It was only eight in the evening but all Mandy wanted to do was sleep – and she would, right after she figured out how to silence Mairi’s incessantly ringing phone.
The ringing stopped.
Just as Mandy started to sigh with relief, the ringing started again. “Mairi! Answer it!”
“No.”
Mandy blinked at the curt tone, which surprised her enough to make her sit up on the bed. She gazed at Mairi worriedly, who was lying on her back, her eyes on the ceiling. “Are you okay?”
The ringing stopped then resumed again for another series.
“Dammit!” Velvet, whose bed was next to the windows, jumped to her feet and stalked to Mairi’s bed. She grabbed the phone from the bedside table.
Mairi whitened. “Don’t—”
Velvet’s jaw dropped. “Damen Leventis is calling you?”
“Yes,” she managed to say, fighting back the urge to cover her ears and make Velvet take the words back. The name alone had her swallowing convulsively as she tried to stop the hurtful memories from once again attacking her mind.
“You don’t want to speak to him?”
She shook her head.
“Really don’t want to speak to him?”
She nodded.
“Okay.” And then to her shock, Velvet answered the phone. “Hello?”
It took a moment for Mairi to recover. “Velvet!”
“Oh? You’re looking for Mairi? Well, she’s not here. She’s dead and you f**king killed her by being the world’s greatest ass**le. So, Mr. World’s Greatest Asshole, don’t ever call her again!”
She was still gaping by the time Velvet returned the phone on the bedside table with a satisfied look on her face.
“Velvet…” Her voice trailed off. Mairi didn’t know what to say.
Velvet gave her a dry look. “You’re supposed to thank me.”
Mairi flushed. Sometimes, it just wasn’t good to have really smart friends.
“Thank you.”
Padding back to her bed, Velvet said over her shoulder, “Even though you don’t sound like it – you’re welcome.” She switched her night light off, plunging the bedroom into darkness.
The softest sound reached Velvet, and she knew that Mandy also knew it was Mairi, doing her best not to cry.
Shit. She hated men. She really hated them. They were all jerks – how could they be anything but jerks when they had the gall to hurt someone as sweet and, well, childish and gullible as Mairi?
“You cry too much,” she said gruffly and heard Mandy groan. She knew that it meant Mandy was very close to killing her for being her usual tough-girl self.
Mairi didn’t answer.
Velvet wanted to punch someone. The silence was even more awful, somehow making Mairi’s pain more intense, like a wound that bled so much they could smell the metallic scent of blood emanating from it.
Should she give Mairi stupid false words of hope just to make her feel better? She wanted to. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. Men like Damen Leventis were just…
“Mairi, he’s not worth crying over.”
It took her friend so long to answer that by the time she did, Velvet was halfway asleep.
“I know, Velvet,” Mairi whispered, closing her eyes, and when she did all she could see was him. “I know, but I just can’t stop.”
Chapter Five
To trust a Greek billionaire, you must remember that he also gets hurt and because he’s hurt, he may want to hurt you, too.
She said: I mean emotionally.
He said (groaning): Can’t you let readers think that it’s a macho thing instead? You make me sound so soft, matakia mou.
She said: But you are! I just want to—
He said: Note to editor – Please consult me privately about this. This is not good for my image.
Had Ioniko made his move yet?
It was a question that had been bothering him for three nights now, increasingly so since Mairi had not yet returned any of his calls or messages. Frustration, edginess, and impatience created a furor inside him, making Damen unable to concentrate on the millions of things that demanded his time.
Someone knocked on his door. “Enter,” Damen rapped out abruptly, his temper igniting for no reason at the intrusion. He had a very short fuse these days, and he knew it was only a matter of time before something had to give.
Bart nervously came inside his employer’s office. He was in his early twenties, a little heavy-set and dorky-looking. Thousands of individuals had applied for the job as the billionaire’s PA-slash-secretary, many of them with more impressive work experience and better academic credentials than him. And yet Bart had beaten all of them, simply because he had been the only one with the courage – which his mother termed as stupidity at the time – to tell the billionaire that he had miscomputed a certain account and had provided the correct formula for it.
The memory was something Bart desperately clung to now as he made his way further inside. Mr. Leventis is a fair man, he reminded himself. He will not fire me for what I’m about to say.
“Bart?”
It was softly voiced, but Damen’s voice still had him jumping nervously.
“S-sir?”
Damen leaned back in his chair, which was custom-designed and handcrafted as was all the other furniture in his spectacularly designed office. It was a symbol of his success, but he took no pleasure in it. At present, all it reminded him was what he did not have – and what Ioniko might already have.
The thought was ruthlessly squashed, but its effect lingered and his tone was positively biting when he refocused on his secretary. “Say what you have to say or leave the office, Bart.”
Swallowing, Bart said, “Your mother, ah, learned of your plans to reward Ms. Diana with her own car and has canceled your purchase.”
In seconds, he was across the hall and inside his mother’s office, not bothering to knock. His mother was in the middle of a meeting, but he didn’t f**king care. Without taking his gaze off Esther Leventis, he said, “Out.”
Everyone scrambled to do his bidding, leaving the office empty except for mother and son. “How melodramatic,” Esther said disdainfully, “—especially since I assume this is about your ill-advised idea for Diana’s gift?”
“You had no right to do that, Mother.”
“I have every right,” she snapped. “I’m her mother and she is yet under aged. If I say a gift is inappropriate, then it is so!”
“She is about to turn seventeen – most young wealthy Greek girls her age have their first cars at the age of fifteen – and that’s two years ago!”