Page 196 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

Jane gnawed on her lower lip, as thousands of late-night conversations flooded her brain. All the ideas they’d had over the years, for ways to help the less advantaged. Neither had ever really felt as though they belonged in the elite school community they’d attended. They were different to the other girls, and their strong sense of social conscience had driven both to pursue careers in the charity and not-for-profit sector, upon leaving school.

‘With you and me at the helm of the Papandreo Group, we could turn it on its head. Instead of seeking a gross amount of profits, we could make it our mission to divest. Everything.’

Jane gasped. ‘You’re talking about destroying it.’

‘Yes.’ Lottie’s face tightened with renewed determination. ‘It’s obscene for anyone to have that kind of money.’

Jane didn’t disagree.

‘But not just to be spiteful,’ Lottie promised. ‘Don’t get me wrong. I would enjoy every damned minute of pulling apart that business and selling it off and seeing the expressions on their faces as I did so,’ she said, cheeks flushed now at the very idea. ‘Mostly, though, it’s about the good we could do. This is everything we’ve always said we wanted, Jane. Everything.’

And it was. A thousand of their plans suddenly seemed viable and within reach. Jane’s breath came a little faster.

‘Okay.’ She squeezed Lottie’s hand. Because, when it came down to it, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her very best friend in the whole world. They’d been through too much together, knew too much about one another’s lives, pains, weaknesses, to ever walk away in a moment of need. ‘How can I help?’

‘I’m glad you asked, because actually, Idoneed your help…’

CHAPTER ONE

Jane’s legs werewobbling a week later, as she strode into the sleekly glamorous bar in the expensive business district of central Athens. Not from nerves, but from the experience of wearing sky-high heels for the first time in years. In fact, the whole outfit was well and truly outside of Jane’s comfort zone. She’d borrowed the whole ensemble from Lottie—who was far more at home in the latest fashions and had an eye for snatching things up from thrift shops, to meet her self-imposed budgetary restraints. At first, she’d thought she would be overdressed in the silky gold camisole top tucked into a white miniskirt, with strappy leather stilettos and a chunky golden necklace, but two steps into the bar and she saw that Lottie had chosen the perfect outfit.

This was not like their local Clapham pub, that was for sure. This place screamed highbrow, from the leather banquettes to the classy art on the walls and the subdued lighting.

She fought an urge to bite onto her lip, the gesture one of uncertainty that didn’t belong with this persona. Tonight she was Jane Fisher, confident daughter of one of the world’s most renowned human rights lawyers, graduate of an elite British public school and university, ready to take on the world.

Or rather, Zeus Papandreo.

‘I just need you to flirt with him a bit,’ Lottie had explained. ‘Make him, you know, fall in love with you.’

Jane had immediately balked. ‘I can’t just make him fall in love with me!’

Lottie snorted then. ‘Tell me the last time you looked at a guy twice who didn’t immediately want you to have his babies?’

Jane’s cheeks had flushed at her friend’s description. For Jane, who hated attention, she’d cursed the fact, many times over, that she’d inherited her socialite mother’s looks. Especially after Steven. ‘You know I don’t do serious.’

‘I know that, but he doesn’t. And he’ll be just as fallible to your charms as everyone else, I promise.’

‘How long do I need to do this for?’

‘Until I’m married,’ Lottie promised. ‘And believe me, I plan to work fast.’

Jane’s jaw had dropped. ‘You’re serious?’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll find someone suitable.’

‘Suitable? In weeks?’

‘How hard can it be? You get proposed to all the time,’ Lottie teased, then winced, because Jane had been proposed to twice, and both times had been disastrous—for Jane, who hated hurting anybody. ‘Sorry.’

She shook her head. ‘So, I just have to…’

‘Well, the way I see it, he’s going to be looking to get married, too,’ Lottie explained. ‘So, you just need to make him think you’re swallowing his act. He’ll probably be super charming, move quickly, so it won’t be hard. Just get him to think you’re buying it, that you’re keen to get married, but keep coming up with reasons to put it off—wanting your parents to meet him, that kind of thing. Basically, stall. Stall, stall, stall.’

And Jane had nodded, because how hard would that be? She just had to stop him from trying to hook up with anyone else and get them to marry him. Surely, she could do that?

‘You’ll have him eating out of the palm of your hand within hours—right where I need him. And I’ll owe you forever. I am sorry to ask this of you, Jane. I know… I know it will be hard for you. But you’re the only person I can trust. The only person who loves me enough to help me.’

Surreptitiously, Jane scanned the bar, looking for a glimpse of the man she now knew like the back of her hand, courtesy of Lottie and her wine-fuelled internet searching. They knew this bar was around the corner from his office, and that he’d been photographed leaving here with many beautiful women over the past few years, since he’d taken over as CEO of the Papandreo Group.