by Tara Pammi
The evening sun kissing the bridge of his nose and his cheekbones, Stavros was sitting at the poolside table.
A tall jug of the customary lemonade that she requested every day and a selection of fruits and assorted cheeses were on the glass-topped table between the two loungers.
His head was thrown back against it, and his eyes were closed. Her breathing still raspy, Leah stilled. Her gaze lingering on the corded column of his throat, the planes of his sculpted face, at the way his long lashes almost kissed those sharp cheekbones...
It was something to see the man in repose like that, to study him without his contemptuous gaze peeling layers off her. And the way her breath hitched and her gut folded, the frenzied clamoring of her heartbeat to the very sight of him, it was telling.
For the past week, she had seen the stamp of the man in the thriving estate.
In the tired but happy workers on the vineyard, in the affluent praise the villagers bestowed on him, in the way some of the women’s eyes had widened when they had realized who she was, the reverence in their tone when they addressed her as Thespinis Sporades...
The responsibility of bearing that name, the reality of being the woman Stavros would respect and know and want...it sent shivers down her spine.
The usual white dress shirt he wore was unbuttoned, showing dark olive skin. His cuffs, folded back, displayed his muscled forearms, to the veins extending from his wrist and down... The sight of those powerful thighs, encased in tight blue jeans, made her remember how hard and corded they had been against her own...made her wonder how they would cradle her if she...
Heat, that had nothing to do with her running, pooled under her skin. The stretchy fabric of her Lycra top rasped against her nipples, the soft hem of her shorts rubbing against her inner thighs...
She was breathing like she had run another few laps, her skin so overheated that dunking into the pool was so inviting. Just as she found her willpower and took a step, she heard her name.
Turning slowly, she saw his fingers laced against his chest, faint color bleeding into those cheekbones.
His eyes were still closed when he said, “Did you have a good week, Leah?”
He sounded hoarse, uneven. Very unlike him. Had he felt the way her gaze devoured him in that motionless state?
How could just looking at him fill her blood with this molten wanting?
“Come, sit here and tell me how it was,” he said softly.
While she still stood there stupidly, hovering between drugged inertia and fluttering panic, his gaze opened slowly. Traveled over her with such a thorough intensity that she could almost believe he had been dying to look at her.
In the seconds-long perusal, Leah knew he had noted everything about her, including her heightened color. Hoped he would put it down to the fact that she had been running.
She ran her palm over her forehead, wondering if she was feverish. Because that’s how she felt. Could a harmless, adolescent crush turn into a full-fledged obsession, she thought sarcastically. “I’m sweaty. I need a shower,” she finally responded, and began to walk away.
“Rosa told me you like to swim after your run. Don’t change your routine on my account. Or am I one of those incredible things that scare you, Leah?”
It was so on target that her denial shot out of her mouth like a missile in a defensive tone. “I’m not afraid of you.”
His brows rose questioningly. Then he smiled, a real flicker of warmth lighting up those tawny irises.
She could deal with Stavros hating her, questioning her worth, and thinking the absolute worst of her. This...strangely speculative mood he seemed to be in, she couldn’t.
No way was she going to put on her bikini and parade in front of him. She would probably self-combust if he so much as looked at her, even innocently. “I ran far more than I intended today. I’ll skip the swim,” she said, turning around.
“How do you like the estate?”
She was so wired up into his every breath, every nuance that her foot slipped on a wet patch.
He was out of the chair and by her side in a flash, his hand around her waist. The side of her breasts squished against him, her midriff knocked hard against his. All of her breath jarred into her throat, her muscles groaning at the impact. He was so hard and hot...
“You are unhurt?”
“I’m fine.” She pushed the words out, feeling so out of control that tears prickled behind her eyes.
What was the matter with her? Where was this desperate awareness stemming from?
He was silent next to her, his large hands still resting on her hips. She didn’t have the guts to turn and meet his gaze.
The idea of seeing the same awareness in his drove her out of her skin. The idea of seeing nothing but a patient indifference made her skin crawl.
With the guise of reaching for the lemonade, she withdrew from his touch. “It’s remote and a little out of sync with the twenty-first century, don’t you think?”
For the first time in years, she had felt completely at home, had forgotten the pain of the past and the endless, lonely future stretching ahead of her. But she had nothing to fight her reaction with, if not with her lies. Nothing except to continue the animosity between them that she didn’t even know the origins of anymore.
“Remote, yes. Out of sync with the rest of the world, no.”
She looked at him over the rim of her glass. “Perfect for you though—stark, severe and forbidding.”
“That’s exactly what Dmitri says when he visits. Says he can’t stand the relentless silence.” He smiled. “So you do not like it then?”
She frowned, wondering why he was asking. “I just... I prefer something a little flashier and more hip, like Dmitri’s yacht. Or that infamous bachelor pad of his in the business district of Athens.” When had lying become this easy? She had been to Dmitri’s flat once and it had been a soulless, colorless monstrosity of steel and chrome. “This is a bit too isolated for my taste.”
“Is it?”
She swallowed the lump in her throat at the thought of leaving here. But if this was how she was going to react to seeing him after a week, she couldn’t imagine what she would do if she saw him daily. “Hmmm.”
A little knot tied his brows and cleared again. Something she had never seen danced in the depths of his gaze.
He was going to relent. He was going to send her back to that dinky flat, back to the dragon, Mrs. Kovlakis. A breeze could have knocked her down at how desperately sad the thought made her.
Dark gaze unmoving from her, he finished her drink. She looked down, rattled by the intimacy of the gesture. He put the glass down slowly and wiped his mouth while she waited on edge. “I think I will choose not to believe you, agape mou.”
The endearment ripped through her. It meant nothing to him but weaved an intimacy that she didn’t know how to counter. “What...what do you mean?”
“You are lying.” The announcement reverberated around them in the vast space. He didn’t sound angry though. “I probably have been arrogant enough in the past to take everything you said on face value. Even made it easy for you to manipulate me, ne? The why of it, I have not learned it yet.” A promise, that he would find out sooner or later, resonated in his tone.
* * *
“I think you love the estate. I barely took my jeep out when I got stopped so many times today. Everyone already knew your name, everyone had tales to tell about you. Rosa,” he said, coming closer, “even said she had never met such a hardworking and lovely young woman.”
Leah frowned, as if trying to keep her shock out of her face. “Of course, I was forced to be nice to her. Your housekeeper is an evil genius that bewitched me with that decadent dark coffee and servings of baklava.”
“The important question is how many things have you lied a
bout?” he continued, as if uninterrupted.
Her skin paled, leaving such a frightened look in her eyes that Stavros jerked her around to him.
Was that unwise desire that widened those beautiful eyes real?
Was the pain in her eyes when she spoke of Calista real?
The whole week that he had been gone, he had found himself running through every encounter he had ever had with Leah.
Wondered why she had done so many things he had forbidden her to do, wondered how someone who could be so rejecting and disrespectful of Giannis again and again could also turn around and mourn for his sister, Calista, for so many years.
She had lied about the apartment. She had lied today about liking the estate, a seemingly inconsequential thing that threatened nothing that she held dear.
A keening frustration spread through his veins. Like there was a pit full of dangerous truths that he had never faced and Leah held the key to it all. He forced a smile to his mouth and pressed his hand to her back.
She instantly stiffened and he gritted his jaw, fighting the shockingly strong urge to assert his right like an uncivilized thug.
Right then, it seemed he cared very little about duty, or what was right. All he wanted to do was touch her, to feel like this stranger who told him nothing but lies, that selfish, reckless girl he had married, was really present.
Right then, he wanted to claim something, a part of her, even an emotion, an expression, that no one else knew but him.
Right then, he wanted to be a self-serving bastard like Dmitri and assure himself that she would respond, even against her own surprisingly strong will, when he touched her. That she couldn’t pretend, fake, or lie to him in that.
It was as if suddenly there was a beast inside him that wanted to do as it pleased, that was railing against the cage after a lifetime of doing what was right.
And it was Leah that did these things to him.
“So your lawyer friend visited you on Wednesday.”
Resignation flattened the curve of her mouth. “His name is Philip.” He was only a few inches taller than her, and standing a step below her, his eyes were level with her mouth.
What would she do if he touched those lush lips with his?
Would she fight him and scratch him like the alley cat she had always pretended to be? Or would she sink into his kiss as that desperate desire in her eyes suggested?
Which was the real Leah?
“He was in a foul temper because I came away with you without taking his advice. Not knowing how autocratic you can be, he thinks I gave in too easily.”
Stavros wanted to figure her out, put her in a category and move on with life. He didn’t want this curiosity, didn’t know how to arrest this indulgent self-awareness that she incited in him.
“I think he sees his piece of pie from your fortune dwindling away.”
She walked around the table like a cornered prey. “Because he befriended me with nothing but an eye toward what I’m worth?”
“Yes. Your fortune always attracts those kinds of men.”
A sigh escaped her, but she wasn’t spitting in fury as he had imagined. As if he were the despot she could hate again. “And of course, you know everyone and their intentions best.”
“No, I know Philip Cosgrove better than you do. He has had two broken engagements—one with an American candy heiress and the other with a princess from a minor South American nation. He has also been having an affair with a client.”
Hands on hips, she looked like a wildcat. “You had him investigated?”
“You should know the truth about him.”
“Truth about his personal life? He’s a friend and my lawyer, Stavros. Not my lover. If he was going to be one, I’m sure he would have volunteered that information. And even if he didn’t, it’s my decision to make.”
The thought of Leah with any man...he wasn’t prepared to ponder his reaction to that. “Now you know what decision to make.”
“About whether I want to screw him or not?” she said crudely, even as color darkened her cheeks. “You don’t have the right to police me on who I sleep with.”
“Discussing my rights and privileges when it comes to you is not a conversation you will like, agape mou.”
“No, I won’t. Because you’re a hypocrite. Do you tell your lovers that you have a wife you hide as if she were a stain on the very fabric of your life, Stavros?” Her fingers clutched his hand and pulled it up, a startling tremble in it. The contact jolted through him. “Do you take it off when you undress your lover? Do you—”
“I don’t have to tell them anything,” he whispered, dragging her against him. She was stiff against him, yet just the drag of her body set his muscles curling with need.
Ever since she had entered his life, there had been no escape from the shackles his own sense of honor bound him with.
Strange then that he had resented it and fought it for so long.
Was it because, as he had always known, Leah would never be the kind of wife he had imagined for himself—someone calm and dependable like Helene? Even then, had he known that she would incite him to this kind of reckless, unwise need?
“Anyone who’s someone knows I have a wife. Which also means I don’t have to fend off women with marriage on their mind...”
She stared, unblinking. Her nostrils flared. “You’re...disgusting.”
It was addictive to play her own game with her, so compelling to watch the different expressions pass through her eyes. In that moment, there were no lies she could tell him. In that moment, the connection between them was as explosive and destructive as the wildfire that had wrecked through the surrounding acreage a few years ago.
A fire that was going to need feeding soon if he didn’t it to want it to consume him, as it had already begun to...if he didn’t want to lose all sense of right and wrong.
And what was wrong with wanting his own wife in his bed? Maybe if he gave in to the fire, he could function normally again.
“You wanted to know,” he goaded her.
“No, I didn’t. I was just trying to make a point.”
“You sounded like a nagging, jealous wife. Just what I wanted my marriage to be.”
All color fled from her face, leaving her gaze stricken. Tears pooled in her eyes. And the sight of those big brown eyes brimming with moisture punched him in the gut.
“Theos, Leah—”
“I hate you. I hate that you’re keeping me here. I hate that you have so much power over my life and that you use it at every turn to put me in the wrong. And I’m such a pathetic coward that I still stand here, day after day, hoping that you will change your mind. I forget that all you want is to punish me, and yourself, for what happened to Calista.
“That’s all this is, isn’t it? Duty, righting a wrong...nothing touches you beyond that.”
She cast another desperate glance at him, swiped her hands roughly over her eyes and walked away.
Her words sliced at Stavros rendering everything she said about him a lie.
It did hurt, he realized with a strange new awareness. What she said about him mattered because he hadn’t meant to hurt her today. Christos, he had never meant to hurt Leah.
He had been powerless about her influence on Calista, he had despised her willful rejection of Giannis’s love, he had resented that she had sealed his fate the moment she had walked into his life but he had never meant to hurt her.
Not even the day when he had spoken his vows to her utterly petrified form.
Yet, it seemed it was all he had ever done.
That Leah could be vulnerable when it came to him, instead of making him powerful, felt like a curse.
Giannis had saved him from a life of misery and poverty and yawning emptiness and all he had done in return was mak
e his granddaughter’s life miserable.
He wouldn’t forsake his duty, but neither did he want to hurt Leah anymore.
* * *
Leah leaned against the wall in her workroom, shame ringing in her ears. She couldn’t believe she had betrayed herself like that. She didn’t even care that he had investigated Philip or about what he had found.
But when he had called her a nagging, jealous wife, it was as if she could see their future like that...as if he would never see her true self. As if he would never know the real her.
Standing up, she reached for a jug of water. Poured herself a tall drink and guzzled it down.
It couldn’t matter this much, not when she would be gone soon.
She couldn’t be so vulnerable to him, couldn’t get so emotional. The only way to accomplish that was to accept him this way. He would watch her, hover over her, dictate her life forever, if she wasn’t careful now.
She would give up a little now for the long run.
It wasn’t as if the news of Philip’s past engagements affected her.
For as long as she had understood herself, only one man had always stubbornly occupied the space in her head. And still, only one man could set her heart racing, only one man could make her hate herself that she wasn’t smarter or calmer or even stronger, that she wasn’t a match for him in any way.
* * *
For the next week, Leah barely slept. The retail buyer, Mrs. DuPont, set up an appointment to see what Leah had for her so far. The conversation that followed, where Leah explained to her that she was now living at Stavros’s estate and her reaction to the fact that she was that Textile Magnate’s wife, had been extremely awkward. As if suddenly Leah’s worth as a designer had changed. Whether for good or bad, Leah had no idea.
Once she had heard from her, Leah had finished the sewing on the first three dresses.
Unaccountably nervous, she had snarled at Stavros yesterday for making it all so complicated.
The evening after Mrs. Dupont had called, a seamstress had arrived at her workroom. Her mouth falling open in awe, she fingered the turquoise sheer silk of the cocktail dress, had said in broken English that she loved sewing, and would Mrs. Sporades please give her work.