Forever and Ever, My Greek Billionaire
FOREVER AND EVER, MY GREEK BILLIONAIRE
BY MARIAN TEE
About Forever and Ever, My Greek Billionaire
Her billionaire ex-lover wants her back, but not as his secretary.
It would be so easy for 24-year-old Willow Somerset to give in to Stavros Manolis' demands. But she knows if they're to have a chance on a happy-ever-after, she needs to keep pushing him away. She needs to let him believe she's betrayed him until he finds out the truth for himself.
And that was that she loved him, always had, and always will.
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FOREVER AND EVER, MY GREEK BILLIONAIRE
BY MARIAN TEE
Copyright 2015 by Streak Digital Publishing
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
PROLOGUE
Recommended Playlist:
Cover by Max Schneider and Megan Nicole – Let’s Stay Together
Lana del Rey - Young and Beautiful
Dionne Warwick – Walk On By
Angela Bofill – This Time I’ll Be Sweeter
Michael Jackson – I Just Can’t Stop Loving You
Bending down to give her shoelaces one last yank, making sure they were tied tightly, Willow straightened and clicked Play on her watch.
As light but soulful music floated into her ears, she put her hood up and began to jog.
Her feet pounded on the street, unconsciously falling in rhythm with the beats of the song and the drops of water hitting the pavement. The world was a haze, people, objects, and structures reduced into a mixture of blurry colors that her tear-filled eyes couldn’t quite comprehend.
She kept running, freely, unthinkingly.
Or at least she thought it was so until Willow realized where her feet had taken her. A café, empty now because of the storm that threatened to make its way across the Mediterranean.
Willow stumbled to a stop.
Rain continued to pour around her, making the café’s interior indistinct. She pressed her hands to her eyes, but it was no use. She could see just fine with her mind, lost as she was in the memories.
Stavros was seated in front of her, a look of puzzlement in his eyes as he asked, ‘I thought you were ordering for both of us?’
She remembered how beautiful he looked, especially when he had that bemused expression on his face, which almost no one was able to see. She remembered her heart racing at the look, and her heart started to race now.
‘I did.’ That had been her answer, and she remembered smiling slyly as she dropped the bomb on Stavros. ‘We’re sharing.’
And, oh, the look on his face when he heard the words – it was as if Stavros wanted to haul her into his lap and either kiss her senseless or give her bottom a good beating.
Either way, she would have welcomed it.
Then.
Or now.
Slowly, she started to jog again, leaving the memories behind, where they belonged.
****
The next day, Willow took another route. The rain hadn’t really stopped, falling in intermittent bursts and casting a dreary atmosphere all over the city. The same song played in her ears as she ran. It was an old song covered by emerging artists whose roots came from YouTube, and their soft, crooning voices soothed her, lulling Willow into thinking today would be different.
But it wasn’t.
When she paused for breath after half an hour of jogging, her face whitened when she realized where she was.
No.
Please, no.
But there it was, the hotel where Damen and Mairi Leventis had their party – and where she and Stavros had met for the second time.
And before she knew it, she was remembering. Even when she didn’t want to, the memories were there, an inescapable agony that never really stopped hurting.
I want you, Willow Somerset.
His smoldering eyes, his low, growling voice, and the heat of his touch as he held her hand when saying the words. She remembered all of it, and the agonizing clarity hurt.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for her player and hit the Pause button. She had something so much more beautiful to listen to.
Willow closed her eyes.
I want you, Willow Somerset.
I want you, Willow Somerset.
I want you, Willow Somerset.
The tears fell once more, mingling with the rain.
****
It happened again and again. Each day she took a different route, but there just seemed no way to hide from the past. The restaurant where she bungled her first job as Stavros’ secretary. The hotel where she redeemed herself. The racetrack where she and Stavros met again…
Each and every place had its own memories, but nothing – nothing hurt more than finding herself in front of Stavros Manolis’ corporate headquarters and remembering the last words they had spoken to each other.
The moment she realized where she was, her limbs lost all its function, rendering her pale and motionless as she stared up unseeingly at the skyscraper that belonged to one of the word’s most successful billionaires.
Stavros.
In the back of her mind, silence buzzed.
There was no jackhammer drilling threateningly in the background, and it was all because she had no heart left to destroy. She had torn it to pieces herself the last time.
‘You’re right not to trust me.’
She remembered the way Stavros’ head had shot up at her tremulous admission, and her knees started to shake.
‘Everything was a lie.’
Willow choked at the memory, her hand burning as if it remembered the feel of the envelope she had taken as proof of her betrayal.
She tried to stop crying. She almost succeeded. Until she remembered the way Stavros had stopped her from taking the envelope, his grip on her wrist as desperately tight as his voice when he asked her, ‘What are you talking about?’
She remembered the pained disbelief in his eyes, and it was all over for her. Even with no damn thunderstorm to hide her tears, it was all over. She started to cry, in broad daylight, in public, in front of his own damn building.
Hand shaking, she reached for the player attached to her wrist to turn up the volume to max. She wanted to drown her ears with the music so she couldn’t hear anything else, couldn’t think or feel anything else except the song filling her ears.
But it didn’t work.
And soon, she couldn’t hear the song at all.
Soon, all Willow could hear were her own despairing thoughts, voiceless prayers that she recited every night as she cried herself to sleep.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Please don’t go to someone else until you realize that I never stopped loving you.
Please.
Chapter One
[No expense was spared for Willow’s sendoff party. She had insisted on this herself and didn’t allow her father to contribute a single euro to it. She wanted the affair to be a night to remember, wanted it so fun and chaotic that maybe for her it would be the opposite, and the party could make her forget.
The lights in the nightclub she had rented for the night were a disorienting array of bright, blinking colors, the music deafening, the drinks overflowing. Everyone was laughing and screaming to make themselves heard. Everyone dazzled in their jewelry and their clothes. Strangers all of them, friends of friends, clients and partners at Hamnet – she hadn’t really been picky when it came to sending out invitations.
She wanted herself surrounded.
She was now, but she had never felt so alone.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
She clung to it like always, saying the word over and over in her mind just so she could at least have something to do – anything except remember what she didn’t want to remember. Over and over, the word played in her mind as she forced herself to mingle. She smiled, she laughed, she danced – she was a Willow Somerset that no one had ever seen before.
Everyone loved this new Willow, and she had never hated herself more.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiit.
Her hand started to move, reaching for her purse, where her phone was. She had her favorite songs reserved there – her own version of coping. As long as she listened to the songs, she could pretend that everything would be okay.
One day, she would have him back in her life.
Her hand found her phone inside her bag.
One day.
But it was too late. The songs couldn’t help her now, not when she heard a familiar voice utter her name. “Willow.”
****
Stavros knew he wasn’t supposed to be there. If he had a fucking ounce of pride left in him, he would have been as far away from this place as possible, preferably in the company of other women, just to show that life still went on for him.
But no, he had done the opposite.
Despite learning she had fooled him all along, had used him to get a publishing deal with Willem de Konigh – none of it seemed to make a difference. He was empty without her. And he was sick of the feeling.
“Willow.” He said her name more for his benefit than anything else. He looked at her, and even with her back to him, she was still the most beautiful person in his eyes. The way her dark hair fell in thick, shiny waves against her back, the way her sequined dress clung to her shapely curves—
Every inch of her was perfect.
With her this close, he could no longer stop himself.
He had to touch her.
He just fucking had to.
“Willow.” As he said her name, his fingers wrapped around her wrist, and he spun her around so their eyes could meet.
The hot, familiar feel of the hand gripping her wrist knocked the breath out of Willow. Before she knew what was happening, she was already facing him, their eyes clashing in an instant.
Oh.
For one painful moment, all she could do was stare. Oh God, how she stared. She missed everything about him, missed the time when she could stare at him all she wanted.
He was gorgeous all over. His silky black hair, his perfectly arched, oh-so-expressive eyebrows, his dark eyes, his high-bridged nose, his aristocratic cheeks, his lovely thin lips, his hard jaw…
She wanted, needed, wished she could stare at him forever.
She was this close to begging.
But then she saw it –
The mistrust in his eyes that Stavros couldn’t quite hide—
And she knew it just wasn’t time for her to beg.
“You’re really going then?” Stavros knew he wasn’t supposed to ask that either. But he had to. He wanted to give her another chance to take it all back, wanted to give her even just the chance to lie and keep pretending she hadn’t stayed with him for the fucking opportunity to get the contract with Willem de Konigh.
It wasn’t Stavros’ question that had Willow biting her lip, hard enough for her to taste the blood in her mouth.
You’re really going then?
No. It was his voice. Oh God, his voice.
Shiiiiiiiit.
Why did he have to sound like that? A perfect Greek billionaire like him wasn’t supposed to sound so dead.
I’m sorry, Stavros.
She had to say it, even if it was just an unheard whisper from her heart. She had to say it, knowing that what she was about to say and do would hurt him. Again.
She stared straight into his haunted eyes – she wanted him to know she kn
ew he was hurting – and then slowly, her lips moved in an uncomfortable smile.
The smile said it all, and everyone who cared to look would know what it meant.
If you’re here to beg me to come back…
Awkward.
Stavros’ jaw clenched. “I see.”
I’m sorry, Stavros. She whispered the words fiercely even as she raised a brow at him, mockingly. Do you? She wanted, needed him to hate her. Hate her so much he wouldn’t ever forget her. Hate her so much he would realize one day how much she loved him.
One day, he would understand that all of this was for him. That even though it hurt to have him hate her, she would welcome the pain over and over if it meant that he would one day be free of all the scars that his own parents had left.
Walk away. That was the only fucking thing left for him to do. But instead, Stavros heard himself ask in a lifeless voice, “What do I have to say, Willow?” He had no fucking pride left. Nothing. “What do I have to do so you won’t leave?”
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit
She screamed the word in her mind, but this time it wasn’t enough. No matter how loud she screamed it inside her, it just wasn’t enough, wasn’t loud enough to block out the sound of pain in his voice, the look of devastation in his eyes.
Oh God, she wanted to go to him.
She wanted to sink to her knees and beg him to forgive her, to make Stavros understand that all of this was for him.
And for one moment, temptation won.
She looked at Stavros and tried to say everything with her eyes.
Stavros, I love you.
I’m doing this for you.
I love you, I love you, I love you.