Chapter 3
When Athena’s eyelids fluttered open the following morning, it was around six. She sighed when she realized that she was still lying on the couch. Her hand automatically went to her ring pendant. She closed her eyes and sighed loudly as her fingers ran over the surface of ring she had worn on her chain ever since the wedding.
“Another day, another struggle,” she thought as she pulled herself out of the couch. She walked to the bedroom and wondered whether to just get back in bed or go for a run. She was supposed to go and check in on the Aquarium, make sure her clean-up crew had done their work but she was not feeling up to it. And she knew for a fact that having pulled off the charity benefit, she could definitely get away with not being at the office that Saturday. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers before she reached for her TV remote. She had just switched on her TV when she heard her doorbell ring. She sighed loudly.
“What the hell? It’s freaking six in the morning,” she thought as she pulled a pillow over her head.
She wanted to ignore the door but for some reason, whoever was at the door was not giving up. She sighed when she heard the doorbell ring again.
“For God’s sake,” she said to no one in particular as she climbed out of her bed and walked to the front door.
“Well, good morning sleepy head,” Carla said when Athena opened the door.
“What the hell are you doing here so early?” Athena asked as Carla walked in,
“Wait, this whole bathrobe thing is not ironic?” Carla asked. Athena closed the door and shook her head.
“What do you mean ironic? I literally just woke up,” she said. She was now walking to the kitchen. If she was going to have to listen to Carla she was going to need a whole lot of coffee. Preferably cinnamon flavored.
“We were supposed to meet up for a run like we do every weekend,” Carla said following her to the kitchen. Athena looked up from the coffee pot she was filling up.
“I guess that solves the mystery of why the heck you are in sweats,” she said forcing out a smile. Carla rolled her eyes. “Breakfast?” Athena asked as she walked to the fridge. “It’s the least I can do after standing you up.”
“Depends,” Carla said as she leaned on the kitchen counter. “Are you going to make those perfect blueberry pancakes?”
Athena sighed.
“Fine,” she said as she grabbed a bowl from one of the shelves. “I will make pancakes but regular pancakes. I am still a little tired to make pancakes from scratch.”
“You owe me,” Carla said in a warning tone.
“Batter out of a box or no pancakes. You choose,” Athena said looking at Carla who sighed. She smiled and did a victory dance in her head when she realized that she had won that argument.
“So, what happened anyway? Why didn’t you show up at the park?” Carla asked as she took off her hoodie. She helped herself to a grape from the fruit bowl that was in front of her on the counter.
“I don’t know…it was just an exhausting night, I guess,” Athena said shrugging. Carla popped another grape into her mouth and shrugged.
“Are you sure it was just about the job? Because I have seen you pull off three events in one weekend and still look like you just put on fresh makeup,” she said.
“Well this time it was different,” Athena said. “I was a little more spent than usual.”
“Are you sure that was it?” Carla asked and Athena looked at her.
“What else could it be?” she asked as she got the pancake batter from the fridge.
“Well, you appeared a little shaken up after I brought up the whole Evan thing.” Athena looked at her and sighed. “I have not mentioned it for years out of respect but I am not sorry I did. I think it is about time I mentioned it.”
Athena looked up at her friend and shrugged. She opened her mouth to speak but she realized that Carla was right. She had done everything right including packing up and moving to a different state with her.
“I know and I am very grateful but I really don’t want to talk about it right now,” she said as she began washing her hands in the sink.
“Well, it’s been two years Athena.” Carla looked at Athena as she poured two cups of coffee. “Two long years of watching you wallow and I cannot do it anymore.”
“Carla….” Athena started as she placed a cup in front of her friend.
“No, Athena. I am not done yet.” Carla’s voice was a little harsher than she would have wanted it to be. “I have held your hand through it all. But Evan was my friend too and I know more than anyone that he would not be happy seeing you like this.” She reached for her friend’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You need to let the past go.”
“I have,” Athena said and Carla raised an eyebrow over the other.
“Really?” she asked as she reached for the ring dangling from the chain around her neck. “So that’s what this is?”
“This is a little too personal for me, Carla, and you know it,” Athena said as she shook her head.
“Yes, but you know another thing that ring represents?” Carla asked as she gently ran her thumb over her friend’s knuckles. “The past. It is a constant reminder of the most painful day of your life.”
Athena pulled her hand away from Carla’s and shook her head.
“It is not as easy as you make it out to be,” she said.
“Oh I know that and I know it very, very well,” Carla said. “You got closure and I didn’t.”
Athena sighed. Carla was right…about everything. She had been married to a marine and after his third deployment, he never came back home. Everyone believed that he was either killed in action in enemy territory or taken as a prisoner of war.
“Carla…” Athena started again but her friend was not quite done yet.
“You are a beautiful woman who has resigned herself to mere existence and the Evan I know would not like seeing you this way,” she said again. “And I know that for a fact, A.”
Athena looked at Carla for a long time and sighed again.
“I guess I just don’t know how to get back out there,” she started.
“Have you even tried, sweetie?” Carla asked and Athena shrugged.
“Well I did meet someone last night that was a…” Athena started before Carla put her hand up.
“Whoa, hold up,” she said cutting her friend off mid-sentence. “You met someone last night? I thought you said that you were too busy or something like that.”
Athena forced out a smiled.
“I might have lied.”
“Might have or most definitely were?” Carla asked and Athena shrugged again.
“I didn’t want to say anything because I honestly didn’t know what to do. I still don’t,” she said. “But he was the first person who I talked to in a long time that didn’t make me want to blow my head off.”
“And who is this mystery man, pray tell.” Carla was popping another grape into her mouth. “And you have to tell me if he is cute too.”
Athena smiled and nodded.
“Yeah, he is cute. And he has an amazingly hot European accent,” she gushed.
“Europe’s a pretty big place, you know,” Carla started as she reached for another grape. “Are we talking German, French, Italian, British?”
“Russian,” she said as she took a pan and set it on the stove.
“Okay, I definitely didn’t expect that one,” Carla said.
“I know, me either.” Athena smiled as she turned on the fire. “But I actually enjoyed his company. He was actually trying to connect with me and not just get into my pants.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I think I would be open to seeing him again.”
“Okay, now I have to know who he is,” Carla said excitedly.
“His name is Evgeni Markovic,” Athena said as she poured the batter into the bowl in front of her.
“Wait. Russian guy whose name is Evgeni Markovic,” Carla repeated as she reached for her phone and began typing. Athena raised an eyebrow at her and then grabbed a ladle from a container on the counter before she poured a ladle full of batter onto the pan. “Is this him? Is this the guy you are talking about?” Carla asked as she held her phone in front of Athena.
“Yeah, why?” Athena asked. “You know him or something?”
“Uh…yeah. The whole world does,” Carla said excitedly.
“The whole world,” she echoed.
“The whole freaking world,” Carla said nodding. Athena shook her head and walked around to where her friend was.
“What do you mean ‘the whole world’? Is he some kind of celebrity or something?” she asked and Carla looked at her, raising an eyebrow over the other.
“Kim Kardashian is some kind of celebrity,” Carla said as she handed Athena her phone. “Evgeni Markovic makes The Kardashian celebrity status look like some kind of drop in the ocean.”
“Wait, Forbes?” Athena asked as her eyes ran down the page. “This article is on freaking Forbes?”
Carla walked around to the other side of the table and flipped the pancake that had already began browning on the sides.
“Wait…holy shit,” Athena said under her breath. She suddenly didn’t feel good enough to even talk to Evgeni. “His net worth…”
“I know, right. Three hundred million and growing by the day,” Carla said and then frowned. “You didn’t know?”
“Hell no, I didn’t know!” Athena put the phone down. “I mean, I know that the Markovic Foundation donated five million at the benefit but I didn’t think he was the Markovic.”
“Well, he was and he is,” Carla said and Athena sighed.
*****
When Evgeni woke up the next morning, all he could think about was Athena. He should have been thinking of the news Viktor gave him the previous night but he just couldn’t seem to get Athena out of his head. He walked to his living room and looked outside the quiet leafy grounds below.
In a perfect world, he would have been standing there next to Athena as they sipped on coffee. He would have loved having her back here to claim her as his own all night long but sadly that never happened. He had noticed how withdrawn she had been when they got to her place, almost as if she was hiding something. He did not know what it was about this woman that called out to him so much. He would have done anything to take her pain away, to just make her feel like she could trust him. That was all he really wanted and it was strange too because he had not felt this way for anyone in a very long time, not since Natalya, his ex-wife.
He was still standing there when he heard a familiar female voice behind him.
“Good morning, Mr. Markovic.”
He turned around and came face to face with Inez, his housekeeper.
“Good morning Inez. Cómo te va,” he said with a smile.
“Bien, gracias,” she said in a soft voice.
“Why are you here? It’s Sunday,” he said raising an eyebrow.
“I did not do the laundry yesterday and I thought I could do it before I go to church.”
Evgeni shook his head.
“Aren’t you supposed to keep the Sabbath holy or something?” he asked and she shrugged as she put her bag down.
“I’m Catholic not Jewish. We can still do some tasks on Sundays, like cook and make sure our employers don’t starve,” she said as she started to walk towards the kitchen. “And I have three hours before mass anyway.”
“Yes, but it is your day off,” Evgeni said as he followed her to the kitchen.
“It is but I know for a fact that I cannot tell you to get the load out of the washer and into the dryer.” She started on the coffee and then opened the fridge and got a pitcher pf orange juice. “And I can always take a day off whenever I want, Mr. Markovic.”
Evgeni smiled. He did not even know why he had engaged her in this conversation. If there was anything that he had learned from the eight years Inez had been working for him, it was that she acted like she was the boss and not the other way around. But he had never had a problem with that since she was such a good employee. Actually, she was more of a friend than an employee.
“I’m making spiced eggs, Mr. Markovic then I will get the load in the washer,” she said as she poured him a glass of juice.
“I love your spiced eggs,” Evgeni said as he reached for the glass.
Inez smiled at him and then walked out.
He took a sip of his juice and looked at his phone. He wished he had taken Athena’s number rather than give her his card. That way he could have been in better control of when he got to hear her voice again. He could have probably called her by now but he would have most likely seemed desperate.
He took another sip and sighed as he looked at his phone. And at that moment, everything he had been avoiding thinking about came flooding back into his mind. In a few hours, Viktor would be touching down in Virginia and he had the worst news ever.
The Markovic family name in Russia had long been associated with almost everything illegal and getting out from under that name had been a nightmare. When he got to America, setting up a legitimate business had been harder than he imagined it would be. The government was reluctant to give him a business license and his family back at home was insisting on him going the old way, the way they usually got everything done. But Evgeni wanted to do everything differently. Unfortunately for him, the only way he was going to get anything done was to work with one of his father’s associate, Isaac Cromwell, a man he knew well. And Evgeni did not like the idea of associating himself with the Cromwells especially not with anything to do with his business.
By the end of his first year, Markovic Trucking had smuggled in more contraband than he had ever imagined possible, and all this was because Isaac Cromwell was actually in charge of shell companies across the country that were designed to cover up his criminal activities.
Even after his father’s death, Evgeni didn’t think he could forgive his family for getting him tied up with the kind of criminal lifestyle he had been trying to escape from. For the last couple of years he had been trying to get every trace of the Cromwell fund out of his businesses and the one thing he had been left with was cleaning out Markovic Trucking. And much to his disappointment, Cromwell was hell bent on keeping his hooks into Markovic Trucking since that was the only sure way he had to bring in every illegal thing he needed in America.
He was still lost in his thoughts when Inez walked back into the kitchen.
“So, the TV was covering that party you went to last night,” she announced as she came back into the room. Her voice snapped him back to reality.
“It was not really a party,” he said as he took a sip of his juice. “It was a benefit.”
“There was free food and booze, right?” Inez said as she began chopping an onion. “Then that was a party. Not forgetting the fact that you were auctioned for a hundred thousand,” she added.
Evgeni raised an eyebrow at her.
“They showed that?” he asked.
“Well, yeah. You and that basketballer were the two people who got the highest bids,” Inez said. She looked up from the onions and shrugged. “Any woman willing to spend that much money on a man deserves to be taken seriously.”
“Actually, I never wanted to be in the auction in the first place,” he said as he took another sip of his juice. Inez looked at him and a smile played on her lips.
“Since when have you turned down the chance to meet a beautiful woman?” she asked before she reached for a pan from the overhead rack.
“How do you know the woman who bought me is beautiful?”
“Well, it’s simple,” she said as she started sautéing the onion. He watched as she poured in chopped bell peppers and tomatoes and a whole lot of mixed spices. He had watched her making her spiced eggs a million times and he still couldn’t make them as well as she did. “Any woman who can willingly spend a hundred grand to spend an evening with a man can afford to look however she wants to look. Plastic surgery and everything.”
Evgeni smiled.
“I guess someone can do that, right?” he said and she smiled as she cracked two eggs into the mixture.
“You don’t look very excited though,” Inez said. “I would have thought that you would be ecstatic.”
“I did my part in the charity benefit and honestly being in the auction was something that was done without my knowledge,” he said shaking his head. “Maybe I can just pay the money back and…” he started before Inez shot him a dirty look.
“The fundraiser was for a benefit and you would do that? I am no specialist but I can promise you that move is going to be a PR nightmare.”
Evgeni sighed.
“Just go on the date. I mean how bad could it possibly get? Just eating at some restaurant and maybe take her to the opera or something of the sort,” Inez said as she tossed the contents of the pan. “How hard could it get?”
A smile played on Evgeni’s lips. He had no idea how he was supposed to tell his housekeeper that the only reason he did not want to go to the auction dinner was simply because he had his eyes set on another woman. A woman he had met that same night. A woman he had very strong feelings for.
“Wait, a minute,” Inez said smiling. She served the spicy omelet and looked at her boss. “There is someone else isn’t there?”
Evgeni frowned.
“What makes you think that?” he asked eyeing the aromatic food she was holding.
“I have been working with you for ages and I have learned a thing or two about your tells and right now I can tell that you are hiding the fact that some woman out there has you smitten.” Inez slowly passed the plate under his nose. “Smell that? Think about your very nutritious breakfast as you answer my next question.”
“Inez, please,” Evgeni said.
“Simple. Is there someone else?” she asked and he exhaled loudly.
“Not exactly…”
Inez put the plate down and smiled.
“Aha!” she said excitedly as she handed him a fork.
“Inez…” he started.
“It is about time. Seven years without anyone and now you have two choices.” Inez sounded a little more excited than her face led on. He shook his head and took a bite of his eggs. He had been with other women since Natalya but mostly they were just physical relationships. What she didn’t know was that he always made sure he brought them back home on days when she didn’t visit. Inez was a little too Catholic and he knew that he would have an earful if she ever busted him.
“Maybe when you decide on which woman you want, you can ask her to come over. I can make the two of you some dinner,” Inez said as he lifted the fork to his mouth again.
“Didn’t you say you have to get to mass in a few hours? Shouldn’t you do that laundry already?” Evgeni asked.
“Well, I could but you are just like Miguel and Santos, hijo. Remember that,” she said as she walked away leaving a smiling Evgeni seated at the kitchen table.
His smile faded as he began planning out his day. He was normally not a person who would work on a Sunday but given the situation at hand, he didn’t really have a choice. He had to find a way to get Markovic Trucking out from under Cromwell’s thumb.
“This might be harder than I thought,” he thought as he took another bite of his eggs. “Where is the wisdom when I need it?” he wondered as he took another bite.
He was going to need a good plan, and not any good plan. A raging plan that was going to ensure he kept his profits intact while restoring his company to the glory he thought it out to be.