Page 28 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

She shrugged him off. ‘It’s fine. It was a long time ago,’ she said, looking down so that he couldn’t see how much she lied.

He placed a finger under her chin and lifted it so that her gaze met his. ‘It doesn’t matter how long ago it was. I hurt you and I’m sorry.’

His words were a balm she didn’t know she’d needed and certainly not one she’d expected, shifting old hurts and unfurling old feelings. She bit her lip to stop the emotion from escaping, but when his eyes dropped to her mouth, she remembered.

She remembered everything about the kiss in the club. Her heart pounded in her chest, a flush crept up her body inch by startling inch, and all the while he watched her with an intensity that she couldn’t hide from.

He was barely touching her. Just one point of contact, the tip of his forefinger, but she felt him. The way that he’d taken possession of her, the way that she’d not cared if she took another breath, the way he’d made her feel alive. Her nipples pressed against the inner lining of her dress, and damp heat spread from her core. The way he’d made her feel, the things she wanted him to do, they all crashed together in a want, a desire so strong that it stole her breath.

His gaze flickered between her eyes and her lips as if he were unable to help himself. Her hands gripped her waist to stop herself from reaching out to him. But it didn’t make a bit of difference. Because in her mind erotic images flickered against the backs of her eyes like a multicoloured kaleidoscope... Her hands thrust into his hair as he teased her nipples with his tongue. His open mouth against her skin, his hands around her chest, holding her to him as she rose above him, the shift of his legs as he settled in between her thighs...

Her eyes drifted closed against her will, desperate to cling onto the images for just a little longer. A sigh escaped her lips at the same time she imagined her name falling between them. But that’s all it must have been her imagination. Because when she opened her eyes Leo released the tentative hold he had on her and took a step back, and the draught of cold air left in his wake was enough to return her sanity to her.

What was she thinking?

She had married Leander. Even if it was a fake marriage, even if it was just so that she could access her inheritance, and even if, for one second, Leo felt just half of what she did, she had just married his brother in front of one hundred and fifty guests and it had been covered by several international news outlets. The press had been filled with stories about their childhood sweetheart marriage. And if there was even a chance they were discovered it would ruin them both.

And even had she not married Leander, this was Leo.

Leo, for whom nothing was more important than Liassidis Shipping, including his brother and his ex-fiancée. Leo, who would ensure that nothing, nothing, jeopardised the company he had given so much to, certainly not her. Wasn’t that precisely why he was doing all of this? To get her shares away from her?

‘We should talk about the kiss,’ Leo said as if it were the last thing he actually wanted to do.

‘There’s nothing to talk about,’ Helena replied, drawing a line that couldn’t be crossed, no matter how much she wanted to. Because, as she looked into his eyes, she saw that he knew it too. It couldn’t happen. Nothing could happen between them. ‘I’m going to bed. I have an online meeting in the morning.’

Leo saw the resolution in Helena’s eyes and didn’t like the frustration he felt because of it.

‘Helena. It can’t happen again,’ he ground out, the words burning his mouth as they came out.

‘I know. It was just for show. Don’t worry. I didn’t mistake it for anything else,’ she said, her words scratching against his conscience. ‘You did what you had to do because we both thought that Mina was going to out us in public. So, no. It won’t happen again.’

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? He wanted it to happen. Needed it like a feral thing in his blood. It was a ferocity that shocked him to his core. He’d never felt like that about a woman before, not even his ex-fiancée. It felt stronger than a craving. An addiction even. Which was what made it so dangerous. A thing that needed to be leashed. Because he knew what was at risk. His company. Hers.

It had taken years to crawl out of the damage done to Liassidis Shipping’s reputation after the betrayal of a client was made public knowledge. Years of not putting a foot wrong, or stepping once out of line. He’d been the perfect businessman, determined, focused only on his company and his clients. Focused on doing it his way and by himself.

Even if Helena and Leander publicly split and waited years, Helena would be seen as his brother’s wife for ever. And really, there were only a few sins greater. So, no. It didn’t matter what he wanted, or what Helena wanted.

It was simply an impossibility.

The realisation felled him. And he wondered whether, if he was able to go back in time, would he do things the same way that evening? Would he kiss her the way he had?

Yes. A million times yes.

The answer was swift, determined, ruthless, and demanded more. But Leo had more control over himself than most and he wouldn’t give in to a selfish desire that would burn through the fragile hold both he and Helena had on the situation that Leander had thrust them into.

‘It’s okay,’ she said to him with a brave smile. ‘Tonight we drank to new beginnings, remember? So that’s what tomorrow will be. A new beginning.’

She was offering them a lifeline. A fresh start without the weight of the past or the intoxication of the kiss between them in the present. And he both wanted it and loathed it, but it was what they both needed if they had any hope of getting what they wanted from the future.

She held his gaze for one more second before turning to leave the room.

Clenching his jaw and unable to watch her go, he turned back to the window, reaching for a glass of whisky that was now an unappealing room temperature. He heard her steps on the marble floor, taking her further and further away from him.

But, before he could let her go, he needed to know one thing.

‘They were good times, though. Weren’t they?’ he asked her before she could completely disappear.

‘Yes,’ she said after a moment. ‘Yes, they were.’

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