Page 4 of Marcellus: House of Drakos

“He had another family in Greece. A wife and children. When they first met he kept my mother in a little apartment and paid the bills so that she wouldn’t have to be on the streets anymore.

But mainly because anytime he came to town she would be available for him and him alone.

But as soon as she told him she was pregnant, he left, stopped paying the rent on the place, and never looked back.

She literally delivered me in the gutter, which was where I was raised.

The only golden spoon I would have had in my mouth when I was born was a rusty crackpipe. ”

Savannah was astonished. “Boy was I wrong.”

“Yes you were. But that’s what you get for judging somebody your ass don’t know.”

She didn’t expect him to still be offended by her misjudgment, but he was.

“What about you?” he asked her. “How was your upbringing?”

“My mother wasn’t on drugs and wasn’t a prostitute, she just couldn’t make ends meet.

She worked two jobs, but kept getting laid off.

We were mostly homeless and hungry throughout my childhood.

That’s why I had to stay employed when I got of age.

I couldn’t miss a beat because I had to help my mother out. I support both of us to this day.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. I never knew the man.”

Marcellus stared at her. Both of them were hard luck people. Maybe that was the real attraction. “What about your personal life? Ever got married? Have any kids?”

But Savannah was shaking her head before he could finish his questions.

“I’ll probably get married in a year or two.

I mean I have to. I always wanted to have a family before I was thirty, but that doesn’t look likely.

But I’ve got to find something better than what I’ve been seeing.

I refuse to have a baby with just anybody. ”

Marcellus smiled. “I wish I had that fortitude when I was your age.”

“Niko has a lot of siblings.”

Marcellus’s smile left. And he nodded. “Yes.”

“He said you have like five or six baby mamas, or something like that?”

“Five children. Four mothers. Which I’m not proud to admit. I started early, but I finished early too. I haven’t gone down that road in over a decade. My youngest is seventeen.”

“Niko said one of your baby mamas was a black woman.”

Marcellus nodded. “She is. She’s the mother of my two youngest children, Fredrick and Kalayna. Is that surprising to you that I would have black children?”

“It was before I met you.”

“Now that you’ve met me?”

“Not so much,” Savannah said. “But four baby mamas? I don’t care what color they are. That’s a lot. What are their ages?”

It wasn’t a subject he was comfortable discussing she could tell. But tough. “Olivier is twenty-four. Scotford is twenty-four. Nikolas is twenty-three. Fredrick is twenty. And my baby girl Kalayna is seventeen.”

Savannah was surprised. Niko had never mentioned twins. “You have twins?” she asked him delightedly. She always loved twins.

But Marcellus frowned. “Twins? Where did you get that from?”

“You said you had two children the same age. I assumed . . .” Then she realized what that meant. He didn’t have twins! He had two of his baby mamas pregnant at the exact same time. “Oh,” she said, when she realized her error.

Marcellus smiled a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. He was embarrassed himself that he would be that callous. Although, to his defense, he was only seventeen when he was sleeping around as if it was his job to populate the earth. “Does that disqualify me?” he asked her.

“Depends on what you’re trying to qualify for.”

Marcellus was as blunt as she was when he wanted to be. In that moment, he wanted to be. “Would I have a chance with you?” he asked her.

Savannah was stunned when he asked her that question. It hadn’t even entered her thought process. He seemed so out of reach! And all those baby mamas to contend with? And the age difference too?

When Marcellus saw her distress, he smiled it off even greater. “Don’t answer that,” he said. “I was only kidding.”

It seemed as if Savannah had sighed relief to Marcellus.

But Savannah might have looked that way, but a part of her was disappointed that he didn’t mean it.

She would have surely entertained it had he meant it.

Who wouldn’t? A uniquely gorgeous man like him?

And he wasn’t a bad person from what her instincts were telling her.

Maybe a whorish one, but not a bad one. She would have definitely gave it some consideration for his seeming goodness if nothing else. But he already shut the door.

But he kept coming back to the subject, she noticed. “Have you ever been in love, Savannah?”

“I thought I was a time or two,” she said, “until they showed me who they really were.”

“Which was?”

“Cheaters and liars every single one. I never been with a man that didn’t end up hurting me. I would say they broke my heart, but I careful not to get in that deep with them. Thank God they showed their true colors before I got in that deep.”

“That’s a sad commentary on those men,” said Marcellus.

Savannah frowned. Was he that blind or just plain stupid? “You, a man with five children from four women, don’t put yourself in that category?” she asked him.

“Me? No,” Marcellus said firmly. “I was never in a monogamous relationship. I told them that I was emotionally unavailable for them up front. I didn’t hurt anyone.

If they ended up hurt, it wasn’t because of anything I said or did.

It was because they didn’t believe what I said and did and thought they could change me. ”

“But you’ll never change,” said Savannah.

For some reason that comment hit Marcellus hard. He wasn’t the man she thought he was. “I would hope I will eventually. If you aren’t changing, you’re dying.”

Savannah didn’t expect to hear him say that. “I guess you’re right,” she said.

But that comment got Marcellus thinking. “How would you describe my relationship with my son? And don’t tell me you haven’t been around me long enough, because you have.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you that,” she said. “It doesn’t take long to size people up.”

Marcellus nodded. “Right you are. So what’s the verdict?”

“You love him. You just don’t have enough time for him.”

It was like another gut punch to Marcellus. “What’s that supposed to mean? I love my child. All of my children.”

“But love is time,” said Savannah. “It always has been. If you don’t give your time to a person, how can you profess to love them? How much time you give to somebody, is how much you love them. Period. Where your time is, that’s where your love is. Period.”

If she said period one more time, Marcellus was going to kick her ass. Who in the world did this chick think she was talking to?

But once his anger subsided, he knew who she was talking to. She was talking to that deep, dark part of him that nobody ever addressed. They knew it was there, but they didn’t have the balls to let him know that they knew it was there. She had balls.

But he wasn’t about to let her or any other human being go that deep with him. “What’s your favorite color?” he asked her.

Another surprise from him. She’d never met a man who was so interested in the details of her. Although she also knew it was a way to hide the details of him. But she liked his attention so she went along with it anyway. “I like the color purple,” she said. “You?”

“I like brown.”

Savannah smiled. “Okay.”

“Not like you mean,” he said, and they both laughed.

It was a joyful laugh. Marcellus didn’t remember the last time he laughed like that.

She had such potential in his eyes. No other woman had ever come close to the kind of potential he saw in her.

He could actually see himself proud to claim her as his own.

She would keep him on his toes, that was for damn sure.

There wouldn’t be a dull moment with a woman like her.

He could see her as the one and only Mrs. Marcellus Drakos, he truly could.

Which was so crazy to him that it was scary to him.

He wasn’t in the market for a wife! Why would he even think such a thing?

Maybe it was the loneliness. In truth, he was tired of being alone.

He paid women to be with him, when he had to have somebody, rather than go through the motions of a relationship with someone who was with him only for the power and position and money he could give to them.

That kept his heart secured. But it did nothing for his happiness.

He didn’t know what it meant to be joyous.

As he was getting older, it was getting to him.

After nearly two hours of talking and getting to know each other, and Niko still hadn’t woke up once, they both concluded that he was out for the night. They both stood. They both stretched. And they said their goodnights in the living room.

Since it was a two-bedroom apartment, Savannah made her way to the guest bedroom down the hall while Marcellus made his way to the sofa.

But it wasn’t lost on either one of them when Savannah made it to the bedroom door and looked back, Marcellus was already staring at her.

Something past between them. Something quite sensual.

But it was as if they both knew that was dynamite that could blow up in their faces.

She went on into the bedroom and closed the door, and he bunched some sofa pillows beneath his head and laid on his back.

But he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

Savannah Richardson. He even pulled out his phone and Googled her.

The only mention he saw of her was a post about how she was the secretary at the House of Drakos, which was the name Niko used for his fashion house.

His brand, however, was Nikolas Blaise, which Blaise was his middle name.

But he could find nothing else on her. Which made him feel foolish looking her up.