The Antonides Marriage Deal

“No, you won’t,” Elias said sharply. “I don’t need you setting me up with a woman. Besides, I’m busy. I’ve got work up to my eyebrows. And it just got harder. In case you haven’t heard, we have a new president of Antonides Marine.”

“Daddy told me. And it’s a woman!” Amazement didn’t even begin to cover Cristina’s feelings about that. She giggled. “Do you think he’s setting you up?”

“No, I damned well don’t!” Though the thought had certainly occurred to him. Still, his father was rarely that subtle. Aeolus took a more shove-the-woman-in-his-face approach.

And the truth was, Tallie Savas would never be his father’s choice in a woman.

Aeolus loved his wife, but he had never stopped ogling tall, big-busted Nordic beauties. He’d thought Gretl was stunning, which she had been. But Elias had never fantasized going to bed with her. Because he’d gone to bed with her, he told himself. There had never been any speculation. Never any mystery with Gretl.

Whereas with Tallie Savas and her miles of wild curly hair—

“Maybe I’ll come and check her out. What’s she like?” Cristina said eagerly.

“Nothing special.” Elias made sure his tone was dampening. Then he cleared his throat. “She’s an MBA. A CEO. All business.”

“Battle-ax, hmm?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh.” Cristina’s disappointment was obvious. “I wonder what Daddy was thinking then.”

“I doubt he was thinking.”

Cristina laughed. “He’s not that bad, Elias. He likes Mark.”

“Which proves my case.”

“It does not,” Cristina said, but she didn’t sound as defensive as she usually did about her boyfriends. “You don’t know him. He knows a lot about boats. If the lady prez is a hard worker, you’ll have some time off now. You can come out with Mark and me.”

“No.” Which brought them back to where they’d started. Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Cristina, I’ve got work to do—”

“You won’t even meet him,” she accused.

“I’ve met him,” Elias said wearily. “I went to Yale with him.”

“So I heard. He said he’s changed since Yale.”

Elias hoped so. At Yale Mark had been a drunken reveler who’d only got in because his father knew someone who knew someone. What was it with Greek fathers?

“If you want me to meet him again, bring him out to the folks’ on Sunday.” He’d managed to avoid his mother’s last Sunday dinner by pleading a work overload. He wasn’t going to get out of this one and he knew it.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Cristina mumbled.

“I thought you said the old man liked him.”

“Yes, but only because he can beat Mark at golf.”

Elias laughed. “Well, there you go. Something to build on. You’ll work it out, Crissie. I have to go. I’ll see you Sunday.”

“I’ll bring Mark if you bring Ms President.”

“Goodbye, Crissie.” Elias hung up before his sister got any more bright ideas.

He had other far more important things to deal with—like convincing Thalia Savas, aka Ms President, that despite what she thought, it was a better idea to spend the next two years filing her fingernails than trying to meddle in the business of Antonides Marine.

If she thought she’d done her homework, Elias thought, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, she had another think coming.

He’d show her homework. And he knew exactly where to start.

“For me?” Tallie looked up and smiled brightly when Elias appeared in her office late that afternoon with a three-foot-high-stack of reports and folders.

“For you,” Elias agreed cheerfully, thumping them on her desk. “Since you want to be involved in the decisions, you’ll want to get up to speed.

“Of course I will,” she agreed promptly. “Thank you very much.”

He gave her a hard-eyed gaze, but she smiled in the face of it and finally he just shrugged. “My pleasure.” He turned toward the door, then paused and glanced back. “I’ll have more for you tomorrow.”

Tallie’s determined smile didn’t waver. “I can hardly wait.”

In fact, she was having a very good time. After he’d finished his phone call with his sister, he’d gone into the boardroom to meet with Paul and Dyson. He hadn’t invited her, but she had gone in anyway. He’d looked startled when she’d opened the door and very much like he’d like to throw her out. But finally he’d shrugged and said, “Pull up a chair.”

Tallie had pulled up a chair and taken out a notepad and pen. She’d listened intently, making notes but not saying a word, though from the way Elias angled a glance at her periodically, she knew he was expecting her to stick her oar in.

She never did.

The first order of business she’d learned from her father was to look and listen before saying anything at all. It had stood her in good stead before. She intended to do the same thing here.

Listening today was quite enough. She was impressed with how thorough Elias was and how he was able to take the information Paul provided and examine it from different angles. He had, as he’d told her, done a thorough job of considering many of the ramifications of the purchase of Corbett’s.

She still wasn’t convinced that it was a good move. It seemed a little too far afield, but she would listen and consider and do more work on her own, and then she’d comment.

In the meantime, she’d read the stack of material he left her.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d given her three feet of invoices and grocery lists to read. But she wouldn’t know unless she skimmed every single piece. So she spent the rest of the afternoon in her office doing just that.

Some of the reports seemed little more than she’d expected. But some were significant. They outlined in far greater detail than the material her father had given her what the financial status of Antonides Marine had been when Elias had come in eight years ago—and what it was now.

She got a far clearer understanding of just how dire the straits had been when Elias had taken over, and an even greater appreciation for how astute his business handling was. He’d seen what needed to be done, and he’d done it—even when it had meant cutting out some very appealing but not terribly lucrative lines.

The venture into luxury yacht construction that his father had spent vast amounts on was obviously one of Aeolus’s pet projects. It had drained the company’s assets, though, and had brought in very little.

When Elias took over, it had been the first thing to go.

There was nothing in the papers he gave her that spelled out in words his father’s opposition. But in the “who was in favor of what” pieces, it was clear that Elias’s decision had met with considerable parental opposition.

She wondered if she dared point it out to him as something the two of them had in common. Somehow she doubted it. But the more she read, the less she blamed him for his attitude. And when at last she leaned back in her chair and contemplated the skyline of Manhattan against the setting sun, she had to admit that if she were Elias Antonides, she’d resent an interloper coming in, too.

At eight o’clock when she gathered up the stack of papers she intended to take home for further study. It was a foot and a half high, but every bit could be all important. When she finally opened her mouth, she wanted to have her facts straight. Giving the stack a little pat, she went in search of a box to put it in.