The Heir Affair, page 19
As the years passed, fewer and far between were these visits home. If he had his way, he would see to it that there was no crossover between Pavlos’s vanity projects and the actual concerns of the shipping business that had been in the family for generations, but that Thanasis had turned into a multinational conglomerate.
You must come, Pavlos had said merrily, sounding wholly undeterred, as ever. I have an announcement to make of supreme importance.
Are you terminally ill? Thanasis had asked dryly.
Pavlos had laughed. You wish, my boy. Soon enough, all this will be your problem to solve. But in the meantime, I require your presence at the villa.
If I refuse this invitation, will you finally cut me out of your will? Thanasis asked.
But the old man only laughed again, and rang off.
If Thanasis had thought that Pavlos really would disinherit him, he might have stayed back in London the way he’d wanted to do. But everything with his father came down to weighing the options. Deciding what was worse at any given time—or what would become worse in the future if ignored—and acting accordingly.
At the end of the day, it cost him relatively little to turn up, appear to dance attendance on the old man’s whims, gather what intelligence he could, and then leave.
Not that there was ever much intelligence on display, of course.
Now, fully in his glory and with all of his children in attendance, Pavlos tapped his glass with one of the signet rings he wore on his thick fingers. He kept going until he claimed the attention of everyone in the room.
It was perhaps more true than Thanasis wanted to admit that his father had excellent taste in women. But what they saw in Pavlos in return was his wealth. His power. His status and fame. A woman who dated Pavlos Zacharias could be certain she would find herself infamous almost at once. Some of his mistresses had parlayed that notoriety into something resembling a career, depending on a person’s definition of that term, but one thing remained certain.
Not a single one of them could possibly have dated the old man for his looks. Not in decades, anyway.
Because Pavlos had once been tall and commanding. Thanasis had seen the pictures. But he was not a handsome man. All of his features were bold and arresting, and he had been called exciting and powerful in his heyday. Those same bold and arresting features coupled with a lifetime of dissolution and excess, however, meant that these days he resembled nothing so much as a goblin.
Something Thanasis had told him once, though it had done nothing but make the old man howl with laughter.
Jealous, are you? Pavlos had asked when he stopped laughing. A goblin I might be, my boy, and yet still the whole world finds me magnetic beyond reason.
You pronounced rich incorrectly, Thanasis had replied in his usual dry way, but that had only made his father laugh more.
Someday you will understand that these things are the same, the old man had said. Or you will be poor and forgotten.
Thanasis liked to think that he would be neither, thank you.
Pavlos, ever attuned to the shifting sands of attention and admiration, waited until everyone was staring at him. He smiled broadly. He looked beside him, and took the hand of Saskia’s ghost.
His Saskia’s ghost, Thanasis thought.
And something inside him…detonated.
He had kept her hidden away from any and all prying eyes, his Saskia. He had protected her when she was his. He had kept her a secret from everyone who knew him, the paparazzi, the world. She had come to think that he was ashamed of her, but nothing could be further from the truth.
What he had never wanted was this. His corrosive father anywhere near her—
But he shook himself.
Saskia was dead. This woman was an imitation, not the real thing.
And still, he didn’t like his father touching her. It crawled all over him like something sick.
“I have invited everyone here to celebrate with me,” Pavlos boomed out, smiling fatuously in all directions. “I have asked this beautiful woman, my lovely and innocent Selwen, to marry me. Better yet, she has accepted.”
He beamed at Saskia. Thanasis thought he might actually have died himself.
But Pavlos wasn’t done. “And she has graciously accepted,” he continued. “And who can say, perhaps she will be the making of me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The crowd burst into the expected applause. The band began to play something saccharine.
And Thanasis stared at the ghost of his lost mistress and vowed, then and there, that she would marry his degenerate of a father—apparition or no—over his dead body.
Copyright © 2025 by Caitlin Crews
LOVE HARLEQUIN ROMANCE?
DISCOVER
Find which books are coming next month from your favorite series at
Harlequin.com/Shop/Pages/Coming-Soon.html
EXPLORE
Sign up for the Harlequin e-newsletter and download a free book from any series at
TryHarlequin.com
CONNECT
Follow @HarlequinBooks on Instagram for the latest in swoon-worthy romance, including new releases, behind-the-scenes content, author Q&As and more!
Instagram.com/HarlequinBooks
Be the first to find out about promotions, news and exclusive content by following our socials @HarlequinBooks.
ISBN-13: 9780369765802
The Heir Affair
Copyright © 2025 by Heidi Rice
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission.
Without limiting the author’s and publisher’s exclusive rights, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. Harlequin also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For questions and comments about the quality of this book, please contact us at CustomerService@Harlequin.com.
TM and ® are trademarks of Harlequin Enterprises ULC.
Harlequin Enterprises ULC
22 Adelaide St. West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario M5H 4E3, Canada
www.Harlequin.com
Heidi Rice, The Heir Affair
