other than a mercenary witch, willing to defraud a trusting old man to get what she wanted for her father’s company, that he’d believed her to be for the past two years.
His instincts had told him Chloe was an innocent, but he’d allowed his knowledge of her deceit to override them.
His new view cast his full-on revenge plans in a different light and opened the door to other possibilities he hadn’t considered.
He hadn’t gotten where he was by ignoring potential avenues and opportunities either. In fact, he was known for his ability to change his train of thought to a new track with lightning speed and efficiency.
Their discussion earlier today would imply that whatever Chloe’s reasons for using the pill, unswerving loyalty to her father and his company was not one of them.
He had no choice but to acknowledge that it appeared she’d been far more her father’s pawn than the black queen on Eber’s side of the chessboard as Ariston had once believed.
Well before their last trip to Greece, Ariston had known Eber was courting other businessmen for another monetarily motivated wedding for his daughter.
At first, he’d assumed the rumors were about his oldest, Rhea, whose marriage Eber had never approved of. The marriage was the only thing Rhea had ever bucked her father’s will regarding and Ariston wouldn’t have put it past the other man to force his daughter into a divorce.
Only later, after discovering the birth control, had Ariston taken Eber’s rumored overtures as irrefutable proof of Chloe’s duplicity. He’d believed that she planned to walk away from their marriage as soon as the contract was completed.
It had surprised him that the family would give up stock in the still privately held company so easily. According to the terms of the contract, Ariston controlled the shares placed in a trust for the first three years of their marriage. If, after three years, either he or Chloe filed for divorce, he kept the rather large chunk of stock.
Well worth the fifty-million-dollar investment.
If Ariston had divorced Chloe before the three-year term, though, he would have forfeited the stock, and vice versa if Chloe had filed for legal separation or divorce during that time.
However, if a child resulted from their marriage, said child would then own the shares, which Ariston would only be trustee of until the child’s twenty-first year.
In addition, the terms of any divorce settlement would change significantly in Chloe’s favor once a child had been conceived. She had every monetary reason in the world to get pregnant and Ariston had wanted it that way, assuming the incentives would be enough to dictate the direction of their relationship.
He’d been wrong and he did not enjoy that state of events. At all.
Regardless, whatever it had been, he now very much doubted that Chloe’s use of birth control had been part of a plot to bilk him and his grandfather of fifty million dollars.
Because he still owned the stock as per the agreement and even if they didn’t realize it, the precarious state of Dioletis Industries did not rest on Eber’s shoulders. No matter how archaic some of his business practices.
As ignorant of the birth control as Ariston, Eber must have assumed Ariston would be the one to end the marriage at the three-year mark because Chloe had not conceived. Hence his investigations into Ariston’s legal actions.
Make no mistake, Ariston had every intention of finding out how the other man had gotten hold of the papers, but he understood the attempts to do so now.
A small spark of satisfaction flared at the knowledge Eber had been no more aware of his daughter’s efforts to prevent pregnancy than Ariston had been.
Ariston arrived at the restaurant right on time for the eight-o’clock reservation, but Chloe had already been seated.
Her now shoulder-length brown hair with its golden highlights was an unmistakable beacon at his favorite table. She appeared to be enjoying a jumbo shrimp cocktail. A mutual favorite of theirs.
“I am not late, I hope,” he said as he took the chair across from her.
She looked up, a wry twist to her lips. “You know you aren’t. But since you divorced me, I’ve been living more like a normal person and I usually eat dinner around six. I was starving, to tell you the truth.”
He was pleased to see her eating at all and thought her claims she normally ate somewhat of an exaggeration.
She had lost weight since the divorce and he would prefer to see her put it back on. For her