreams.

She would rub his face in what he was giving up. And only then, only when she had brought him to his knees, would Valentina walk away. Even her Machiavellian grandfather Antonio, who’d only ever accepted her under pressure from Leandro, couldn’t deny that she was any less of a scheming Conti now.

She turned around and faced Kairos. “I have been thinking of our deal since last night.” Steady, flat, her voice cooperated. “I have a few conditions.”

His nostrils flared. “You don’t get to negotiate.”

That she had shocked him snapped her spine into place.

She let a smile curve her mouth. She hadn’t been born a Conti, but her proud, powerful brothers had raised her to be one. “I might be vain and vapid but I’m not stupido, Kairos. You came to me last night because you need me. So, si, I will negotiate and you will listen.”

“What are your conditions?”

“You were right about the industry being a bitch. I didn’t get anywhere in nine months. I want word spread that we’re back together again. I want the names and numbers of everyone you do business with. And I want your backing.”

“I’m a respected businessman, Valentina. I will not give the weight of my name to any harebrained scheme of yours that is sure to embarrass me and sink in a few months. If you want my money, you have to wait until the divorce is final to get your hands on it.”

“Non! Not money. I want access to your rich friends and their wives. Or their mistresses. I don’t care how you put it forward. Tell them your juvenile, impulsive bratty wife is putting together a shoot and you’re indulging her. Tell them it’s the way I’m whiling away my useless life. Tell them it’s your way of indulging my tantrums. I don’t care what you tell them. I need to put together a portfolio and a shoot. I need to get word of mouth going that I’m offering my services as a personal stylist to anyone who’s got reputation, status and money.”

“A personal stylist?”

“Si.” She raised her hand, cutting him off. “If you’re going to use me, Kairos, I will use you, too. At least, we’re finally speaking the same language.”

“And what language is that, Valentina?”

“The language of transactions. You never do anything without some advantage to yourself. Our marriage has taught me one useful thing at least.”

“You’re playing a dangerous game, pethi mou, hurling accusations at me. You can only push me so far.”

“I know you’ll find it hard to believe, but I’m not doing anything to provoke you, Kairos. For the first time in my life, I’m thinking with my head. I’ve looked past the surface and not liked what I see in myself.

You have made me face reality. And for that, I shall always be grateful to you.”

“You want a divorce because you’re grateful to me?” The stony mask of his face belied how angry he was with her again. No, not anger. But he was affected by her decision.