Free A Perfect Man: International Billionaires IV: The Greeks by Caro LaFever

Sophie? Wasn’t this the young man who was engaged to your friend?”
    “Yes, Dad, except…” The tears threatened to spill and she spun around to stare at the calendar on the wall to prevent any snoopy assistants figuring out her agitation.
    “But your friend split with him, hmm?” Erich Feuer stopped and then started again. “Or that’s what your mother is telling me.”
    “Yes.” This situation did make her appear pretty awful. At least from the outside. Was that how the tabloids were covering it? For once, she wished she’d snatched the papers from Jorge’s hands. “See, Dad, it’s a long story—”
    “Well, I trust you, Princess.” Her daddy’s voice went soft. “You always have known what’s best for you.”
    A blinding rage swept through her. She was going to have to make a call, sometime in the near future, and ruin her parents’ happiness. She was going to have to disappoint them and it was all Alexander Stravoudas’s fault. Sophie twisted the cell phone away in order to take in a gasping breath of fury mixed with distress.
    A muffled “Let me have the phone,” echoed through the line and her mother came back on, her voice filled with joy. “Sophie?”
    “Yeah, mom.”
    “We’re going to come for a visit.”
    Oh. God. No. “Mom, I don’t think—”
    “Just a short one, nothing to worry about. We want to meet your man.”
    Could anything be worse? “Mom—”
    “We realize this is your busy time of year.” Her mother trilled on, oblivious to any of her daughter’s anguish. “We’ll stay with your Aunt Eileen so we won’t get in your way.”
    Her dad hated staying with Aunt Eileen. She leaned on the wall, thinking about banging her head until she went numb for a couple of months. Still, she heard the determination in her mom’s voice. No matter what she said or did, her parents were coming. “You can stay at my place.”
    There was a pause. “That will be a bit cramped…”
    She sighed at the inevitable. “I’m not staying there right now.”
    “Truly?” She could practically see her mom dancing a jig in her Florida condo. “You’re living with him.”
    To Margaret Feuer, living with a man was a big deal . Sophie had spent many a teenage moment listening to lectures on not putting all your eggs in one basket and not giving away the milk for free and Rome wasn’t built in a day . Her mom did like her sayings. And the sayings had made an impact. She had never once lived with a guy. So, this was big.
    Or it would be big if it were real.
    “We’ll check on flights and let you know,” her mom warbled. “Plan on us staying for a couple of weeks through Thanksgiving.”
    Fantastic. They’d be here for the ball.
    Sophie banged her head on the wall.

Chapter 6
    S he wore an awful black box of a pantsuit.
    Alex eased back on the limo’s leather-covered seat and stifled a groan. He supposed he should be gleeful about Sophia’s lack of looks and how people were going to judge her tonight. Especially after all the trouble she’d caused him during the past few months and the past few days. But the last thing he wanted was to walk into his city-famous happy hour with this woman on his arm looking like a frump.
    A frump.
    With him.
    “Take your hair down.” Perhaps it would cover some of the horrible black of her suit. Didn’t the woman know there were different shades of black and that this particular shade made her skin look like dried bones?
    She shot her annoyed glare at him. “Stop trying to remake me.”
    They’d had this same conversation, with minor variations, during the last four days she’d lived with him.
    Every morning she arrived in the kitchen with her hair stuffed into that tight ponytail she always wore. Invariably, she had on some ugly fuchsia or pastel sweater with ratty jeans and ancient sneakers.
    He’d offered to buy her some new sweaters.
    She’d told him to mind his own business.
    He’d told her that ratty jeans weren’t professional.
    She’d