A Fling with the Greek Billionaire (2 page)

That note knocked him sideways. It tore off the blinders and forced him to see the truth. She was in love with him, and he could not let this go on. He could not – would not – allow her to make him weak again.

The next day, Iolanthe was fired from her job and sent off with a severance check equal to one year’s pay.
 

The day after, she came back to his home, asking to see him, but he had security turn her away. The next day she went to his office, politely asking the receptionist if she could see Mr. Nik Alexandropoulos. Reception told her to wait, and she did. Morning turned into afternoon, but she never left her seat, never lost her smile.

He saw it all in the security cameras, and he despised the way watching her made him feel.
 

It was six in the evening when he clocked out of work, and reaching the lobby of his office building, he saw everyone turning his way and knew that they were all aware of who Iolanthe was. It was obvious with the way she jumped to her feet, so damn obvious with the way hope dawned in her eyes. One only had to look at Iolanthe’s face to know that she believed he would stop to talk to her.

He didn’t.

Instead, his attorney did, giving Iolanthe a cease-and-desist letter along with a warning about her current course of action being grounds for harassment.

That same night, he booked himself a room in one of his hotels and called for the most expensive whore in town, a former senator’s mistress who was known to be open to assignations with other men…for the right amount.
 

When she arrived, he had her sign a non-disclosure agreement and afterwards, he told her in no uncertain terms what he needed.

Her first reaction was a surprised laugh. “You’re not kidding me, are you?” She spoke even as she undressed herself, her movements artful and practiced at the same time.
 

“You really are a virgin? How did that happen when you look like that and you own all this?”

Seated on the couch, he eyed her through the glass of whisky he was holding as he murmured, “I don’t trust your kind.”

She laughed again. “Considering what I do for a living, I can’t say I blame you.” With her clothes and underwear forming a pool of lace and satin on the floor, she walked towards him, naked and completely unabashed about it. Kneeling between his legs, she leaned forward to reach for his tie. “I’m curious, though,” she murmured while unknotting the silk tie around his neck. “You’ve been able to control your needs all this time. So what changed?”

He gave her a humorless smile. “I simply want to make sure my first time isn’t with someone who’d think there’s something special about this.”

Her eyes glittered. “Oh, but it is special for me.
One hundred thousand dollars
kind of special, if you must know.” Moving up, she straddled him and rubbed her breasts against his chest before her hands moved to his jacket and she had him shrug out of it. “I’ll make sure you get everything you asked for this night.” Tossing his jacket to the floor, she worked on the buttons of his shirt. “I’ll teach you all the things you need to know to please a woman.”

“Good.”

His shirt and belt joined his jacket on the floor. She moved back down to her knees and unzipped his pants. Pushing his briefs to the side, she pulled his cock out, her eyes widening at the size. “Oh my,” she breathed. “This is going to be a really
long
night.”

He didn’t answer, but his cock gradually became rock hard with her expert strokes.

“You’ve got a really beautiful cock, do you know?” She bent down and licked its head. “I don’t think you need to learn anything from me. Your size would be enough for most women.”

“Not women like you.”

The words had her raising a brow.

“Since I’ll only be fucking women like you, I figured I should know more than usual to ensure my future partners would be equally pleased.”

“Whores?” she clarified, not at all insulted.

“Women who don’t think sex means love.”

“Oh.” She looked at him closely. “I’m definitely what you need, but I don’t think you feel the same way about love.”

He caught her hand as she released his cock and reached for his pants. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not,” she said honestly. “I just think you’re still young enough—”

“I’m almost twenty-three–”

“And I’m twenty-nine,” she pointed out.

“Six years is nothing.”

Her lips curved in a smile that was beautiful and cold. “Well, that shows just how young you are. Even a single day can feel endless when—”

He didn’t let her finish. Her words were hitting too close to the truth. They made him think of Iolanthe, which was the last thing he wanted to do.

Pulling her to straddle him, he shut her up with a kiss, the kind that made even an experienced woman like her see stars. When he lifted his head, she was panting.

He asked politely, “May we fuck now?”

And they did. For hours. It was almost dawn when she left, but the moment he was alone, the memories came back, fiercely, like they had been only waiting for him to be vulnerable.

He remembered her smiling, but now the memory of it was more painful than beautiful. Even so, it didn’t convince him to go to her, didn’t make him want to say sorry, and because of that, he knew.

Love was not real.

If love were real, surely he wouldn’t have been able to push Iolanthe away? If love were real, he should be regretting his decision now. But he didn’t. He would do it over and over if he had to, even if it meant breaking her heart again and again as well.

Love was not real.

It never was, the same way a woman who could seduce him and make him forget himself and all his rules would never exist.
 

****

Five months ago

She lay in the middle of the bed, still as a corpse, and squeezed her eyes shut the moment she saw him coming towards her. She pretended to hear nothing even as the rustle of clothes was the only sound in the room. It sounded evil and terrifying, but she told herself she was being silly.

Colton was her boyfriend. She loved him, and he loved her. It was only because he loved her that he would think this was right, and because she loved him, she had to give him the chance to prove it was so.

She wanted to cry as she heard him start to groan, but she didn’t. She only squeezed her eyes shut more tightly as his groans became louder and ragged. He was stroking his flesh, and she wondered why the thought made her feel more ill than aroused.

She loved him, loved him,
she told herself.
She loved him, loved him—

The hot, sticky feel of come landing on her cheek and neck interrupted her thoughts.

She ceased to think after that. It was the only way to keep herself still and let Colton come all over her face and body, the only way to convince herself that this was right and that he had done it because they loved each other.

When it was over, the bed dipped as he bent down and kissed her on the forehead. “You were good, baby, but maybe next time try to look like you want it more.”

She felt him leave the bed before she was able to get over her shock, which had locked her entire body in paralysis.
 

FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT, FROG ALERT.

The words of warning released Daria from her shock, and she didn’t pause to think after. She simply made a dash for it, running out of the hotel room barefoot, not even pausing to pick up her purse on the table.
 

Inside the lift, she desperately struggled to keep it all in while she worked hard to wipe off Colton’s cum from her face and neck. She caught a reflection of herself on the mirror and saw a long white streak on the side of her head sticking to her hair. It should have been funny, but it wasn’t.
 

When she made it to a cab, she threw up, but Colton wasn’t the one who made her sick. No, she had to be honest this time.
She
made
herself
sick, with the way she was so damn desperate to find someone who would love her. She had never gone this far with any of the frogs in the past, but with Colton she had been so desperate that she had lied to herself, telling her that maybe Colton had been right and letting him come on her would be arousing and
cure
Daria of her sexual frigidness.

God, she was so dumb. Desperate.
Dirty.

I’m done.
 

She covered her face with her hands as she repeated the words until they turned into a vow.
I’m done. I’m done. I’m done.

A Taylor Swift song played in the background, streaming from the cab’s radio, and she wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, feeling like she was in a scene straight out of a music video for a bad love song.

“Miss?” It was the cab driver. He seemed to be in his late forties, with mostly grey hair and a matching beard, and worry flickered in his gaze as he sought to check on her through the rearview mirror.
 

With an effort, Daria pulled herself together, wiping the tears from her eyes and clearing her throat before she answered him. “Yes?” She cringed, belatedly noticing the mess she had left on his carpet. “I’m sorry for throwing up in your cab,” she said jerkily. “I’ll pay for the damage.”

He shook his head. “I pay my nephew to clean this up every night, and it would be good for him to work harder for his money.” His voice turned gruff. “Are you all right?”
 

She choked back a teary, hysterical laugh at the question.

“That bad, huh?” The driver grimaced.

She could only nod, still not trusting herself to speak lest the hysterics bubble out of her nonstop.

He sent her a sympathetic smile. “It’s gonna get better eventually. It always does. You just got to believe.” He raised the silver chain around his neck for her to see.

The sight of the crucifix hanging from the chain made her wince. “I don’t think God’s going to help me.”

The cabbie’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Why not?”

“Because…I’m not a nice girl.” She could feel her cheeks turning red as she said the words, which she knew were a
gross
understatement. She used to believe that nothing she did was wrong – not even when everyone thought she was an idiot – or worse, a
slut
– for dating so many men, but maybe they were all right. Maybe she was an idiot, a slut, and more. Maybe everything she sought to disprove about Magnolia Everest was actually true, and she was following in her mother’s footsteps.

“We’ve got an hour ahead of us,” the cab driver was saying. “I’m up for a story if you are.”

Despite everything, the older man’s words made her smile a little. “It could end up boring you.”

The old man returned her smile with a kind one. “Try me.”

She hesitated. “Well…” But then, what did she have to lose? At least this would distract her from dwelling on what had happened. “My mom…after her divorce, she just lost it. She used to have it all together, but when my dad left her for another woman, it just killed her. And after that, she went into one relationship after another, trying to recapture what she used to – what she thought she had with my dad. Everyone thought she had turned into a slut, and it doesn’t help that her current boyfriend’s always younger than the last.”

Daria had to pause afterwards, struggling not to cry again, but for a different reason this time. She remembered how her mother had been so clearly, like it was just yesterday that Magnolia was driving her to school, her packed lunch something her mother had prepared in between answering her agency’s emails. She remembered how Magnolia would make sure to call Daria every day after school when she was working out of the country. It didn’t matter if she was between shoots, didn’t matter if she had to wake up in the middle of the night despite having a meeting at seven in the morning. Those five o’clock calls always came on the dot, and there was never a time Magnolia had sounded anything less than upbeat when asking Daria and her dad about their days.

Those times were so vivid for her
, Daria thought painfully. So why couldn’t the other people in their lives remember the same things?

“All her friends turned their backs on her,” she whispered. “They think she’s a joke, and they keep saying mean stuff about her. No one seemed to remember how my mom used to be – how she still is the nicest person you could ever meet, always ready to help, with never a bad word to say about anyone.”