Greek Mavericks: For The Greek's Revenge - Tara Pammi Mills & Boon M&B

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she managed. Then, wiping her eyes, she said goodbye to everyone else at the diner and went back out into the rain to deposit her check at the bank and get two one-way bus tickets to Rochester.

      When Letty got back home, her hair and clothes were damp with rain. Her father wasn’t at the apartment, and his suitcases were empty. All their belongings were still untouched, exactly where she’d left them.

      She’d just sort through everything herself, she thought wearily. Once she’d figured out how many boxes they’d have to leave behind, she’d call the junk dealer.

      Of the eight billion dollars her father’s investment fund had lost, three billion had since been recovered. But the authorities had been careful not to leave him with anything of value. Their possessions had been picked over long ago by the Feds and bankruptcy court.

      What was left was all crammed into this tiny apartment. The broken flute her mother had played at Juilliard. The ceramic animals Constance had painted for her daughter as gifts, starting with her first birthday. The leather-bound classic books from her grandfather’s collection, water-damaged, so worthless. Except to them. Her great-grandfather’s old ship in a bottle. Her grandma Spencer’s homemade Christmas ornaments. All would have to be left.

      We’ll get through it, Letty told herself fiercely. They could still be happy. She’d raise her baby with love, in a snug cottage overlooking a garden of flowers. Her son would have a happy childhood, just as Letty had.

      He wouldn’t be raised in some stark gray penthouse without a mother, without love...

      Letty started digging through the first pile of clutter. She planned to stay up the whole night scrubbing down the apartment, in hopes their landlord might actually give back her security deposit.

      Hearing a hard knock at the door, she rose to her feet, overwhelmed with relief. Her father had come back to help. He must have forgotten his key again. Sorting through their possessions would be so much easier with two of them—

      Opening the door, she gasped.

      Darius stood in her doorway, dressed in a black button-down shirt with well-cut jeans that showed the rugged lines of his powerful body. It was barely noon, but his jaw was dark with five-o’clock shadow.

      For a moment, even hating and fearing him as she did, Letty was dazzled by that ruthless masculine beauty.

      “Letty,” he greeted her coldly. Then his eyes dropped to her baby bump.

      With an intake of breath, Letty tried to shut the door in his face.

      He blocked her with his powerful shoulder and pushed his way into her apartment.

       CHAPTER FOUR

      SIX MONTHS AGO Darius had wanted vengeance.

      He’d gotten it. He’d ruthlessly taken Letitia Spencer’s virginity, then tossed her out into a cold winter’s night. He’d seduced her, insulted her. He’d thrown the money in her face, made her feel cheap.

      It had been delicious.

      But since then, to his dismay, he’d discovered the price of that vengeance.

      In Darius’s childhood, back on the Greek island where he was born, his grandmother had often told him that vengeance hurt the person who committed it worse than the one who endured it. When the kids at school mocked his illegitimate birth, sneering at his mother’s abandonment—Even your own mitéra didn’t want you—his grandmother had told him to ignore them, to take the high road.

      He’d tried, but the boys’ taunts had only grown worse until he was finally forced to punch them. They’d all been bloodied in the fight, but especially Darius, since it had been one against four.

      “So you see I’m right,” his grandmother had said gravely, bandaging him afterward. “You were hurt worse.”

      In Darius’s own opinion, that vengeance had been not only justified, but strategic. The boys at school had never taunted him again.

      But this time, his grandmother had been proved right. Because Darius’s vengeance against Letty had hurt him more than he’d ever imagined.

      Instead of quenching the flame, that night together had only built his desire for her into a blazing fire.

      He wanted her. Every night for the last six months, he’d half expected Letty to contact him. Once her prideful anger had faded, surely she would want him back—if not for his body, then obviously for his money.

      But she never had. And when he’d remembered the haunted look on her beautiful heart-shaped face the night she’d told him she loved him, the night he’d taken her virginity and tossed her ruthlessly into the dark, he’d had moments when he’d wondered if he might have been wrong.

      But how could he be wrong? The evidence spoke for itself.

      Still, in the months since their night together, his continual raw desire for her had made him edgy. He’d intended to remain as his company’s CEO for a year, guiding his team in the transition after the sale. Instead, he’d gotten into an argument with the head of the conglomerate and left within weeks. Darius could no longer endure working for someone else, but he’d signed a noncompete clause, so couldn’t start a new business in the same field.

      Bereft of the twenty-hour workdays that had been the entirety of his life for a decade, he hadn’t known how to fill his hours. He tried spending some of his fortune. He’d bought a race car, then ten cars, then a race track. He’d bought four planes, all with interiors done in different colors. No. Next he’d tried extreme sports: skydiving, heli-skiing. Yawn.

      Worst of all, he’d been surrounded by beautiful women, all keen to get his attention. And he hadn’t wanted a single one of them.

      He’d been bored. Worse. He’d felt frustrated and angry. Because even with the endless freedom of time and money, he couldn’t have what he really wanted.

      Letty.

      Now, seeing her in the flesh, so beautiful—so pregnant—he hated himself for ever taking his vengeance. No matter how richly she’d deserved it, look where that thrill of hatred and lust had led.

      Pregnant. With his baby.

      Even wearing an oversize white T-shirt and baggy jeans, Letty was somehow more sensual, more delectable, than any stick-thin model in a skintight cocktail dress. Letty’s pregnancy curves were lush. Her skin glowed. Her breasts had grown enormous. With effort, he forced his gaze down to her belly.

      “So it’s true,” he said in a low voice. “You’re pregnant.”

      She looked frozen. Then she squared her shoulders, tossing her dark ponytail in a futile gesture of bravado. “So?”

      “Is the baby mine?”

      “Yours?” Her eyes shot sparks of fire, even though she had dark shadows beneath, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well. “What makes you think the baby’s yours? Maybe I slept with ten men since our night. Maybe I slept with a hundred—”

      The thought of her sleeping with other men made Darius sick. “You’re lying.”

      “How do you know?”

      “Because your father told me.”

      The fight went out of her. She went pale. “My...my father?”

      “He wanted me to pay for the information, but when I refused, he told me everything. For free.”

      “Maybe he was lying,” she said weakly. She looked as if she might faint.

      “Sit down,” Darius ordered. “I’ll get you a glass of water. Then we’ll talk.”

      She sank into the old pullout sofa, her cheeks pale. It wasn’t hard for him to find the kitchen. The apartment was pathetically small—just a postage-stamp-sized

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