The Greek Tycoon's Ultimatum. Lucy Monroe
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hand. Exhaustion dragged at Savannah and she looked forward to a shower with almost religious fervor.
She could have taken one on the plane, but had not wanted to wake Eva and Nyssa any sooner than she had to. Wound up by the excitement of flying in an airplane, they had not made proper use of the plane’s bedroom until an hour before landing.
When they reached customs, she was given VIP treatment and rushed through, an example of Leiandros’s power and far reaching influence. It increased the sense of a trap closing around her she’d had since stepping onto his private jet.
As she stepped into the main terminal, she forced her weary eyes to focus on the scene around her. The new airport was all modern glass and streamlined walkways, but still incredibly crowded. She sighed and shifted her grip on Nyssa. Her arms felt like two strands of pasta cooked al dente.
Even as her gaze swept the crowded terminal, she felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Turning her head slightly to the right, she met the dark, inscrutable gaze of Leiandros Kiriakis himself and she stopped. Not voluntarily. Her legs simply quit working.
She hadn’t expected to see him until the next day.
The flight attendant paused beside her, forcing the stream of air passengers to break and flow around them. “Mrs. Kiriakis? Is something wrong?”
Savannah could not make her lips form words. Her entire being was caught up in this first sight of Leiandros Kiriakis in a year. His black hair had been cut to lie close to the sculpted lines of his head. His sensual lips set in a grim line, his eyes betrayed nothing. He made no move to come toward them, but seemed content to wait, towering with unconscious arrogance above the sea of humanity that welled around him.
Taking a tighter hold on her sleeping daughter, she stepped forward only to bump into another passenger. “Excuse me. I’m sorry.”
The woman she’d bumped ignored Savannah and scurried away toward the luggage carousel.
A large man who looked like a Greek Sumo wrestler barreled into her from behind. Stumbling, she feared she would lose her hold on Nyssa when two strong hands gripped her upper arms and steadied her. How had he gotten to her so quickly?
“You’re dead on your feet, Savannah. Let me take the child.” Leiandros moved one hand from her arm to Nyssa’s back.
Without conscious volition, Savannah yanked herself and her daughter out of touching distance from Leiandros. “No. I can carry her, but thank you,” she tacked on belatedly.
His eyes narrowed.
“Mama…” Eva’s tentative interruption saved Savannah from whatever Leiandros had planned to say.
Savannah turned her attention gratefully to her daughter. “Yes, sweet pea?”
“I’m tired. May I go to bed now?”
“It will be a little while before we reach your bed, but you can sleep in the car. The seats are big enough for a little girl like you to treat them like a bed,” Leiandros said.
“I’m five,” Eva announced.
His mouth quirked. “If you are five, you must be Eva. I am Leiandros Kiriakis.”
Eva’s head tipped back and she measured him with a drowsy but direct look. “Kiriakis is my name, too.”
He squatted down until his face was almost level with that of Savannah’s serious little daughter. He matched Eva’s grave expression. His mouth curved into a devastating smile. “So it is. That is because we are family.”
Eva tugged her hand away from the flight attendant’s and sidled next to Savannah, taking a grip on the loose fabric of her crushed silk trousers. “Is he my family, Mama?”
Leiandros’s eyes blasted Savannah with sulfuric fury briefly as he straightened to stand at his full impressive six feet four inches. He seemed to be daring her to deny the link to her daughter, which she had no intention of doing.
She hadn’t been the one to deny her daughters’ family ties. “Yes, darling, your father was his cousin.”
“Does he look like my father?” Eva asked.
Leiandros speared Savannah with another look of censure.
“You’ve seen pictures, what do you think?” Savannah replied, letting her daughter draw her own conclusions.
She felt Eva’s head shift against her thigh as the little girl nodded her head. “But maybe he’s bigger.”
Eva put her hand on Nyssa’s small leg dangling over Savannah’s arm. “This is Nyssa. She’s four.”
He acknowledged the introduction with a devastating smile.
“Now that we are acquainted, it is time we left. Felix will take care of the luggage,” he said, indicating a short, stocky man standing several paces away near another very muscular man, only a couple of inches shorter than Leiandros.
Leiandros led them outside and Savannah blessed the lightweight nature of her crushed silk pantsuit when the hot Greek air blasted her as they stepped out of the air-conditioned environs of the recently completed airport. While the heat wasn’t so very different from Georgia, the sun’s impact felt stronger.
As they approached a black limousine with darkly tinted windows, the chauffeur opened the back door while another man stood sentry on the driver’s side. He and the man with Felix were no doubt part of Leiandros’s security team.
Savannah motioned Eva to climb in first. She did, taking Leiandros at his word and making herself comfortable for sleep on the far side of the seat, leaving enough space for Savannah to lay Nyssa’s dozing form down as well. Another wave of exhaustion rolled over her and Savannah wished she could join Nyssa in her peaceful slumber. Within fifteen minutes of leaving the airport, Eva had done so.
“Sleep if you wish. I will not be offended,” Leiandros offered. “The trip is a long one from the airport.”
Savannah swallowed a yawn. “I didn’t think it was that far from the city.”
“It is not, but there is road construction.” He shrugged. “It will take us at least two hours to reach the villa.”
She’d been relaxing against the seat, preparing to take him up on his advice to pass the time sleeping when he made that comment. She sat straight up and twisted her body until she could look him full in the face.
“What villa? I thought we were staying at a hotel.”
“You are family. You will stay with family.”
There was that word again, but Savannah had had enough experience her first time around in Greece with the dutiful ties of the Kiriakis family not to trust them.
“You promised me the girls would not have to see their grandparents until we discussed it,” she accused him in a fierce whisper, not wanting to wake her daughters to hear this particular argument. “I insist you take us to a hotel.”
“No.”
“No? No! How dare you do this? You promised.” She settled back against the seat with her arms crossed. “I knew I couldn’t trust a Kiriakis.”
That seemed to get him, because his hands curled into fists at his side and his face looked hewn from rock.
“You will not be staying with Helena and Sandros.”
“You said we’d be staying with family, at the villa.” As the words left her lips, an awful thought occurred to her. “You want us to stay at your villa on Evia Island? With you?”
His brows rose in sardonic challenge. “My mother is also staying at the villa. She will be sufficient chaperone.”
“Chaperone? I don’t need a chaperone. I need privacy. I need to stay in a hotel.”
“Relax, Savannah. There is no reason to shout about it.