Page 17 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

She swallowed at the crass comments, distaste and disgust crawling over her skin. She felt the flex of Leo’s forearm beneath her palm. Unlike his brother, Leo had never courted the press. Especially not after the months and months of speculation and derision at his leadership fail in the early stages of taking over Liassidis Shipping. A hounding scrutiny that he had protected her mother from, even as he’d engineered her removal from the company.

‘Helena, are you here for pleasure, or are you hoping to gain a brand ambassador for Incendia, perhaps?’

Seizing on the sanest question of the evening, and the opportunity to increase awareness for her charity, she paused and found the reporter amongst the masses, allowing a genuine smile to spread across her features.

‘I would be incredibly lucky to do so, but for tonight we’re just here to enjoy the exhibition. Efi Balaskou is a fascinating artist and I can’t wait to see her exhibition.’

‘Efcharistó, Helena. Leander? If you have a moment?’

Leo’s focus had been on the crowd until the mention of Incendia. She couldn’t have explained why, but she felt it. His attention had zeroed in on it, as if it were a vulnerability he could take advantage of.

And the horrible truth was that it was.

‘Congratulations on your wedding. It was a beautiful event.’

Leo smiled broadly, setting off another round of flashes from photographers who knew bankable good looks when they saw them.

‘Oh, that little thing?’ he said, full of tease that felt just wrong coming from Leo’s lips. ‘It was perfect, wasn’t it, agápi mou?’ he went on, turning to Helena.

She smiled, despite a strong suspicion that he’d used that term precisely because she’d told him not to.

‘But your brother wasn’t there. We’ve all heard the rumours of the rift between you, but how did it feel for him to have missed your wedding day?’

Helena’s mind went blank. She just hadn’t expected the question. This time, the pause, though infinitesimal, seemed to stretch out before them like eternity.

Leo narrowed his gaze at the reporter and, in a panic, Helena tightened her grip on his arm.

‘You know what Leo Liassidis is like,’ Leo dismissed, after an eternal moment of near deafening silence.

The reporter laughed, clearly thinking he was in on an inside joke of some sort.

‘Naí. The words stick up and backside come to mind,’ the reporter said in Greek.

Helena flushed. It was one thing to think it, but another entirely to say it. And accidentally to the man’s face? Breath rippled in her chest, making her light-headed enough to want to come to Leo’s defence.

‘I—’

‘It would take an act of God to remove that stick,’ Leo interrupted, leaning towards the reporter conspiratorially. ‘He had very important business,’ Leo mimicked and for a moment Helena was so lost in Leo being Leander, being Leo, that she simply stared at him. ‘I hear that he’s so wedded to his office chair, he takes it home with him.’

The reporter laughed again as she forced an awkward smile to her lips.

‘Helena, were you offended by your brother-in-law’s absence?’

Leo looked at her, the challenge in his eyes wicked. As if he were saying, Now’s your chance. A wickedness that cut through the years, the bitter recriminations between them, to before her mother’s mistake, before the loss of her father, before that horrible Christmas, to when she’d felt safe in their relationship, when she’d felt she’d known him. And that he’d known her.

‘I’m usually more offended by his presence, so for me his absence made a pleasant change,’ she announced loftily, holding Leo’s gaze.

Leo threw his head back and laughed. A genuine, full-throated laugh that caught almost everyone’s attention.

She couldn’t help but let a smile curve her lips. It wasn’t every day she managed to score a point against Leo Liassidis, but to make him laugh like that? Like he used to? A round of flashes went off and it was as if the stars had fallen from the sky to land at their feet. Leo recovered himself and gestured for her to continue down the carpet and she followed, dazzled not by the lights but by him.

Leo hadn’t expected to laugh. He’d expected to be angry. He’d expected to use her as a foil to vent his frustrations. But she’d surprised him. And he hadn’t been surprised for a very long time. He strangely welcomed the moment to move beyond all the anger from the past, even if just for a while.

They navigated the small bottleneck blocking the entrance to the gallery and each accepted a glass of champagne from the wait staff. Making sure that there were no reporters hidden behind corners waiting to catch him out, he finally took a sip of his drink as he turned back to the larger-than-life photograph they stood before and promptly choked.

Bubbles ran simultaneously down his throat and up his nose, blocking off his airways.

There was a distinctly unsympathetic smirk across Helena’s features as, without taking her eyes from the gallery piece, she passed him a napkin. Leo’s eyes watered as he vainly tried to contain all the liquid trying to leave his body at the same time, while he avoided the image that had caused this disastrous incident in the first place.

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