Chapter Fifteen
“You have one phone call, Ms. Tanner.” Even though the police officer was talking to her, his face was averted. So was everyone else’s in the precinct, affording her the chance to pretend that they had not all been a part of the most painfully humiliating incident in her life.
When she didn’t answer, the police officer pressed gently, “Surely there is someone you would like to call to aid you?”
It was so hard to think.
She couldn’t call her aunts. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to let her dream.
She couldn’t call her friends. She didn’t want them to think they had been wrong to believe she was with a man who loved her.
She couldn’t call Ioniko. She didn’t want him to think he had been wrong to trust her when she said that her love would never die.
None of them deserved to be embroiled in her troubles, caused by her own naiveté.
Ms. Tanner?”
A name slipped past her lips.
An indeterminate amount of time passed before she became dimly aware of a commotion, police officers hastily getting to their feet as their chorus of greetings filled the spacious station, made humid by the night’s weather.
And then a familiar voice.
“Where is she?”
At last. Someone who could let herself just forget she existed.
****
The police officer pointed to where Mairi supposedly was, and upon following the other man’s directions, bitter rage burned inside Stavros Manolis when his gaze found Mairi.
She sat alone on a row of seats, her back straight. She wore a shirt and jeans and mismatched shoes. Somehow, those mismatched shoes hurt like the f**king devil, telling him wordlessly about what Mairi had to have gone through in the past hour.
When he reached her side, Stavros crouched down on one knee, placing him at eye level with her. “Mairi?” He kept his voice gentle. She looked so damn breakable, like one wrong word would have her shatter and there would be no way to piece her together again.
Her eyes were dry now, but they were red and swollen, like she had been crying until there were no tears left to spare. Her voice was wobbly and high-pitched when she looked at him and said, “You were the only one I could ask for help.”
Once, this girl had been as bright as the sun, as interesting as life’s most beautiful secret.
But now she was dead inside, and Stavros knew he would not rest until he made the man who broke her heart pay.
He said tautly, “I’m here for you, Mairi. Tell me what you need and it will be done.”
Her voice was almost inaudible when she spoke.
“Consider it done.”
He was true to his word, and when his promise to Mairi was fulfilled, Stavros worked on being true to his other vow, the one he made to himself.
It took him mere minutes to find out where Damen Leventis was, a club lounge in one of Athens’ most exclusive hotels.
The moment he was near enough to swing at Damen, Stavros did so, taking the other man by surprise with a right hook.
****
One moment Damen was in a discussion with his solicitor, and the next he was on the floor, his jaw aching. But his reflexes kicked in and Damen lunged, tackling his attacker and managing to land a blow on the other man’s face.
Stavros.
“You will pay for what you did to Mairi,” Stavros growled before he maneuvered the two of them around, with him on top of Damen and breaking his ribs with one hard punch.
The blow threw him off momentarily, but Damen recovered right away, punching Stavros on the side and at the other man’s drawn breath, Damen knew that Stavros now had his own cracked rib or two as well.
They rolled away and got to their feet. But before they could tackle each other again, the hotel’s guards were already there, pinning their arms behind their backs as they were escorted into the back of a police car.
Neither of them spoke during the ride, and after being booked, they were thrown into an empty cell together, Stavros and Damen standing at opposite sides.
Being in prison caused memories of Mairi to flay his mind, and Stavros demanded hoarsely, “Why? You said you love her so why would you hurt her like that?”
“Are you still under her spell? Wake up, Stavros! She has fooled us both! She’s nothing but a gold digger who first targeted you and then me—”
Damen’s words worked like the missing piece in a puzzle, and Stavros slowly shook his head. “You are the goddamn fool here.” He looked at the other man, rage now mixed with pity. For Damen.
“Are you talking about what happened between us in high school?”
“What else?” he said bitterly. “I still can’t believe everything was based on a f**king catch-a-billionaire strategy a teenager—”
Stavros snapped, “It isn’t like that.” Not waiting for Damen to argue with him, Stavros told the man who was once his close friend everything he knew of Mairi and the childhood she had.
Gnawing dread ate Damen as Stavros’ words eventually painted the picture of a young girl who had dared to dream and had not let anyone’s malicious jealousy stop her from viewing the world with rose-colored glasses.
“It was never about the money,” Stavros grated. “If she only wanted a Greek billionaire, don’t you think she would have continued to pursue me? Or Vlahos? It was about a dream…a f**king dream of true love and she thought you were the embodiment of that dream.”
Damen said rawly, “Where is she now?”
“She took a flight home.”
Everything in him demanded that he say no more, but Stavros was a fair man. Damen had been an idiot, but he had lashed out in his pain. Only a man who was so in love could be that vengeful. He said reluctantly, “It will not be simple finding her if she does not want to be found.”
“I won’t stop—”
“That’s exactly what you have to do if Mairi chooses to disappear. I searched for her for years, and I am no poor man without resources. Her aunts have connections and they’re…good. I only recently learned that they had studied my every movement and by doing so, they were able to prevent me from uncovering any lead that would take me to Mairi.”
“But you found her—”
“Because they let me,” Stavros finished. “So you must pray to all the gods that they would want you to find her, even if it’s only for Mairi to shoot you in the head for what you did to her.”
Damen whispered, “Even if she did, it would not be enough to undo the harm I have caused her.”