Page 5 of Modern Romance December 2025 1-4

She had a feeling that this boss, her ultimate boss, would prove much harder to wear down. Unlike the other bosses she’d been lumbered with—and the colleagues she’d been forced to work alongside—this one was proving a tough nut to crack. He hadn’t even raised his voice at her! Still, Athena was nothing if not tenacious, and the sooner she made Draco crack and fire her, the sooner she’d get her life back. Just look at what she’d achieved in a month! Six different departments, and now he’d run out of options for where to place her because no one else would have her and so he’d lumbered himself with her! He’d be throwing the billion-euro penalty at her brother before the week was out, possibly even the end of that very day if she played her cards right.

‘Just get yourself sorted. We leave in an hour.’

‘It takes that long to dry my hair.’

‘Don’t wash it then.’

She feigned horror. ‘Are you mad?’

There was a slight crinkling of the lines around his eyes, but his voice remained stern. ‘One hour, Athena. If you’re not dressed and ready in that time, I’ll dress you myself.’

She pouted her lips. ‘Ooh, I love it when you’re all masterful.’

He folded his arms across his impressive chest and pulled another unimpressed face.

She gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. ‘Okay, okay, I’ll go get ready.’

Bed hair swishing, she sauntered back to her bedroom figuring that as she’d been caught in unsexy oversized pyjamas, she might as well own it.

When the door closed, though, she stilled and let out a long breath. Her heart was beating even harder than it usually did around him. Probably latent embarrassment at the state of her apartment. Not that she would allow embarrassment to show. Athena didn’t do embarrassed. People could take her or leave her; she didn’t care. Most chose to leave. Actually, make thatallchose to leave. Which was fine by her because who needed people? Not her. Best to push them away before they got too close because the closer people got, the more it hurt when they left, and Athena did not do hurt, not since she was six when, as fate’s quirk would have it, Draco’s mother had been driven out of her life.

Athena hadn’t allowed herself to think about Cora Manolis for years, not until Draco Manolis made the business headlines with the billion-euro sale of his tech start-up company founded on a ten thousand euro investment. Since those headlines a good decade ago, their lives had skirted around each other, which was the way of the Athens society scene—everyone knew everyone even if they’d never been introduced—but the first time she’d voiced her belief that he was their old housekeeper’s son had been when Alexis announced he was selling Tsaliki Shipping to him. The scorn that had been heaped on her for this would have wounded if she allowed herself to feel pain. None of her family remembered Cora having a son and, as more than one of her brothers patronisingly reminded her, Greek women kept their surnames on marriage and Greek children took their father’s surnames. Rebecca, her English stepmother, had been the most scathing, saying, ‘If that cheap slut had a son, he would never have amounted to anything.’

‘Don’t you think due diligence means you should check if I’m right?’ Athena had said, addressing Alexis directly. ‘After all, why would a tech giant want to go into shipping?’

‘He wants to diversify. Draco has the funds and is proving himself receptive to my conditions, so stop trying to cause drama where there is none.’

‘What conditions?’ she’d asked, immediately suspicious.

Alexis had smiled, and not in a kindly way. ‘You will find out in due course.’

Well, due course had come about and here she was, evicted from the family home, stripped of her allowance and installed in this poky apartment with the order to work and fend for herself for three months so she couldappreciate the privileges of her life. And she was still convinced Draco was Cora’s son. He looked nothing like her—for which Athena was grateful as she didn’t think her stony-cold heart could bear it if he did—but there was something about him that felt so familiar, and if the others wanted to bury their heads in the sand about it then that was their problem. Whatever Draco’s real intention behind the purchase, it would come out, as her brother would put it, in due course, and if that due course should bring humiliation to the family then they couldn’t complain they hadn’t been warned. If she wasn’t so intent on getting herself sacked at the soonest opportunity, she’d use the fact she’d now be working at his side as a means to get sleuthing.

Athena was ready to go in forty-seven minutes. Not wanting Draco to think he’d got the better of her or that she had any intention of complying with his directives, she lay belly down on her bed for the next thirteen minutes drawing. Trying to draw. Draco was in her apartment, a fact that had made her shower and apply her make-up much more quickly than she usually did and was distracting her now.

Maybe, she mused, he disturbed her because he didn’t react to her antics in the usual way. His reactions were thoughtful. Calculated. He didn’t shout or show exasperation or even look as if he secretly itched to raise his hand to her. Maybe that was it—the way he looked at her. Draco had the brightest, bluest eyes she’d ever seen, and when they fixed on you it was like they pierced right through you. She remembered catching his eye once in a nightclub and experiencing that pierce. She’d turned away and continued dancing, but the sensation had lingered. Anyone would find that disturbing. Luckily, Athena was an expert at not letting her inner feelings show, and even more luckily, she’d be fired soon and would never have to be disturbed by him again.

Exactly one hour after she’d gone for her shower, there was a loud rap on her bedroom door and a rough, gruff voice called, ‘Are you ready?’

‘Nearly,’ she called back. ‘Two minutes.’

The door opened.

She looked up from her drawing book while hastily closing it. ‘Oi!’

Not stepping over the threshold, he pulled the familiar face. ‘Move.’

Huffing, she climbed off the bed.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’

‘Clothes. Work attire. Exactly as you ordered.’

‘Hot pants are not appropriate work attire.’

‘They’re not hot pants, they’re shorts.’ Very short shorts that she’d made even shorter by rolling the hem up. ‘And theyarework attire, see?’ She did a twirl. ‘See, they match.’ It had taken her hours to find this outfit, and she’d blown the last of her credit buying it. A tight, prim white shirt and brown waistcoat with tight shorts and tie a shade lighter, all complemented by white knee-high socks. ‘How can they not be appropriate? You can barely see my cheeks, and there is nothing in the company dress code that forbids women from wearing shorts, only men, which is a bit sexist when you think about it, but there you go.’

The rugged face she found far too disturbing for comfort was going through varying contortions, but the blue eyes she found even more disturbing were piercing her skin with the clear message that she might have beaten him at this particular game but that he’d be the winner of the next one.