The Greek Billionaire and I

Twenty-seven, the crowd roared.

But neither of them really heard it.

****

It was about four in the morning when Mykolas and Velvet prepared to leave for his vacation house in Santorini, which was where their month-long honeymoon would start. The party was still full swing, but it was clear to see virtually all of the guests were too drunk to notice their departure. While Velvet made her goodbyes to Mandy, he headed back to his office to ensure that everything was in order before he left. He planned not to work a single minute of his honeymoon since he would be too busy enjoying his wife’s charms.

Mykolas scribbled last-minute instructions for his secretary to go through the next day. As he was about to leave, he caught sight of Velvet’s purse and smirked at his wife’s forgetfulness. It wasn’t normal of her to be forgetful. It was proof that she was so heady in love with him that she forgot all about her purse.

Picking it up from the console table, he realized too late that the bag was unzipped and her iPhone tumbled out. When Mykolas picked the phone up, he saw a new email alert on the screen and clicked it unthinkingly.

The email was from a lawyer named Lester Wilkins.

I’ve sent $100,000 as requested to his lawyer, and he’ll be providing you with a receipt as well as a draft of the contract for your approval.

You are as always too kind by half and stubborn, too. You are also unfortunately blinded by love. Wayne Garfield is a lost cause, and he will never stop ruining your life for as long as you keep hoping for the impossible. He will not and he can never love you the way you want him to and certainly never the way you love him.

Three seconds of absolute silence passed.

Three seconds of the most unbelievable agony.

Three seconds of the most devastating betrayal.

Mykolas threw Velvet’s phone against the wall, and as its screen smashed into pieces, he grimly wished he could destroy his feelings for his duplicitous wife just as easily.

****

“My husband wants me to go to his office?” Velvet was bemused. Mykolas had told her to wait here so they could leave together and now this?

The waiter nodded. “Right away if possible, Mrs. Sallis.”

Oh!

Her lips curved. Mykolas had decided to give in and indulge her need for a quickie then. She smiled and thanked the waiter and hurried to the elevator. Would it be too much if she took off her underwear now?

Imagining the look on his face made her decide on the spot, and she hurriedly stepped out of her lace underwear just before the elevator’s doors swooshed open. Of course, this left her with the evidence in her hands, and she impulsively decided to hide it inside his secretary’s drawer and come back for it later. Or at least she hoped she would remember to take it out later. Most times, Velvet thought fondly as she opened the door to his office, he made her forget everything but his name. He was just that good at—

And that was when she saw it.

“What the f*ck are you doing?” she screamed.

No, this was not possible.

This was not possible.

THIS WAS NOT POSSIBLE!

She didn’t pause to think. She just reacted, just ran towards the couple in the dark and grabbed the hair of the woman who was on her knees and giving Mykolas head. And then she was slapping Mykolas. Slapped him so hard because she knew whatever hurt she inflicted on him wouldn’t even be a fraction of what she was suffering right now.

“Why?” she screamed. “Why, damn you, why?” Tears blinded her, but she didn’t need to see him anyway. She would see him forever now, and it would always be Mykolas being pleasured by another woman.

“Because,” he said savagely, “it gave me a f*cking kick to let you know that you’re not irreplaceable.” He caught her flailing wrists and forced them down. “It gives me a f*cking kick to hurt your damn pride because that’s all I can hurt since you don’t have a f*cking heart!”

He had the urge to shove her away, but he forced himself to simply let her go. He needed the damn practice and told himself that this was more like a necessary excision, like cutting a f*cking infected limb before it ended up killing the rest of his system.

Velvet felt like she had been punched in the gut when Mykolas suddenly released her, in a way that made her feel she was toxic and he no longer wanted himself contaminated by her presence. God, it hurt so badly, almost to the point that she wished he had just pushed her away. At least that showed he cared enough to hate her.

His words didn’t make any sense at all, but did it matter? All she knew was that she had been wrong. He didn’t love her.

But in the end, she found herself begging. Dammit, she couldn’t stop herself from begging. “Please make me understand.”

And yet the coldness never left his face. “There is nothing to understand. Nothing. This farce is over. Get the hell out of my life and if I ever see your face again, I’ll have you arrested for stalking.”

Weak is a dick, weak is a dick, weak is a…

She couldn’t lie to herself anymore.

Dick was not the one who was weak. It was her. Velvet was weak. No, not Velvet. It was Dotty who was weak.

Dotty was weak. Dotty was weak. Dotty was weak.

Somehow, she took pleasure in chanting the words in her mind as she turned her back on Mykolas and left his office. She didn’t even feel the slightest need to look back. There was no point. He was part of the same past where Wayne and Lindy existed, a part of her life that she had to ignore if she didn’t want it to kill her.

It was only when she got to the lobby that she realized she didn’t have any money. She had left her bag in Mykolas’ office. She wouldn’t even be able to withdraw from the bank, not when there was nothing to withdraw since she had stupidly – oh God, how stupid she had been all this time! – used all her money this morning to buy a f*cking gift for Mykolas. It had been her proof to herself that she was not weak – that she was strong enough to love and trust.

Yeah, well, stupid her.

Dotty was weak. Dotty was weak. Dotty was weak.

Another thought occurred to her, one that almost sent Velvet to her knees.

Oh God, she even didn’t have panties on.

All she had were memories and…

Velvet forced herself to turn around and face the gaping security guard, who had been trying all this time not to make it obvious that he had been staring at her. Tugging the rings off her fingers, she gave it to him and said, “It’s your lucky day.”

And then she started to walk to the airport.





Chapter Eleven




“Are these all her financial records?” Mykolas asked the next day, his face cold and unreadable as he took the documents from the head of his security team.

“They are everything, even the ones that should not have been publicly accessible.”

When the other man left, Mykolas remained motionless behind his office desk for a while. Even now, he loathed himself for being so gullible. Even now, he questioned his motives for wasting his time tracing Velvet Lambert’s every move. What did he hope to find with these papers? A reason or an excuse he could cling to so that he would be able to take her back without hating himself for being a lovesick fool?

In the end, the reasons didn’t matter. He simply had to know. He had to know.

And when he started reading, he found that none of the figures matched with what he had expected.

Velvet had two bank accounts.

The first one had been opened the year she had arrived in Greece. It had an impressive initial deposit, but the cynical part of him wondered whether it was the result of another successful conquest brought about by Velvet’s irresistible beauty. What followed were regular deposits and very minimal withdrawals except for the occasional checks she sent to Wayne Garfield.