by Tara Pammi
Throwing her hair back, as she had seen one of the models wearing her own creation do, she had strutted farther into the room. He had lasted another two seconds before he had minimized the screen, marched to her, picked her up, called her his doom, and taken her against the wall, even as the call was going on.
All the while his mouth had covered hers, swallowing her moans and finally the sound of her climax. There had been no finesse to his raw thrusts, there had been nothing of his will left by the time he had climaxed, his skin damp to her touch.
She had won that day. But the fear that she wouldn’t another day, another moment, gathered like a black cloud. Because as invested as he was in their madness, she knew he was retreating. As if she and his desire for her, they were a rope that was slowly binding him and he...he was struggling against it.
He refused to discuss the state of their little deal. Every time she tried to talk of the past or the future, he evaded her or worse, seduced her. And the coward that she was, Leah let him be. Settled for the warmth of his arms, for the heat of his caresses, for the fiery intensity of his passion.
“Are you happy?” she had asked him one morning when he had brought her breakfast in bed.
He had covered her body with his, taken her mouth in such a tender kiss that it had brought tears to her eyes. “I don’t know about happy,” he had said against her mouth with that trademark honesty. The question seemed to have thrown him, but lost in the magic his mouth weaved, Leah hadn’t cared. “But I’ve never felt more alive, agape mou.”
There was something disconcerting about that answer, she remembered thinking.
Almost a month passed by like that. And from the dreamy, drugged state, something else emerged. A tiny sliver of fear for the future. Of what she was letting happen, of what it was going to hold for her and Stavros.
For a few weeks, she had been hinting about going to Paris for a small fashion event that Helene had mentioned. It was like puncturing the bubble they seemed to exist in, but she pushed the matter anyway. Sooner or later, they would have to emerge from it and for her part, she wanted him to acknowledge their relationship outside of his estate.
Finally, the night before the event, he had given in. Surprised her by joining her the next evening. And any thoughts she had that their relationship would change evaporated in the week they had been in Paris.
Leah dragged him on a tour of the beautiful city and shopping while he dragged her back to their luxurious hotel suite on the Champs-Elysées every time the mood struck him. Which was much too often, she had complained once laughingly.
But she hadn’t denied him, not once. She was just as addicted to him as he seemed to be with her.
They had been in Paris a week when, one evening, someone knocked quite rudely on the outer door of their suite.
Leah laughed, and hid her face in Stavros’s chest while he continued to lick and kiss her breasts with no thought to the caller. Soon, she was as lost as he was when he lazily pushed into her and struck a slow, mind-numbing pace toward release. The elegant side table, whose design she had only remarked on earlier, bumped against the wall as his thrusts became harder and faster.
“What you do to me, Leah,” he whispered, leaning into her.
She kissed his sweat-beaded brow when he suddenly stilled.
And Leah heard it—the sound of footsteps coming closer toward their bedroom.
In a movement that was both blurry and genius— because she couldn’t even move a finger, Stavros was off her and pulling on his sweatpants. Had just covered her naked form with a sheet when the double doors burst open.
Arrogantly leaning against the wall, Dmitri surveyed them, the wickedest grin curving his sinful mouth. Heat bloomed over every inch of her as that dark, slumberous gaze took in the state of their undress and their still uneven breaths.
Stavros’s curse, filthy and loud, should have colored the room blue before he dragged her behind him. “Forgotten your manners again, Dmitri?”
Such blistering scorn filled his voice, yet Leah, peeking from behind his shoulder, only saw it bounce off Dmitri’s amused smile. Being the complete opposites they were, Leah had never understood their friendship. Only that it was inviolate.
“Of all your dresses, I think this suits you best, pethi mou,” Dmitri offered with an outrageous wink and Leah couldn’t help but smile.
A growl emanated from Stavros and her gaze flew to him. It was a savage sound she would never associate with him of all the men in the world. His passion was insatiable, never-ending but he hid it under such a civilized facade that she couldn’t believe it the first few days.
He did, and made her do, the wickedest things in bed—which she did with the same spiraling hunger as he did, but outside of bed, outside of sex, he was still far too private.
She knew that, in the past month, Dmitri had wanted to see them, more than once. Wanted to join them either for a dinner, or even for a lazy afternoon at Stavros’s estate. But he had said no every time in that arrogant tone of his. Hadn’t even bothered to make an excuse.
It was almost as though he didn’t want Dmitri to see them as a couple.
Was he still ashamed of her, she wondered now, trying to stave off the hurt it caused. Or did he think it a temporary madness that he didn’t want to share with his closest friend?
“I wouldn’t have had to disturb your connubial bliss,” Dmitri drawled completely unaffected by Stavros’s rising temper, “if you had not done the disappearing act on me. I had to half seduce your location out of your poor secretary. Very uncharacteristic of you, Stavros. Your staff is petrified that you might be dying.”
Stavros turned to her. “Do you want to get dressed, Leah?”
“She should hear this. I wouldn’t have barged in just for anything, Stavros.”
“What is it, Dmitri?”
“Alex Ralston showed up on my yacht today. My security tried to grab him but they weren’t successful.”
Suddenly cold, Leah shivered. Throwing his arm around her, Stavros pulled her into his warm body.
Alex had been Calista’s on-and-off boyfriend. “Alex...you sent him to jail after Calista...”
“We found that he was the one selling drugs that day. He had a long record of possession and substance abuse,” Dmitri replied while Stavros remained stubbornly silent.
“I thought you did that because...” The words trailed off Leah’s lips as she realized how absurd she sounded.
Alex had been the one who had given them to Calista? Charming, easygoing Alex? And in contrast, Stavros had seemed such a monster in her head.
“Get dressed, Leah. Let me talk to Dmitri alone.”
She was so much in panic that she didn’t even say a word. Something flickering in his eyes, Dmitri hugged her, sheet and nakedness and all.
After all these years, what did Alex want now?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
STAVROS HAD BEEN expecting something to strike at the haze in which he had been living for the past month. Something that would wake him up from the dreamlike state he had been functioning in with Leah. Something so painfully real, so achingly raw, it was bound to end.
He expected the novelty of making love to her to wear off. He expected the high of being around her, the high that came with her laughter, with her irreverent humor, with how easily she gave of herself and how possessively she demanded of him, to end at some point.
He expected the amazing light and joy that had pervaded him, even as he had tried to tether and control it, to fizzle out.
Because life didn’t work like that, did it? At least, not his.
It didn’t carry so much joy, so much laughter, so many emotions that had overthrown him the last month. It never had such gnawing hunger, such desperate need to grasp what he could, such panic-ridden drive to control it so that he did
n’t become its slave.
But he didn’t think it would come in such a way. He hadn’t thought it would rip his heart out like this and leave him gasping.
That it would wreak on him an avalanche of hurt and inadequacy and pain.
He had thought Dmitri uncharacteristically foolish to even indulge Alex Ralston’s demand to talk to Stavros. Yet, he had just disconnected the call with Alex, a video call that the thug had insisted on.
Nausea whirled in his gut at the things Alex had said about Calista. It was like hearing stories about a stranger, not his sister at all.
All he had known of Calista had been a front, a lie. A lie that had been neatly supported by Leah for so many years. Because Leah had known it all.
And in the sinking morass of his grief, that betrayal cut the deepest. Leah had known and hadn’t whispered a word to him. Even when he had asked it of her.
“Stavros?” Dmitri nudged him.
“Locate him, Dmitri.” He stood up with such force that the desk rattled. “He can’t go to the media with this. Theos, this is Calista... I don’t want her name besmirched like this.”
“I will stop him. Stavros...it’s not your fault. Calista...whatever Ralston told you about her, you couldn’t have known. You did everything you could to help her.”
“I should have known. All along, she had so many problems and I...” A growl escaped his throat.
“Have you ever thought that some of us are beyond help, Stavros? Too broken to be fixed? Giannis said she was just a child when your mother walked out. Whatever Calista needed, you didn’t have it.”
“She needed to be loved, Dmitri. And I couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how. Not then, not now.”
He was the one in pain, and yet Dmitri looked pale. He kept shaking his head as if he could see into Stavros’s head. “Her behavior is not your fault.”
“I wish I could forgive myself as easily as you, Dmitri,” he said, hating himself, hating Dmitri for being so understanding.
He couldn’t numb the gnawing in his gut as the truth solidified. He had never had what it took to begin with.
Was that why he had clung so tightly to doing what was right? Because he hadn’t possessed, hadn’t ever known, his heart?
Beneath Leah’s betrayal, beneath the shock of learning his sister’s truth, only one thing remained.
You are made of stone.
How right Leah had been... If he had ever known it once, he didn’t remember. He didn’t know if he had buried it deep so that his parents’ indifference, their negligence didn’t hurt.
He had never understood Calista, never saw past the facade his sister presented because he had never understood her fears, her pain, her joy. Every time she had mentioned their parents, every time she had expressed her confusion, he had only pushed her to move on, had brushed her away believing that they were better off without them.
Because he hadn’t wanted to dwell on it, because it would mean acknowledging all the wrongs they had done to them, it would mean letting them be a part of who they were.
Again and again, he had closed himself off to her grief, her pain. Until she had decided that he would never understand? Until she had decided, like Leah, that he didn’t have the capability to understand? The capability to love?
In the end, his parents had robbed him of everything.
Even if he forgave Leah’s lies, what did he possess to give her? How long before she would realize the truth? How long before she realized that he had never known and would never understand love?
That he would never know how to give it and take it.
It was two hours before Stavros returned to their suite, two hours in which Leah had become half-crazy wondering what was going on. One look in his eyes, and her heart skidded to her gut.
“Pack your bags. You’re catching a flight to New York in a few hours.”
“What? The fashion week isn’t for another fortnight...”
He stood only a foot away, yet it could have been a thousand miles. Why wouldn’t he look at her?
“It is better for you in New York rather than here with Ralston around. Apparently, he’s very much interested in hearing how I’ve mistreated you.”
“But all my stuff is...” She stopped, his words slowly registering with her.
His cell phone rang and he looked at her finally. “I will ensure that Rosa packs up your stuff with utmost care.”
Rosa was going to pack her stuff, she was going to leave for New York...
Leah stared at the empty space he left behind for a few seconds. The shock slowly blunted, bringing in its wake utter panic.
Throat dangerously close to tears, she found him in the study that offered a breathtaking view of the Eiffel Tower.
He was on the phone, listening, but his gaze stayed on her face. And that’s when Leah noticed the white pallor to his skin.
She would have welcomed his blistering contempt, or even his lacerating fury. But the resignation in his gaze... As if he had lost something precious. As if he had finally given up.
The minute he disconnected the call, she stepped inside.
“If he comes for me, he has to get through you, doesn’t he?” she demanded, anger coming to her rescue. She wouldn’t let him treat her like this again. Not after the last month.
He looked up, a bitterness curving his mouth. “I’ll be busy trying to stop him from taking the story to the media, from turning my life and Calista’s...and yours into a cash cow.”
“What?” she said, fear spewing into her words now.
“If you go to New York, you’ll be free to do as you please. I know how much you don’t like being told what to do. I’ll make sure Ralston doesn’t follow you.”
“Why does it sound like you’re sending me away?” She sounded desperate, pitiful, but she didn’t care. It seemed she had no armor left.
He stood up from the chair, his every movement precise, his skin tautly pulled over those sharp features. There was nothing anymore of the man she had known this last month. The man who had smiled, laughed, kissed her, the man who had looked at her as if he would drown if he didn’t possess her one more time, nothing.
It was as if he was pulling himself back, word by word, second by second, until he became that Stavros she hated again.
Her gut twisting, she walked around the huge desk until he was forced to look at her. Placing her hands on his chest, she asked, “What did I do this time?”
He grabbed her wrists to push her away. But she didn’t let go. She would never hold him again if she let go, the fear clamored through her. “Tell me what’s going on, Stavros. Or I swear I’ll...” she broke off on a sob.
“You’ll what, Leah? Tell a new lie? You have won.” He became stiff, like he was a statue who possessed no feeling, no weakness. “I’ll sign the divorce papers, release your inheritance as soon as possible. You are just Leah Huntington again.” His gaze moved over her features with a hunger she knew he would deny. For all his withdrawal, she had the strangest feeling that he wasn’t untouched. That he was struggling just as she was.
Or it was the delusion she really wanted to cling to, she thought pitying herself.
“There’s nothing binding you to me or to Katrakis Textiles now.”
Her breath whooshed out of her in a painfully long exhale. Legs shaking beneath her, Leah grabbed the table. Tears pooled in her eyes and spilled over. Just breathing became a chore. “You’re punishing me again...”
“Punishment, pethi mou? No. I’m finally freeing us both. Giannis is gone, and you’ve proved beyond doubt that you can take care of yourself, ne? What is left of our relationship, if it could be called that, if we take away my duty and your lies, Leah?”
“The last month—”
“Last month has been nothing but sex. Five years of ce
libacy and you...it would mess with any man’s head, even a stone like me.”
That he would reduce the last month like that, that he would cheapen what they had shared so easily...she couldn’t even breathe.
Fear stole coherence from her. Slowly, she thought back to how the dreadful afternoon had begun. “What did Alex say?”
“Threatening to go the media with a colorful story about Calista and her monster of a brother who neglected her and then married the heiress... The pictures he has of her, the horrible things he’s threatening to say about her...” Restrained violence simmered in him as he moved away from her. As if he didn’t trust himself to be near her. “The parties, the drinking, the men... Cristos, I didn’t know my sister at all, did I? And you knew it all along.” He turned toward her again, accusation and pain in his eyes.
“She begged me not to tell you, Stavros. Every time you found us at some party, she would beg me to leave her out of it. She asked me to cover...just once more. When she saw you, when she was with you, she...she wanted to be perfect. She was desperate to not lose you. Desperate to not lose your love. She was afraid that you would...”
“All your arguments with me, if you had thrown it once in my face that she was the one—”
The calmer he got, the more she panicked. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until that night. Stavros, I was immature, foolish. I told you, I didn’t know that she was using. I feel sick to my stomach when I think I could have helped, when I could have—”
“What about the last few weeks, Leah? What about when I begged you for the truth about her? What reason could you possibly have to lie after all these years? Were you afraid that I would punish you for her actions? Even after these few weeks, were you just looking out for yourself?”
Her heart hammered away in her chest, her knees trembled beneath her and all she wanted was to be held by him, to see him smile, to do whatever she could to remove that betrayal, that pain from his eyes.
And just like that, the truth struck Leah. In that dark-paneled study in a majestic hotel in one of the loveliest cities in the world, with Stavros looking at her with utter resignation, it came to her.
