Kostas's Convenient Bride: Kostas's Convenient Bride / Desert Prince's Stolen Bride

“Yes.”

“But he’s out of country.”

“Until tonight.”

“You only took one day off.”

“I’ll be taking the rest of the week off.”

“What? You can’t do that!” The genuine shock in Andreas’s voice was laughable.

The fact he was shouting would have alarmed her if she wasn’t numb. “In fact, I can.”

“You never have before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

“What are you going to do with Hawk out of town?”

“Whatever I want. I’m taking a page out of your book.”

“I don’t take time off without notice.”

“You’re selling the company, that’s the biggest abandonment I can think of.”

“I’m not abandoning anything. Part of the purchase agreement between Hawk and myself is a guarantee of employment for the current employees, provided their performance continues to meet expectations.”

“How nice.”

“You didn’t need to meet with him to confirm that,” he said, sounding hurt.

“I’m not meeting with Hawk to make sure the other employees have jobs on the other side of this buyout.”

“Then why are you meeting him?”

“To make plans for my future.”

“I already have plans for your future!”

“How interesting, since you haven’t brought any up to me.”

“I did. I want you to go into business with me again.”

“No.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I do.” She’d never meant anything more.

He must have heard the conviction in her voice, because Andreas didn’t come back with an instant rejoinder.

“You’ve made plans for your future and your bride pimp is so right. They are not my business, but my future and the plans I make for it are mine.”

“She was wrong.”

“Maybe you should have told her that and I would believe you.”

“I do not lie.”

“You just keep things from me. Important things.”

“I told you, I was going to talk to you about it.”

“If my opinion, much less my feelings, mattered, you would have talked to me before you talked to Sebastian Hawk.” Before he hired Genevieve.

“Is that why you insist on meeting with him? Paying me back?”

“I’m not that petty. This is about my survival.” As the words came out of her mouth, she realized how very true they were.

Andreas wouldn’t understand. As hard as it had been to lose his mother, as much as he despised his father’s hypocrisies, Andreas had never been without a home to call his own. He had not been a three-year-old little girl left in the bathroom of a truck stop. He didn’t know what it was to have his entire world ripped out from under his feet, not once, but twice before reaching the age of eighteen.

If he did, he wouldn’t be selling the company that gave Kayla her first sense of belonging and security since the death of the foster mother who had coaxed Kayla back to speech.

“I would not leave you without resources. Have I not proven that to you?”

“No. You’ve pretty much proved the opposite, Andreas.” Pain coalesced in her throat, making it tight.

But she would not cry.

“No, Kayla...that is not what this is about.”

“I have to go, Andreas.”

“To do what?”

“Get a clue, Mr. Almighty Kostas. My life is none of your business anymore.”

“Why? What is really going on here?”

“I’m dumping a relationship that is toxic to me.”

“I am not toxic. I am your friend.”

She couldn’t take another word, not without losing it, and she hadn’t lost control of her emotions in years.

“Goodbye, Andreas.”

She ended the call before he could reply. Now she just had to check into a hotel. Then she was going to do something. She didn’t know what, but her time of waiting for Andreas Kostas to wake up and realize they were meant to be each other’s family was over.