The waitress takes our orders, and I almost join Victoria’s order of hard liquor. I’m jealous of the dry martini she orders. “Frightening, ferocious, beastly? He’s been called the new lion of Wall Street for a reason, my dear. He’s earned the moniker, it’s not just because it’s catchy. Leo has the instincts of a predator, he grew up with them, was taught them by that psychotic grandmother of his.

“Then again with his father, there are stupid accusations of nature versus nurture. Leandros is ruthless and quite devastating to those who get in his way. Still, he’s far more honorable than many men on Wall Street and in big business. He doesn’t play by anyone’s rules but his own, but he does have rules. None of the companies he owns or invests in play fast and loose with people’s lives to make a dollar.

“Leo has never invested in pharma stocks and other companies that make money off the misery of others. That’s something very personal to him and the newest technology he funds is geared toward affordability for everyone. Comparing Leo to the bastard who fathered him by rape is simply another attempt to slight him.”

I swallow hard when she mentions Leo’s father. She nods at me. “He did. Gerard Kaplan raped a sixteen-year-old girl, I would think it would be obvious considering he was fifty-seven, overweight and balding. The papers and, in public, Agatha downplayed it. In private, Agatha taunted Leo with it. Even knowing that she refused to honor her daughter’s wishes for Leo to have his grandfather’s last name. Agatha believed Gerard owed Leo his name and he was going to have it.

“Greeks and honor and pride and all of that. Fair warning, Leo might have grown up here in America and gone to the best schools, but he was raised Greek. As much as he tries to forget it fifteen years of indoctrination hold steady in him. He’ll go all brooding and withdrawn when he hits a rough patch.

“Perhaps if his half-brother David had lived Leo would have been able to have a happier childhood. Be warned, he doesn’t welcome questions about David. It’s sad because I think it would help Leo to remember him. It was David who funded Melena’s court battle with Gerard to have Gerard support Melena and the baby she carried, against his own father. It was David who kept the battle going after Melena died while delivering Leo. When David died in a car accident, Leo was only eleven, and the only person who really cared for him was gone. By then Agatha told him constantly money was the only reason she took care of him.”