Magda’s phone was on speaker and Sienna was squealing like a pig stuck with a poker.
“Would you stop?”
“I can’t,” Sienna gushed. “It’s so exciting and sexy. He took one look at you in the boardroom and set his sights on you.”
“You’ve been spending too much time in the fiction section of the library,” Magda was putting dishes away from the dishwasher in the kitchen while she talked to her third best friend. “Quite possibly the section of the type of romance novels they sell in drugstores and airport bookstores.”
“Who has time,” Sienna complained. “I’m trying to work on my thesis, visit mom, work in the library, and then work more on my thesis.”
“And have you done any flirting with Mr. Private Security Detail?”
“We’re talking about you and the billionaire banker who wants to bang you, not my crush on a man w
Magda walked up the beach back towards the house and saw both Dimi and Darya waiting for her.“Feel better?” Dimi asked.“Depends,” she shot a look at Darya.“Mags, I’m sorry. I’m worried about you and it’s coming out all wrong.”“You think?”“Ares Winter isn’t like anyone else you’ve dated. You are such a good person. You have a good heart and a beautiful soul and he’s a playboy. He has a different woman on his arm every other week. He goes through women like he does dollar bills. I don’t want you to get hurt.”“Do you think I don’t know he’s out of my league and superior to me?”“No!” Darya shook her head. “Nobody is saying he’s superior to you. Inferior yes. You’re too good for him. I don’t want to see you get taken advantage of. He’s using you.”“
Magda sat on her bed, the headboard behind her with the curtains drawn, the lights off and hit the video call icon to call her parents.“Hi Mom, did I catch you at a bad time?”“No,” her mother sighed dramatically. “I am finishing for the day. Why you cannot call me at a normal hour is beyond me.”“Sorry. It’s four-thirty there, isn’t it?”“It is and I was getting ready to head home. You know how your father likes to have his dinner ready and on the table by six.”She kept her face neutral as she considered it wasn’t as if her mother was actually preparing, plating, or serving the meal.“Well, I won’t keep you mom. I only wanted to check in and let you know I’m fine.”“Well of course, you’re fine and I always will make time for your calls. You’re important to me.” Her mother gave an eye roll as if Magda should
By Saturday Magda knew without any doubt in her mind Ares Winter was the biggest contradiction in personality she had ever met in her entire life. Switching from sweet mama’s boy to dirty rotten scoundrel with a filthy mouth was as easy for him as breathing.She was coming out of the gym after waving off her personal trainer when her phone buzzed with another message from Ares Winter. She was unsure whether she wanted to open it or not. Last night she’d had the sexiest damn dream of her life and it was all because he had been explicitly blunt with her in a call the night before. She had been moving things around and commented she was looking for a place to sit down and he had offered his face. She’d hung up on him again. He’d called eight times after and she’d ignored every single one of them with increasing difficulty. His last text message before she’d shut her phone completely down for the night was to apologize for being rude.
They were seated back in the coffee shop with Jake a few feet away and Magda was starting to get annoyed with him. He’d refused to let Ares walk alone with her to the coffee shop, despite its close proximity and he’d been huffing and puffing since they sat down because it was quite busy for a Saturday morning.“Ignore him,” Ares said gently as he lifted his coffee cup to his lips. “It’s his job to keep me safe and to be an overbearing asshole to make sure I listen to him. It’s not personal.”“He checked my handbag.”“Yes.”“And told me to power off my phone because he was worried, I’d try to voice record you while we were sitting here.”“Yes.” Ares chuckled. “Do you know how many journalists pose as women who simply want to have coffee with me?”“Yes, but I’m not the one chasing you!” she protested. “You d
True to his word, Ares had called her but she’d declined each call. She’d also not answered any of his text messages and even refused to respond to the email he’d sent asking her to call him.Dimi stood in the doorway of her bedroom with a nervous smile, “well I’m off.”“Are you sure you want to do this?” Magda asked her curiously. “You could show up on Monday, tell him you want a divorce and be done with it. Why go through all this?”“Because I know my husband,” she sneered the word, “better than he knows himself. He always despised my pranks and tricks when we were kids. I’m older and my imagination is far more developed. He’s going to tow the company line because he believes in the Lykiaos legend. My dad wants us to give him a grandchild, preferably a son. I need him to hate me and want to divorce me so much he will go against my father and grant me my divorce.”
Stretching in bed in the morning, Magda felt her eyes were blurry and itchy as she rolled onto her belly. Sleep had eluded her late into the night and she had cried like a fool while Jinx the dog had licked her face. The dog had been great comfort in her misery while she’d sulked over what was never going to be. Why Ares Winter was so heavy on her mind and plaguing her heart was beyond her but she’d had an immediate and visceral reaction to him from day one of meeting him in the boardroom and she couldn’t shake it. Now she’d insulted him by calling him a whore and it was weighing on her. He was right. She had judged him for his past sexual experiences. If he had been a woman, she would have been going off about a woman’s right to have as many partners as she wanted but because he was a potential sexual partner for her, she was judging him and him calling her out had her feeling appropriately chastised. She sighed and rolled to her belly and checked her phone.
Ares rubbed his forehead as he waited for Magda to make the next move.He’d fucked up. He hadn’t meant to lose his temper with her but her constant attempts to push him away when he knew, deep down in his soul, they were meant to be together was frustrating as hell. He pulled a drawer open on his desk and looked in as a single knock hit his door.Jake walked into his office and flung himself down on the sofa. “I don’t like being your messenger boy.”“Consider it a punishment for being such an asshat yesterday. You searched her purse. How did she look?”“Tired and sweaty. She was leaving the gym. She was surprised but the look she shot me across the parking lot was something else.” He paused and grinned, “she flipped me off.”Ares chuckled, “she has quite a temper.”“Which makes me worried for you. She could snap and stab you.”Ares grimaced at hi
Arriving home from the Laskaris compound on Monday, Magda felt emotionally raw. Dimi’s family were scary as hell and after a hellish breakfast with her parents and then Dimi having an emotional meltdown in the car from Miklos’ new pursual of her, Magda felt she was carrying the weight of her friend’s sadness.As she exited the car, she noted the personal assistant who had met her outside the gym yesterday standing on her front step. Immediately she bristled with the intrusion of her privacy. How dare they?“What the fuck are you doing at my house?”“Mr. Winter asked me to deliver this,” the woman held out a note, her fingers shaking as she extended it towards Magda as if inherently aware the woman was about to blow.“I don’t give a shit if he asked you to deliver it or not! How the hell did he get my home address and why are you trespassing!” Magda’s emotions were raw and the woman visibly recoiled from Mag’s wrath.“Uh don’t shoot the messenger, Mags,” Dimi called out from behind her