The Antonides Marriage Deal. Anne McAllister

off now. You can come out with Mark and me.”

      “No.” Which brought them back to where they’d started. Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Cristina, I’ve got work to do—”

      “You won’t even meet him,” she accused.

      “I’ve met him,” Elias said wearily. “I went to Yale with him.”

      “So I heard. He said he’s changed since Yale.”

      Elias hoped so. At Yale Mark had been a drunken reveler who’d only got in because his father knew someone who knew someone. What was it with Greek fathers?

      “If you want me to meet him again, bring him out to the folks’ on Sunday.” He’d managed to avoid his mother’s last Sunday dinner by pleading a work overload. He wasn’t going to get out of this one and he knew it.

      “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Cristina mumbled.

      “I thought you said the old man liked him.”

      “Yes, but only because he can beat Mark at golf.”

      Elias laughed. “Well, there you go. Something to build on. You’ll work it out, Crissie. I have to go. I’ll see you Sunday.”

      “I’ll bring Mark if you bring Ms President.”

      “Goodbye, Crissie.” Elias hung up before his sister got any more bright ideas.

      He had other far more important things to deal with—like convincing Thalia Savas, aka Ms President, that despite what she thought, it was a better idea to spend the next two years filing her fingernails than trying to meddle in the business of Antonides Marine.

      If she thought she’d done her homework, Elias thought, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, she had another think coming.

      He’d show her homework. And he knew exactly where to start.

      “For me?” Tallie looked up and smiled brightly when Elias appeared in her office late that afternoon with a three-foot-high-stack of reports and folders.

      “For you,” Elias agreed cheerfully, thumping them on her desk. “Since you want to be involved in the decisions, you’ll want to get up to speed.

      “Of course I will,” she agreed promptly. “Thank you very much.”

      He gave her a hard-eyed gaze, but she smiled in the face of it and finally he just shrugged. “My pleasure.” He turned toward the door, then paused and glanced back. “I’ll have more for you tomorrow.”

      Tallie’s determined smile didn’t waver. “I can hardly wait.”

      In fact, she was having a very good time. After he’d finished his phone call with his sister, he’d gone into the boardroom to meet with Paul and Dyson. He hadn’t invited her, but she had gone in anyway. He’d looked startled when she’d opened the door and very much like he’d like to throw her out. But finally he’d shrugged and said, “Pull up a chair.”

      Tallie had pulled up a chair and taken out a notepad and pen. She’d listened intently, making notes but not saying a word, though from the way Elias angled a glance at her periodically, she knew he was expecting her to stick her oar in.

      She never did.

      The first order of business she’d learned from her father was to look and listen before saying anything at all. It had stood her in good stead before. She intended to do the same thing here.

      Listening today was quite enough. She was impressed with how thorough Elias was and how he was able to take the information Paul provided and examine it from different angles. He had, as he’d told her, done a thorough job of considering many of the ramifications of the purchase of Corbett’s.

      She still wasn’t convinced that it was a good move. It seemed a little too far afield, but she would listen and consider and do more work on her own, and then she’d comment.

      In the meantime, she’d read the stack of material he left her.

      She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given her three feet of invoices and grocery lists to read. But she wouldn’t know unless she skimmed every single piece. So she spent the rest of the afternoon in her office doing just that.

      Some of the reports seemed little more than she’d expected. But some were significant. They outlined in far greater detail than the material her father had given her what the financial status of Antonides Marine had been when Elias had come in eight years ago—and what it was now.

      She got a far clearer understanding of just how dire the straits had been when Elias had taken over, and an even greater appreciation for how astute his business handling was. He’d seen what needed to be done, and he’d done it—even when it had meant cutting out some very appealing but not terribly lucrative lines.

      The venture into luxury yacht construction that his father had spent vast amounts on was obviously one of Aeolus’s pet projects. It had drained the company’s assets, though, and had brought in very little.

      When Elias took over, it had been the first thing to go.

      There was nothing in the papers he gave her that spelled out in words his father’s opposition. But in the “who was in favor of what” pieces, it was clear that Elias’s decision had met with considerable parental opposition.

      She wondered if she dared point it out to him as something the two of them had in common. Somehow she doubted it. But the more she read, the less she blamed him for his attitude. And when at last she leaned back in her chair and contemplated the skyline of Manhattan against the setting sun, she had to admit that if she were Elias Antonides, she’d resent an interloper coming in, too.

      At eight o’clock when she gathered up the stack of papers she intended to take home for further study. It was a foot and a half high, but every bit could be all important. When she finally opened her mouth, she wanted to have her facts straight. Giving the stack a little pat, she went in search of a box to put it in.

      The office was deserted. Rosie had left ages ago, but not without poking her head in to remind Tallie to bring the recipes tomorrow.

      She’d promised them to Paul, too, who thought his fiancée would like them, and to Dyson who’d said he didn’t have a fiancée, but who needed one? If you wanted cookies badly enough—and they were good enough—you just baked them yourself.

      “I’m liberated,” he’d told Tallie.

      She smiled now at the memory, glad she’d brought them, determined to bring others tomorrow. They were good for morale. And they were an excellent way to connect with the staff, even if some people, she thought as she opened the supply closet, looked down their once-broken noses at them.

      “Ah, excellent,” she muttered, discovering a box behind the paper supplies. She fished it out, then stood up and turned, slamming into a hard male chest.

      “Can I help you find something?” Elias’s tone was polite, his meaning was anything but. Loosely translated, Tallie knew, he wanted to know what the hell she was doing.

      She smiled brightly at him. “You’re still here, too? I was just getting a box to take some work home.” She tried to step around him.

      He blocked her way. “What work?”

      “Some of that reading material you provided. Excuse me.” Her tone was polite, too, but when he didn’t move, she sidestepped him and—accidentally, of course—knocked the box into his solar plexis. “Oh! Sorry.”

      Not exactly the truth, but if he was going to stand in her way… She heard him mutter under his breath as she hurried back down the hall with the box in her arms.

      Footsteps came after her. “You don’t need to take things home.” He stopped in the door of her office, scowling as she piled the papers into the box.

      “Well, I don’t plan to stay here