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if a substitute was brought in now.
    He’d had to respect that request. So they were still in Florida. “We need a legal heir now. I don’t like the thought of the Theakis line ending with you.”
    “Believe me, patera , I’m well aware of that,” Christos said. Theo had to be declared Christos’s heir before the annual board meeting in the fall. Otherwise another branch of the Theakis extended family could take control of the shipping line if anything happened to Christos, something his father didn’t want and even Christos agreed would be a bad thing. His Uncle Tony didn’t have the best head for business. But then, he’d been a second son, just like Christos.
    “What about the girl?”
    “Ava?” The last thing he wanted to do was talk about her with his father.
    “Yes.”
    “What about her?”
    “Don’t play with me, boy. I’m still the head of this family.”
    “She’ll be coming home with me. She refused to relinquish her rights to the boy.” He was glad about that. Reveled in the fact that Ava was a really good mother. He had a hard time reconciling what he knew about her with the person she was today. Maybe she had changed when she became a mother, as she’d said.
    “Is that wise? We don’t trust her.”
    “ Patera , you asked me to take over and to bring home an heir before the board of directors held their emergency meeting. I’m doing it and I’ll do it my way. If you don’t like it, I’m happy to go back to my other business interests.”
    Actually, that solution would be for the best. Ava and Theo could go back to their lives, and he could return to the world he knew. No more long hours running a shipping line and feeling his brother’s presence each time he entered the office.
    There was silence on the line and Christos had no doubt his father was wishing that Stavros hadn’t died in that plane crash. Who knew, maybe he was even thinking that a swap would have been better. Christos in Stavros’s place. But even Ari didn’t have control over life and death and Christos was now the only Theakis brother.
    “I have to go. I’ll have Antonio send our travel plans once they are in place.”
    “Are you marrying the girl?”
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Good. The boy will need siblings.”
    “ Patera …”
    “The wedding should take place here on Mykonos. I’ll have Maria see to the arrangements,” Ari continued, making plans to rule Christos’s life.
    “Have her call Ava. I’ll give Antonio those numbers.”
    He hung up. Suddenly the library felt too small. He walked out onto the patio and stood there in the shadows of the early evening. His father always made him feel as if…as if he wasn’t good enough. Even now, when he was doing Ari’s bidding, there was a part of him that knew he was always second-best. The son least likely to become what his father wanted.
    “Christos?”
    He glanced over his shoulder. Ava stood in the doorway to the living room. She wore a pair of black leggings that made her legs look a mile long. She had a long-sleeved T-shirt on, and she looked so comfortable and approachable. She was relaxed in his home, and he wasn’t.
    “Yes?”
    “Do you want to join us for story time?”
    Story time? This was what his life was becoming. If Gui and Tristan could see him, they’d never let him live it down. But his friends weren’t here. Only Ava and Theo and the house staff.
    The thing was, he wanted to join them. He wanted to go up those stairs and sit on the pile of pillows that Ava had stacked in the corner and listen to her sweet voice telling tales where parents didn’t have expectations that could never be met. And brothers didn’t die. And princesses were really pretty and sweet and true.
    “You okay?”
    “Yes. I have a lot of work to do.”
    “Oh. Um…okay.”
    But it didn’t seem okay to him.
    “What is it?”
    “Theo wanted to hear the ending of the tale you were telling him when he fell asleep last night. The one about some sea