Page 11 of A Diamond Deal
He hadn’t kept his promise. He hadn’t protected them when he’d vowed he would. Protected them both from the monster that lived inside him. A monster like his father who could abandon all those he should have protected.
He’d never wanted to risk having a child.
He’d wanted his father’s DNA to stop with him.
And it had.
Isaak was dead, becausehe’dwilled it.
He stiffened. Tentacles of grief wrapped around his vital organs and squeezed.
Konstantinos cut them down at the root.
He refused to allow anything like what he’d experienced after his mother’s death to enter his bloodstream ever again.
He wouldn’t grieve for someone who had never lived.
He wouldn’t think of him.
His son. Born too soon…
‘Let them whisper, Konstantinos,’ Léon urged. ‘These men who watched you grow into a man and build a shipping empire bigger than your father’s—they have turned their backs on us both.’ His lips pursed. ‘So let them take their business deals elsewhere. Let it all fall to the bottom of the sea. None of it matters.’
The rumours were true.
Léonhadgiven up.
‘You’re ready to lose everything?’ His gaze narrowed. ‘To me?’
‘Everything that mattered has already been taken from me,’ he dismissed with a wave of his too thin wrist.
Konstantinos recoiled. His acceptance was an ugly thing. Léon was dead already. He’d died two years ago when they’d pulled the only survivor from the helicopter crash.Him.His son, his daughter-in-law and his granddaughter, gone.
Like Isaak?
He grimaced. He wouldn’t form a connection between them because of their losses. This was business. Nothing else.
His father had been right all along. Power only remained with those willing to take it—with those who would doanythingto keep it.
Konstantinos’s chair scraped against the floor as he stood. ‘As of tonight, Durand Cruise Liners belongs to me to settle the debt you owe me.’
‘As is your right,’ Léon agreed flatly.
He closed his eyes.
It was relief, not doubt, making his skin…uncomfortable.He was shedding a suit he’d resewn too many times to count to fit a man he’d thought was fair, but a man he now knew was a fool. But he’d corrected his error in judgement. He’d sliced off all of his soft edges with the blade that had cut free months of hair he’d let grow too thick, and too long, looking for a wife who didn’t want to be found.
What if she’s still sick?
The image of her on the clifftop drifted into his mind.
His jaw firmed to granite.
She’d made her choice, and now…
He’d made his.
He opened his eyes. ‘The papers will arrive tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Youwill sign them.’
