The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange

The Tycoon’s Marriage Exchange
             
             
Elizabeth Lennox

Chapter 1

Kallista
Papadelias
shook her head, her eyes
wary
as she faced this large, intimidating man who was waiting patiently for her answer.  “Surely there’s an alternative.  I really don’t want to marry you.”  She braced herself, her muscles tense and
guarded
as the powerful man sitting across from her absorbed her
rejection
.  Goose bumps rose up on her arms and she knew that th
e shiver running through her were
due more to the man’s darkening eyes than the cold air blowing down from the ceiling’s ventilation system.  She wrapped her cold, shaking fingers around the coffee cup in front of her, trying to gain some warmth but she was too nervous. 

“Have you heard a thing I’ve said?” Hector
Christophe
asked
digging deeper to find more patience
. 
This woman sitting in front of him was lovely, but he wasn’t sure how much was going on inside her pretty head. 
“Your father’s business is in jeopardy.  He is going to lose everything if I don’t help him.  And he won’t accept my help because of his pride.”

Kallista tried
to focus, truly she was, but the way this man was watching her unnerved her, made her stomach quake and her muscles tense.  Unfortunately, if his irritated look was any indication, she’d obviously missed something significant during this discussion. 
“What does me marrying you have to do with that?”

Hector was proud that he didn’t grind his teeth in frustration, knowing that would only make her more nervous. 
“Don’t be
obtuse
,
Kallista
.  You know how our culture works
,” he replied
heartlessly
. “If we are married, I would be family. 
Your father
would accept help from
a
family
member
.  As it stands now, he won’t even acknowledge to me that there’s a problem.  But I can see in his eyes when I try and talk to him about
some of the issues I’ve discovered, and I know
that he’s fully aware of the dangers to his company and all he’s built over the years.
  He’s trying to
fix
this himself but
he doesn’t have the resources so he’s making a bigger mess of the situation.
  I’m already working behind the scenes to help, but I need to become more out in the open to deter the takeover.
”

He watched carefu
lly as the woman with soft blue
eyes and pale, porcelain skin listened carefully.  She was tall for a woman at five feet, seven inches but he still towered over her and he couldn’t help his size.  It was scaring her and he shifted to give her more space, but there was only so much he could do.  He was six feet, three inches tall which made him
loom larger than most of the men she was probably used to
. 

She smelled good, he thought, then banished that from his mind.  Her scent, no matter how lovely, had nothing to do with this conversation.  There was a crisis and he could see her occasional shivers so he had to ignore her allure and focus on saving her family
’s reputation
, and her father’s company. 

Kallista
’s hands squeezed
tightly
together under the table.  She loved her parents and they’d done so much for her.  How could she no
t do this if it would help them?
  Hector was right, her father wouldn’t accept help from a friend but in her culture, family was not only allowed to help when needed, they were
expected
to help
however possible
.  Families stuck together, they worked together, lived, laughed
,
fought
and loved together.  And when things got tough, they all came together to find a solution
to whatever problem was facing them
. 

Her father, bless his soul, had more pride than
sense sometimes
,
Kallista
thought angrily. 
She pulled the
complicated
reports and
colorful
charts closer, trying to understand the
immense
data this man was
attempting
to impart to her. 
“Okay, so
please
explain all this to me
one more time
and let me try and absorb the situation.  Surly there’s a less drastic way to deal with this
horrible situation other
than the two of us marrying.”

Hector sighed and pulled the files together.  He’d gone through all the information
himself
and tr
ied to come up with an alternat
ive but every time he’d approached
Demetrius
Papadelias
with a solution
,
Kallista
’s father,
the man
had
simply
shut down and changed the subject. 
Unfortunately, whenever
Hector
visited his old friend, he
saw
that
the
valuable paintings
that were slowly leaving the walls of
Demetrius’
once
regal
home
, he recognized the
slow
deterioration and the dust intermingled with the missing valuables
. 
Kallista
’s mother no longer wore even her
beautiful
engagement ring, which led Hector to suspect that she had sold the ring to try and raise needed money to counter this latest threat
to their
company
. 

It wasn’t that
Kallista
’s parents
were in a bad
situation
.  Hector’s information told him that
Demetrius
Papadelias
, and more than five thousand employees, were about to be swindled horribly, the entire company and all of
its
employees
and their families
will lose
their life savings and their pensions if someone didn’t come in and stop this takeover threat. 
So it wasn’t just
Demetrius
and Kallista’s family
who needed to be saved.  It was the life savings of
thousands of innocent
families who
c
ould be
completely
destroyed if someone didn’t step in and stop the
insidious
problem
this takeover
presented
. 

With a patience Hector didn’t realize he had, he straightened and once again went through the data, trying to explain to
Kallista
Papadelias
what had happened and what impact the crisis could mean for everyone involved. 
“Six months ago, stock in your father’s company started
getting
bought up.  The price has remained relatively stable...” he explained, showing
Kallista
the charts and graphs his staff had generated to explain the takeover attempt.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t just a takeover.  The man who was s
lowly, secretly buying up stock in her family’s business
was known for purchasing
troubled
companies and liquidating everything,
sometimes even
draining the pension funds
if there was a weak pension manager
.  There were stories that he even denied final paychecks
to employees
after some
sales when he took over a company
. 
The man in charge
operated both above and below the law, uncaring if anything he did was legal.  Since he’d done this so many times,
the man
was a
relatively
wealthy and had a team of
unethical
lawyers who
sometimes
provided
bogus
cover
or slammed the opposition with
inane but expensive
litigation
to protect him from any
repercussions
.

Kallista rubbed her forehead, a headache forming as she tried to understand all this data. 
“Who is this man
that is
doing all of this and how can he operate in this
nasty
manner?” she asked, going cross eyed from all of the financial information.  She didn’t understand most of it but didn’t want to admit that to
Hector Christophe
who was
reportedly a
financial genius.  She might
have
joke
d
that he thought he controlled the world
to her parents one evening
, but the reality was that his holdings internationally
were so broad, so far flung, that the man really might control the world
.  Or at least a very large part of it
.  He was so powerful, she still didn’t understand why
Hector
and her family were friends
.  A
lthough he’d always come by
her parents’ house
when he was
in town
, she’d never really understood the friendship
Hector had
with her father
. 

Kallista
had avoided
this intimidating
whenever possible, but was polite when her parents insisted that she be present for the occasional dinners when Hector was in town and had time for a meal at her parents
’
house.  It wasn’t that her parents
were poor
.  They were definitely what most people considered wealthy.  Even the elite, some might say.  But they weren’t even close to the stratosphere where Hector reigned.  He was the top dog in a pack of some of the most powerful men in the world.  And he’d done it all from nothing, according to the
vague news reports that had come out over the years. 

As a reporter, she was fascinated by his incredible rise to power.  Her mind might not be able to absorb the technical financial issues he was explaining, but she had a great mind for digging into an issue and finding the story.  Her fingers were itching to write up her impressions of the man, ask him questions and interview him for an article. 
Maybe, after this latest investigation she was working on, she might tackle the great and famous Hecto
r
Christophe
and see if she could discover how he’d really made his first million.  Or all the subsequent billions, she thought with irritation. 
The man had never granted an interview with any reporter, so he was a mystery she would enjoy tackling. 

One challenge at a time, she
admonished
herself and re-focused on the spreadsheets in front of her, not
daring to look
up at the man
in front of her
because, each time she did, she lost her train of thought.  Those intense, grey eyes didn’t relent as he tried to make her understand. 
There was so much more behind those eyes, something she didn’t understand, something shocking in a way she didn’t
comprehend and yet, the feeling was still somehow
alluring and tempting. 

“Everything ties back to this man,” Hector was saying and he pushed t
he grainy picture of a
thin
man with
a
R
oman looking nose and receding hairline
closer to her
.  “Somehow, your father and he met and they started investing
together
.  It’s from that moment that your father’s business started to decline.”

Kallista
smothered the gasp of horror as she stared down at the man in the picture.  He was the man she was currently investigating
!
  She had a whole story surrounding this man who she suspected was controlling drug distribution at many of the ports along the Greek coastline. 

And what was worse,
Kallista
had introduced her father to this man
!
  It had been an accidental meeting
about seven months ago.  S
he and the man in the picture named Rolf Peterson were having coffee
one afternoon
. 
Kallista
had pretended to run into him one day and she’d
“accidentally”
drop
ped
the contents of her bag on the sidewalk
in an effort to gain his attention
.  Acting like a flighty
klutz
with her short skirt and high heels
, she’d gotten Rolf to suggest coffee, which was exactly the opening
for which
she’d been aiming.  It was a horrible coincidence that her father had run into her that day.  There
had been
nothing she could do but invite her father to join them for coffee and introduce him to Rolf.