Divorcing Her Mafia Family
Chapter 26

Her phone vibrated in her purse, and she fished for it furiously, grateful for the distraction and leaning sideways and heard Miklos furious hiss as part of her skin was exposed with her movement. “Oh, stop. It’s not like my n****e is showing.” She looked at the call display and closed her eyes and then shoved the phone back into the bag.

“Problem?” Giorgio asked as Miklos reached out and adjusted the silk of her shirt to cover more of the swell of her breasts

“No.” She slapped at Miklos, “quit it. The blouse is meant to be like this.”

“it is risqué. Every movement you make I’m expecting the waiter to get an eyeful.” He shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, “who was on the phone?”

“None of your business.” She held his gaze seriously. “I was hoping for a call from Magda on final contract details, but it wasn’t her.”

“Contract details?” Nerida leaned forward. “What kind of contract?”

“My friends and I devised an application which will allow a more seamless transfer of money between accounts. Right now, you can use your phone, go into a store, and make a purchase using your phone. Correct? Well, this application will allow you to take it one step further and simply by touching two phones together, transfer money between people. For example, if you wanted to split tonight’s dinner, rather than sending a Venmo, it’s a simple as touching the phone to phone. There’s no getting someone’s contact information or exchanging phone numbers. It will literally be a tap-to-tap system.”

“Does it work?” Giorgio asked seriously.

“It does. An international banking company has purchased the program from us. It’s moving much faster than we thought. We had a bidding war going on for a bit, but one company outbid the other by a good amount. Specific details of the purchase cannot be released until Friday when he makes the announcement of the purchase. Once it’s done then it’s done. Today I met with the head of the bank’s IT department to begin walking them through the beta testing we completed. He was really excited about it. I’ll have several more meetings with him in the next few weeks to ensure the transition is smooth but once the sale goes through tomorrow, what the bank does with it and how they expand upon it is up to them. Our buyer let it slip at a convention last weekend and he shot himself in the foot. It created buzz so it drove the asking price up and the girls and I will make a decent profit between the three of us.”

“How fascinating.” Nerida said with a smile. “I knew you were too smart to just push numbers for this family.”

“But not too smart to just push babies?” she mocked sadly.

“You can be a mother and an entrepreneur,” Nerida chastised her. “Look at me. I went from a tiny flower shop to a national flower delivery service. You don’t have to give one up to have the other.”

She leaned back as the waiter set appetizers on the table for them. Lamb meatballs, spanakopita, and dolmades. She slid the stuffed grape leaves on her plate and sighed sadly. She had hoped to replace an ally in Nerida and instead the woman was so pro marriage to Miklos it was unnerving. Worse, she could physically feel the love and affection from the people she had considered her second set of parents her entire childhood. She wanted them to hate her. It would have made everything so much easier.

She stiffened as Miklos dropped his arm over the back of her seat and stroked the bare skin of her shoulder softly. She slapped at him, “would you stop?”

“No.” he laughed at her and stole the uneaten half of her grape leaf off her plate.

“That was mine. You ate yours and then mine!” she scolded him as he laughed at her fury.

“I did.” He teased her. “You were picking at it. You’d rather have my balls anyway.”

“Skewered maybe,” she didn’t back down from his words. He held up a meatball on a toothpick and held it up to her. She rolled her eyes when he insisted, she take it. She took the meatball into her mouth and tried not to react when he kissed her temple softly.

“Do you remember the trip we took to the villa in Crete when you were around fourteen, Dimitra?” Giorgio asked watching their exchange with a sweet smile.

“Yes. I got sunburned so bad my skin had blisters. My mother nearly had my father’s head for having me on the boat so long.” As she thought of it, her mother often was angry at her father when they were away from her too long.

“We had dinner at our favorite restaurant on the beach many times throughout the week. These lamb meatballs remind me of the ones there. They were very good. I think we ordered about four plates of them every night. These are almost as delicious.”

“Do you remember when you slapped Miklos in the face?” Nerida asked suddenly giggling.

She remembered the evening well. Miklos, being Miklos had invited a date. An American girl he’d met at the marina had joined them for dinner. She had been sitting on her father’s lap when they’d arrived, and her father had been teasing her and making her giggle. She hadn’t noticed when Miklos and the girl had shown up but as they always did in their family, everyone had stood up to greet him. They had always been a noisy affectionate group.

Miklos had, as he always did, kissed the cheeks of his mother, her mother and then her. The girl had shot her a funny look when he had tugged Dimitra to his lap instead of her father’s, but she’d been sitting on his lap since she had been a baby. It was not out of the ordinary for her to sit with him. He had made a joke about how Greek families were known to be touchy-feely and he’d winked at the other girl playfully about getting touchy with her later. Dimitra had blushed while he flirted with the other girl shamelessly and the girl’s continued dirty looks had made Dimitra so uncomfortable, she had tried to get off his knee. It had been the first time in all of her life she had been uncomfortable with the closeness she had with him and had felt ashamed of the way the girl was glaring. She had tried to undo his hand from her waist, and he’d slapped her behind and told her to stop squirming. She had gotten mad at him for it, and she’d slapped at him, intending for his shoulder but catching him on the cheek.

Her parents had been furious with her for hitting him and causing a scene and he’d been so stunned he’d released his grip and she’d fallen to the floor in a heap. Humiliated, she’d run off down the beach back to the villa. She’d stayed in her room for most of the remainder of the trip. It had been the last time she’d sat on his lap like a child. After this she’d been all too aware of how inappropriate it appeared to others looking on. In hindsight, his treatment of her as a kid sister was all too apparent. She’d been a silly fool when she was younger. Not a mistake she would make again.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly in her ear.

She looked up from her daydream to see all three of them looking at her with concern. “Yes, why?”

“My father asked you a question twice and you were so lost in your thoughts I don’t think you heard him.”

She gave a weak smile to Giorgio, “forgive me. It’s been a crazy week.”

Her phone rang again, and she looked at it again and then shut it off completely.

“Is it the man who called you earlier today?” Miklos asked curiously, casually lifting an olive to his teeth as if his question wasn’t loaded with possessiveness.

“No.” she gave a shake of her head. Bryce wouldn’t dare twice in a week. She’d get him arrested.

“It must be someone annoying if you’ve shut your phone completely off.” Nerida said with a laugh. “I only shut mine off when its telemarketers.”

Dimitra gave a smile, “it’s an old employer.” She didn’t miss the way Miklos tensed at her words. Good.

“Why would an old employer be calling you?” Giorgio asked curiously. “I wasn’t aware you had even had a job.”

“I had designed a program for a company while I did a stint at Imperial University in London. I had my bachelor’s degree from MIT, but I wanted a different perspective before starting my masters, so I did a series of classes there at the invitation of the school and I could use the courses towards my master’s. It wasn’t cheap to live in London, so I worked part time and in doing so, I helped develop a program for a large computer based investment banking company in London. Because I worked for the company, the program I developed actually belongs to them and not me. It’s fairly common with corporations to have this type of contract. They’re having issues with it, and they want me to fix it. I’m not employed by them any longer and under no obligation to fix it. They’ve also done a lot of changes to the original platform since it was designed three years ago and so I refused their request to help. The calls are my old boss begging me to fly to London and help.”

“Ben?” Miklos asked through clenched teeth.

“Yes, Ben.” She shot him a sideways glance and lifted her wine glass.

“Ben was your boss?” Giorgio asked.

“Ben is the boss who wants to sleep with her,” Miklos corrected with a grimace.

Nerida chuckled at his words. “Well look at her Miklos. Even if she wasn’t dressed in two straps of silk, she is a head turner. Every straight man in this room wants to sleep with her excluding your father of course,” she winked at Dimitra. “Did you ever, you know?” she leaned forward towards Dimitra excitedly, her eyes naughty “Miklos had his fun. Did you?”

She was blushing a furious shade of red at Nerida’s question. “No, I did not have s*x with my boss. He was my boss, and it would have been inappropriate. We have maintained contact over the years, and I’ve done freelance work for his company, but I have too much on my plate right now between the sale of this program and the start of a new project to jump to his snapping fingers. He’s very demanding and if I give him an inch, he’ll take a mile. He’s brilliant but he can be a jackass and I just don’t have time for his desire to monopolize my time.”

“Sounds like you know him very well,” Nerida wasn’t backing down. “Surely there were late nights in the office and long lunches in the boardroom. Not even a make-out session?”

“Nerida!” Dimitra couldn’t help but laugh. “What is your problem?”

“I would hate to think you had no fun over the last eight years. I had truly hoped you would have had a bit of fun in college, but I know you graduated at the top of your class, so I know you weren’t doing anything too crazy there. Learning you had an intense boss made me a hopeful you hadn’t put all your eggs in one basket.” She shot a look to Miklos, “we know he didn’t.”

She shook her head, “Nerida, you’re incorrigible.”

“Come on, k**s and tell.” Nerida’s eyes were dancing merrily. “Tell me you at least kissed him. You were under no obligation to be a saint when Miklos was out whoring around.”

“Fine,” she threw her hands up in the air. “I have kissed Ben. Is this what you want to know? It just wasn’t anything more. I didn’t want to cross professional boundaries.”

“You kissed him?” Miklos questioned quietly.

“You have no right to question her on any of her actions prior to her moving home this week,” Giorgio spoke up. “Had she wanted to engage in an orgy with an entire fraternity it was within her right considering you were photographed every other week with one starlet or another on your arm.”

He sat back appropriately chastised.

Nerida pushed more, “was it just a k**s or was it hot craziness in the wild streets of London? Some dark alleyways when he walked you home. Is he handsome?”

“Nerida, enough,” she felt weirdly uncomfortable now. She knew Nerida and Giorgio had a relationship where they had taken a lover to share between them. It felt creepy for her mother-in-law to be so excited about her potentially sleeping with a man other than her son.

“Well, too bad, especially about this Ben fellow,” Nerida said ignoring Miklos furious hiss. “It seems you both had lots in common and it would have been good to get all those things out of the way before you settle down now and begin your family.”

Dimitra’s fingers tightened on the stem of her wineglass with the same level of rage Miklos was likely feeling. It seemed her mother-in-law really wanted to push all their buttons. Dinner was going to be a long affair.

As their main courses were brought to the table, Dimitra was grateful for the sudden silence as everyone tucked into their meals.

A whispered curse from Miklos’ mouth made her look sideways at him and he was looking to the door of the restaurant. Dimitra looked over her shoulder and noted the brunette on the arm of a good-looking man.

“Jealous?” she asked him with a smirk.

“Not even remotely.” He gave her a sideways glance. “The man with her is her manager and he is a regular here. He’s never brought her here before, though. He usually only brings family.”

“Who is she?” Nerida asked with wide eyes. “She looks like she wants to murder you both.”

“Eve,” Dimitra grinned back at Nerida. “You never met her?”

“No, she never met her. Why would I bring a woman who was not important to meet my mother?” Miklos ground out furiously stabbing into his rice.

“Have you brought her here before?” Nerida asked curiously.

“Never. This is a family-owned restaurant. Owned by our family,” he clarified for Dimitra.

“She must have googled him,” Dimitra giggled as she plucked a piece of chicken souvlaki off a skewer and popped it into her mouth. “Maybe you now have two stalkers.”

He pointed at her with his fork furiously and looked to his mother, “she gave Wren my cell number.”

“The crazy model who showed up at my flower shop and cried on the sidewalk like a lunatic?”

At his grunt, the table chuckled. “Dimitra thought it would be hilarious to slip her my number on Monday evening. It’s why I had my number changed Tuesday morning.”

“Do you coat your condoms in a drug or something son?” Giorgio mocked him openly earning a loud laugh from Dimitra.

“No,” he shook his head.

“Many girls like to think they can tame the bad boy. Your son is an a*****e and treats women like s**t. They think if they get him to commit to him, he’ll change for them.”

“He is not!” Nerida argued with her. “He’s a good boy.”

She held the woman’s gaze, “told the brunette over there she made his d**k limp and kicked her out of the house and had a driver take her home. They dated months. Didn’t even have the courtesy to drive her home. Just made her feel she was s**t in bed and kicked her to the curb.”

“In my defence,” he reached out and took her chicken right out from her fingers and ate it, “my wife had suddenly reappeared and was making pancakes in our kitchen singing songs about cheating husbands. I needed her to leave so I could deal with my newly returned bride. Eve was being persistent and refusing to leave so I was a bit cruel to get my point across.”

“Stop eating my food,” she stabbed at him with her fork and then motioned to the fish on his plate, “or at least share.” He held his fork up with the white flaky fish for her and she frowned. “I can feed myself.”

“But it’s sexier when I feed you.”

“Never mind, I’ll stick with the chicken.”

“Coward.” He held the fish out, “it’s really good. Better than your chicken actually.”

“Ugh,” she grumbled and leaned forward and opened her mouth so he could feed her. The delicate flesh of the fish melted on her tongue, and she sighed happily. “So good.”

“Well, isn’t this cozy,” Eve’s voice interrupted their moment.

Nerida smiled brightly, “it certainly is. Who might you be?”

Dimitra cut Eve off, “Nerida, this is Eve. Eve, these are Miklos’ parents, Giorgio, and Nerida Laskaris.”

Miklos didn’t even stand up to address her, just waved at her, “Eve, you are rudely interrupting a family dinner. Leave.”

She gave Dimitra a sour glance and turned her attention back to Miklos, “you’ve never even mentioned her before, but you have her out with your parents?”

Giorgio made a snorting laugh at Eve drawing a surprised glance from the woman, “my dear girl. Do you know who this woman is? I would expect if you did, you would choose your words much more carefully,” he pointed to Dimitra. “She is Dimitra Lykiaos-Laskaris.”

“Her name should mean something to me?” she replied snarky.

Giorgio held her gaze, “Miss Eve. Surely you know who Miklos is? Surely you know who I am?” As the man looked directly at her, “the lady sitting at this table is the daughter of the man I call my closest friend. Do you know who Vasili Lykiaos is?”

Eve paled and swallowed as she suddenly made a connection she had missed.

“I know you met Miklos through your agent. Your manager is a good friend of myself and Vasili.” He waved to the man sitting at a table across the room who looked uncomfortable, “It would be a shame if Vasili got wind that the woman who is insulting his beloved daughter is the client of one of our friends.”

Dimitra tried not to laugh as Eve back peddled.

“I didn’t realize, you were Mr. Lykiaos’ daughter.”

“Why do you look so pale, Eve?” Nerida questioned with a tilt to her head. “Is it because you’ve heard the rumours of how Vasili raised his only child? Do you believe the rumors to be true?”

“No!” she protested clearly lying, in response to Nerida’s question.

Dimitra reached up and patted Eve’s arm, “relax, Eve. They’re screwing with you. I don’t bite and I haven’t ever hurt a fly. I’m a computer nerd and nothing more.” She lied placatingly.

Eve shook her head, “my agent said –”

“Your agent shouldn’t be saying anything at all. Let me guess, he warned you not to get mixed up with Miklos and gave you a scary story to keep you away and instead it made you run straight to his arms.” Dimitra openly mocked the woman. “You should go though. I’m desperately trying to negotiate my divorce and the more you stand here cowering the less I like you and I’m probably going to use you in my litigation process. I can’t imagine you would want to be testifying against either one of us now, would you?”

“There will be no divorce, quit it.” Miklos spoke again. “Leave Eve before you replace out what rumors are real and what are not.” His tone had become icy, and his eyes were hard. The flick of his lashes in her direction and a wave of his hand to the host had the woman being quickly escorted out of the restaurant with her manager quickly rushing behind. Unlike when she left his house on Sunday morning, when she had been yelling and angry, Eve was silent and fearful as she exited the restaurant.

“Will there be many more of your ex-lovers to torment your wife, Miklos or just the two we’ve heard of so far this meal?” Nerida spoke curtly, now annoyed with him.

He exhaled through his nose and closed his eyes, “mother, I swear –”

“Do not lie to me,” Nerida cut him off. “We have all tolerated your reluctance because of Dimitra’s age. You should have gone to her when she finished her first program in Boston. Instead, you continued behaving like Vasili and having a different lover every other month.” At Giorgio’s protest she held up a finger, “he is your best friend and I know he would die for you and would do anything for you, but he is a philandering fool. Now our son is on the verge of losing the very best thing he has ever had and it’s because he treated a delicate orchid like a dandelion. I am trying to be supportive of you Miklos, but it is difficult to watch Dimitra be accosted by your mistresses in public. Sort your s**t out and make sure this never happens again or there will be hell to pay.”

“I have already given Dimitra my word. There will never be another after her. I am ready to make this marriage real. I cannot go back in time and change the past, but I can promise there is only one woman in my future, and she is the one seated at my side.”

“Make sure it stays this way,” Giorgio warned him. “Vasili may not expect your loyalty to your wife, but your mother and I will.”

“There is no need for warnings.” He sipped his wine and looked at Dimitra who was watching him through narrowed eyes. “I am committed to making our marriage work and nothing and nobody will ever change my mind.”

Dimitra heard the challenge in his words and felt her stomach plummet. This dinner could not have gone any worse and as she sat there shoving her food around her plate mindlessly, she realized she was getting closer and closer to having to enact plan B.