A Perfect Love: International Billionaires VI: The Greeks by Caro LaFever Read Free Book Online

bursting into a cold stream of wretched realization. How could she deny her boys this amazing transformation of their future? How could she hide them from what they were being offered? How could she hold them back from getting away from Haimon’s ugly influence?
    The lift doors whooshed open as the last of the questions echoed in her head.
    Tamsin bolted out of the enclosed space, running not so much from the questions as from what she knew in her heart would be the final answer to those questions.
    The long hallway was covered with golden carpeting; the walls done in cream, highlighting the brightly colored artwork hung between the dozens of doorways. The whole scene screamed wealth beyond her experience. Wealth Haimon in his glory days had certainly never achieved. Not even Loukas Vounó, with his influence and reputation, had ever climbed this high in the money stakes.
    The thought stopped her cold.
    “Trying to walk away from me once more?” Raphael’s voice came from behind her, mock and malice mixed in the taunt. “Are you sure of where you are going?”
    She’d been sure long ago. Sure of walking away.
    Sure of what her sacrifice would give him.
    You have a choice, Tamsin. Walk away from him and I will make sure there is enough money left for his medical schooling.
    Haimon’s ugly words slithered from the past.
    A doctor, no matter how successful, would not drive in a limo. A doctor, no matter how many new inventions he created, would not stride into the lobby of this kind of hotel and receive the fawning attention Rafe had gotten moments ago. Plus, no doctor she’d ever met held such an air of confidence, arrogance, and complete command as Raphael Vounó had shown from the moment he’d walked back into her life.
    She turned with a jerk.
    He was close, too close, and the heat of his body scorched her skin. But the cold harshness of his face told her the heat came from anger, not passion.
    “Did you go to medical school?” Her hushed tone carried through the hallway and the twins stilled behind them, for once stopping their ever-present ribbing and punching of each other.
    His eyes went blank. “No, of course not.”
    “Of course not?” The cry came from her soul, the soul who’d done everything, given everything for this to happen. “Why not?”
    “You?” His jaw clenched. “You of all people have to ask?”
    “What?” Memories banged in her brain. Through these endless years, through the times she’d cried herself to sleep, she’d held onto the knowledge that Raphael would at least have this, this one thing she’d given him. His future. The glorious future he’d dreamed about his entire life.
    His eyes were no longer blank. They were alive with hate. “You don’t remember, Tamsin? You don’t remember our last conversation?”
    “Yes, I remember, but—”
    “Then, please. Spare me these oh-so-innocent questions.” He strode past her down the hallway.
    Bewildered, heartsick, she stood and watched him walk away from her. Exactly as he had so long ago. Yet at that time, she’d had the solace of knowing she’d done the right thing.
    Now?
    Now she was lost. Her home lost, her plans for the future lost. And God help her, even her view of the past, of having done the right thing, even this was lost, too.
    “Tammy?” The old nickname yanked her back from the edge of despair and defeat. Isaák’s worried face peered into her own. “We can go away from here. He upsets you.”
    The boys.
    Whatever had happened to Raphael in these previous years didn’t matter anymore. What mattered to her more than her life were the twins and their future happiness. Raphael Vounó obviously had money, though she sincerely doubted he had a heart.
    Somehow, someway she needed to rescue her brothers from this man’s influence.
    “No, I’m fine.” Grief pooled in her throat. She pushed it away. “Come on.”
    The three of them, a family unit no one could pull apart, followed the man who was intent on trying.