I frowned. ‘How?’

‘My grandfather temporarily handed him the reins of the company. Six months later my father suffered a breakdown brought on by extreme stress. He didn’t take the prognosis well.’

‘What did he do?’

‘He believed my grandfather had humiliated him. And when my grandfather made it known that he’d seen me as his successor all along, my father...didn’t take it well. His resentment festered irreparably.’ His lips twisted. ‘Which, in a nutshell, is the story of my whole family.’

‘But you all seem so...united—give or take the odd vibe or two.’

He shrugged cynically. ‘Self-interest, especially where wealth is concerned, has a way of binding even the most dissenting individuals. My father may not like the status quo but he’s had to accept it.’

‘Is there no way to repair your relationship?’

A hint of bleakness came and went in his eyes within a heartbeat. ‘We’ve accepted our strengths and our weaknesses. My father may resent me for seemingly usurping him, but he doesn’t want the role.’

‘You offered it to him?’

His lips thinned. ‘A few years ago I suggested a partnership. He refused.’

‘He wanted all or nothing?’

His lips twisted. ‘Don’t we all?’

Pain lashed me. ‘Not all of us. Our fathers, maybe.’

Grey eyes met mine and a moment of affinity lingered between us, threatening to burrow into vulnerable places.

I cleared my throat. ‘Is that why you’re determined to try with Andreos?’

He’d said on the balcony that he was attempting to be different. The part of me that wasn’t terrified of what the future held desperately craved to see that difference.

The question took him aback, and a naked yearning blanketed his features before he mastered it. ‘Is it wrong to wish for a better outcome with my son than that between my father and I?’ he rasped.

Again, a deep, sacred sensation pulled at me. Harder. Stronger. Making it impossible to breathe.

Despite the danger of falling under the silken spell he was weaving, I laid my hand on his arm. ‘No, it’s not.’

His gaze dropped to my hand. Silence charged with electricity filled the room as something flashed in his eyes. Primal and fierce. The video and our conversation had done something to him. Shifted the dynamic.

I was tempted to run. To hide from it. But I was just as determined not to regress.

‘So...where do we go from here? After tonight, I mean?’

His eyes dropped to my lips, then moved back up to seize mine.

‘Now we consolidate on what we’ve started,’ he murmured huskily.

I wanted to ask for clarity. Wanted to ask whether he meant us or the larger world. But his fingers wound tighter around mine, his free hand rising to slide into my hair, dragging over my scalp in a wickedly evocative move that snatched the air from my lungs and hardened my nipples into aroused peaks.

Those penetrating eyes tracked my every reaction, his nostrils flaring when he caught the visible signs of my agitated state.