“Yes?” He already sounded distracted. His mind was firmly focused on Mairi now, Alina knew, but she did not let that stop her.
“Are you really sure you’ll be able to find Mairi?”
“Yes.”
Her head jerked up, and her eyes were wide with incredulity as she asked, “But how? You no longer have unlimited money at your disposal.”
Damen answered simply, “Because I will not stop looking for her. It is like asking me to stop breathing, to stop remembering that I have to breathe to live.”
“A-and if you see her?” Alina whispered. “If you see her and she does not love you anymore, what then?”
“Do I need the air in this world to love me back for me to breathe it? I just need it to be there. The same way, I just need to know that she is…fine. That I can love her in whatever way I’m able to.” Again, his lips twisted. “I need to prove to her that I love her, Alina. It doesn’t matter if it’s only to convince her that she has the power to destroy me. I need her. I love her. Endlessly.”
~ Eight ~
Miami, Florida
Present Time
Vilma Tanner’s gaze was cold as it raked through the man standing before her from head to toe. He was, she thought dispassionately, even better-looking that the photos had led her to believe. He was dressed in a dark gray leather jacket, a t-shirt, and jeans – ridiculously plain even for a former Greek billionaire like Damen Leventis.
His face was thinner now, but somehow it made him more beautiful – cruelly so. Her heart hardened at the thought. Was his cruel beauty the reason why he had been able to turn Mairi’s head completely, the reason why he had gotten away with making her forgive him so many times when the smarter thing to do would have been to leave him?
Damen paled as her gaze, which spoke of her contempt for him, met his, but he did not look away.
She was reluctantly impressed. What would Norah have done in this position? Probably walk away and have nothing to do with him. But Vilma had never been that type of person, would never have become the most successful divorce lawyer for Tinseltown if she had backed away the minute she came up against someone bigger and stronger.
They had played this cat and mouse game for too long, Vilma decided. It was time for one of them to draw blood.
“Have you added stalking me to your list, Mr. Leventis?” She spoke with just the right volume, soft enough for her voice to be considered quiet and private, but loud enough for the occupants of nearby tables in the hotel’s café to hear her easily.
From the corner of her eye, Vilma saw their eyes widen at her words just a moment before their heads quickly swiveled, looking away from the source of gossip they were so eager to impart. Most of them now had their phones out, their fingers busily moving over the keypads. One even had the temerity to snap a picture of them. Vilma was pretty sure that photo would soon go viral, together with the news that Damen Leventis had been stalking Mairi Tanner – and now one of her aunts as well.
Looking at Damen’s face, she saw that he was not unaware of the undercurrent of intense interest in their conversation rippling around them. Seeing her eyes back on him, Damen inclined his head as if to say, ‘This round is all yours. But is that all you have??’
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.”