One Night to Risk It All(15)

“As I told you, Ajax Kouros is a created name. A created identity. Hell, mine is, too, for the most part. Christofides is anyway. I was never called by a last name at all.”

“How is that possible?”

“I was the son of a woman who couldn’t remember her real name. Or if she did, she chose never to use it. ‘Meli’ was all she ever called herself. Honey. I think it was a double entendre of some kind. We lived in Ajax’s father’s compound. The infamous Nikola Kouklakis.”

“What?”

“I suppose you’ve heard of him.”

“The depth of that trafficking ring was...horrendous. When it was broken up a few years ago...”

“Yes, it was shocking. So many people. So many lives ruined. My mother wasn’t one who was kidnapped. She was seduced. By the drugs. By the money. By love of some kind. We lived in the compound. As did Ajax. I remember seeing him and thinking he was quite something with his suits. The cars. But I learned very quickly to be afraid of him, because he was the big boss’s son. Because what if he saw me causing trouble?”

“Alex...I don’t... This can’t be.”

“What? You think I goad him for fun? I goad him because I don’t think he deserves any of what he has, not while so many of us live with the lasting wounds of where his fortune came from.”

“But he didn’t earn any of it from...anywhere bad. He came to my family when he was a boy. He got work with my father. He built up from nothing.”

“You don’t know him like I do. You think you do, Rachel, but you don’t know him.”

“I do.”

“Why had you never slept with him?”

“He’s not...very passionate. And I figured I wasn’t, either, so fine.”

He chuckled, a dark, humorless sound. “I witnessed some of his behavior back at the compound. He was with the women there. He’s certainly not passionless, and knowing his background I find it worrisome more than anything that he hasn’t touched you. Perhaps he was just going to savor your virginity.”

Her face heated, anger and anxiety shooting through her. “He didn’t know I was a virgin. I had a...a relationship before him, and I didn’t... I obviously didn’t sleep with him, but it wasn’t chaste. Okay? And Ajax and I never discussed it, so he really didn’t know.”

“Trust me, agape, he knew.”

“You didn’t.”

“I only knew you for an afternoon.”

“It had some lasting consequences,” she said, leaning against the window of the car and watching the scenery fly by. “Why am I going with you again?”

“You don’t want me destroying your reputation in the press? Or destroying Ajax at the altar, though I can’t imagine why.”

Her head was swimming. She couldn’t even imagine the Ajax she knew, the man who seemed to spend twenty-four hours a day in a crisply pressed suit, prowling the halls of a drug house and mingling with prostitutes. It didn’t make sense.

“I only know what I know about him.”

And that of all the things that she felt right now—which were blessedly cushioned by shock or she would be rocking in a corner— heartbreak wasn’t one of them. So the other thing she could add to the list of Very Obvious Things She Knew was that she did not love Ajax, for certain.

That part of her was relieved to be fleeing the wedding, even if it was with Alexios Christofides.

Even if she was having his baby.

Her stomach pitched. No, she wasn’t relieved about that. She couldn’t even really think about all that.

“You aren’t going to hold me prisoner, are you?” she asked when the car pulled up to the airport.

“If I wanted to do that, I would have done it back in Corfu.”

“I suppose.”

“There’s no suppose about it. I had you wrapped around my finger, agape mou.”

She gritted her teeth and opened the door to the car. He followed, and an employee came out for their bags. Not the normal treatment, even when she flew, and she was accustomed to first class.

She whirled around to face him. “Actually, Alex, no matter what you say, no matter what your plan was, I’m fairly confident I had you wrapped around mine.”

“You had me by something, but it wasn’t my finger.”

She curled her lip. “You’re despicable. Now which terminal are we going to?”

“We are taking a private plane. All the better for us to discuss our issues.”

“Why do I feel like I’m in the presence of the big bad wolf?”

“Because of my big...teeth?”

She made a face. “Maybe it’s your ego, did you ever think of that?”

“It could be that,” he said, obviously completely unbothered by her insults.

“I don’t like you,” she said. For some reason, with him, the honesty flowed.

“I know, but you still want me, and that really bothers you.”

Her hackles rose, because, dammit, it was true. “Not half as much as having your baby bothers me.”

“Then why are you coming with me?”

She shook her head and stopped walking. “Because...because as angry as I am at you, this isn’t all your fault. Not really. I blew up my future. I put a bomb in the middle of it and now it’s so wrecked there’s no putting it back together. If I stay, I expose my family to more scandal than if I go quietly.”