Page 21 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

He didn’t miss the unspoken accusation that he hadn’t bothered to keep in touch with her.

You cut her off from everything and everyone she knew.

Had Helena just been talking about her mother? Or had she also been talking about herself?

‘Do you see him regularly?’ Leo asked, choosing his words carefully, wondering how much of an answer he really wanted.

Helena smiled and her face lit up. ‘We find time to celebrate the milestones. I don’t get to come to Greece that often any more, so he’ll usually fly to London. He was...’ she looked up at him and then away ‘...there when I needed him.’

The sting of jealousy surprised Leo and it covered everything. Not just the fact that Leander was there for Helena in a way that Leander had never been there for him. But because there had once been a time when Helena had come to him and not Leander. And the way she talked about what they had made him curious about the man he’d cut from his life.

‘Is he happy?’ Leo asked, unsure of the answer he wanted to hear.

Helena looked at him from across the helicopter. ‘Yes,’ she said with a small smile. ‘But sometimes I get a sense that there’s something missing from his life.’

‘What?’ Leo couldn’t help but ask.

‘You.’

He couldn’t say anything to that.

Helena felt unusually self-conscious entering the trendy nightclub owned by Travi Samaras. People turned to stare, but she was under no illusion as to who it was that drew their attention. She was standing next to a man who looked like a Greek god worshipped by mortals, rather than one himself.

She would have laughed had she been with Leander, but standing beside Leo, seeing the impact he had on other women, feeling the impact he had on her without even trying, was making her feel distinctly on edge.

‘What’s wrong? Are you nervous?’ he asked, dipping his head to her ear, once again playing the doting new husband.

‘No. Just curious as to how on earth you’re going to succeed in pretending to be your party animal brother,’ she replied, wondering how he’d noticed her discomfort.

‘You don’t think I know how to party?’ came the amusingly indignant reply.

‘I don’t think you’d know a good time if it came up and slapped you across the face,’ she said as she stalked towards the bar. He kept pace with her as she made her way through a sea of people that parted for Leo as if he were Moses.

‘I do,’ he insisted as he reached her side at the bar.

‘You did,’ she countered, his persistence softening some of her defiance.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

She deliberately caught the eye of the barman rather than look up at Leo, whose famous focus was now intently on her.

She shrugged. ‘Once upon a time you knew how to have fun. Now? Not so much.’ Turning a smile on the barman, she ordered a bottle of champagne.

‘You can put it on Leander Liassidis’ tab,’ she told the barman sweetly.

Leo’s eyes widened in realisation, his lips curving into a wicked smile just before asking the barman to make it two bottles.

‘Just the two?’ Helena asked as she found a standing table at the edge of a dance floor while the bar staff set up tall buckets with ice and two glasses.

‘I’m ordering a bottle of vodka next,’ he growled.

Helena found herself smiling despite herself. The merest hint of the boy she remembered from her childhood was enough to warm her. Back then, he’d been funny, irreverent. More grounded than Leander, yes, but so much less serious and sombre than the adult Leo.

She was about to reply when she saw Travi making his way towards them.

‘The man in the white suit and dark shirt? That’s Travi. You’ve known him for three years, ever since he approached you looking for an investor,’ she whispered hurriedly. ‘You decided against the first project, but liked an app designed by one of his young techs and invested in that instead. You tried to pinch the tech, but Travi made him an offer he couldn’t refuse to stay. You said at the end, At least the kid is finally being paid his worth. You joke about it regularly.’

Leo stared at her, his gaze halfway between surprised and impressed.

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