Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

I T WAS A spectacularly beautiful day to become an orphan.

Despite the profoundly sacrilegious thought, Odessa Santella breathed in deep, letting the salt-tinged sea breeze fill her lungs, tilting her head to the sunrays in the hope it would reach her cold, frozen insides. She dug her bare toes into the rough pebbles beneath her feet, willing the discomfort to ground her.

Opening eyes she'd squeezed shut, the better to experience this monumental day, she watched dappling light bouncing off the water, ignoring the craggy cliff face, the sheer drop and the jagged, deadly rocks ten feet beyond where she stood.

It was indeed a beautiful day to—

A rough throat was cleared behind her, shattering her peace—such as it was.

‘Signorina.'

The prompt held warning, as most of her interactions with anyone connected to her father had for as long as she could remember.

It didn't matter that her father was dead. That she was minutes away from witnessing the final rituals following his death. She would never be free of him. He'd seen to that in the meticulous, cruel way he'd ruled her life.

Odessa took one resigned step back, then another, her pitch-black dress growing heavier on her body as the breeze dropped away and the weight of fate pressed down on her. Taking another moment, she slid her black pumps back onto her feet.

She'd thought she'd be free once Elio Santella had succumbed to his cancer.

How foolish she'd been!

A hundred yards away, two dozen pairs of eyes watched her approach, each set evaluating her, wondering whether she would become a problem they'd have to deal with or whether she would, like all the other women in the family, know her place. Stay in her place.

One set in particular made her skin crawl. Dark as soot. Deadly as a viper.

Vincenzo Bartorelli had revealed his intentions the second Odessa had turned twenty-one. It had only been through a series of mishaps keeping him out of her father's good grace that she'd been saved from his unwanted advances for the last seven years.

Now, with her father out of the picture, this man who was over twice her age all but salivated every time he clapped eyes on her. And he'd made sure those occasions were frequent since Elio's death a week ago.

Hell, he would've all but moved into the twenty-bedroom mansion her father had called his castle but Odessa termed her prison, if Uncle Flávio hadn't called first dibs on the property he'd not so secretly coveted since his brother had built it thirty years ago.

Her gaze slid over to her uncle, hoping for some sign that the nightmare hurtling towards her was all in her fevered imagination. The harsh look reprimanding her for keeping everyone waiting and warning her not to make a scene eviscerated any such hope.

His eyes trained on her, he tapped his hand against his leg in silent summons—a demeaning cue he'd picked up from her father. She wanted to yell that she wasn't a dog to be called to heel. Pursing her lips, she slowed her feet and lifted her chin, her heart thumping as his eyes narrowed.

No doubt her rebellion would earn her punishment before sundown, but she'd grown accustomed to verbal lashes and the occasional backhander.

At some point she'd decided that not behaving herself was worth it.

It kept her soul from shrivelling and dying.

She slotted herself into the too-narrow gap between her two living tormenters and stared down at the casket containing her dead one.

Her father had grown more bitter and vicious in the months before his death. The news that his illness was terminal had warped him into a crueller version of the previously tyrannical mob boss everyone feared. Faced with his dwindling mortality, Elio hadn't sought to go peacefully. He'd railed against fate and everyone who came within ten feet of him, blaming everyone and everything but the expensive cigars he'd inhaled every day for five decades.

Odessa listened to the priest intone words of peace and salvation. Her lips twisted. Her heart was unable to wish this man who'd tormented her for so long rest. She hoped her mother gave him hell in the afterlife, the way she hadn't dared when she was alive. She hoped—

Her thoughts stalled, then scattered as the muttering around the graveside rose.

‘What are they doing here?'

‘Is that really him?'

‘I never thought I'd see him here ever again.'

‘Have you heard how powerful he is now?'

That last statement jerked Uncle Flávio's attention away from the priest, power and influence being the twin drugs he rabidly fed on. When he wasn't boasting about how he'd acquired them, he was greedily plotting nefarious ways to gain more.

Odessa, knowing she would inevitably be trapped in whatever web his plans created, redirected her attention from her father's casket too, her heart squeezing in dread at whatever calamity was approaching. Because she'd learned to her cost that there was always, without fail, a worst-case scenario with the Santella family.

Following the gazes of the mourners, realising even the priest's words had trailed off, she blinked away tears she didn't remember shedding.

Then her heart stopped altogether.

What was he doing here?

Because this was truly the last place she'd expected to see him.

Aristotle Zanelis.

Ares.

The name exploded in her head like the earth-shaking feats of his Greek namesake.

In the years since she'd last seen him he'd conquered the world, moulded it to his will and made himself a formidable force to boot.

He wielded the kind of power Flávio and Vincenzo would give their limbs for. And he was here, at her father's funeral?

Belatedly she saw the smaller man striding at his side.

Sergios Zanelis—his father. The man who'd chauffeured her father for the better part of twenty years until crippling arthritis—and her father's unscrupulous behaviour—had forced the gentle Greek to retire.

‘Who invited him ?' Flávio barked, but already she could hear the thirsty speculation in his voice, the fervid scramble to work this angle to his advantage. She felt more than saw his hard eyes drill into her temple. ‘Did you—'

‘No,' she interjected strongly, still unable to take her eyes off the towering, broad-shouldered man who bore down on them as if he owned the very land he walked on.

Odessa would've speculated that he probably did—considering his international real estate mogul status these days—if she hadn't known for a fact that the mansion she'd been born in now belonged to her uncle.

Besides, considering how they'd parted ten years ago, she wouldn't have dared to reach out to Ares for anything—never mind condolences for her father, who'd treated him as deplorably as Elio had.

What about what you did?

Vines of shame and righteous indignation twisted around her heart, strangling her as he drew closer. Or was it the sheer magnificence of the man who'd lived up to every promise of the drop-dead gorgeousness his younger self had predicted?

Because... angeli sopra ...Ares Zanelis was carved from the very best of celestial moulds.

‘Who is this?' Vincenzo snapped.

Flávio stepped away without answering, crossing the grass towards their unexpected guests. Completely ignoring the senior Zanelis, her uncle held out his hand to Ares, his initial vexation totally eradicated by his covetous smile.

Odessa's heart leapt with alarm when Ares's hand remained at his side, his face formidably imperial. But she watched his lips move and a tense second later Flávio was transferring his greeting to Ares's father, who shook his hand and nodded solemnly.

Only after the older man had been greeted did Ares shake Flávio's hand. The whole spectacle lasted less than twenty seconds, but it was shockingly clear who'd gained the upper hand in the little exchange.

Odessa gasped as her wrist was trapped in a crushing grip.

‘Answer me when I talk to you, girl,' Vincenzo growled beside her, sensing the balance of power shifting and petulantly resenting it.

‘Let go of me.'

Her demand was low and hoarse. His cruel grip and the knowledge that later she would be sporting a bruise hollowed her stomach in an unmistakable portent of what was to come.

She tried to snatch her hand away, but he merely tightened his hold. About to protest further, she froze when Ares Zanelis arrived next to her, his imposing body blocking out the sun.

‘Release her.'

The rough and viciously animalistic growled command raised the hairs on her nape. As did the gaze he concentrated upon the man holding her captive. Its savagery caused Vincenzo's eyes to widen in swift alarm as he quickly heeded the order.

His will imposed, Ares redirected his gaze to her.

Odessa rubbed her stinging wrist, tilted her head up and up—had he always been this tall?—and met the cold liquid hazel gaze of the man who had dominated her thoughts once upon a time. But while she'd been able to read his expression back then, he was now a dark, impenetrable tower, content simply to stare at her without uttering a word.

In her teens, she'd likened his heart-stopping demeanour to one of the mythical Greek creatures of old. Even back then his dominance had been unquestionable.

That aura was a hundred-fold more potent now, and the ferocity of it snatched the air out of her lungs and accelerated her heartbeat.

Her alarm that he was here, in the place he'd left without so much as a goodbye, mingled with her nerves as she cleared her throat. ‘I... Ares... Thank you for coming.'

Odessa was painfully aware that her statement lacked warmth and held a definite query.

‘It isn't me you should be thanking,' he replied, in a voice that had definitely deepened with time, and once again warning tingles danced over her neck and shivered down her spine.

Before she could ask what he meant, his father was stepping up to her, the older Zanelis' trademark smile dimmed only by the solemnity of the occasion.

‘Odessa, it is good to see you,' Sergios Zanelis said, reaching out to grasp her hands in a much gentler hold. ‘I hope you don't mind that we're here, but I insisted we pay our respects. Your father was generous enough to keep me in his employ for over twenty years. I will never forget that.'

Ares's jaw clenched at his father's words, and an absurd hollow opened inside her. It couldn't have been clearer that this was the last place he'd have come if his father hadn't insisted on it. Or that his father's positive outlook didn't match Ares's own view of past events.

Telling herself that she might easily have gone another few decades without clapping eyes on Ares Zanelis would've been a lie. For one thing, he dominated the news these days, his power and influence a source of breathless material for both mainstream and social media.

That was how she knew he was unmarried. How she knew his relationships barely lasted a handful of months, with the princesses, actresses and supermodels of this world who apparently lined up round the block for a chance to be his latest flame getting the revolving door treatment with eye-watering frequency.

That was how she knew his father was the only constant in his life.

When she'd read about the car crash that had almost taken both their lives four years ago it had sent her to the tiny Santella family chapel every sunrise for the three weeks Ares had remained in a coma in California. And in that chapel she'd made fervent promises she hadn't been sure she'd be able to keep.

Aware of the thick silence, and especially of Ares's laser gaze boring into her, Odessa cleared her throat and summoned a whisper of a smile. ‘It's very good of you to come, Mr Zanelis. I really appreciate it.'

And she did, because in this sea of men with nefarious intentions and a willingness to mow everyone down including her— especially her—in their bid to become the next head of the Santella organised crime family, seeing this man who'd gone about his work with an incredibly sunny disposition was a balm she couldn't help but greedily latch on to.

She grew even more conscious of Ares's stare as she spoke, his scrutiny sharpening over her face as if gauging the veracity of her words.

The priest clearing his throat pointedly gave her the excuse to turn away. To face her father's casket once more. She kept her gaze fixed on it even while her senses whirled in frantic alarm as Ares took Vincenzo's place at her left side, with his father displacing Uncle Flávio on her right.

And it was in the thirty minutes as the service resumed—as her uncle's dark eyes moved speculatively over her and Vincenzo's gaze promised hell—that the seed of her desperate idea was born.

Because, while she'd been unable to read Flávio's expression fully, she'd seen it enough before—deciphered that look after she'd spotted it countless times on her father's face, and on those of most members of her family and his so-called business partners.

Resentment. Judgement. The promise of retribution.

In Ares's eyes she'd spotted something else. The ghost of an emotion she'd thought long dead.

Lust.

Awareness of the feeling she'd thought had been left behind when he'd walked away from her that fateful night drew from her fresh tingles of danger and partly shame. But, while this occasion was the last place she should be thinking of such things, his proximity, his aura... Dear God, even the way he smelled—like thunder-tossed rainstorms and smoked wood—was undeniable and erotic in its invasiveness.

And if she wasn't wrong about what she'd seen in his eyes maybe she could...

God, could she?

She drew in a shaky breath as the priest ended the ceremony. As she tossed the white rose she'd plucked from the offered vase onto her father's lowered casket and mourned the parent not for his death, but for what he'd never been able to give her in his life, she knew, deep in her bones, that she needed something to change.

Remaining under Flávio and Vincenzo's already strangling hold would be the end of her. But, just as she knew that, she also knew that merely running wouldn't work.

Her move needed to be bold. Drastic. Terminal in a way that burned bridges neither Flávio nor Vincenzo could repair. Because if she didn't...if she was somehow half-hearted in this...

A tremor shook through her and Ares's sharp gaze swung to her.

Pushing the frightening thought aside, she glanced around her and noticed the mourners were slowly dispersing, while casting furtive glances at the two men stationed on either side of her.

Feeling another presence behind her, Odessa glanced over her shoulder. Flávio stood there, but his beady gaze was fixed squarely on Ares.

‘Zanelis, there's a reception back at the house. We would be obliged if you would attend,' he offered, disingenuous charm oozing from him.

Again, Ares's face tightened at this deliberate snub of his father, even though the older man seemed unconcerned.

After an age of his gaze never leaving hers, he answered tightly, ‘If that is what Odessa wants.'

The sound of her name on his lips, with that slight evocative Greek accent which had remained despite his spending most of his formative years in Italy, made her pelvis tighten.

Regardless of his words, though, his eyes told her to refuse. That it wasn't what he wanted. Righteous indignation rose again. He had a nerve to hold a grudge. What she'd done back then had been to protect him. While he...

He was her last hope, no matter how bleak and spurious her idea might turn out to be. No matter how aloof and hostile he seemed now, she would cling to the memory of the less intimidating man she'd known back then. The man who'd whispered promises to her beneath the stars...

Because she couldn't let Ares leave. Not yet.

‘I would like that very much.' She ignored her uncle's smug expression and turned to Sergios. ‘If you have the time, Sergios?'

She was playing a risky game, exploiting the past affection the older Zanelis had had for her. She prayed she would be forgiven her transgression. Ares's narrowed eyes when she glanced at him from the corner of her eye said he'd seen through her ploy. Still, she kept her eyes fixed squarely on his father.

‘Of course, my dear,' Sergios responded, immediately offering his arm.

Relieved, she clung to him all the way up the hill, back to the house that had been a prison for as long as she could remember.

Nearing it, she examined the imposing facade closely.

Had the vines creeping around the windows always been this dense, almost suffocating the structure as the house did her? Had the drapes framing the thick bulletproof windows always been this gloomy? Every door, stone and blade of grass was in pristine shape, of course. The staff were trained to fear, and knew that flaws wouldn't be tolerated under any circumstances and that they would sometimes be severely punished for infractions.

Case in point, the sweet man walking beside her, who'd been summarily sacked the moment his arthritic fingers had become an imperfection her father hadn't been able to tolerate.

Odessa had moped for months after Sergios had left the Santella household, even as a part of her had been soothed by the thought that he was reuniting with Ares.

Ares, the man whose contempt pulsed from him as he strode in tense silence beside her.

Ares, the man she intended to use to grasp her freedom.

Thoughts of the perilous road ahead made her shudder, and her step faltered momentarily before Sergios's surprisingly strong grip held her up.

‘The loss may seem insurmountable right now, but it will lessen,' he said, mistaking her stumble for grief. ‘It will never go away, but you'll learn to live with it.'

She felt like a fraud, accepting comfort when she didn't miss her tyrannical father one little bit. When she knew that once she escaped— if she escaped—she would never set foot on this cursed soil ever again.

Far too soon they were inside the largest salone , the place where Elio had held court and lorded his superiority over his subordinates.

It was in this very room that he'd told Sergios his services were no longer required because he was old and useless.

It was in this very room that he'd told her never to speak to Ares Zanelis again, or else ...

It was here, only a few short months ago, that he'd told her he would be marrying her off to Vincenzo Bartorelli, a man older than he himself, to consolidate his power.

Odessa avoided this room unless strictly necessary. The dark green furniture was stiff and uncomfortable, the thick residue of cigar smoke hanging in the air too cloying. It was a room where men made plans about women and expected them to bend or break to accommodate them.

No, she would not miss this room one little bit.

She thanked one of the maids offering her a tray of drinks and chose a mineral water, needing to keep every wit about her. She rarely drank anyway, and when she did it was at functions where refusing would draw her father's disapproving glances.

In fact, the last time she'd been anywhere near tipsy it had been with...

Her gaze flicked to Ares as she wondered if he remembered that night on her seventeenth birthday, when they'd sneaked out at midnight and sat on the cliff-edge with a stolen bottle of her father's Dom Perignon. How they'd lain on the grass, the backs of their hands touching under the canopy of stars with the raging waters beneath their feet. How they'd whispered their hopes and dreams to one another.

Did he think of her at all? Had he spent a single moment on what if ?

‘Does it hurt?'

She started, then followed his gaze to her reddened wrist, where imprints of Vincenzo's cruel hold were already proclaiming her fate if she didn't find a way out of this nightmare.

‘Um...not really.'

His face darkened, hazel eyes turning molten bronze. ‘Either it does or it doesn't. Which is it?' he grated, not bothering to keep his voice down.

‘Okay, it's a little sore,' she muttered, hyper-aware that they were the centre of very speculative attention—especially from Vincenzo Bartorelli.

She tensed when, after a moment of dark observation, the older man started across the room, his destination unmistakable.

Panic rising, she turned to Ares. ‘Can I talk to you?'

One jet-black eyebrow lifted. ‘What makes you think we have anything worth saying to each other? I'm only here because of—'

‘Your father. I know. But...' She swallowed, wondering if she shouldn't find another way between the rock barrelling towards her and this man who'd disappeared from her life once already. But the sands of time were fast slipping through her fingers. Ares might be a devil, but at this point he was the lesser of two evils.

‘Please,' she whispered. ‘It's important.'

A mix of curiosity, censure and suspicion darted across his face. Her heart squeezed, threatening to mourn, because there'd once been a time when only curiosity and amused interest dashed with the intoxicating and forbidden had existed there.

‘Important to you, perhaps. Not to me.'

His gaze flickered past her to where his father was speaking to the butler, another man who'd been in the Santella household since long before Odessa was born.

‘I don't intend to be here long enough for whatever—'

‘Odessa. A moment of your time?' Vincenzo interrupted, a hard edge in his tone.

Her heart plummeted. She knew what was about to happen. She'd heard whispers of it, and seen enough of Flávio and Vincenzo's clandestine meetings in the past week to know.

She darted an imploring gaze at Ares, uncaring if he read the naked plea in her eyes. He didn't say a word...not for a long stretch of time that shredded every nerve in her body.

Then, when she thought she'd have no choice but to seal her fate by publicly refusing Vincenzo, Ares bit out tightly, ‘It'll have to wait. Odessa's wrist is sore. It needs immediate attention. So if you'll excuse us...'

It wasn't a request for permission. It was a pointed barb that struck true from the look on Vincenzo's reddened face as his gaze dropped to where he'd gripped her so mercilessly.

He opened his mouth, no doubt either to excuse himself or to belittle Ares's comment. Either way, he wasn't given the chance.

‘Shall we?'

At her nod, Ares's firm fingers wrapped around her elbow and he led her towards the closest door.

Relief lightened her feet—until reality set in. She had the opening she sought, but she was nowhere near home free. There was still a mountain to climb.

But as she walked beside the man she'd once thought would be hers for ever, she knew there was no going back. There was no way she would marry Vincenzo Bartorelli.

If she didn't succeed, she'd simply have to find another way. She would rather die than live beneath another man's thumb.

With uncanny accuracy, considering he hadn't stepped foot inside this house for over a decade, and even back then he'd rarely been permitted indoors, Ares led her down two long corridors, bypassing her father's study to enter the small library.

Unlike most rooms in the Santella mansion it was nondescript, almost bordering on simplistically pleasant. It had been her mother's favourite room only because her father had hated it and spent the least money on it in his grand villa plans.

Odessa had dreaded her father turning it into another gaudy showpiece after her mother had died, but for whatever reason Elio Santella had left it intact. It had become Odessa's favourite room in the house...the place she felt closest to her mother.

Was that why Ares had brought her here? Did he remember?

The way he turned his back on the bookshelves and view, facing her with narrowed eyes and arms folded, said that he probably didn't.

‘Thank you for your time.' She paused, cleared her throat. Would he agree to her outrageous proposal? ‘I...'

‘Spit it out, Odessa. I don't have all day.'

Irritation bit into her, sending her chin up before she could stop herself. ‘I need your help,' she blurted.

For the longest time he eyed her, his focus unblinking. ‘Let's bypass your assumption that you have the right to ask anything of me and skip to the part where you believe I would want to help you in any way.'

Her heart juddered at his acid tone. The last remaining ounce of her pride screamed at her to walk away, hold her head high and fight the fate barrelling down on her another way.

But the way he'd dealt with Vincenzo just now shoved aside her pride and bolstered her hope. ‘Look, I wouldn't ask if I didn't need... Besides, you...' Owe me , she'd been about to say. But she bit her tongue against revisiting that part of her past, and what she'd done to ensure his safety.

‘I what?' he demanded, eyebrows raised and with no ounce of give in his features.

She shook her head, dismissing the unsavoury consequences she'd had to bear for simply associating with her father's chauffeur's son. ‘It doesn't matter.'

She couldn't think about the past now. Not when her future was so bleak—

‘You have thirty seconds. Then I walk out,' he warned in a soft, dangerous murmur.

She believed him. After all, hadn't he done that once before, this man who was a world removed from the younger version she'd known.

Or was he...?

Hadn't he possessed this overwhelming presence even back then, only caged it better?

Now the full force of it was bearing down on her, Odessa was at once wary of and drawn to it—like a hapless moth dancing towards a destroying flame.

She watched, mesmerised despite herself, as his folded arms slowly dropped. His large, masculine hands drew attention to his lean hips, the dangerously evocative image he made simply by... being .

Silence ticked away, and she watched that eyebrow slowly arch, as if he was surprised by her audacity in letting her chance whittle away.

Go big or go home.

Except this home was one she was desperate to escape.

At what felt like the last second, Odessa took a deep breath and took the boldest leap. ‘Before my father's funeral is over Vincenzo Bartorelli will announce our engagement.' Acid flooded her mouth at the very thought. ‘I would rather dive naked into Mount Etna than marry him. So I'd...I'd like you to say that I'm marrying you instead. And in return...'

Dio , was she really doing this?

‘And in return I'll give you whatever you want.'