A Perfect Wife: International Billionaires V: The Greeks (25 page)

His arrogance made her anger tick up a notch. “You’re suddenly an expert on the subject of love?”

“Not really.” His lips curved into a tentative grin. “But I’m learning.”

They stared at each other, the soft wind ruffling his hair and hers, the cold air sifting a chilly, barren breath around them.

“Natalie.”

“What?” She shivered before folding her tense arms around her in protection. Leaving was the best thing for her to do, yet there was something in his eyes, that golden, delicate hope, that kept her feet frozen to the sidewalk.

“Could you sit down?” His focus never wavered from her face.

Glancing away, she tried to think about what was best for her. “I think—”

“Please.”

There was that word once more. That inconceivable plea coming from Aetos Zenos.

She sat.

His blunt fingers slid across the stone and picked up the envelope. Staring at it for a minute, he slid it back inside his coat. “So you don’t want my money.”

“No, I don’t.” That was one answer she could give him with complete sincerity. “And while I’m thankful you paid those awful men off, I still plan on paying you back.”

“That’s not the deal we made.” He immediately scowled. “You walked with me so that debt is paid in full.”

You walked with me
.

The words hit her, just as before. So simple. So inviting. So impossible. Brushing the thoughts and the welling tears aside, she swiveled away from him and looked at the cold winter landscape. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it. But don’t think I’ve ever been interested in your money.”

A male grunt was his reply. As if he finally understood the truth of this and couldn’t quite get past the revelation.

Nat didn’t feel like reaching out and helping him find his way across the minefield of her truth. Sure, he’d figured out he loved his family and that was a good first step. Yet, he still had all his baggage about women to deal with and she didn’t have the strength or the will to fight that particular battle. He might want her to come to Greece and be with his family, though she was honestly confused by the request. Maybe he thought she did pretty well last time as a buffer and he wanted that protection again as he eased himself back into the act of loving. But she had to protect herself from his appeal and the last thing she needed was more exposure. “I should get goi—”

“You asked me what was wrong with your gift,” he cut in with a terse statement.

“Huh?” She jerked around to stare at him one more time.

“The New Year’s gift you gave me.” He met her gaze with a tenacious one of his own. “The cufflinks.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.” Shifting her gaze to the park again, she tightened her lips. “It was a stupid thing to do.”

“Giving me something was a stupid thing to do?”

“Obviously.” Nat flashed a glare his way. “You hated it.”

“I didn’t.” His confession was quiet and slow.

She gaped at him. “What?”

“Didn’t my
giagiá
tell you what the two eagles flying together meant to me?”

Frowning, she kept her gaze on his tense expression. She noted the tight crease of his mouth and the rigid line of his shoulders. This was important to him, she sensed instantly. “She told me I had to be brave when I showed her the cufflinks. That’s the only thing she told me.”

He sighed before glancing down at the sidewalk. “My father’s family has an emblem and a motto.”

His father. Somehow she’d tripped over another one of his triggers without realizing it. “Yeah?” she offered in a gentle tone.

“Yeah.” He swung his focus back on her, his gaze going soft when he met hers. “Yeah.”

She shouldn’t be interested, shouldn’t spend any more time with him and his allure, but she wanted to find out what went wrong before she left. So she forced herself to be brave again, taking a step into his painful past, this time aware she was venturing into territory that hurt him. “What was the emblem?”

“Two eagles.” He slipped his hand into his coat pocket and pulled out the velvet box that had haunted her nightmares during the last few days. Flipping the box open, he stared down. “Just like these.”

“I didn’t know—”

“I realize that now.” He gave her a wry smile. “It was just a surprise. A painful one.”

Instant guilt swamped her. “I’m sorry—”

“No, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry? From Aetos Zenos? Her brows shot up in shock.

“I am sorry.” His voice went tough, his eyes narrowing. “Believe it.”

A rushed chuckle escaped her. This was the Zenos she knew. “Okay.”

“I overreacted.” Apparently satisfied with her response, he plucked the cufflinks from the cushioned interior and held them in front of him. The sunlight glinted off the gold and onyx. “But there was a reason. Do you want to know what my father’s motto is?”

Feeling like she was tip-toeing toward a mine, she pushed herself to be brave once more. “Tell me.”

“
Patrída
.
Oikogéneia.
” The words were matter-of-fact and detached. “Homeland. Family.”

“That was important to your father?” Another push.

“
Nai
,” he said simply.

Yet there was something complicated lying underneath this information. She could tell by the way his eyes glazed with pain and his athletic frame contracted into a tense mass of agony. Pushing wouldn’t work here. Instinct told her so. Even pulling wouldn’t work. Only waiting with patience would.

A long silence fell. Aetos didn’t move, his hazy gaze didn’t swing toward her. She felt as if he had gone back in time and only his body remained here on this stone bench.

“He didn’t think I was a part of that.” His sudden statement was stark and raw. “He didn’t think I was worthy enough to be part of the Zenos family. Even before he believed my stepmother instead of me and threw me out of his house, he didn’t think I was worthy.”

Her heart flipped over in her chest with compassion. “Oh, that’s not—”

“It’s okay.” Finally, his gaze met hers.

Surprise filtered into her compassion. Because there were golden glints in the chestnut and she knew him well enough to know that meant he really was okay. Still, her heart ached for him. “You have to know—”

“It really is.” He sounded surprised himself. “I know I am worthy.”

“Yes, you absolutely are.”

The conviction in her voice caused him to smile. “This from the woman who was so angry with me a few minutes ago she had to be bribed to come here with me.”

Shifting on the stone, she threw him a token glare. “Don’t make light of what you just told me.”

“It makes it easier for me to deal with.”

Her heart flipped again at his honest confession. “I guess I can understand that.”

He shrugged like he was done with his father once and for all. But he needed more than this. She knew it deep inside. “Did your father’s whole family think you weren’t worthy?”

A quick scowl crossed his face. “
Nai
.”

“Are you sure?”

“
Nai
.”

“I don’t think so, Aetos.”

He glowered at her in instant rejection. “You don’t know them—”

“I met two of them. They are part of your family as well.” Risking another step, she kept her gaze on his face to make sure she didn't go too far. “I don’t know what your father did to you, but other members of that side of your family love you.”

A whisper of uneasy reflection crossed his face. “Stavros and Nikolas.”

“Are those the men we met at the hospital?”

“
Nai
. My cousins.” Turning back to the cufflinks, he stared at them.

“They didn’t look like they hated you.”

“They only want my help with their business,” he growled. “Their failing business.”

“That’s a compliment, isn’t it?”

He stilled as if stunned.

“Come on, Zenos. Use that brilliant brain of yours and stop filtering everything through your father’s actions years ago.”

His dark gaze flashed to her, his lips twisting in a sardonic grimace. “Bossing me around again?”

Something about the way he held himself told her he wasn’t angry. Somehow, she’d managed to pry into his past without setting him off this time. Relieved and strangely elated, she gave him an encouraging smile. “Just think about it.”

Leaning back on the stone, his gaze dropped to the cufflinks once more. “Okay. I’ve thought about it.”

“Already?”

“You did say I have a brilliant brain, didn’t you?” The lick of a tease filled his voice. “You’re right about this too,
mágissa.
”

A sweet swell of relief and joy ran through her. Not because he acknowledged she was right about something, but because he was healing. Right before her eyes.

Glancing at her, he gave her a tentative smile. “Do you want to know what
mágissa
means? You’ve asked once or twice.”

“The nickname.” She made a face at him and was astonished that she could. Somewhere in this odd conversation, they’d come upon a peace that flowed between them. Not that she held out any hope that it could lead where she wanted it to, but there was a comfort in knowing that the animosity and pain they’d ended their relationship with was gone. “I have to confess, I do want to know.”

“Witch.” His chestnut gaze didn’t waver even when she flinched.

“Nice. Thanks.” She straightened on the cold stone, feeling the peace she’d imagined floating around them sift away. “I have to go—”

“You are a witch, you know.” His voice was low and cautious as if he were offering a pitiful human offering to a powerful goddess. “You’ve enchanted me.”

“What?” Her defeated heart sprang to life causing a wave of aching delight to sweep through her. One she couldn’t control and the realization frightened her into a frown. “That doesn’t sound like a good thing.”

“No?” His brows rose. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”

A puff of exasperation left her mouth. “Whatever.”

He choked out a muffled laugh and then, went silent.

Nat sat on the bench trying to figure out where she stood. Her emotions were all over the place, but the primary one was confusion. What did he mean by this? This semi-kidnapping, this plea to walk with him, this strange conversation. She’d learned more about his past and his emotions in these last few minutes than she had in the entire time she’d known him, and yet, she still understood nothing of what was really going on. She was so bewildered, she didn’t even know what to do or say next.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him fist his hands before him. “Natalie?”

“I don’t understand any of this,” she blurted. “What do you want from me?”

His blunt fingers splayed on his pants leg like he was reaching for something. “The question really is, what do you want from me?”

The words were filled with panicked bafflement. As if he only needed to be given a simple demand and he’d deliver whatever she wanted.

If only it could be that easy.

He might have confessed his love for his family and he might have even hurtled across the issues he had with his father, but at the bottom of this man’s heart lay the ugly brew of anger he held toward women. “What I want, you can’t give me.”

His fingers turned white when they pressed down on his leg. “I can.”

Oh, Aetos, if only you could
.

She knew he had the ability to love. Yet he’d never shown her any kind of love. Lust, yes. Perhaps once or twice, she’d been foolish enough to imagine a special look in his eye or a tenderness in his touch. But he didn’t love her. Perhaps the ability to love a woman had been crushed by his childhood trauma. He hadn’t said anything more about his stepmother, still it didn’t take much of her imagination to put the dots together. Maybe it would take years and years with his loving family before he could find his way through the treachery that had been done to him into the loving embrace of a good woman.

Except it wouldn’t be her embrace. Her heart couldn’t stand the pain of loving this man with only a glimmer of hope that he’d reciprocate at some point.

She wouldn’t demand an emotion he couldn’t give.

It wouldn’t be fair to him. It wouldn’t be fair to her.

“You can’t,” she said, unable to hide the sorrow leaching into her words. “But I don’t blame you.”

The rasp of his breath echoed across the stone, amplified by the silence. Nat waited, she didn’t know for what. There wasn’t anything he could say or do that would stop her pain or make her whole. He didn’t have it in him.

“I love you.”

The simple words curled in a thin wisp of sound. Plaintive and pleading. A male cry of helpless need. The Whispering Bench was well known for catching every secret and swirling it down the stone to the other scrolled side. But she couldn’t believe the words had actually come from him. Come from his mouth and tongue and heart.

She whipped her head around and stared at him. He didn’t meet her gaze. His dark, gold-tipped lashes lay on his olive cheeks and his head was bowed.

“Look at me,” she demanded.

His broad shoulders twitched and his blunt fingers tightened into fists.

“Aetos.”

He sucked in a breath as if he were about to jump off the highest mountain, as if he were about to jump from his lonely perch. He glanced over and met her gaze.

She gasped at what she saw.

The chestnut eyes were open and alive. No shadows of concealment. No blank hostility or angry disguisement. All she saw was everything. He let her see everything. For the first time.

Love. Pure and deep and whole flowed across the cold stone. Along with his words. This time filled with conviction. “I love you, Natalie.”

The whispered confession rang with truth.

She’d been wrong. There was something he could say, there was something he could do to make her whole. To make her believe.

“Really?” The tears, the tears of happiness, spilled down her cheeks.

A flicker of panic flashed through his brown eyes. “If you don’t want—”

With a cry, she flew across the bench to his side and wrapped her cold hands around his warm jaw. “Aetos.”

“What?” His gaze latched onto hers, a wary gaze that made her heart twist.

He’d been giving her gifts all along here and it was now her turn to give one of her own. “Do you know what the cufflinks meant to me?”