If Kyr desired Pollyanna before, he was obsessed with her now, unable to give her any respite, and it didn’t help at all that she was the most receptive little thing, never saying no to whatever he wanted.

He had taken her in the fields, hidden between the rose bushes, and she hadn’t murmured a word of protest, only looking at him with stars in her eyes that told him she was his. It was the most addictive thought.

He had taken her in the car, the pool, the yacht – there probably wasn’t a room in his yacht that he had not made love to her in. And every night, he would find himself climbing into her room from the window, fucking her until he had to crawl out at dawn, before the Floros found out their goddaughter wasn’t alone in her room.

Every time they made love, she would cry out her love for him, and she would never ask him to say it back. He had asked her why once, and she had told him she knew that Greek men were generally not verbal, so it was okay with her if he didn’t say the words back.

She had then patted his chest, saying, It’s what you feel inside that counts.

And Kyr hadn’t the courage to tell her she was wrong about him.

He wasn’t in love with her, couldn’t ever be, because his heart had long been destroyed.

I’ll never hurt her, I’ll make her the happiest girl on earth, Kyr had vowed to himself. And in his arrogance, it had never occurred to his mind that she would have the same power over him, never imagined she would be capable of hurting him…until the day he saw her packing.

Knowing that her godparents were out for the night, attending the local bingo, he had gone straight up to her room, intending to surprise Polly. But he was the one surprised instead, finding her folding her clothes and neatly placing them in her opened suitcase.

“What does this mean?”

Pollyanna whirled around with a gasp, and she paled at the way the billionaire was looking at her, standing still and stiff by the doorway.

“Kyr, what is it?” she asked worriedly. Seeing his gaze trained on the opened suitcase on her bed, she said awkwardly, “But you always knew, right?”

“And us?” He hated himself for asking, and he hated her for giving him no choice.

“You’ll visit me…right?” When he didn’t answer, she stammered, “I would visit you if I could afford it, but I can’t, so---”

“What if you find someone else?”

She started to laugh but stopped when she realized he was serious. “B-but Kyr…” She glanced at him helplessly. He was Kyrillos Gazis. A man so beautiful and sexy it hurt to look at him, a man so exciting to be with it just had her head spinning every time she thought about all the time she had spent with him.

“You don’t really think I can be unfaithful to you?” she asked shakily.

Did he not?

“Marry me.” The words were out before he could stop himself. In front of him, his Pollyanna was giving him her patented blowfish look, and somehow that cemented his belief he was doing the only thing he could do to survive.

“Marry me,” he repeated. He didn’t love her, but no one had…succeeded in making him feel alive the way she did. He would, in return, make her the happiest girl in the world, so damn happy that she would never realize he didn’t love her.

“Kyr…are you serious?” Her voice was strangled.

He looked at Pollyanna. Eighteen years old, too young, too innocent, too kind for someone like him – she didn’t deserve to be with someone like him, but he could not let her go.

If she left for university, who the hell knew if the same thing wouldn’t happen again?

He could not lose her.

He could not.

“Marry me.”

“But there’s university---”

“You can study here, after we marry.”

“There isn’t a university here,” she pointed out faintly.

“I’ll build you one,” he countered calmly.

“Kyr!” She choked back a nervous laugh.

He took hold of her hand and looked into her eyes, and yes, he was again using every damn trick in the book to seduce her into doing what he wanted.

“Marry me.”