The Antonides Marriage Deal Read online

  Socrates had beamed, the way a shark must beam when an unsuspecting little fish swims straight into his mouth. Tallie knew it. She could almost hear his jaws snap shut. But she didn’t care.

  Whatever agenda her father had in offering her this job, she had her own agenda—to do the best damned job she could do and prove to him that she was worthy of his trust.

  The two weeks she had to spend working out her notice at Easley’s had given her time to break in a replacement and do a crash course of reading everything she could get her hands on about Antonides Marine International.

  What she’d learned about its history had made her even more eager to get to work. It was an old and respected boat-building company that had fallen on hard times and over the past eight years had been in the process of righting itself and moving ahead. While there was no change in leadership—Aeolus Antonides was still president (until today!)—his son had been running things. And apparently the son had done rather well. He’d economized and streamlined things, getting back to basics, redefining and refocusing the company’s mission. Recently she’d read that AMI appeared poised to branch out, to test the waters in areas other than strictly marine construction. It was on the brink of expansion.

  Tallie could hardly wait to be part of the process.

  And now, she thought as she stood on the pavement and stared up at the old Brooklyn warehouse that was the home of the offices of Antonides Marine International, she was.

  Amazingly the address was only nine blocks from her flat. She had expected some mid-Manhattan office building. Six months ago, she knew, she would have been right. But then AMI had moved across the East River to Brooklyn.

  Tallie understood it was a cost-cutting move. But there was a certain rightness to it being here in DUMBO, the neighborhood acronym for its location “down under the Manhattan Bridge.”

  DUMBO was a vital, happening place—lots of urban renewal going on, considerable gentrification of the old brownstones and even older warehouses that sat on or near the edge of the East River. It was that energy, as well as the more reasonable rents, that had drawn her to DUMBO. She imagined it had drawn the management of AMI as well.

  But looking around in the crisp early morning light, Tallie could see that it belonged here anyway, in the old five-story brick warehouse in the process of being restored. Within sight of the old Navy Shipyards, it was where a shipbuilding company—even the corporate offices thereof—ought to be.

  Feng shui, her friend Katy who knew these things, would have said. Or maybe that was just inside buildings and where you put your bed. But it felt right. And that made Tallie smile and feel even better.

  She was early—way early—but she couldn’t wait any longer. She pushed open the door and went in.

  It was like stepping across the ocean. Expecting the traditional neutral business environment, she was startled to find herself in a foyer painted blue—and not the soft pale blue one usually found on walls—but the deep vibrant blue of the Mediterranean. From floor to ceiling there was blue sea and blue sky—and dotted here and there were brown islands out of which seemed to grow impossibly white buildings and blue-domed churches. All very simple and spare, and almost breathtaking in its unexpectedness. And in it appropriateness.

  Tallie had never been to the Greek homeland of her forebears. She’d never had time. But she knew it at once and found it drawing her in. Instinctively she reached out a finger and traced the line of rooftops, then a bare hillside, then one lone white building at the far end of one island. As if it were a sentry. A lookout.

  She’d never particularly wanted to go to Greece. It had seemed the source of all the tradition she’d spent her life battling. But now she could see there was more to it than that. And suddenly the notion tempted her.

  But not as much as punching the elevator button and hitting 3.

  The elevator was apparently part of the refurbishment, all polished wood and carpet that still smelled new. When the door slid open three floors later she saw that the renovation was still a work in progress. The floor was bare, unfinished wood. The walls were plastered but unpainted. She could hear hammering coming from behind a closed door down the hall.

  She thought briefly that whoever was doing it, she’d have to get his name and pass it on to her landlord. Arnie was trying to get some renovations done on one of the apartments and couldn’t find a workman who would show up before noon.

  She passed several offices—an accountant, a magazine publisher, a dentist—before she found the new heavy glass door of Antonides Marine International. The door was locked. At six-forty in the morning she could hardly expect otherwise.

  No matter. She had a key. A key to her company. Well, a key to the company she was president of.

  Now all she had to do was prove herself worthy of it.

  Taking a deep breath and feeling the rightness of the moment, Tallie set her briefcase down and shifted the bag in her arm to get out the key. Then she turned it in the lock, pushed open the door and went in.

  She was late.

  First day on the job and the new hotshot president of Antonides Marine couldn’t even be bothered to show up!

  Elias prowled his office, coffee mug in hand, grinding the teeth with which he’d intended to take a bite out of her. So much for the “eager beaver” his father had assured him Socrates insisted she was.

  He supposed he ought to be pleased. If she wasn’t there, she couldn’t screw things up. He’d spent the past two weeks trying to make sure she had as little opportunity to interfere as possible.

  Once it had been clear that there was no way out of the mess his father had created, Elias had done his best to limit the damage. That meant defining the limits of the problem and making sure it didn’t get bigger. So he’d readied the big office overlooking the river—the one he’d hoped to move into someday but which was too far from the hub of the office to be practical now. That was for when things were running themselves.

  Or for when he was running them and needed to stick a figurehead president as far from the action as possible, he thought grimly. With her conveniently out of the way, he could get on with running the company. Which he ought to be doing right now, damn it! But he wanted her settled and disposed of first.

  He had expected she’d at least be there by nine, but it was already half past. He’d been at his desk since eight, ready to deal with the interloper. Rosie, his assistant, had been there when he came in and had coffee brewing—obviously trying to impress the new “boss.”

  She told him to make his own damn coffee on a daily basis. She’d even put a plate of fancy cookies by the coffeemaker.

  Elias had considered giving her grief over them, but they were damn good. Some buttery chocolate kind with a hint of cinnamon, and some with almonds, and the traditional American favorite, peanut butter criss-cross.

  His stomach growled now just thinking about them, and he went out to snatch another one only to find everyone else already there.

  His normally spit-and-polished researcher, Paul Johanssen, was talking with his mouth full. Lucy, who oversaw the contracts and accounting, was deciding to go on her diet tomorrow. Dyson, who did blueprints and development for AMI projects, had crumbs in his mustache, and even the temp steno girls, Trina and Cara and the very-pregnant-and-about-to-deliver-any-moment Giulia were sneaking into reception to steal a cookie or two.

  Elias thought it was no wonder Rosie had always refused to even make coffee in the office. If they’d known the extent of her talents, they wouldn’t have let her do anything else.

  Well, Ms Thalia Savas was sure to be impressed—provided she managed to show up before the coffee and cookies were gone.

  But he was done waiting. It was time she realized this wasn’t business school. Real work got done in the real world.

  “We’ll go into the boardroom,” he said to Paul and Dyson. They jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice, and Paul surreptitiously wiped his mouth.

  Elias grinned, taking a bit
of perverse satisfaction in the tardy Ms Savas missing out on the cookies made especially for her. Not to mention that Rosie had gone to all that trouble only to have her efforts gobbled up by the rest of the staff.

  “Very impressive,” he said as he passed her on his way to the boardroom. “I can see why you don’t do it all the time.”

  Rosie looked up. “I didn’t do it at all.”

  Elias gave her a sceptical look, but she stared him down so sternly that he turned to Paul. “Don’t tell me you baked them?”

  Paul laughed. “I can’t boil water.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Dyson backed away, shaking his dreadlocks and grinning.

  “Maybe the new girl made them,” Trina suggested as she headed back to her office with her arms full of files.

  “What new girl?” Elias knew they were going to send one to fill Giulia’s spot, but he didn’t know she’d arrived.

  “I guess that would be me.” A cheerful, unfamiliar voice from the hallway made them all turn around. She was not the usual temp agency girl. She was older for one thing. Late twenties probably. She didn’t resemble a stick insect, either. She was slender but definitely curvy. She also wasn’t wearing a nose ring or sporting a hank of blue hair. Her hair, in fact, though pulled back and tied down and even anchored, had a will of its own. And even the army of barrettes she’d enlisted to tame it wasn’t up to the job. Her hair was thick and wild and decidedly sexy.

  She looked as if she’d just got out of bed.

  Elias found himself imagining what she would be like in bed. The thought brought him up short. He was as appreciative of a beautiful woman as the next man, but he didn’t usually fantasize about taking them to bed within moments of meeting them.

  Then Ms Temp smiled brightly at him, at the same time giving her head a little shake so that her hair actually danced. And the urge to pull out those pins and tangle his fingers in that glorious hair hit him harder.

  He shoved his hands in his pockets. He knew better than to mix business and pleasure.

  “You made the cookies?” he demanded.

  She nodded, still smiling. “Did you like them?”

  “They’re good,” he acknowledged gruffly. But he didn’t want her getting the idea she could use them as a ticket to something more. “But they aren’t necessary. You only have to do your job.”

  “My job?” She looked blank.

  So she had a temp brain apparently. “Filing,” he said patiently. “Typing. Doing what you’re told.”

  “I don’t type. I hate to file. And I rarely do what I’m told,” she said cheerfully.

  Elias frowned. “Then what the hell are you doing here?”

  She stuck out her hand to shake his. “I’m Tallie Savas. The new president. It’s nice to meet you.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  DAMN Socrates, anyway.

  One look at Elias Antonides and Tallie knew she’d been had. So much for her father finally taking her seriously.

  Now she knew what he was really up to. The presidency of Antonides Marine was nothing more than a means to throw her into the path of a Greek god in khakis and a blue oxford cloth shirt.

  Elias Antonides was definitely that—an astonishingly handsome Greek god with thick, wavy, tousled black hair, a wide mobile mouth, strong cheekbones and an aquiline nose that was no less attractive for having been rearranged at some earlier date. Its slight crook only made him look tough and capable—like the sort of god who could quell sea monsters on the one hand while sacking Troy on the other.

  And naturally he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, which just confirmed her suspicions. Well, she certainly couldn’t say her father didn’t have high aspirations.

  But he must have lost his mind to imagine that a hunk like Elias Antonides would be interested in her!

  In the looks department, Tallie knew she was decidedly average. Passable, but certainly not head-turning. Some men liked her hair, but they rarely liked the high-energy, high-powered brain beneath it. More men liked her father’s money, but they seldom wanted to put up with a woman who had a mind of her own.

  Only Brian had loved her for herself. And until she found another man who did, she wasn’t interested.

  When the right man came along, he wouldn’t be intimidated by her brain or attracted only by her hair or her father’s millions. He would love her.

  He certainly wouldn’t be looking at her, appalled, as Elias Antonides was, like she was something nasty he’d found on the bottom of his shoe. At least she didn’t have to worry that Elias was in on her father’s little game.

  But if he found her presence so distasteful, why hadn’t he just told her father—and his—no? As managing director—not to mention the man who had pulled Antonides Marine back from the edge of the financial abyss over the past eight years—surely he had some say in the matter.

  Maybe he was just always surly.

  Well, Tallie wasn’t surly, and she was determined to make the best of this as a business opportunity, regardless of what her father’s hidden agenda was.

  So she grabbed Elias’s hand and shook it firmly. “You must be Elias. I’m glad to meet you at last. And I’m glad you liked the cookies. I thought I should begin as I mean to go on.”

  “Making cookies?” He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind, then scowled, his brow furrowing, which would have made the average man look baffled and confused. It made Elias Antonides look brooding and dangerous and entirely too tempting. Silently Tallie cursed her father.

  “Yes,” she said firmly. “I’ve always found that people like them—and so they enjoy coming to work.”

  Elias’s brows lifted, and he looked down his patrician nose at her. “Enjoyment is highly overrated, Ms Savas,” he said haughtily.

  Tallie let out a sigh of relief. Oh, good, if he was going to be all stiff and pompous, he would be much easier to resist.

  “Oh, I don’t agree at all,” she said frankly. “I think it’s enormously important. If employee morale is low,” she informed him, “the business suffers.”

  His teeth came together with a snap. “Morale at Antonides Marine is not low.”

  “Of course it isn’t,” Tallie agreed. “And I want to keep it that way.”

  “Cookies do not make morale.”

  “Well, they don’t hurt,” she said. “And they certainly improve the quality of life, don’t you think?” She glanced around at the group who had been scarfing down her best offering and was gratified to see several heads nod vigorously.

  A glare from Elias brought them to an abrupt halt. “Don’t you have work to do?” he asked them.

  The heads bobbed again, and the group started to scatter.

  “Before you go, though,” Tallie said. “I’d like to meet you.”

  Elias didn’t look pleased, but he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stood silently while she introduced herself to each one, shook hands and tried to commit all their names to memory.

  Paul was blond and bespectacled and crew-cut and personified efficiency. “I hope you’ll be very happy here,” he told her politely.

  Dyson was black with flying dreadlocks and a gold hoop earring. “You’re good for my morale,” he told her with a grin, and snagged another cookie.

  Rosie was short and curvy with flame-coloured hair. It was her job, she said, to keep everyone in line. “Even him.” She jerked her head at Elias. “I never make coffee,” she told Tallie. “Or cookies.” Then she confided that she might—if she could have these recipes.

  “Sure, no problem,” Tallie said.

  Lucy wore her silver hair in a bun and had a charm bracelet with a charm for every grandchild. Trina had long black hair with one blue streak, while Cara’s was short and spiky and decidedly pink. Giulia looked as if she were going to deliver triplets any minute.

  “Boy or girl?” Tallie asked her.

  “Boy,” Giulia said. “And soon, I hope,” she added wearily. “I want to see my feet.”

  Tallie laughed. “My fri
end Katy said the same thing.”

  They were a nice group, she decided after she’d chatted with them all. Friendly, welcoming. Everyone said they were happy to have her. Well, everyone except Elias Antonides.

  He never said a word.

  Finally, when the group began to head back to their various jobs, she looked at him. He was studying her as if she were a bomb he had to defuse.

  “Perhaps we should talk?” she suggested. “Get acquainted?”

  “Perhaps we should,” he said, his voice flat. He raked a hand through his hair, then sighed and called after Paul and Dyson, “Just keep going on the Corbett project. We’ll meet later.”

  “If you need to meet with them, don’t let me interrupt,” Tallie said.

  “I won’t.”

  No, not really very welcoming at all.

  But Tallie persisted, determined to get a spark of interest out of him. “I apologize for not letting you know I was already here,” she said. “I came in about seven. I could hardly wait,” she confided. “I was always getting to school on the first day hours early, too. Do you do that?”

  “No.”

  Right. Okay, let’s take a different tack.

  “I found my office. Thank you for the name plaque, by the way. I don’t think I’ve ever had a plaque before. And thank you for all the fiscal reports. I got them from my father, so I’d already read them and I have a few questions. For example, have you considered that Corbett’s, while a viable possible acquisition, might not be the best one to start with? I thought—”

  “Look, Ms Savas,” he said abruptly, “this isn’t going to work.”

  “What isn’t going to work?”

  “This! This question-and-answer business! You baking cookies, for God’s sake, then coming in with questions concerning things you know nothing about! I don’t have time for it. I have a business to run.”

  “A business I am president of,” she reminded him archly.

  “On account of a bet.”

  Tallie stopped dead. “Bet? What bet?”

  Hard dark eyes met hers accusingly. “You don’t know?”