Too bad for her that he had other ideas.
“Everyone grows up, Constantine,” she replied. She considered. “Or, I should say, almost everyone.”
“Was that a dig?” He made a tsking sound. “That is no way to convince me to be merciful, Molly. You must know that.”
“I would prefer it if you called me Magda.”
He grinned, enjoying himself immensely. “I am certain that you would. But I think I will stick with Molly all the same. Just to remind ourselves who and what we are.”
Fascinated, he watched as a storm moved through that cool blue gaze of hers before she shuttered her gaze.
And then he waited, letting the silence spill out between them. Until, to his very great pleasure, she stopped holding that commanding position in the doorway and took a step farther into the room.
Betraying herself, he thought.
“I know you know why I’m here,” she said, sounding far more brisk, then. “I suppose we might as well get down to business.”
“Refresh my memory,” he invited her.
“I see that we’re going to play games. Lovely.”
He remembered the sixteen-year-old who had foolishly confided in him and saw no trace of her on this woman’s face. But that was just as well. Constantine did not traffic in guilt or shame, so he would never use those words to describe how he felt when he thought of that time. And yet sometimes it haunted him, all the same.
“Is that really necessary?” she asked.
“You will know what is necessary and what is unnecessary,” he assured her. “Because I will tell you.” He inclined his head, then waved a lazy hand. “For now, by all means, tell me your sad tale of woe, Molly.”
“I do not wish to bore you.” Her cool eyes glittered, like shards of ice, and he suspected she was thinking of a great many things she would like to do to him, none of them boring. All of them violent. “I know you remember my mother.”
“As it happens, I have known a great number of grasping, petulant, jumped-up whores in my life,” Constantine drawled, each word deliberate. Each word its own sharp blade. “And yet, you are correct, your mother managed to distinguish herself.”
A faint splash of color stained Molly’s cheeks. Her eyes blazed with fury. And he had the sudden, near uncontrollable urge to rise from his chair, throw himself across the room, and get his hands and his mouth into all of that fire.
But too soon, she reined herself in, iced over, and regarded him coolly once again.
Interesting, he thought. He would have to make a note of how she protected herself with that aloofness. And set it ablaze.
“I am not here to debate my mother’s faults with you, or anyone,” she said crisply.
“And yet I feel certain that should I wish to discuss your mother’s many faults and terrible decisions, I will. Entirely as I please. With or without your permission. Molly.”
She took a long, visible breath, but did not object. Because she was not a stupid woman, Constantine knew. And she was not in the dark as to why she was here, any more than he was.
“My mother has always fancied herself a businesswoman of sorts,” Molly said, her voice ever so slightly strained. She moved further into the study that he knew she hadn’t seen since she was still a teenager. It was unchanged. He watched with interest as she took that in, her gaze moving with arctic precision from the ponderous choice of art on the walls to the crystal decanter on the sideboard, which was the last in a long line of similar decanters his father had shattered against the wall. Such pleasant memories. “This is not a business in the sense of Skalas & Sons, of course. What is? But whenever she found herself with some money—”
“Such as her divorce settlement,” Constantine interjected silkily. “Three million euros to silently go away when she should have done so on her own, had she the faintest shred of shame.”
Molly ignored that. He hoped it was hard. “She did some investing, here and there. And she began to imagine herself something of a hotel mogul.”
“Surely that would be better termed a delusion and used to secure medical attention.” Constantine laughed when Molly’s frigid gaze swept to him. “I have many hotels. In my personal portfolio, not underneath the Skalas & Sons umbrella. I hardly think a few poorly chosen boutique options scattered about the globe make a mogul. But to each her own.”
“Funny you should mention those few boutique hotels,” Molly said softly, her gaze on him. “Because, wouldn’t you know it, she’s completely overextended herself and faces total financial ruin, because someone leveraged them right out from under her.”
“What a sad story this is,” Constantine murmured. “How lucky she must be that she has an internationally famous daughter who she can lean upon for support in such troubled times. Troubled times she brought upon herself, but I digress.”
“I hate to continually tell you things you already know,” Molly said, her voice acidic. She picked up a photograph from one of the incidental tables. A seemingly happy family shot until one looked closer and saw the look of worry on young Balthazar’s face, the mutiny on Constantine’s, and their father’s grim expression that promised retribution.
If he recalled correctly, that time, Demetrius had beaten them both.
Ah, the manifold joys of family, Constantine thought dryly.
“But I know so little,” he said. “Ask anyone.”
Molly turned back to him then, and her gaze was a little too clever for his liking. Only because clever women boded ill, always. It was
