Kostas's Convenient Bride. Lucy Monroe

line, laced with a heavy dose of worry.

      “I told you I was taking the day off.”

      “You weren’t home this morning when I stopped by.”

      “So? Maybe I spent the night in someone else’s bed.” She wasn’t sure why she said it, but she didn’t regret the words.

      Dead silence met her words and Kayla even checked her phone to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

      “Andreas?” she finally prompted.

      “You don’t sleep with strangers. Hell, you don’t even talk to them.”

      “Casual sex doesn’t require a long conversation.”

      “You would know this how?” he demanded.

      “You sound like a jealous lover.” And while they might have been lovers at one time, he’d never been jealous.

      He’d been very careful to explain that while he expected monogamy, it wasn’t because they were in a romantic relationship. It had been a matter of health safety.

      “I sound like a concerned friend.”

      “I’m an adult.”

      “Who won’t tell me where you are.”

      “You don’t need to know my every move.”

      “You are being obstinate.”

      “I’m—” was all she could get out before Andreas interrupted her.

      “What the hell are you doing in New York?”

      “How do you know where I am?”

      “I used the locator function on your phone.” Which he hadn’t been able to do while she’d had it off on the plane.

      “I didn’t give you the code so you could track me like an errant child.”

      “I did no such thing.”

      “What would you call it?”

      “A concerned friend and business partner.”

      “Well, now you know where I am.”

      “But not why you are there.”

      “Why do you think, Andreas?”

      “You’re meeting with Hawk?”

      “Yes.”

      “But he’s out of country.”

      “Until tonight.”

      “You only took one day off.”

      “I’ll be taking the rest of the week off.”

      “What? You can’t do that!” The genuine shock in Andreas’s voice was laughable.

      The fact he was shouting would have alarmed her if she wasn’t numb. “In fact, I can.”

      “You never have before.”

      “There’s a first time for everything.”

      “What are you going to do with Hawk out of town?”

      “Whatever I want. I’m taking a page out of your book.”

      “I don’t take time off without notice.”

      “You’re selling the company, that’s the biggest abandonment I can think of.”

      “I’m not abandoning anything. Part of the purchase agreement between Hawk and myself is a guarantee of employment for the current employees, provided their performance continues to meet expectations.”

      “How nice.”

      “You didn’t need to meet with him to confirm that,” he said, sounding hurt.

      “I’m not meeting with Hawk to make sure the other employees have jobs on the other side of this buyout.”

      “Then why are you meeting him?”

      “To make plans for my future.”

      “I already have plans for your future!”

      “How interesting, since you haven’t brought any up to me.”

      “I did. I want you to go into business with me again.”

      “No.”

      “You don’t mean that.”

      “I do.” She’d never meant anything more.

      He must have heard the conviction in her voice, because Andreas didn’t come back with an instant rejoinder.

      “You’ve made plans for your future and your bride pimp is so right. They are not my business, but my future and the plans I make for it are mine.”

      “She was wrong.”

      “Maybe you should have told her that and I would believe you.”

      “I do not lie.”

      “You just keep things from me. Important things.”

      “I told you, I was going to talk to you about it.”

      “If my opinion, much less my feelings, mattered, you would have talked to me before you talked to Sebastian Hawk.” Before he hired Genevieve.

      “Is that why you insist on meeting with him? Paying me back?”

      “I’m not that petty. This is about my survival.” As the words came out of her mouth, she realized how very true they were.

      Andreas wouldn’t understand. As hard as it had been to lose his mother, as much as he despised his father’s hypocrisies, Andreas had never been without a home to call his own. He had not been a three-year-old little girl left in the bathroom of a truck stop. He didn’t know what it was to have his entire world ripped out from under his feet, not once, but twice before reaching the age of eighteen.

      If he did, he wouldn’t be selling the company that gave Kayla her first sense of belonging and security since the death of the foster mother who had coaxed Kayla back to speech.

      “I would not leave you without resources. Have I not proven that to you?”

      “No. You’ve pretty much proved the opposite, Andreas.” Pain coalesced in her throat, making it tight.

      But she would not cry.

      “No, Kayla...that is not what this is about.”

      “I have to go, Andreas.”

      “To do what?”

      “Get a clue, Mr. Almighty Kostas. My life is none of your business anymore.”

      “Why? What is really going on here?”

      “I’m dumping a relationship that is toxic to me.”

      “I am not toxic. I am your friend.”

      She couldn’t take another word, not without losing it, and she hadn’t lost control of her emotions in years.

      “Goodbye, Andreas.”

      She ended the call before he could reply. Now she just had to check into a hotel. Then she was going to do something. She didn’t know what, but her time of waiting for Andreas Kostas to wake up and realize they were meant to be each other’s family was over.

      They weren’t even friends, no matter what she’d always thought. If they had been, she’d have known he planned to buy a wife.

      * * *

      Andreas heard that ominous beep that indicated Kayla had hung up on him again and shouted, “Bradley!”

      His PA came rushing into the office. “Yes, boss?”

      “Get me to New York right the hell now. Charter a jet,