Read Online A Perfect Wife: International Billionaires V: The Greeks by Caro LaFever - Free Book Online

stare through the window. All the tenseness of his body returned and she watched as he hunched over, his taut arms now propped on his knees.
    She managed to suck in a deep breath, glad for the break from his attention.
    “We don’t have much time,” he muttered, still looking out the window. She saw the wave of clouds billowing, clouding the view as they sank lower in the night sky. What was he looking at? Why was he so incredibly tense? He wasn’t the one arriving in a foreign country, meeting a bunch of strange people.
    “We’re landing soon.” He swung around and stared at her, all humor gone. “I need your agreement to play the part. Now.”
    If she refused, if she went back on her word to play this game, surely he would exact a horrible revenge. She could see it in his eyes. However, she’d been through many a wringer in the last few years and she could handle him if she had to. But she couldn’t handle disappointing an old lady at the moment of her life’s deepest crisis when she was about to lose her husband.
    Impossible.
    “All right. I’ll do my best.” She scowled, wondering how the heck she’d come to this.
    “ O̱raía .” His satisfied word landed in the following silence making her jump. “Now we can move onto the information I need from you.”
    “Huh?” Contemplating the horrible situation she’d gotten herself into, Nat found herself yanked back into the conversation. She gazed at him in confusion.
    “Your name, gynaíka .” His mouth firmed. “Your real name.”
    A bubble of amusement burbled alongside her dismay at the role she’d have to play during the next few days. “I told you. Natalie.”
    “No more games. Or I send you back to New York and the police.”
    “My name is Natalie.”
    He growled his displeasure. “I need to run a background check on you, pronto. I can’t have strangers around my family without knowing who they are.”
    “Sorry, not going to happen.” If he ran a background check, he’d find out about her father. Her brother. Her uncles. His view of her would dip even further into disdain. She shouldn’t care what he thought about her, yet she did.
    Much to her disgust.
    The plane dipped once more. His head swung around again. She saw the twinkling lights of a city, a huge city behind him. A flurry of excitement stirred inside her, despite the turbulent emotions clanging in her chest.
    Athens. It must be.
    Zenos seemed to have forgotten her. His body twisted toward the window, toward his homeland. Instead of happiness at his homecoming, she sensed an entirely different reaction coming off him.
    Pain.
    She watched his broad back, covered only by a thin silk shirt. The muscles were rigid and tense. Her gaze traced the arch of his spine, up to his hair. The curls were more pronounced on the back of his head, as if away from his alert focus, they could flourish.
    “ Archikí̱ ,” he murmured.
    What did it mean? She wanted desperately to know. The tone of his voice was so dark, so hoarse. So agonized. Then it came, the word harsh and low.
    “Home.”

Chapter 6
    T he smells of his homeland wafted into his nostrils with unwelcome familiarity. Pine mixed with the heat of the tarmac, the smell of the jet fuel. The dusty, gritty tones of the land blended with the scent of wet rain and the salt of the sea. A faint wisp of long forgotten memories swirled in his head.
    Aetos breathed through his mouth.
    The taste of Greece slid over his tongue and down his throat. The wild green grasses lacing around the wire fences, dying a slow death in the cool of the early December air. The sharp tang of spice, the dark richness of coffee, the hint of ancient passion and promise drifted in the breeze. Even the men starting to unload the plane scented the air with their salty Greek skin.
    Home.
    He gritted his teeth and took the last step off the airplane stairs.
    Seventeen years had gone by since he stood on his homeland. Seventeen years of not thinking of this place, not