Page 1 of Slightly Married (Irresistible #2)

“ Y our father is unavailable. He’s in a meeting.” Matt Christopher tensed in the doorway of my father’s home office in the family’s Upper East Side mansion, his shoulders squared beneath his tailored suit.

“At eight in the evening?” I arched an eyebrow, glancing past him at the door. The faint tone of my father’s voice carried through. It was likely another of his endless video conferences with Greece. My silk dress rustled as I shifted my weight. “This is about Simone, Matt.”

His expression hardened, but something subtle shifted in his eyes at the mention of my older sister. “Your father left explicit instructions not to be disturbed.”

Whenever we occupied the same space, tension crackled between us; not flirtation, but quiet disdain.

In the six months since becoming my father’s assistant, the man had never warmed to me, and I could never figure out why.

He masked it behind polite half-smiles and trivial conversation, but a low-level undercurrent of antipathy hummed beneath.

Though he was undeniably attractive in a nerdy way—towering at almost six feet five inches with those intellectual wire-rimmed glasses—there was something disingenuous about him. His watchful eyes and rigid posture were at odds with his role as my father’s assistant.

“Hey sis!” I exclaimed, my voice brightening as I waved. “What are you doing here?”

Matt’s head turned, and I slipped beneath his arm, twisted the brass doorknob, and was halfway through the threshold before he registered my ruse.

“Kayla!” His hand shot out to grab my elbow, but I pivoted away with the grace ballet lessons had instilled in me since childhood.

“I’ll take full responsibility,” I called over my shoulder as he hovered in the open doorway. I heard his muffled curse as I turned to face my father.

“Daddy,” I said, switching effortlessly to Greek. “You can’t seriously be bartering Simone off like she’s an object?” The scent of Cuban cigars greeted me.

“Sorry, sir,” Matt said from the doorway, his deep voice tinged with annoyance. “Your daughter is more determined than I realized.”

“She gets it from me.” Daddy chuckled, setting down the crystal tumbler of amber liquid. “I thought you were in Paris?”

Three months of hiding out in my Parisian apartment hadn’t been enough to fully heal, but it had given me time to lick my wounds after seeing Josh and Bethany’s pregnancy announcement online. At least until my sister’s call dragged me back to reality.

“I cut my trip short when I heard about your little arrangement,” I replied, my heels sinking into the plush Persian rug as I crossed to stand before his massive desk. “Simone called me in tears.”

Daddy’s office was meticulously organized, with family photos arranged just so.

My sister’s graduation portrait behind his desk caught my attention.

Her smile was radiant in cap and gown, looking so much like our mother it filled my heart with a bittersweet longing.

Next to it was an image of teenage me standing on our yacht in Santorini, my braids whipping in the wind.

The photos captured our differences perfectly. While I’d inherited my mother’s defiant spirit, Simone had always been the dutiful daughter.

Because she was adopted by Daddy, she worked twice as hard to earn our father’s approval. She had perfect grades, perfect behavior and was the perfect daughter in every way except blood.

Where I pushed boundaries, Simone accommodated them. As much as she was hurting now, she would ultimately go through with this wedding.

Her need to please our father and repay him for raising her as his own, ran bone-deep. I had no such proclivities, a fact that frustrated my father but had been a source of pride for my mother.

Mama’s smiling face drew my gaze next, her photograph framed in silver, positioned where my father could see it from his chair. The familiar hollow feeling washed through me.

It had been just over a year since the rare autoimmune disease had taken her—diagnosed and gone within months, leaving us all reeling. The speed of it all still unsettled me, how quickly someone so vibrant could fade.

“Mama would never have allowed this,” I said, my voice softening despite my effort to remain firm.

Jeanette Athanasiou had transformed herself from a struggling single mother dancing nights to support baby Simone into a formidable society wife.

When she married my father, she didn’t just accept his wealth.

She earned her place beside him by mastering Greek, charming business associates, and advocating fiercely for women and girls.

My eyes stung, and I blinked rapidly. I missed her steel spine wrapped in silk and grace.

“Your mother would have understood the practicalities. I want to ensure she marries well and to have our family’s legacy continue.” What he really meant to say was: I want her to marry Greek and have Greek babies.

“Daddy, please reconsider,” I whispered.

My father’s eyes softened momentarily, then grew steely. He leaned back in his leather chair.

“Your sister is thirty-two, Michaila,” he said, reaching for his tumbler again. “Women her age are established with families. The biological clock doesn’t pause for career ambitions.”

“Simone is a human being with her own dreams, not some vessel for your dynastic ambitions. Besides, she’s in love with someone else ....” I chewed off the rest, keenly aware of Matt’s eyes boring into the back of my head.

My father’s face darkened as he slowly set down his tumbler. “In love?” His voice was dangerously soft. “Like you were in love with Josh?”

The mention of my ex-husband’s name stole my momentum. My shoulders stiffened as I recalled Bethany’s tearful confession nine months ago when she asked me to divorce Josh so they could be together. I filed for divorce the very next day after Josh attempted to justify his unfaithful behavior.

“Your whirlwind romance that ended with him taking half of your assets and deciding he suddenly wanted children with your Pilates instructor?” My father continued. “The man you insisted on marrying despite my objections?”

His words sliced through me, reopening wounds I thought were scabbed over by now. Apparently not.

I’d lost Mama, then lost my marriage and workout coach in one brutal blow. The shame of having ignored my parents’ warnings burned almost as much as the betrayal itself.

I fought to keep my expression neutral because this wasn’t about me or my mistakes. This was about Simone.

Yet I couldn’t ignore how his words had struck my deepest insecurity.

That even after choosing me, a man would eventually decide I wasn’t enough.

It was the same fear that had sent me fleeing to Paris, haunted by the thought that if I’d been different, been better somehow, Josh might not have cheated.

“That’s different,” I said finally. “I made my choices—terrible ones, clearly—but they were mine to make. You’re not giving Simone that chance.

” I met his gaze. “Using my pain to justify controlling her life is cruel. And it won’t work.

I won’t let you do this to her, no matter what happened to me. ”

My father’s expression softened unexpectedly, making him look suddenly older, more vulnerable. He sighed, running a hand over his silver-streaked hair.

“I’m not using your pain, agápi mou. I’m trying to prevent it.” His voice lowered, becoming almost gentle. “When your mother died, I promised her I would take care of you both.” His voice caught on the word ‘died.’

We rarely spoke of those final days. The specialists flown in from around the world, the experimental treatments offering hope only to snatch it away again. Her decline had seemed to age him a decade in mere weeks.

Daddy continued, “With Konstantin, Simone will know exactly what she’s getting from the beginning.”

I heard Matt suck in a sharp breath, and I spared him a glance. His expression was unreadable, but his tall frame exuded an air of discomfort. I returned my gaze to my father, who was staring at Mama’s photograph.

“This man she thinks she loves can’t give her stability or a future.”

Looking into my father’s cool, determined gaze, I ached for my sister. I knew too well how it felt to have your choices lead to pain.

But at least my mistake had been my own. The difference was I had chosen Josh and believed in our love with my whole heart despite the red flags everyone else saw.

I’d trusted wrongly, but at least I’d had the freedom to trust, to love and to fail. But to be forced into a marriage she didn’t want, to some man she’d never met? That seemed infinitely worse.

I cringed at the idea.

Who was this Konstantin anyway? Some old rich sleazebag who thought he could leverage whatever business venture my father was hankering after to buy himself a beautiful young bride?

A cold knot formed in my stomach as I imagined Simone trapped in a loveless marriage to please our father.

I hadn’t returned from my Parisian self-exile just to watch my sister’s life be bartered away. Three months of wandering Montmartre alone, nursing my wounded pride and broken heart, suddenly seemed self-indulgent compared to what Simone was facing. Poor Simone. If only there were some way...

“I’ll do it,” I heard myself say, and the words themselves shocked me.

After all, I’d already failed at marriage once, what’s another failed union? This was my chance to protect Simone like she’s always protected me.

My words shocked Daddy, too. For a second, he lost his equilibrium. “What?”

“I’ll marry the old sleazebag ... whoever he is.” I folded my arms across my chest, aware of the loud clanging in my head at my own words. “If it means Simone is free, I’ll do it.”

My father’s eyes bored into me as he assessed me and then shifted to something behind me.

“The old sleazebag will accept you as his bride.“ A deep, unfamiliar and rich Greek voice cut through the room, resonating with amused authority, making the fine hairs on my arms rise.

I spun around, only to realize there was a man standing near the window, masked in a swathe of darkness as if the lights in my father’s office didn’t dare reach him. He was tall and wearing a dark blue bespoke suit, judging from the way it fit him.

His shoulders were broad, his posture military-straight, and an unusual platinum watch with an astronomical dial gleamed around his left wrist. His eyes, dark and penetrating under surprisingly thick lashes, seemed to reach out and caress me.

I was unsettled by the thought of this man being here while my father and I conferred. How long had he been standing there, silent and observant? How rude was that?

As he took a couple of steps toward me, I fought the urge to back up and remain outside of his powerfully magnetic sphere of influence, which he seemed to carry around him. The subtle scent of cedar and rosemary drifted toward me as he moved.

His hand shot out to me in introduction. “Konstantin Christakis,” he informed me suavely, grasping my cold hand in his. “Your fiancé.”

The contact stirred an unwelcome sensation in my system I immediately resented.