Anne McAllister - The Antonides Marriage Deal

She stood up. “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”

“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Elias muttered.

She shot him a hard look, but he was already back on the telephone with his sister.

“No,” Elias said.

It was what he always said to Cristina. It wasn’t the bead shop this time. As he’d suspected, that had been a momentary whim. But this conversation wasn’t going any better. Whenever he talked to his sister Cristina, they ended up at loggerheads. Usually it happened sooner. Like within a minute.

This time it had taken ten, but mostly because he was distracted, his mind still playing over the frustrating encounter with Ms President while Cristina rabbited on about how she’d been out sailing off Montauk last week, and wasn’t it beautiful at Montauk this time of year, and on and on.

Waiting for her to get to the point, Elias had tried to think how he could have handled the irritatingly sanguine Ms Savas differently. Surely there had to be some way to convince her to leave well enough alone and not meddle in Antonides Marine affairs. But he couldn’t think of one.

She’d flat-out said, “I don’t follow directions well,” and then she’d pretty much proved it. Annoying woman!

“It was a beaut,” Cristina enthused. “You’d love it. You should come with us next time.”

Elias dragged his brain back from Tallie Savas long enough to say, “No time.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Elias. Get a life.”

“I have a life,” Elias said stiffly, even though he was sure Cristina wouldn’t consider working seventy hours a week on Antonides Marine and another thirty or forty renovating the building much of a life at all.

“Sure you do.” Cristina sniffed. “Come on, Elias. Mark would love to take you.”

So she was still with Mark? After what—two months now? Elias supposed it was some sort of record.

“You could bring Gretl,” she suggested enthusiastically. “We saw her this weekend, Mark and I. I don’t know why you dumped her.”

And he wasn’t going to tell her, either.

When he’d met Gretl Gustavsson at a South Street Seaport bar one night, she’d just broken up with her boyfriend and had no interest in getting serious again anytime soon. As Elias had no interest in getting serious at all, they’d enjoyed each other’s company.

Their relationship, which Elias didn’t even want to describe with that word, had gone on for the past two years—until Gretl started acting as if there was more to it than there was.

“I’ve wasted two years on you, Elias,” she’d told him a couple of months ago.

Elias hadn’t considered them a waste, but if that was the way she wanted to look at it, so be it. He’d said goodbye, and that was that. He hadn’t seen her since.

“She’s so sweet. She asked about you.” Cristina waited hopefully and got no response. She sighed. “Well, if you don’t want Gretl, fine. We’ll find you someone else.”

“No, you won’t,” Elias said sharply. “I don’t need you setting me up with a woman. Besides, I’m busy. I’ve got work up to my eyebrows. And it just got harder. In case you haven’t heard, we have a new president of Antonides Marine.”

“Daddy told me. And it’s a woman!” Amazement didn’t even begin to cover Cristina’s feelings about that. She giggled. “Do you think he’s setting you up?”

“No, I damned well don’t!” Though the thought had certainly occurred to him. Still, his father was rarely that subtle. Aeolus took a more shove-the-woman-in-his-face approach.

And the truth was, Tallie Savas would never be his father’s choice in a woman.

Aeolus loved his wife, but he had never stopped ogling tall, big-busted Nordic beauties. He’d thought Gretl was stunning, which she had been. But Elias had never fantasized going to bed with her. Because he’d gone to bed with her, he told himself. There had never been any speculation. Never any mystery with Gretl.

Whereas with Tallie Savas and her miles of wild curly hair—

“Maybe I’ll come and check her out. What’s she like?” Cristina said eagerly.

“Nothing special.” Elias made sure his tone was dampening. Then he cleared his throat. “She’s an MBA. A CEO. All business.”

“Battle-ax, hmm?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh.” Cristina’s disappointment was obvious. “I wonder what Daddy was thinking then.”

“I doubt he was thinking.”

Cristina laughed. “He’s not that bad, Elias. He likes Mark.”

“Which proves my case.”

“It does not,” Cristina said, but she didn’t sound as defensive as she usually did about her boyfriends. “You don’t know him. He knows a lot about boats. If the lady prez is a hard worker, you’ll have some time off now. You can come out with Mark and me.”

“No.” Which brought them back to where they’d started. Elias pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, Cristina, I’ve got work to do—”

“You won’t even meet him,” she accused.

“I’ve met him,” Elias said wearily. “I went to Yale with him.”

“So I heard. He said he’s changed since Yale.”

Elias hoped so. At Yale Mark had been a drunken reveler who’d only got in because his father knew someone who knew someone. What was it with Greek fathers?

“If you want me to meet him again, bring him out to the folks’ on Sunday.” He’d managed to avoid his mother’s last Sunday dinner by pleading a work overload. He wasn’t going to get out of this one and he knew it.

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Cristina mumbled.

“I thought you said the old man liked him.”

“Yes, but only because he can beat Mark at golf.”

Elias laughed. “Well, there you go. Something to build on. You’ll work it out, Crissie. I have to go. I’ll see you Sunday.”

“I’ll bring Mark if you bring Ms President.”

“Goodbye, Crissie.” Elias hung up before his sister got any more bright ideas.

He had other far more important things to deal with—like convincing Thalia Savas, aka Ms President, that despite what she thought, it was a better idea to spend the next two years filing her fingernails than trying to meddle in the business of Antonides Marine.

If she thought she’d done her homework, Elias thought, rubbing his hands together in anticipation, she had another think coming.

He’d show her homework. And he knew exactly where to start.

“For me?” Tallie looked up and smiled brightly when Elias appeared in her office late that afternoon with a three-foot-high-stack of reports and folders.

“For you,” Elias agreed cheerfully, thumping them on her desk. “Since you want to be involved in the decisions, you’ll want to get up to speed.

“Of course I will,” she agreed promptly. “Thank you very much.”

He gave her a hard-eyed gaze, but she smiled in the face of it and finally he just shrugged. “My pleasure.” He turned toward the door, then paused and glanced back. “I’ll have more for you tomorrow.”

Tallie’s determined smile didn’t waver. “I can hardly wait.”

In fact, she was having a very good time. After he’d finished his phone call with his sister, he’d gone into the boardroom to meet with Paul and Dyson. He hadn’t invited her, but she had gone in anyway. He’d looked startled when she’d opened the door and very much like he’d like to throw her out. But finally he’d shrugged and said, “Pull up a chair.”

Tallie had pulled up a chair and taken out a notepad and pen. She’d listened intently, making notes but not saying a word, though from the way Elias angled a glance at her periodically, she knew he was expecting her to stick her oar in.

She never did.

The first order of business she’d learned from her father was to look and listen before saying anything at all. It had stood her in good stead before. She intended to do the same thing here.