Page 57 of After-Hours Heir

Love. That word burned at the center of her chest. Was it possible? Did she love Christos Onassis? Had she always? It would make sense. It would make sense that she loved ChristosOnassis, because from the moment she had first seen him she had been enraptured by him. From the moment she had first met him, he had made her feel things that were great and terrible and conflicting. They hadn’t been sexual, not initially, but over the years she had begun to recognize it as attraction.

And she had thought that the soft, emotional connection tempered by arousing virtual sex had been something entirely separate from Christos, but it hadn’t been. Because nothing could ever be wholly separate from Christos.

She loved him.

He was the hard, complicated, difficult man that she had known for years. And he was this wounded, insightful, caring man who had texted her for six months, who had gotten her through the trauma that he was causing.

She laughed. Because she really had no choice.

Kid: I want you to come back for the ultrasound.

Baby: I have work.

He was retreating. He was retreating because he felt like he had to, and she wished that she understood why.

Baby: If I were there, I would kiss you.

Kid: No. You don’t get to do that. We had virtual sex because we didn’t know who each other was. But now we do. If you want that connection with me, then you need to be with me. You don’t get to leave me alone. And you don’t get to distract from a serious conversation by trying to engage me that way.

Baby: I thought wives were supposed to make a man happy.

Kid: You clearly haven’t been paying attention to pop culture.

Baby: I already told you I didn’t.

True. He had. She had asked him if he had ever seen a Christmas movie, and he’d said he hadn’t. It was implied that he didn’t watch much of anything.

Kid: Christos, I’m trying to reach a hand out.

Baby: I have work. And once I’m finished I will be back.

And she felt like she had been dismissed. She also felt like she didn’t have to take this.

Christos had a private plane, she knew that. But it was probably where he was.

Of course, there were whole Reddit threads devoted to following the private jets of the wealthy. And with a quick search, she found tracking on Christos’s.

She laughed. He was in London. Great. Easy. He had offices there. She was sure that he had a residence nearby. And then she realized, she was his wife.

She contacted his personal assistant at his office in New York. “I want to go see my husband. Can we arrange a flight?”

She had that done within minutes. And then she contacted Noelle, her nurse and ally.

“Would you be interested in doing the ultrasound in London?”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHRISTOSCOULDN’TSTOPTHINKINGabout the conversation he’d had with Sylvie last night. And he was trying to focus on a new acquisition. Which he could have done from anywhere in the world, but he was doing it from London.

Coward.

He saw it in his head like a text bubble from Sylvie.

He growled. She didn’t know anything.

Because you won’t tell me.

Another text bubble in his mind.