Modern Romance October 2019 Books 5-8. Annie West

when he’d pierced her innocence, and possessed her so completely, he had felt…

      He had felt like himself.

      For the first time in many years he had felt like a man who was free of this curse, this guilt, this permanent ache.

      He had lost himself in Hannah and, just for a moment, he had lost his grief.

      He swore under his breath, and pushed the sheet back, his heart unable to be calmed. Leonidas walked to the plush kitchen of his Hong Kong penthouse, pressing a button on the coffee machine.

      He watched it brew, an answering presentiment of disaster growing inside him.

      ‘Do you need me to talk to him?’

      Leonidas focussed on sounding normal. But in the month since leaving Chrysá Vráchia, he’d had a growing tension, balling in his gut, and nothing he did seemed to relieve it. It was guilt, he knew. Guilt at having betrayed his vows to Amy. At having broken the vow he made himself, that Amy would be the last woman he was intimate with.

      The limousine slid through Rome, lights on either side.

      ‘Yeah, sure, that’s even better,’ Thanos responded with sarcasm. Leonidas’s younger brother shook his head. ‘Kosta Carinedes will take one look at you and see Dad. Sorry.’

      Leonidas winced—the physical similarities between himself and Dion were not news to him. ‘So how are you going to convince him to sell?’

      ‘He wants to sell,’ Thanos murmured, tilting his head as the car slowed at a corner and paused near a group of beautiful women wearing skimpy shorts and singlet tops. ‘He just doesn’t want to sell to us.’

      ‘Because of Dion?’

      ‘Because of our name,’ Thanos conceded with a nod. ‘And because I am, quote, “a sex-mad bachelor”.’

      At this, Leonidas laughed, despite the bad mood that had been following him for weeks. ‘He’s got you bang to rights there.’

      Thanos grinned. ‘Hey, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being sex-mad. We can’t all live the life of a saint like you.’

      Leonidas’s expression shifted as though he’d been punched in the gut. He was far more sinner than saint, but he had no intention of sharing his slip-up with his brother.

      ‘Offer him more money,’ Leonidas suggested, cutting to the crux of the matter.

      ‘It’s not about money. This is his grandparents’ legacy. They built the company out of “love”,’ he said the word with sardonic derision, ‘and he won’t sell it to someone who’s constantly in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.’

      Leonidas shrugged. ‘Then let it go.’

      ‘You’re kidding, right? I told you what this means to me? And who else is interested in buying it?’

      Leonidas regarded his brother thoughtfully. ‘Yes. Luca Monato. And I know you two hate each other. But this is just a company. Let him have it, buy its competition and drive him into the ground. Far more satisfying.’

      ‘It might come to that. But I’m not done yet.’

      ‘What else can you do? I hate to point out the obvious, but Kosta’s right. You’re a man whore, Thanos.’

      Thanos laughed. ‘And proud. You could take a couple of pages out of my book. In fact, why don’t you? I’ve got a heap of women you’d like. Why don’t you call one of them? Take her for dinner and then back to your place…’

      Leonidas turned away from his brother, looking out of the window of the limousine as Rome passed in a beautiful, dusk-filled blur. He thought of Hannah, his body tightening, his chest feeling as if it were filling with acid. ‘No.’

      ‘You cannot live the rest of your life like this,’ Thanos insisted quietly, his tone serious now, their banter forgotten. There weren’t many people on earth who could speak plainly to the great Leonidas Stathakis, but Thanos was one of them, and always had been. Side by side they’d dealt with their father’s failings, his criminality, his convictions, the ruin he’d brought on their fortune and the Stathakis name.

      Side by side, they’d rebuilt it all, better than before, returning their family’s once-great wealth—many times over. They were half-brothers, only three months apart in age, and they’d been raised more as twins since Thanos was abandoned on their doorstep by his mother at the age of eight. Their insight into one another was unique.

      Leonidas understood Thanos as nobody else did, and vice versa. Leonidas knew what it had done to Thanos, his mother abandoning him, choosing to desert him rather than find a way to manage his dominant character traits.

      ‘What would you do?’ Leonidas drawled, but there was tension in the question. Tension and despair.

      Thanos expelled a sigh; the car stopped. Thousands of screaming fans were outside on the red carpet, here to catch a glimpse of the A-list Hollywood stars who’d featured in the film of the premiere they were attending.

      ‘I can’t say. I get it—you miss Amy. What happened to her and Brax—do you think I don’t feel that? You think I don’t want to reach into that prison cell and strangle our father with my bare hands for what he exposed you to? But, Leonidas, you cannot serve her by living half a life. Do you think Amy would have wanted this for you?’

      Leonidas swept his dark eyes shut, the panic in his gut churning, the sense of self-disgust almost impossible to manage. ‘Don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Do not speak to me of Amy’s wishes.’

      But Thanos wasn’t to be deterred. ‘She loved you. She would want you to live the rest of your life as you did before. Be happy. Be fulfilled.’

      ‘You think I deserve that?’

      ‘It was our father’s crimes that killed her, not yours.’

      ‘But if she hadn’t met me…’ Leonidas insisted, not finishing the statement—not needing to. Thanos knew; he understood.

      ‘It’s been four years,’ Thanos repeated softly. ‘You have mourned and grieved and honoured them both. It’s time to move forward.’

      But Leonidas shook his head, his time on Chrysá Vráchia teaching him one thing and one thing only: it would never be time. He had failed Amy during their marriage, in many ways; he wouldn’t fail her now.

      ‘Tuna salad, please,’ Hannah said over the counter, scanning the lunch selections with a strange sense of distaste, despite the artful arrangements. In the four months since arriving in London and taking up a maternity-leave contract as legal secretary to a renowned litigator, Hannah had grabbed lunch from this same store almost every day.

      Her boss liked the chicken sandwiches and she the tuna. She waited in the queue then grabbed their lunches and made her way back to the office as quickly as she could.

      There was a wait for the lift and she stifled a yawn, sipping her coffee. Her stomach flipped. She frowned. The milk tasted funny.

      ‘Great,’ she said with a sigh, dropping it into a waste bin. Just what she needed—spoiled milk.

      But when she got to her desk and unpeeled her sandwich, she had the strangest sense that she might vomit. She took one bite of the sandwich and then stood up, rushing to the facilities. She just made it.

      It was as she hovered over the porcelain bowl, trying to work out whether she was sick or suffering from food poisoning, that dates began to hover in her mind. Months of dates, in fact, without her regular cycle.

      Her skin was damp with perspiration as she straightened, staring at the tiled wall with a look of absolute