Page 20 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

CHAPTER FIVE

WHO OPENED A club on a Wednesday night? Leo wondered as he looked at the wardrobe with neatly pinned paper cards informing the wearer of the date and the event. Leander’s assistant needed a pay rise. Leo would never have asked his to do such a thing.

He doesn’t have to, because you never go out, a distinctly Helena-sounding voice said in his head.

Leo rubbed a hand over the closely cut beard on his jaw. It had been two days since the gallery opening. Two days before that had been the wedding. If it followed this pattern, he could avoid Helena for another two days, starting tomorrow.

Because you’ll say some other appalling thing to her and cause her more upset.

That voice sounded like his brother.

The fact that Leo had been right about everything he’d said that night at the gallery hadn’t quietened his conscience. If anything, it had only got louder and louder as time wore on. He’d catch glimpses of Helena around the villa, the trail of a scarf, or a pair of sunglasses lying around. A book she’d left on a lounger that he’d been curious about and looked up. Little pieces of a girl he’d once known.

At least their argument had drawn a line under whatever had invaded his senses that day. Not that he’d forgotten the words he’d whispered to her, how close he’d come to crossing the invisible line between them. He assured himself that he was cured of that momentary madness as he considered the deep ochre-coloured T-shirt and dark maroon linen suit Leander’s assistant had chosen for tonight. A pair of sunglasses were tucked by an arm into the breast pocket and a leather belt hung over the suit shoulder. He frowned at the casual attire.

‘Be me.’

Kill me, thought Leo as he reached for the clothes that would turn him into Leander.

As he buttoned his shirt and tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, he racked his brain for why he had suddenly become so responsive to Helena. Yes, it had been a while since he’d last spent time with someone.

But after Mina he’d had absolutely no intention of making himself that vulnerable again. Since then, women had been an as and when for him and certainly no more permanent than a night or two of mutual pleasure. Despite his reaction to the pictures in the gallery, he wasn’t a prude. Far from it. He enjoyed pleasure, his partner’s and his own, greatly. He just didn’t have to splash it all over the papers like his brother.

With one last look in the mirror, he went to the living room, to find Helena looking at her watch.

‘So “Leander the Lothario” wanted to take you to a club opening on your honeymoon,’ he stated, trying to warm the chill in the air between them and ease his conscience at the same time.

‘Travi, the owner of the club, is a business associate,’ she informed him in a clipped tone that he should be thankful for.

‘Of yours?’ Leo asked, confused.

‘Of Leander’s,’ Helena replied disdainfully, as if she were reproving him for how little he knew about his brother’s life.

As if it were he that had caused the separation between them.

‘I thought Leander is into web-based app development.’

‘He is. Travi is an investor.’

As they left the villa and made their way to the helipad where the helicopter would fly them back to Athens for the evening, the blush-pink sparkles covering Helena’s dress glistened in the setting sun. Before him was a kaleidoscope of golds, yellows and pinks that struck him in full Technicolor. Where the dress from the previous event had been long, this one stopped barely at where her fingers reached her toned thighs.

He clenched his jaw and slipped the sunglasses over his eyes.

‘So, you know Travi well?’ he asked as he followed, trying to watch where he was going and not the backs of Helena’s well-defined thighs.

‘Reasonably. But not as much as Leander. You’re going to have to concentrate this time.’

He nodded, though he already knew that hemline was going to be a major problem.

‘I’m surprised you know so much about my brother,’ he observed out loud.

‘I’m surprised you know so little,’ she snapped back in a rebuke he felt to his core.

The helicopter was waiting for them, the door slid back and the blades at a standstill for the moment. He waited while they took their seats and the headsets were in place. The co-pilot talked them through what channels to use and what to do in an emergency and Leo only heard every other word over the pounding in his head as the vee of Helena’s dress gaped just enough to reveal the gentle slope of her breast.

Skatá, he was turning into a pervert.

‘We kept in touch.’ Helena’s words came through the headset, bringing him back to their conversation.

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