Page 19 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

‘I’m not trying to hide anything,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I’m CEO of Incendia, a—’

‘Oh, Christ, Helena, don’t tell me you’re trying to prop it up with your own money,’ he interrupted, his hand bracketing his temples.

The shock in her gaze, the fear as she looked around to make sure that no one had heard him, made him even more furious.

She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him into a corridor away from the main exhibition.

Anger crawled up and bit into whatever peace had been found between them as he yanked his arm back. What she was doing was immature and reckless. Dangerous even, and not just for her company but for herself.

‘Didn’t you learn anything from your mother?’ he demanded.

‘My mother made a mistake,’ Helena hissed. ‘She thought she had learned enough about business from listening to my father for years. And you punished her terribly for it.’

The accusation was both unjust and true at the same time, but Leo couldn’t leave it at that.

‘She didn’t just make a mistake, Helena. She expressly went against the wishes of not just me but the entire board of Liassidis Shipping. She engaged one client—a fierce competitor of an existing one—to make herself feel like a businesswoman, and nearly bankrupted us in the process.’

Helena’s defiance faltered. It was just a second, but it was enough.

‘You didn’t know that?’ he asked, before he could take it back.

‘I knew enough!’ Helena cried. ‘I was there when you yelled at her and called her stupid, and foolish, and a liability. She was a grieving woman, Leo,’ she accused, ‘and you cut her off from everything and everyone she knew.’

‘And you’re still making excuses for her,’ he hit back, wondering if she would ever stop searching for something that Gwen would never give her.

‘She’s my mother,’ Helena replied, unable to stop herself from feeling all the hurt, anger and confusion from that time building up all over again. When everything she had known had been slipping through her fingers—she’d lost her father, her mother had made a terrible mistake and then Leo was pushing them out of his and his family’s lives as if they were nothing more than an inconvenience.

‘Then how could you possibly even contemplate making the same mistake again? If the company is failing, it’s failing,’ he announced with a fatal finality.

‘It’s not failing,’ she slammed back. ‘It’s employee theft. All we need to do is survive the financial review at the end of the year,’ she insisted.

Leo shook his head, that same look of disappointment in his eyes now that she remembered from when her mother had messed up.

‘You cannot put your own money at risk like this,’ he warned.

‘Why not? You did,’ she accused.

‘Because it was my company, Helena. This? It’s just a job. A CEO’s position.’

‘Even if it was just that, why is it okay for you to do it but not okay for me?’

And that was when she saw it. The answer that she feared the most.

‘Because you think I’ll fail,’ she correctly interpreted. A sob rose in her chest. To see him staring back at her, disappointed and disapproving, it was her worst imaginings come to life. ‘Thank you for your vote of confidence, Leo.’

She pushed past him and out of the gallery, the cool of the night biting into her heated emotions. As she messaged the car service, she told herself that Leo was wrong. She wouldn’t mess this up. She would save Incendia and prove him wrong. She knew what she was doing. All she had to do was stick to the plan and it would work. She knew it would.

Her phone buzzed in her clutch and she read the message from Kate with a strange mix of relief and resentment. And felt immediately bad. Her best friend had travelled halfway round the world to help her. Leander had to be in some sort of trouble to have done what he’d done. And all she could think of was that it wasn’t enough.

Oh, why was this such a mess?

Leo came to stand beside her just as the car pulled up.

‘Kate’s found Leander.’

‘Hopefully, she can bring him back before it’s too late,’ Leo said.

But Helena feared it already was.

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