The Art of Wedding a Greek Billionaire (20 page)

Mandy forced her friend to take her copy. “Sign it.”
 

Velvet handed Mairi a pen. “And don’t forget to sign it with
A Greek Billionaire’s Wife.
”

She shook her head, trying to be strong. “No.”

Her friends looked at her. “You know you want to,” Velvet said slyly.

“No.” She was a respectable missus now.

They still just looked at her, their gazes ever knowing.

Oh, what the heck!

Velvet and Mandy burst into laughter as they watched Mairi sign their copies with her four most favorite words. When she returned the copies to her friends, she saw them looking at her with expectant expressions.

Mairi blinked. “What?”

Mandy grinned. “Go on, say it.”

Oh, how well they knew her.

And how terribly lucky she was that they had never abandoned her.

Tears stinging her eyes, Mairi said, “Yay me!” She threw her arms around them. “Group hug!”

“Ewww,” Velvet automatically protested, always the one uncomfortable with emotional displays.

“Oh, hush. You should be used to PDA by now after what you’ve been doing with your own Greek billionaire.”

Mandy said promptly, “I’m not married to a Greek billionaire, so you can let go of me anytime.” The ever practical sort, Mandy also saw no valid reason why affectionate displays should be made in public.

Grinning, Mairi hugged her friends more tightly. “Yay me!”

Mandy and Velvet groaned. “We’ve created a monster.”

This made Mairi laugh out loud, the sound drawing the attention of her husband who stood a few feet away, surrounded by his own circle of acquaintances. She sensed the very moment Damen looked at her, and when their gazes met, a devastatingly sexy smile curved on his lips.

Come here.
 

Mairi let go of her friends. “Excuse me. My Greek billionaire husband is calling me.”

Mandy smacked her forehead. “This is your fault, Velvet. Now she’s going to call Damen that forever.”

Mairi didn’t mind her friend’s words. She was mentally floating as she made her way to Damen.
Yay me, yay me, yay me!

Damen captured her by the waist as he pulled her to his side. “I love you.”

Mairi melted. “I love you more, my Greek billionaire husband.”

Behind her, Velvet and Mandy groaned loudly, having heard perfectly what Mairi had said with such gushing happiness.
 

Mykolas’ lips twitched. “I believe I have to rescue my wife and her friend.” Velvet and Mandy were making slow slashing motions against their necks.
 

When Mykolas left the group, Damen motioned for Mairi to face him, and that was when she saw the unfamiliar-looking man standing next to her husband. “Mairi, I’d like you to meet Acheron. He is Yehor Kokinos’ nephew and the true heir of the family.”

The introduction had Mairi blinking, but she automatically offered her hand and blushed when instead of shaking it, the man bent down and kissed her fingers.

Damen swiftly snatched his wife’s hand away from the other man’s grasp. “Dammit, Acheron. I don’t want to be kicking your ass on the first day we meet.”

Acheron didn’t appear worried at all by the threat.
There was something uncivilized and lethal about him
, Mairi thought curiously. He was a Greek billionaire like the rest of the men around him were, but he was also a man apart – a man who hadn’t grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth.

“You should thank your lucky stars that I had not met your lovely wife first. If I had…” Acheron’s voice trailed off, allowing his seductive smile to finish the rest of his sentence.

Despite knowing that the other man was only saying such things because he wanted to irritate Damen, Mairi blushed at the look Acheron gave her.

“Leventis is fortunate,” Ioniko agreed. “I had always thought he was unbelievably lucky to have talked to Mairi first when both of us went to GAYL.”
 

For some reason, the memory of meeting Ioniko the first time made her blush, too. Or maybe it was because of the naked admiration in the Greek billionaire’s eyes as he, too, smiled at her.

“I think the same,” Stavros murmured in that quiet, calm way of his. “It’s Leventis’ infinite luck that I had not found Mairi’s whereabouts—”

“Lucky or not, none of that matters now,” Damen snapped, irritated at the way the other men dared to flirt with his wife. Pulling Mairi towards him possessively, he stated in clear concise terms, “Mairi is mine.” After a beat, he added generously, “But you are all welcome to form a club of course.”

Mairi blinked in confusion. “A club?”

He grinned down at her before lifting his wine glass in the air. “I propose a toast, gentlemen.” When the other men had lifted their glasses, Damen said, “To the men who were and might have been dumped by Mairi.”

The men laughed even as Mairi wailed in embarrassment. “Damen!”

The party ended at a riotous note, with most of the guests blissfully tipsy as they trooped out of Damen’s house at five in the morning.
 

When Damen caught sight of Mairi yawning for the second time in five minutes, he muttered, “That’s it.” Without a word of warning, he swung her up in his arms and took the stairs.

“But there are still guests,” Mairi protested.

“The babysitter can handle it.”

A drowsy giggle escaped her even as she snuggled against the inviting warmth of Damen’s chest. “Stop calling Drake that.”

“It’s what his future job will be if he doesn’t leave.”

Inside their bedroom, Damen nimbly took off her clothes and tucked her under the covers before he shrugged out of his. When he joined her in bed, Mairi automatically rolled herself towards him.

Damen kissed his wife, the urge to do so becoming only stronger since Mairi had “caught” him. When he lifted his head, he waited for Mairi’s gaze to meet his before whispering, “I love you, sweetheart.”

She swallowed. “I love you, too…”

The hint of despair in her eyes made him ask quietly, “What’s troubling you?”

Mairi took a deep breath, knowing there was no better time to talk about what had hurt her the most. They had been blessed with another chance to start fresh, and this time she wanted no secrets between them, not even if the truth hurt.

She whispered, “Alina?”

Damen frowned. “What about her?”

“Will you…will you ever talk to her again?”

His eyes narrowed, and what he saw on Mairi’s face made him curse silently. “You knew I met with her yesterday, didn’t you?” He didn’t give her time to answer, guilt for once again unintentionally causing Mairi pain making him press his lips to her forehead in a remorseful kiss. “I’m so damn sorry if it made you doubt me, sweetheart, but I swear it was that one time—”

She tensed against him. “Don’t lie to me, Damen—”

“I’m not.”

“But what about all those calls you took that you never wanted me to hear—”

Again, Damen groaned, his lips brushing against hers in a silent apology. “It was Willow. My editor. I’ve been talking to her for months about the book. She ghostwrote it for me.” He grabbed her hand, pressing it to his heart. “Feel it. I’m not lying. I’ll never lie to you again,” he said fiercely. “Tomorrow, we’ll go to Willow’s office. We’ll watch the CCTV footage so you’ll see the number of times I’ve been there. I’ll get phone records to show—”

Mairi pressed one trembling finger against his lips. “I…believe you.” Her voice caught. “But I didn’t know then…you were so good,” she said in a tear-choked laugh, “at keeping your surprise that when I saw you talking on the phone and it was obvious you did not want me to hear you, I thought you were talking to Alina all those times. I thought you had fallen in love with her but couldn’t make yourself leave me because of…the past.”
 

“Nothing’s ever happened between us, Mairi,” Damen gritted out vehemently. “I swear it.”

“Even…before? Even when I was with Drake?”

His jaw clenched, any mention of the time Mairi had spent with the other man killing him. But that would always be his penance, his cross to bear, and Damen strove to keep his tone level as he answered, “Never. There was no other woman for me the moment I had my engagement ring on your finger.”

Mairi hesitated.

The unspoken questions lurking in her eyes made Damen prod softly, “What is it? You can say anything. Ask anything. I have nothing to hide—”

She took a deep breath. “Alina…met me at the airport when…when I came back to Miami. She told me that when we were apart, she and you—”

A sick look crossed his face as Damen realized what Mairi was implying. “Never,” he said flatly. “I don’t understand why she would lie about such a thing, but I never ever touched her. I swear it on my life, Mairi.”

Her chest eased. “I believe you.”

The disappearance of doubt in Mairi’s eyes had his own chest easing as well. But still he said, “We’ll go to Willow’s office tomorrow anyway. I’ll never give you any reason to doubt me again.”

A tremulous smile was his answer, and then Mairi was taking his hand and pressing it to her heart. “That’s good…because I want to promise the same.” Tightening her hold on his hand, she said unevenly, “I want to talk about Drake.”

Damen stiffened. “There isn’t any need—”

Praying he wouldn’t hate her, Mairi said, “I lied.”

Damen wanted to close his eyes. If he ever saw a lingering affection in Mairi’s eyes when she talked about the other man, he didn’t know what he would do. Let her go? Kill the other man?
 

“Look at me—”

Damen rolled her on top of him and pressed her head to his chest to keep his gaze over hers resolutely. “Don’t push me, Mairi.”

She tried to lift her head. “Damen—”

Jealousy had him snarling, “
No
.” He tried to keep his voice level because he knew what had happened wasn’t Mairi’s fault. It wasn’t even Morrison’s fault. It was all his. He fucking knew that, but it didn’t mean he could bear having the knowledge shoved at him like a stick in his ass all the time.

Still, his wife persisted, as if she didn’t think he had paid enough for his sins. When she tried to raise her head again, he let her this time. If Mairi thought he needed to die all over again by making him listen to every single fucking detail about the time she had spent in another man’s goddamned arms—

So be it.

Because he loved her.

The hard look on Damen’s face made her heart ache painfully. If she had ever needed proof of how much Damen truly loved her, then it was that look.

And she wanted to cry because it was also proof that her long-ago dream of finding her own Greek billionaire to love and be loved by him had really come true.

Lifting herself up, her elbows on his chest, she repeated, “I lied.”

He forced himself to ask. “About what?”

“I can’t…I can’t deny that we’ve been intimate, but he never…we never did it.” She bit her lip, shame engulfing her. “I wasn’t even thinking of hurting you when it happened. I just wanted to give myself a reason not to come back to you. I wanted to prove to myself that I was no longer…yours.” Her head dipped after her confession, a part of her fearing Damen’s reaction. Hearing herself say the words made Mairi realize how wrong she had been. How that shouldn’t have ever happened—

“Did it work?”

Her head snapped up, and she wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly. “W-what did you say?”

Damen said between clenched teeth, “Did it work?” He knew he had no right to ask it, knew he was probably setting himself up for more pain, but he couldn’t help it. He had to fucking know. “Did it make you feel you were…
his
?”

She shook her head. “No,” she whispered. “Even Drake knew that…all the time it happened, my heart wanted it to be you—”

Love had him hauling her up so he could kiss her, Mairi’s words beyond everything he had hoped…or deserved. Even when she had been at her lowest, even when Damen had been at his cruelest, Mairi had still been unable to stop herself from loving him.