A Deal with Demakis. Tara Pammi

uncaring of the expensive leather. “What I don’t get is why you felt the need in the first place to barge into our apartment and confront her.”

      “You left that bar at five in the morning, and two hours later, you weren’t at your apartment in Brooklyn. I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to not get yourself killed all these years.”

      Her breath lodged in her throat, painfully. Hugging her knees tight, she stared at him. Shock pulsed through the exhaustion. She lived in the liveliest city on the planet, and even with Tyler around, she’d felt the loneliness like a second skin most of her life. Nikos’s matter-of-fact statement only rammed the hurtful truth closer.

      “You don’t have to worry about me. I take my safety very seriously.” His anger was misplaced and misdirected. Yet it also held a dangerous allure.

      His nostrils flared, his jaw tight as a concrete slab. “My sister’s welfare depends on you,” he said, enunciating every word as though he was talking to someone dimwitted. “I need you alive and kicking right now, not dead in some Dumpster.”

      “You don’t like it that you felt a minute’s concern for me? At least it makes you human.”

      “As opposed to what? Are you also a part-time shrink?”

      The caustic comment was enough to cure her stupid thinking.

      “As opposed to an alien with no heart. Why is this even relevant to you? Are you keeping tabs on all my friends so that you can manipulate me a little more?”

      “She took advantage of you.” He looked at her as though he was studying a curious insect, something that had crawled under his polished, handmade shoes. “Aren’t you the least bit angry with her?”

      “She doesn’t mean to—”

      “Hurt you? And yet it seems she has accomplished that very well.”

      Was she imagining the compassion in those brown depths? Or was her sleep-deprived mind playing tricks on her again? She scrunched back into the seat, feeling as stupid as he was calling her. “Faith’s had a rough life.”

      “And you haven’t?”

      “It’s not about who had the roughest life or who deserves kindness more, Nikos. Faith, for all her lies and manipulation, has no one. No one who cares about her, who would worry about her. And I know what that loneliness feels like. I don’t expect you to—”

      “I know enough,” he said with a cutting edge to his words. “You haven’t signed the contract yet. Now you have forced me to fly back to New York for the express purpose of accompanying you to Greece.”

      Way to go, Lexi, exactly what you wanted to avoid.

      “I’ve been busy.”

      He leaned forward in a quick movement. For such a big man, he moved so quickly, so economically. But she must be getting used to him because she didn’t flinch when he ran the pads of his thumbs gently under her eyes. The heat of his body stole into hers. “Are you having second thoughts about dear Tyler? Have you decided that he’s not worth the money I’m paying?”

      It almost sounded as if he wanted her to refuse to help him. Which couldn’t be true.

      She had been unable to sleep a wink ever since the horrid contract had arrived on her doorstep and she had taken a look at the exorbitant amount of money listed there. More than she had ever seen in her lifetime or probably ever would.

      Just remembering it had her heart thumping in her chest again.

      Money she could use to take art classes instead of having to save every cent, money she could use to, for once, buy some decent clothes instead of shopping the teenager section at the department store or thrift store.

      Money she could use to take a break from her energy-draining bartending job and invest her time in developing her comic book script and develop a portfolio without having to worry over her next meal and keeping a roof over her head.

      The possibilities were endless.

      Yet she also knew that anything she bought with that money would also bring with it an ick factor. It would feel sullied.

      But there had been something more than her discomfort that had held her back from signing that contract.

      The man studying her intently had volunteered it happily enough. In fact, he had seemed more than happy to make her his paid employee.

      Because it gave him unmitigated power over her. That was it.

      She stilled in place, her stomach diving at the realization. That’s what had given her the bad feeling.

      If she had accompanied him without complaint, it meant she was doing him a favor. This way, she wasn’t. It seemed he was either prepared to blackmail her into it or pay her an enormous amount of money so that she was obligated to do as he ordered.

      Rather than simply ask her for help. The lengths he would go to just so that his position wasn’t weak made her spine stiff with alarm.

      “About that money,” she began, feeling divided in half within. She couldn’t even stop seeing the number in front of her, a bag with a dollar sign always hovering in her subconscious as though she was one of her own comic characters, “I was angry with you for manipulating me. I can’t accept—”

      His long, tanned finger landed on her mouth, short-circuiting her already-weak thought process. Her skin tingled at the barest contact. “In the week that I have had the misfortune to make your acquaintance,” he said, leaning so close that she could smell his cologne along with the scent of his skin, “asking for money to look after Tyler was the one sensible, one clever thing you did.”

      Really, she had no idea what he would say next or what would suddenly send him into a spiral of anger.

      “Don’t embrace useless principles now and turn it down, Ms. Nelson. Think of something wild and reckless that you have always wanted but could never afford. Think of all the nice clothes you can buy.” His gaze moved over her worn T-shirt, and she fought the impulse to cover her meager chest. “Maybe even something that will upstage Venetia in front of your ex?”

      Her mouth falling open wordlessly, she stared at him. Apparently, her new, standard expression in his company. “I have no intention of competing with Venetia, not that I harbor any delusion that I even could.”

      Dark amusement glittered in his gaze. It was as if there was a one-way connection between them that let him see straight into her thoughts. Like Mr. Spock doing a Vulcan Mind Meld. If only it worked both ways. She had absolutely no knowledge about him, whereas he literally had a file on her.

      He settled back into the seat and crossed his long legs. “You’re a strange little woman, Ms. Nelson. Are you telling me you didn’t think of using this opportunity to win him back? That the idea didn’t even occur to you?”

      “No,” she repeated loudly, refusing to let him sully her motives. She would love to have her friend back, yes, but she wasn’t going to engage in some bizarre girl war with Venetia to get Tyler back the way he assumed.

      “Fine. My pilot’s waiting. We leave in four hours.”

      “I can’t leave in four hours,” Lexi said, anxiety and the energy it took to talk to him beginning to give her a headache. “I have to find someone to sublet my room, have to get the plumber to fix the kitchen before I leave and I promised Mrs. Goldman next door that I would help her after her surgery in two days. I can’t just up and leave because your sister can’t bear the thought of not being the center of Tyler’s universe for a few more days.”

      He shrugged—a careless, elegant movement of those broad shoulders. “I don’t care how many things you had lined up to do for your parasitic friends or how much you were planning to bend over backward for the whole world, Ms. Nelson. I won’t wait anymore.”

      She frowned. “I don’t bend over back—”

      His