Wedding Party Collection: Here Comes The Groom: The Bridegroom's Vow / The Billionaire Bridegroom

“Please don’t be angry with me. I have to talk to you before Leon finds you.” She looked like she’d been crying. “This is important.”

“Important enough to put false ideas in the minds of the staff, let alone my nephew?” he demanded in a quiet rage. “From here on out, if you have something to say to me in private, call me at my office.”

“Wait,” she cried as he swept past her and strode down the corridor toward the entrance to the villa, impervious to her pleading.

“Dimi!” She half-sobbed his nickname in an effort to detain him.

The use of the endearment only his parents and brother had ever called him had the effect of corrosive acid being poured into a wound that would never heal.

Compared to the sound of his ever-lengthening footsteps, the rapid patter of her sandals while she tried to catch up with him made the odd cadence on the marble tiles. To his relief, the patter finally faded.

He’d just shut the front door and had headed for the parking area around the side of the villa when Leon called to him.

Dimitrios wheeled around, surprised to discover his nephew following him.

“Uncle.” He ran up. “I need to talk to you. Alone,” he added in a confiding voice. “Would you let me drive you to the office?”

For a fleeting moment Dimitrios felt guilty for dismissing Ananke. She had obviously been trying to alert him to something. But when he considered her reckless actions, which would be misconstrued by his staff no matter how loyal they were to him, he wasn’t sorry he’d cut her off.

Years ago Leonides had married Ananke to do the honorable thing and give his child the Pandakis name. After his brother died, Dimitrios determined no breath of scandal would ever touch his nephew if he could help it.

Of course Leon was a free agent, capable of getting into trouble on his own—if that were the case. Under the circumstances, Dimitrios knew he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on business until he’d learned what was plaguing his nephew.

“Work can wait. Why don’t we take a drive and stop somewhere for lunch. I’ll call Stavros and tell him I won’t be in until afternoon.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather spend time with one of your women friends now that you’re back from China?”

“No woman is more important than you, Leon.”

“Are you sure? When I was at Elektra the other night, Ionna went out of her way to ask me when you were coming home. She said it was urgent that she talk to you. She even asked me for your cell phone number, but I told her I didn’t remember it.”

Dimitrios shook his head. “If she was that forward with you, then she has written her own death sentence.”

His nephew eyed him steadily. “She’s very beautiful.”

“I agree, but you know my rule, Leon. When a woman starts to take the initiative, I move on.”

“I think it’s a good rule. I’ve been using it, too, and I must say it works.”

For some strange reason, the admission didn’t sit well with Dimitrios. It sounded too cynical for Leon.

“To be frank, I’m glad you’d rather be with me this morning,” came the emotional response.

Dimitrios gave his nephew a hug. Minutes later their car was headed into the hills of Thessalonica overlooking the bay. While Leon drove, Dimitrios checked in with his assistant.

“Stavros? Can you spare me for a few hours longer?”

“The truth?”

His question surprised Dimitrios.

“Always.”

“Ms. Hamilton and I may work an ocean apart, but since she became your private secretary, I’ve begun to feel superfluous.”

“You’re indispensable to the company, Stavros. You know that,” he rushed to assure him. The sixty-six-year-old man had kept the Greek end of the Pandakis Corporation running smoothly for decades.

Ms. Hamilton, the understudy of his former private secretary in New York until Mrs. Landau’s unexpected passing, was a six-month-old enigma, still in her infancy. Yet Dimitrios could understand why Stavros made the remark.

In a word, she was a renaissance woman. Brilliant. Creative. A combination of a workaholic and efficiency expert who, though she was no great beauty, happened to be blessed with a pleasant nature. She was many things—too many, in fact, to put a label on her. Mrs. Landau had known what she was doing when she’d hired her.

Before their trip to China, Dimitrios had wondered how he’d ever gotten along without her. During their week’s stay in Beijing while he’d watched her weave her magic before their inscrutable colleagues with the finesse of a statesman, he finally figured it out.

She had a woman’s mind for detail, but she thought like a man. Best of all for Dimitrios, she had no interest in him.

“Ms. Hamilton brings her own genius to the company, just as you brought yours many years ago and tutored me, Stavros. I’m looking forward to next week when the two of you meet for the first time. She holds you in great reverence, you know.”

“I, too, shall enjoy making the acquaintance of this American paragon. Spring greets Winter.”

“Since she’s in her late thirties, it would be more accurate to say summer, and you’re sounding uncharacteristically maudlin, Stavros.”

“You have to allow me the vicissitudes of my age.”

Dimitrios chuckled, but beneath the banter he could sense his assistant’s vulnerability. Perhaps a word in Ms. Hamilton’s ear that she leave something important for Stavros to handle for the fair would help.

“Just so we understand each other, I won’t allow you to retire until I do. See you later this afternoon.”

“What’s wrong with Stavros?” his nephew asked as he clicked off the phone.

Putting his head back to relax, Dimitrios murmured, “He’s suddenly aware of growing older.”

“I know how he feels.”

Dimitrios would have laughed if Leon hadn’t sounded so serious. “You said you wanted to talk. Since you brought up Ionna, I have to wonder if you’re not about to tell me you’ve fallen for a girl your mother doesn’t like.”

Leon shook his head. “That’s not why we argued. I told her I dislike my business classes and want to drop out of the university. It’s only September. I can still withdraw without penalty before the fall semester starts in three weeks.”

Dimitrios schooled himself not to react. “To feel that strongly, you must have a very good reason.”

“My heart isn’t in it!” he cried. “I don’t think it ever was. Mother’s always had this vision of me taking my place in the family corporation. She says I owe it to my father’s memory. But business doesn’t appeal to me. Do you think that makes me some sort of traitor?” he asked in an anxious voice.

“Of course not,” Dimitrios scoffed.

At this point he could have told his nephew a few home truths. Like the fact that Leon’s father hadn’t been interested in the family business, either.

There was information Leon didn’t know about his mother that would shed more light on her determination to make certain he held onto his birthright.

But Dimitrios’s hands were tied, because telling his nephew the truth about the past would hurt him more than it would help.