Page 98 of Modern Romance September 2025 5-8
CHAPTER SIX
For the second night in a row, Zeus couldn’t sleep.
It had been hard enough the night before, when they’d kissed in the bar, but after everything that had happened between them in her hotel—and what specifically hadn’t happened—he had a raging hard-on and an insatiable need for a woman he hadn’t even known for seventy-two hours.
Right when he needed to be his most pragmatic self, it was like the universe, or fates, had conspired to send him a vixen—a woman who pushed all of his buttons.
Sexy, beautiful, intelligent and vulnerable, so that he felt those warrior instincts he’d honed during his mother’s cancer fight burst back to life.
Even when he’d told himself he’d never care enough about another human to want to fight their battles for them.
Even when he knew the cost of caring too deeply for anyone.
As the sun began to creep towards the cityscape, Zeus gave up on even attempting to sleep, slipped into a pair of shorts, a T-shirt and some joggers and let himself out of his mansion.
Running had long been a balm to his busy mind, a way to not only calm his thoughts but, more importantly, to also bring order to them.
It wasn’t like being attracted to a woman was new. Zeus had made an artform out of the three-night stand. One night was too short—he liked to get to know the women he slept with. Anything more than three nights was way too long, because he didn’t like to risk caring too much about them.
Until Jane, he’d never found it hard to live by that creed.
He supposed he bored easily. Or perhaps the women he’d been dating had been wrong for him, in terms of being able to hold his attention. Except, wasn’t that exactly what he’d been aiming for? To be able to enjoy a woman’s company for a brief while, then walk away without a backwards glance?
Something crept up his spine and left the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end, because when he imagined walking away from Jane, he didn’t feel as though it would be easy, and he didn’t feel as though he’d be prepared to do it in two nights’ time.
Which surely gave him all the more reason to do precisely that.
She was dangerous to him—he’d thought that before.
He’d known it from their first meeting. She was too beautiful, too sexy, too alluring, too vulnerable, too everything, and suddenly, all of Zeus’s carefully laid boundaries were being pulled at and weakened by a woman he knew virtually nothing about.
Except, he did know that she wasn’t planning to be in Athens long-term. He did know that she was as committed to her career as he was to his. And he did know that getting married was as imperative now as it had been since his father told him about his half-sister.
Every day without a marriage licence being procured was a day closer to the risk of losing the company.
Was he seriously willing to take the chance of waking up one day to find that he was no longer in the box seat to inherit the Papandreo Group?
Of course not. The business was so much more than just a business to Zeus; it had to remain his.
Unless there was a way he could meet his half-sister, he thought, pausing midstride and standing still, hands on hips, breath rushed, as he stared out at the dawn-lit city.
He didn’t want to meet her. He didn’t want to come face-to-face with the evidence of his father’s failings. But maybe he could offer her something to get rid of the threat altogether. Money. Enough money to make her realise that the company itself wouldn’t be worth fighting for.
Except, what fool would take a lump sum, rather than the ongoing cash cow of the Papandreo Group?
Was it worth making the offer, on the basis she might accept?
Or did it risk exposing to her how badly he wanted to retain his position?
And once she knew that, might she fight harder to secure the windfall she’d only just learned about?
He made a gruff sound of irritation, wishing he knew something about the woman his father had conceived behind his mother’s back and realising, belatedly, that he could find out a little more about her.
His skin slicked with something like distaste.
He was not a man who would ordinarily engage the services of a private investigator, but surely, this was a time for desperate measures.
To protect his business, his family’s legacy and empire, to do the right thing for people who couldn’t see clearly enough to do it for themselves, he thought, breaking into a run once more.
Yes, he committed to the idea, as he turned the corner towards his home, five miles later. He would hire a detective, he would find out more about what he was dealing with and then, if necessary, he’d explain the situation to Philomena and ask if she’d be willing to be his wife of convenience.
Jane would be, by then, a moot point, because she would have to be. Unlike his father, Zeus intended to take his marriage vows seriously, even if that meant turning his back on a woman who had very quickly become the sum total of what he wanted in his day.
Though she felt exhausted, Jane woke early the next morning. There was a restlessness inside her, a sense of impatience, and despite the way Zeus had worshipped her body the night before, Jane had woken up in the early hours wanting more. So. Much. More.
Snatches of memories filtered through her mind as she showered, lathering her still-too-sensitive body with a loofah and soap, revelling in the feeling of the water cascading over her head.
Afterwards, she contemplated ordering room service—she was also famished—but decided instead to set out on foot and explore more of this city.
To walk.
To burn off her abundance of energy and try to put Zeus out of her mind.
She dressed in a pair of shorts and a singlet top, in preparation for a day that promised to be hot and grabbed a cap on her way out of the hotel room—she had no idea how long she’d be gone for, and her skin had a tendency to fry.
Not two blocks from the hotel, she stopped at a quaint little kafenio , with white chairs spilling out onto the street.
She ordered her usual oat latte and added a toasted flatbread with saganaki, spinach and eggplant.
It arrived steaming hot, and she sat down to enjoy it, content to watch the world pass her by.
It was a sense of contentment that didn’t last long.
Last night, in a fog of sensual need, of white-hot lust, she’d thrown herself headlong into the maddening rush of desire.
She hadn’t allowed herself to dwell on the consequences nor the complications of what they were doing.
But as the sun rose and bathed Athens in a glorious golden hue—a colour that somehow seemed to echo the vagaries of time, imprinting this city’s ancient presence on Jane—she was forced to see what had happened with all the shock that broad daylight could bring.
She bit into the flatbread, the gooey, melted cheese perfectly salty and dribbling a little from the edge. She wiped it absent-mindedly with her finger, focusing on a man across the street who was stacking newspapers into a vending machine.
After that night with Steven, she’d awoken groggy, hungover and sore all over.
Muscles she’d never used before had screamed their complaint as she’d pushed out of the unfamiliar bed and looked around, trying desperately to get her bearings.
Bruises across her torso, hickeys on her thigh, only very briefly preceded the onslaught of memories.
Awful, awful memories. A feeling of having been totally out of control, unable to properly express what she was feeling and what she wanted—for it to stop.
This was different.
This morning Jane had woken with clarity and recollection.
She didn’t regret what had happened between her and Zeus, and she wanted more of it, and him.
But she also needed a clear path forward.
A way to do this without betraying her own sense of right and wrong, with regards to her promise to Lottie.
She closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrance of her coffee, wishing that it could somehow, magically, give her the guidance she sought.
Three days ago, she would have sworn that nothing and nobody would ever change what she owed Lottie and what Lottie meant to her.
And the same was true this morning, she swore.
But entering into an intentionally manipulative flirtation with Zeus Papandreo was so much more complicated now she knew him.
And liked him.
She dropped her head in shame, and her heart began to trot in a rhythm all its own.
Yes, she liked him.
He was nothing like she’d expected. At least, not in the ways that mattered. While he was confident, he wasn’t arrogant. He was proud, but not unreasonably so, and he was so much more courteous and considerate than his reputation foreshadowed.
She took another bite of the sandwich, her features a study in misery.
If she told Lottie what was happening, would Lottie understand and perhaps tell her to come home? And then what? Would she just fly away from Zeus without giving him an explanation? And could she even bear to do that? Did she want to leave him?
No.
She wanted to stay and explore this to its fullest.
Last night she’d told herself this would be like killing two birds with one stone, only so much happier than killing. She could explore this with Zeus and get Lottie what Lottie wanted, and no one ever had to know how disastrously conflicted she’d felt about it all.
But what about Zeus? What about the business he obviously loved? Could she really live with being an instrument in his losing that? And if not, what did that mean for Lottie? She knew what this meant to her best friend—what it was supposed to mean to both of them.