A Perfect Wife: International Billionaires V: The Greeks by Caro LaFever Read Free Book Online Page A

silence?”
    Her mouth fell open and for the first time, he noticed the lush streak of it. The plump passion of the lower lip, the cupid’s bow of the upper giving her the face of a goddess. The color flared at him, a burgundy brilliance. Was it the milk-white of her skin which caused the amazing contrast?
    Aetos frowned in frustration. Theós . He’d gone mad. “Well? How much?”
    She closed her eyes for a moment. Tightly.
    Temptation vanished as surety set in. He could practically see the dollars dancing in her head and her hard heart. This he knew. This he understood.
    Why was there a simmering rage inside him instead of a confident satisfaction?
    The buzz of another call heightened his aggravation. He barely glanced at the phone, but the number stopped him. Ka Marvos? Ka Marvos never called him. He had not informed her of his decision to come home and meet his lovely wife for himself. If she’d heard him enter the brownstone, she would have greeted him not called him.
    “Fifty thousand dollars.” The witch’s voice was hard and flinty. All woman.
    Raising his head, he stared at her. The sum was paltry. Too paltry for the story she held. The New York News might not buy it without more proof than her word even if she worked there. But some tabloid would take it. Pay her a fortune. Hound him for specifics on the marriage. Dig into the records until the truth would inevitably come out.
    His phone rang once more.
    “ Gamó̱to !” he cursed.
    For many years now, women had kept their place, the place he defined in his life. Even his grandmother sooner or later did what he wanted. Why did it seem, then, that in a few short hours, chaos had descended on his life, and with it a tribe of furies had been unleashed?
    “ Nai ,” he growled into the phone.
    The words rushed over him, pounded into him. Ka Marvos was not her usual pleasant and placid self. This didn’t surprise him in this instance. The news she bore was not pleasant nor placid.
    “ Nai .” He clicked off the phone and looked at his pretend wife.
    Who now had to be his perfect wife.
    He knew what he had to do with her. And it would take him straight to the hell of his own making. Straight into his family’s loving arms.

Chapter 5
    T he plane hummed quietly under her feet.
    Natalie stared through one of the many oval windows, down onto the rolling mountains of clouds. Far below, the Mediterranean’s waves rolled as well. For the first time in her life, she was doing what she’d longed and dreamed of forever.
    Travel.
    To somewhere exotic and new. Somewhere dazzling and exciting and teeming with mysteries to explore and write about. Cities and countries and people filled with strange and glorious stories needing to be told.
    As a kid, she’d daydreamed endlessly about hopping on a plane, a train, a boat. Going to London and Paris. Taking a cruise to Australia. Living in India or China. Her dreams had turned into determination in her teens and even after her father’s death, her hopes hadn’t died. College tuition had been earned by long hours at the Brooklyn bar her father used to live at with all his mob cronies. Still, her hard work had been worth it. The journalism degree would be her ticket to the world, the road to making her dreams come true.
    “ Ilíthios !” His voice came from across the cabin. The word sliced the air with irritation.
    A curse, surely. His accent only heightened the impatience curling through each vowel.
    Reluctantly, she glanced across the aisle. She’d tried to ignore him for the last eight hours as the plane rose over the New York skyline and started its journey to Greece. Yet his presence, his power, drew her attention again and again. It had become a continuous battle to keep her focus on the clouds, on the book she’d brought from his library, on the over-the-top luxury of his private airplane.
    But only when she’d snatched a couple of hours of sleep had she truly escaped from him.
    “ Anói̱tos !” His long,