The Art of Forgiving a Greek Billionaire (7 page)

Her lips tightened. He made her victory feel petty and hollow.
Arrogant Greek billionaire.
His kind was really better left between the pages of books.

“By allowing me to get this close to you, I assume you are now inclined to talk to me?”

Damen Leventis’ voice was flat when he asked the question, yielding no clue to what he was feeling. Vilma wanted to laugh. If he thought he could stonewall her like that, he was sadly mistaken. She had not spent years in the courtroom embroiled in the most bitterly fought legal disputes over marital affairs to have learned nothing about the human psyche. He would give in sooner or later. It was only a matter of finding the right trigger.

Gesturing to the unoccupied seat across her, she said in a neutral voice, “Please join me, Mr. Leventis.” She watched him carefully as he did, his every move graceful even though his face and body hinted of bone-deep weariness.

Good. It was nothing compared to what he had made Mairi suffer.

The next time she spoke, it was soft enough for her words to remain just between the two of them. “Please satisfy my curiosity, Mr. Leventis. Why are you trying so hard for a chance to see my niece? Isn’t this the same girl you cast out of your home like useless furniture you had grown weary of?”

Damen flinched. “It was not like that. I misunderstood—”

“You always misunderstood!” She had been wrong. She would not be able to play this cool, after all. There would no longer be anything strategic about her words and actions this time. “I know you had us investigated, and I’m sure you know that we had done the same to you. What I found out was
sickening.
” Her low voice shook with rage. “My niece had always loved you from the start, but you betrayed and hurt her at every turn. You treated her like trash, and now you think I’ll let you waltz back into her life like nothing happened?”

The words of Mairi’s aunt did not create fresh wounds inside him. It only made the ones that still existed burn more deeply and painfully. “I know,” he said tightly, “how much I hurt her. That’s why I’m here now. I need to tell her I’m sorry and that I love her—”

Vilma’s responding laugh was scornful. “You have a very strange way of showing your love for Mairi.” Her next words took on a biting tone. “I’ve been following Greek business news closely, Mr. Leventis. You have been removed from your own board, almost all of your assets have been frozen, and half of Greece’s high society consider you as
persona non grata.
Don’t you think you have more important business to take care of back home?”

“Mairi is my life.”

Somehow, the words rang true even to Vilma’s ears, and she hated it. “Mairi is the same woman you believed was interested in you for your billions, Mr. Leventis. Why would you think she’d want to see now?”

“I made a mistake not trusting her. I won’t do it again.” He added fiercely, “I won’t hurt her again.”

“And that will make it all right, you think? To admit that you were wrong?”

His voice did not change when he answered, “I will beg if I have to.”

Her face hardened. “Then beg.”

“Please give me a chance to speak to your niece. I just want to speak to her. It’s all I ask. Even a phone call – a text message or email. Any form of communication would suffice.”

“On your knees.”

Damen did not say a word, did not hesitate even for a millisecond. He simply got up from his chair and went down on his knees, uncaring of the scores of eyes that swung to him incredulously at his action.

Even when he had his billions at his disposal, Damen had not been able to uncover a single clue about Mairi’s whereabouts, and he knew the chances of finding Mairi had become slimmer the moment he lost access to his own wealth.

If begging was the only way to have a chance to see Mairi, then so be it.

Vilma also slowly came to her feet.
 

And then she took the glass of water from the table and threw it at Damen. “That’s for making my niece suffer and for not protecting her from almost being raped.”

~ Nine ~

Alina Kokinos felt suffocated by how crowded Miami’s airport was. It was her first time to find herself in such a situation. In the past, her family’s wealth had kept her from this. When their plane landed, there would always be a chauffeured car waiting on the grounds to whisk her off to wherever she wanted, with her passport and all travel documents processed while she remained in the comfort of the Kokinos jet.

But life was different now.

She was no longer an heiress, wasn’t even sure she had the right to use her family’s name now that she had been disinherited.

Craning her neck, she tried to search the crowd for a familiar face, but there was none. Pulling out her phone from her pocket, she re-read the anonymously sent message for the nth time.

If you would like to be the one to tell Damen Leventis where Mairi Tanner is, book a flight to Miami at this date and time. You will know then.
 

When Alina had received the message, she hadn’t paused to think. She had gambled the last of her money on the flight and left Greece – her first time to do so alone.

Now here she was, feeling like she had been the victim of a prank.

After all, it really did not make any sense. She really did not have anything to do with the rollercoaster affair between Damen Leventis and Mairi Tanner. She was simply a bystander, one who had won her freedom when they fell in love but found her heart enslaved when the two had parted and she saw a side to Damen Leventis that she thought she would never find in a Greek male.

Ten more minutes and then she was out of here,
Alina told herself before moving to another section of the airport, closer to where passengers would come out once they got past immigration. Hundreds of people walked past her every minute, but she didn’t let it ruin her concentration, her forehead furrowed as she tried to look for—

Mairi Tanner.

She couldn’t be mistaken, could she?

Alina didn’t realize she had been walking towards the figure until she was just a few inches away. Alina whitened when a tall, good-looking man spoke to the girl. When the girl looked up, Alina inhaled sharply.

It really was her.

When the man left, Alina heard herself say, “You’re really here.”

****

From a short distance, Drake Morrison watched the drama unfold between the two women, events that he had orchestrated with skills he used as a tactician of war. In order to win, one had to be ready to suffer casualties, and in this case Drake had long known that it would be Mairi who had to suffer another blow. It was the only way for her to be truly free of Damen Leventis – to regain her self-respect.

Taking out his phone from his pocket, he took a snapshot of Mairi, making sure that enough of their surroundings were clear in the photo so that their location would be identified without difficulty. Drake emailed the photo to a popular Hollywood blogger.

Without taking his gaze from the two, he made another call, instructing some of his men to take care of his luggage and Mairi’s.

Afterwards, he strode back to Mairi and her new companion, intent on following through with his plan.

****

Mairi couldn’t believe her eyes. It was truly
Alina Kokinos.
The younger girl was as pretty and polished as she had always seemed, dressed in a plain but elegant short-sleeved cotton dress and flats.
Alina looked innocent
, Mairi thought with shame, in a way that Mairi no longer had a right to think of herself as.

Before either of them could speak again, Drake was back at her side, his arm curving around her waist. And then he was bending down, his mouth covering hers, every movement of his lips speaking of his desire for her.

There was no time for Mairi to react. She was so stunned by his actions that by the time she recovered from her shock, the kiss was over. Drake had straightened, but he remained at her side, quietly possessive and authoritative.

Alina was trembling in shock and anger. She couldn’t believe it. She just couldn’t believe it. Surely – surely Mairi knew what Damen was going through right now? Surely she was aware of how Damen was slowly going insane in his efforts to find her and yet here she was, clearly in the throes of a romantic tryst with another man?

“You are Alina Kokinos, aren’t you?”

Alina answered coldly, “Yes.”

Drake’s voice, however, was bland as he said, “If you have something to say to Mairi, I suggest we do this privately. We have a car waiting outside. You may speak with freedom there, while here…”

As the man’s voice trailed off, Alina belatedly became aware that they were attracting curious eyes. She didn’t think people recognized her yet, but it was only a matter of time. She nodded stiffly, her gaze carefully averted from Damen’s former fiancée. She was not normally this emotional, but she might just lose it if she looked at Mairi.

Drake stayed in the middle of the two women as they walked out of the airport. He immediately spotted Raymond, a short but stocky man who served with Drake in Afghanistan, leaning against a black Benz.

At the sight of Drake, Raymond moved fast, murmuring a polite greeting as he opened car doors. Alina and Mairi were ushered inside the backseat while Drake took the passenger seat next to Raymond.

The moment the door was slammed shut, Alina burst out fiercely, “
How could you
?”

Mairi reluctantly met the accusing gaze of the younger girl. The sensible part of her told Mairi she had nothing to be guilty for. But the other part of her, the one that was still numb with pain and love for a man who would never really trust her, that part of Mairi welcomed the anger from Alina. She felt like the accusation, the disgust and contempt in the other girl’s gaze was completely justified. Allowing Drake into her bed might not have been considered a gross mistake, but it had not been her best decision either.

And so to Alina, she said nothing.

How
, Alina thought with furious tears rushing to her eyes
, could Mairi Tanner make it feel like she was the one in the wrong for attacking when it was the other girl who had been playing around while Damen Leventis was practically existing only to seek her forgiveness?

The older girl perplexed her, and the fact that it did only made Alina more resentful. There was also a regal air about Mairi, something that made her feel untouchable and pure even though Alina had seen with her own eyes that Mairi was anything but. Mairi was only four years older than her twenty, but right now the other girl made Alina feel very much immature for her outburst.
 

Well, immature or not, she did not have anything to be guilty of at least
, Alina thought sullenly. That kiss between Mairi and the stranger had spoken volumes. Something beyond a kiss had happened between the two, and it was something that the man felt very proprietary about.

Alina glared at Mairi. “You didn’t even have the decency to tell Damen that you are over him.”

“I didn’t think there was a need to,” Mairi answered quietly.

Alina’s temper flared. “Don’t make it seem like he’s completely to blame! Maybe he was at the start, but now you’ve done something as bad, taking another lover to your bed—”

Mairi opened her mouth to protest, but she closed it a second after. She so wanted to tell Alina how wrong she was, that she hadn’t completely crossed the line but if she did…if she did…

A memory intruded in her mind like a slap to the face. Mairi saw herself begging for Damen to listen to her explain, to give her time to make him believe in her love – how she had begged him when she had done nothing wrong, begged him even as he humiliated her in front of people who had once seen them in love and had then been subjected to seeing Damen reduce her to something no better than a beggar after the crumbs of his affection.
 

She shuddered. How pathetic she had been!

And when he was gone, leaving her alone as the police dragged her away, that was when she realized that it hadn’t just been people in Damen’s employ that had witnessed her humiliation. Cuffed like a criminal, she had been made to sit in the back of a police car, which then drove past people who had once been their neighbors. All their masks of friendly charm had fallen then.

When it became clear to them that Damen Leventis had abandoned her, none of them had passed up the opportunity to show their supercilious contempt for her, staring at Mairi as the police car slowly drove past them. It had been clear in their expressions they all thought the same thing.