Page 197 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8

Unseating him from that role was the first thing on Lottie’s list, and Jane couldn’t say she blamed her friend. For the more she’d read about Zeus Papandreo, the less she liked him. While she was motivated primarily by helping her friend, she also couldn’t resist the idea of taking him down a peg or two, for the sake of womankind. Men like him, who went through women as though they were worthless and good for one thing only, definitely deserved to have the tables turned from time to time. Out of nowhere, she thought of Steven—damn it, the last man she wanted to think of here and now—and her heart gave a familiar twist of pain, as sharp as it had been back then, as a seventeen-year-old, when he’d shattered it—and her—into a million pieces.

There was that old adage about time healing all wounds, but that was certainly not the case for Jane.

That particular emotional bruise was as tender now as it had been six years earlier. So, too, the pain her parents had inflicted over the years.

In her experience, some hurts just couldn’t be eased. It was better to accept that than try to fight it.

A low whistle caught her attention, and she glanced towards the bar, where two suited men were looking at her as though they’d just fronted up to a buffet and she was the main attraction. ‘Can we buy you a drink?’

‘No, thank you.’ She glanced beyond them. No sign of Zeus, so far. She strode beyond the men, not looking at them again, and found an empty spot down the other end. She ordered a mineral water—all the better to keep her wits about her. She opened up one of the news apps on her phone and began to read a long article on an overseas war, her gut rolling as the atrocities were described, and she felt that same yearning she’d known all her life to help.

‘You’re just like your father,’ her mother had cooed once, and Jane had shied away from the comparison, even when it had, on some level, pleased her. Because her father had definitely wanted to help the world. He had taken cases all over, fighting for the underprivileged, doing everything he could to make their lives better. But his calling for justice was so strong that he’d forgotten all about the daughter he was leaving to be raised in utter luxury—by nannies, household staff and boarding-school mothers.

It wasn’t much later when something made the hairs on the back of Jane’s neck stand on end. Though the crowd in the bar didn’t actually stop talking, she felt an eerie sense of silence descend, or her ears grew woolly, and she glanced up towards the door and saw the moment Zeus Papandreo strode in, every bit as world-owning as she had expected. Only, in that moment of crossing the threshold, before entering the bar, she saw something else, too. Something she was perhaps projecting onto him.

A look of burden.

A sense that he was carrying more than his fair share of worries.

A sense of brokenness.

It was gone in an instant, so thoroughly replaced by a look of arrogant command, that she thought she must have imagined it. He strode to the bar, easily clearing the way despite how crowded it was, gesturing towards the top of the shelves at a bottle of Scotch.

The barman, dressed in a white button-up shirt and vest turned, retrieved the bottle and poured a measure, sliding it across to Zeus with a polite nod.

Zeus took it, rested one elbow on the bar top and began to survey the room, just as Jane had done when she’d entered. She watched as he took notice of a group of women in the corner dressed in corporate clothes, so she presumed they’d come straight from the office. She saw the way his eyes lingered there a moment, one corner of his mouth lifting appreciatively, and her heart skipped a beat.

Showtime.

She straightened a little, pulling her silky blond hair over one shoulder, and positioning herself so the generous curve of her breasts against the silk of her camisole would be easily noticeable. Sure enough, the two men who’d offered to buy her a drink earlier glanced her way and she felt heat infuse her cheeks. For all she was willing to play the part of the vixen for Lottie, it was not a role Jane was particularly comfortable with.

She ran a finger down the side of her mineral water, making a show of tracing the condensation, then lifting her moist finger towards her mouth at the exact moment Zeus’s glance shifted over her. And back again. Their eyes met, but she didn’t slow her finger’s progress, even when the charge of realisation was akin to an electric shock.

His eyes.

His eyes were so…intense.

Dark and brooding, and beautifully shaped, with the kind of lashes she thought only existed in romance novels and movies, thick and dark and curling, giving the impression that he wore eyeliner.

They bore into her as though with just one look he could see the finer points of her soul.

She pressed her fingertip to her lips, let it hover there a moment before dropping it to the bar and offering a slightly dismissive smile. Coming on too strong with a man like Zeus wouldn’t work, she guessed. He was someone who liked to be in charge, who liked to do the chasing, and she somehow just knew that he would have been prey to enough money-hungry gold diggers in his time to spot one a mile off.

Play it cool,Lottie had advised, echoing Jane’s own judgement.Let him think he has to work for you. It will kill him. And he’s so damned stubborn, he won’t give up until he thinks he’s got you right where he wants you.

Jane sipped her mineral water, manicured nails curved around the cut-crystal glass, as the nearest bartender uncorked a bottle of expensive champagne and placed it in a cooler with two glasses. Jane returned her attention to her phone, but it didn’t last long. A moment later, the champagne ice bucket was placed directly in front of her. ‘Compliments of the gentleman over there,’ the barman said, nodding towards Zeus.

Her pulse flickered to life as she made a point of slowly, oh, so slowly, scanning the guests assembled at the bar before letting her gaze land on his face. One of his brows quirked upwards in a silent, flirtatious question. She responded in kind, offering a wry half smile and a ‘please explain’ expression.

No need to ask twice.

He strolled through the busy bar easily, but the bar itself was busy enough that in order to be next to her, he had to slide in close. So close she could feel his warmth and smell his tangy aftershave. So close she could see those magnificent eyes up close and marvel at the obsidian darkness of them. For a moment, she felt a rush of guilt for the deception she was about to try to perpetrate. But only a moment. Because wasn’t he doing exactly the same thing?

Lottie had explained the arcane inheritance clause very carefully. It wasn’t just Lottie who needed to get married in order to legally inherit the Papandreo Group, but Zeus as well. Meaning he was out here, no doubt looking for some poor woman he could con into agreeing to marry him, never mind how that might end up breaking her heart. If anything, Jane was doing her sisters a solid by foiling those plans. Because it would be much more devastating for a woman to be used by Zeus Papandreo than it could ever be for a man to be disappointed by Jane.

‘I haven’t seen you here before,’ he said, voice lightly accented, deep and husky. The hairs on her arms stood on end and she bit back a shiver, as he reached across her and took the champagne from the cooler, along with one of the glasses. ‘May I?’

Her pulse was strangely throbbing—courtesy of the plan, she assured herself. It didn’t matterwhyshe felt all lightheaded, though. She could make him believe the reason was his proximity, his masculine strength, his obvious attractiveness.