Baklava was her absolute favourite sweet food. He remembered...
He remembered the style of clothes she liked to wear. He remembered the food she liked. He remembered everything. Just as she did.
Helena hurried out of the boutique.
The shade of the narrow street saved her from the worst of the afternoon heat. Waiting for Theo to catch her up, she pressed her hand to her aching chest and took some long breaths.
It would be too easy to trick her mind that what they were sharing that lazy day was a repeat of a scene that had once filled her with so much joy she’d struggled to breathe.
She’d experienced more happiness in her three months with Theo than she had the rest of her life combined.
She smelt his cologne before she felt the nudge on her arm and was immediately thrown back to the passionate insanity of the kiss they had shared and the preceding fear that had coiled inside her at his lateness, which had twisted into a jealous rage when she’d smelt Savina’s perfume on him.
This was what he did. He set the impulsive, hedonistic side of her free and all the heady, terrifying emotions that came with it until her entire being, every thought, every breath, and every emotion had been consumed by Theo and she’d lost all sight of herself.
But just because she’d been a slave for him before did not mean she had to be a slave to him now, did it? She was older and wiser.
She liked Theo, she realised. Liked him as a person. Were it not for their history she would be thrilled to spend time in his company. She’d enjoyed shopping with him; enjoyed winding him up, enjoyed putting him in his place when needed, enjoyed his irreverence, even enjoyed the battle of wills.
She had the tools to stand up to him now. She had the tools to separate her emotions from the hedonism that he wanted to unleash in her.
Theo had been honest from the start. He saw her as unfinished business. He wanted to bed her, not marry her.
And she wanted...oh, how she wanted...to make love to him too. Just once. Just to see if it was everything she had dreamed it would be. One night spent as if tomorrow didn’t exist.
Where was the harm?
Maybe if she let him take her to bed she could put behind her the ghost of her past and move on with her life in more than a professional capacity. Maybe then she’d be able to go on a date and not cringe merely at the thought of kissing someone else.
For the first time since Theo had exploded back into her life, Helena looked at him and openly stared at the gorgeous, devilish face.
His eyes narrowed slightly under her scrutiny.
She smiled lazily. ‘Shall we get that coffee now?’
Theo watched Helena bite into her baklava slice and suppressed a groan.
Theos, he loved to watch her eat. Helena loathed cooking but she was an enthusiastic eater. He’d never known her turn her nose up at anything; the perfect dinner guest.
The perfect woman...
He blinked sharply at the stray thought and took a drink of his melon mojito. He’d ordered a jug of it with their coffees and been mildly surprised to find Helena drinking the glass he’d poured for her with enthusiasm. She’d read the surprise on his face and smiled. ‘If I’m going to have a day off work, I might as well make the most of it.’
Had he misinterpreted the suggestiveness behind that smile? Was it mere wishful thinking that detected a marked change in Helena’s attitude towards him?
A passing waiter asked how the baklava was. A small crease appeared on Helena’s brow before comprehension shone in her eyes and she stuck her thumb up in the affirmative.
‘Why has your Greek become so rusty?’ Theo asked. Although not as fluent as a native speaker, Helena had never needed to think before translating in her head.
She shrugged and popped the final piece of baklava into her mouth. Lucky baklava.
He waited patiently for her to swallow it.
‘Well?’ he queried.
She shrugged again and, eyes holding his, sucked on the cocktail straw.
There was no mistaking the suggestiveness behind that action.
‘I haven’t spoken it in years,’ she said, placing her glass back on the table.
He dragged his thoughts away from her provocative gesture to the conversation in hand. ‘But I thought that’s all you spoke with your mother?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘And I thought you’d seen my mother.’
‘I did.’
‘She didn’t tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That I’m estranged from them...well, estranged from my father.’
‘She never mentioned it.’ But then, he hadn’t hung around for conversation. He’d gone to Helena’s childhood home with the express purpose of getting her current address. As soon as he had it he’d left.
She pulled a rueful face. ‘It’s painful for her. We have to meet in secret.’
‘Why?’
‘Because my father would be furious if he knew.’
‘So what? You’re her daughter. She shouldn’t have to see you in secret.’
‘She’s the one who has to live with the consequences.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘What kind of consequences?’
She stared at him for what felt like a long time. ‘When he found out she’d spoken to me on the phone he stopped her pocket money.’
He laughed uncertainly. ‘Children get pocket money.’
‘My father treats her like a child.’ She pressed the pad of her forefinger to the crumbs on her plate and popped it in her mouth.
Theo found himself suppressing another groan.
She pushed her plate to one side. When she next spoke, her voice contained a hardness he’d never heard from her lips before. ‘I’ve told you many times that he’s a misogynistic dinosaur. He controls and pays for everything. He gives her a small monthly cash payment to spend on personal necessities. She has to provide receipts to account for every penny spent. Everything’s in his name, including her phone. All her calls are itemised and he scrutinises them, which is how he found out she’d gone against his word and spoken to me. He stopped her pocket money for a month. That might not sound like a long time to you but try and imagine it—she couldn’t even buy herself shampoo when her bottle ran out.’
Theo stared hard at her, looking for a sign that she was exaggerating. Helena was a terrible liar. She’d lied to him twice, the first time when he’d asked if she liked the shirt he’d chosen to wear on a night out and she’d cut eye contact and nodded vigorously while tucking her hair maniacally behind her ears. The second time had been later that same night when they’d been on their way back to his Agon home after partying in a nightclub and he’d asked what she thought of his friends. She’d turned her head away to look out of the window while replying, ‘They’re great,’ in such an unnatural voice that he’d immediately known she was lying. He’d made her promise after that never to spare his feelings, a promise he came to rue when she’d taken him at his word in their last, fateful argument.
Her gaze didn’t drop. She spoke the truth.
‘What caused the estrangement?’ He’d never given much thought to her dismissive description of her father as a dinosaur and her childhood as old-fashioned. He’d been too busy plotting their future to think much about her past.
He should have given it more thought. He should have asked more questions.
She took another sip of her cocktail, loosened her shoulders and sank back into her seat. For all the weight of the subject matter, the Helena sharing a table with him was the most relaxed he’d seen her since he’d brought her back to the peninsula. ‘My father was furious that I changed my mind about marrying you. If he could have dragged me down the aisle by my hair he would have.’
‘He hardly knew me.’
‘But he knew your wealth and status,’ she pointed out. �
�He’d boasted to all his eminent friends and colleagues about his daughter marrying one of Europe’s wealthiest men. My actions humiliated him. My refusal to change my mind...’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen him so angry. He kicked me out. He said if I was going to throw away a life of riches then I didn’t deserve his money, so he cut off his financial support too.’
Sharp needles dug into Theo’s skin. Pieces of a puzzle he hadn’t realised he’d been trying to solve were falling into place. Helena’s debt. Her screamed words that he was just like her father...
Her eyes remained steady on his. ‘Anyway, that’s why my Greek’s gone a little rusty—I haven’t needed to speak it in three years.’
Theo shook his head in an effort to clear the buzzing in his ears. ‘Forgive me, agapi mou, but I fail to see the link. I thought you said you still saw your mother secretly?’
‘We only spoke Greek together because my father insisted on it. I’ve not been allowed to speak English under their roof since my seventh birthday. He banned me from speaking English in his presence. My mother had to translate.’
‘I thought you were raised as bilingual?’
‘Not until I turned seven. Up to then I could name the days of the week and count to fifteen in Greek but my father decided that wasn’t good enough.’
‘You were banned from speaking any English?’ he clarified, the buzzing in his ears louder than ever.
‘At home, yes.’
‘But that must have been impossible for you.’ To suddenly have it enforced that she could only speak a language she barely understood must have been torturous.
‘I wanted to please him,’ she admitted with a sudden wistfulness that pierced him. ‘My father had never taken much interest in me up to that point. He’s from the school of thought that children should be seen and not heard.’
‘And that wives should do as they’re told?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Yes. My mother’s been indoctrinated into believing his word is law.’ And then she gave a smile of such beatification her whole face lit up. ‘When we get together it’s an illicit thrill to speak only English.’
‘How do you meet without your father finding out?’
‘I bought her a pay-as-you-go phone to call me on. She hides it in the kitchen cleaning cupboard.’ At Theo’s puzzled expression, Helena added, ‘It’s the one place in the whole house he actively avoids.’
She waited for him to laugh, to make an action or say a word to lighten the darkness that had permeated the atmosphere between them.
He rubbed his hair. ‘Why does she stay with him?’
‘She seems to think that because he’s not physically abusive she has nothing to complain about. I think—and this is just an educated guess—that she’s scared. She’s been with him since she was nineteen. She has no money of her own and doesn’t believe she has the tools to support herself.’ She sighed. ‘I just wish she’d stand up to him. Find some courage. She could live with me. We’d cope. But every time I suggest it she refuses and tells me I’m making too much of it. She made her vows.’
She could see how disturbed Theo was at her description of her parents’ marriage. He couldn’t know that she’d only realised how wrong and abusive it was when she’d been on the verge of marrying him, and the fear that she could end up like her mother had almost paralysed her.
She’d been as guilty as her mother at burying her head in the sand. Until she’d spent those blissful three months with Theo, the longest she’d been away from home had been a week. Until she’d spent those blissful three months with Theo, she’d continued to obey her father. At the age of twenty-three she’d still asked to be excused from the dinner table. She’d still lived under a curfew.
With a sharp pang, Helena realised that had she not met him she would never have had the courage to face her father down at his fury over her failed nuptials. That was one good thing Theo had done for her. He’d made her brave.
She’d been so frightened of becoming like her mother that she hadn’t appreciated all the good ways his influence had rubbed off on her.
Theo had freed her in more ways than he could know.
As all these thoughts rushed through her head, Theo’s throat moved and his chest rose sharply before he broke the charged air between them to look at his watch. ‘We need to go soon.’
Checking her own watch, she was amazed to see they’d been in the café for over an hour. ‘I thought we were having a lazy day?’ And it was a lazy day she didn’t want to end...
The familiar knowing twinkle returned to his eyes. ‘I never said we were having a lazy evening.’
Her heart skipped but she feigned nonchalance. ‘Oh?’
He folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head. ‘We are going out tonight.’
Folding her own arms in mimicry and leaning forward, closer to him, thrills of excitement zinging through her body, she raised a brow. ‘Are we?’
A smile tugged at his lips. ‘We are.’
‘Where?’
‘That, agapi mou, is a surprise.’
CHAPTER NINE
HELENA DID A full slow-motion pirouette, wonder filling her heart. Theo had given her a room a princess would be thrilled to call her own. She could hardly take it all in: the raised four-poster bed with the muslin curtains, the crystal chandelier that hung from the frescoed ceiling, the thick carpet her toes sank into...
‘You like?’ The velvet undertone of Theo’s deep, gravelly voice coiled into her overloaded senses. She closed her eyes and let it fill her.
‘I get why you moved.’ Not only was her bedroom fit for a princess but it also had the most wonderful view of the sea.
‘Do you?’
‘You need the elements.’
His brow creased.
Tucking hair behind her ear, she tried to explain what she meant, but it was hard speaking coherently. There had been a palpable charge between them on the drive back to his villa. For once, conversation had been stilted, not just from her but from Theo too. Every second of every mile had been spent with awareness thrumming through her skin. ‘You’re a free spirit, Theo. Living in a city is too restrictive for you. You need to be able to throw yourself into the sea or climb a mountain when the urge takes you. Here, and on Sidiro too, you can do that.’
Theo’s heart caught in his throat at this unexpected observation. And at the softness of her tone.
Sometimes he forgot that Helena had once known him as well as he’d known her. He’d opened himself to her as he’d never opened himself to anyone. And then she’d left him.
Had she really left because she’d feared a marriage like her parents’? It had sounded ludicrous when she’d shouted it at him three years ago, and he’d told her so. He hadn’t believed she was serious. And now he had to contend with the knowledge that she thought him the same as a man who was, by any sane person’s definition, an emotional abuser.
He’d known Helena’s childhood had been different from his, but in the euphoria of falling in love he’d never appreciated just how different it had been. He’d been lucky with his parents. His childhood had been idyllic. He’d been given the best of everything, indulged in every way, and smothered with so much love that he’d assumed all the wonderful things in life were his due.
The death of his mother and father, especially coming so closely together, had taught him pain. Helena leaving him had taught him that non-parental love could be broken as quickly as it had formed. Both had served to strengthen him and harden him.
He didn’t want to feel himself softening towards her.
He’d bought this villa when he could no longer bear to walk the rooms and hallways of the townhouse Helena had once walked and where he could still hear the echo of her laughter. That laughter had echoed louder than the childhood memories stored in its walls.
When she left this
home, her ghost would not haunt it. He would have exorcised it.
The time for exorcism was getting closer and closer. He could feel it. He could taste it. Anticipation laced the air and it tasted sweeter than the purest honey.
She tucked her hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. ‘So...where are we going tonight?’
‘To the palace for a champagne reception, followed by a concert at the royal amphitheatre.’
Her eyes widened. ‘You’re joking.’
This was a reaction he liked. Helena had a fascination with the palace. It was the place they had met. She’d been wide-eyed with wonder when Theo had shown her their hand-delivered invitation to attend King Helios’s wedding. But, of course, she’d left before the wedding had occurred.
He stepped closer to her. ‘It is all arranged. A stylist will be here in an hour to assist you.’
Her mouth opened and closed. ‘But I have nothing...’
‘To wear?’ he supplied. He took another step towards her and lowered his head to whisper in her ear. ‘Look in your dressing room, agapi mou.’
If he wasn’t so attuned to her he’d have missed the tiny tremor that ran through her as his words brushed against her skin. It barely distracted from the tremor that ran through his own body as his senses soaked in her fragrance.
Moving like a sleepwalker, Helena went to the dressing room and stared in at a space that was larger than the bedroom in her flat. It was like looking into a hall of mirrors.
And then she saw it, at the far end, hanging beside a beautiful, feminine, antique dressing table.
The dress from the boutique.
‘How...?’ But that was all she could croak. Theo was standing right behind her. Not a part of him touched her but she felt him as acutely as if he’d wound his arms about her...
The air around her shifted. Warm breath threaded through her hair, seeping through the roots. The hair on the nape of her neck lifted.
She couldn’t move. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to fight the feelings thrumming through her a moment longer.
His Greek Wedding Night Debt (Mills & Boon Modern) Page 9
