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PROLOGUE

LEONIDAS PARNASSUS looked out of theof his private plane They’d just landed at Athens airport To his utter consternation his chest felt tight and constricted—a sensation he didn’t welcome He was curiously reluctant toto open the door, even though sitting still and notwas anathe at the reality that he’d acquiesced to his father’s demand that he come to Athens for ‘talks’

Leo Parnassus did not carve out ti or anyone he deey Not a business venture, a lover, nor a father who had put building up the fa their shahtly, his face so harsh that the steho had been approaching hi though but the heat haze on the tarhts

He was Greek through and through, and yet he’d never set foot on Greek soil His family had been exiled from their ancestral home before he was born, but his father had returned triu drealory in their new-found status and inestimable wealth

Bitter anger rose when Leo remembered his beloved ya ya’s lined and worn face The sadness that had grooved deep lines around her mouth and shadowed her eyes It had been too late for her to return horown to love Even though his granded him to return as soon as he’d had the chance, he’d conde her heart He’d always sworn that he wouldn’t return to the place that had spurned his family so easily

Athens was still home to the Kassianides family who had been responsible for all that pain and sadness, and ere suffering far too belatedly andshadow over his childhood which had been indelibly marked by their actions, in so many ways

And yet, despite all that…here he was Because so in his father’s voice, an un that had happened It had touched him on some level In short, he’d felt compelled to come Perhaps he wanted to prove to himself that he was not at the mercy of his emotions?

The very thought of that ht he’d made an inarticulate vow never to let any intensity of emotion overwhelm him, because that’s what had killed hishis ancestral home in the face and turn his back on it once and for all? Of course he could

But first he had to deal with the fact that his father wanted hi business Leo had denied his inheritance a long tio; he’d embraced the entrepreneurial American spirit, and now ran a diverse subsidiary business that encompassed finance, acquisitions, and real estate, recently snapping up an entire block of buildings in New York’s Lower East Side for redevelopment

His sole input to his father’s business had been a couple of years before when they’d tightened the noose of revenge around the neck of Tito Kassianides, the last re patriarch of the Kassianides fa that had joined father and son: a united desire to seek vengeance

Leo had taken singular pleasure insure that the Kassianides’ deer his father had orchestrated with Aristotle Levakis, one of Greece’s titans of industry That victory now, though, when he was faced with the reality of touching down in Greece, felt curiously erandot a chance to see it

A discreet cough sounded, ‘I’m sorry, sir?’

Leo looked up, intensely irritated to have been observed in a privateto the now open cabin door Leo’s chest clenched tightly again, and he had the childishly bizarre urge to tell them to slam the door shut and take off, back to New York It was al outside that door lay in wait for hi to the surface, and it was so unwelcome that he stood up jerkily from his seat as if he could shake them off

He walked to the cabin door, very aware of the eyes of his staff on him Nor at him for his reaction, but now it scraped over his skin like sandpaper

The heat hit hiely familiar He breathed in the Athens air for the first time in his life and felt his heart hit hard with the intensifying of that absurd feeling of fa here would feel like betraying his grandently pushing hiic and intellect, it was an alien and deeply disturbing sensation

He concealed his eyes behind dark shades as an o skated over his skin He had the very unwe

lcoe

At the same moment on the other side of Athens