Page 33 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

‘Then maybe, in the future, you’ll think twice about the deals you offer,’ she said, leaning back into the chair, clearly aware that she’d made her point.

He’d been so hell-bent on getting all the shares in Liassidis Shipping that he hadn’t even bothered to do his own research. Research he was usually absolutely meticulous about. He didn’t like it, the effect she seemed to be having on him. The way he was behaving out of character. But he also didn’t like the discord between them. Not after how much he’d enjoyed the peace.

‘How did it come about? You and Incendia,’ he asked both carefully and curiously.

She could have sniped back at him, he certainly deserved it, but he sensed that she wanted it too, the fragile truce between them.

‘After my father passed away, Mum was...pretty difficult to be around.’

Helena had always found it difficult to talk about Gwen. It was as if it were a betrayal to reveal some weakness in her mother’s character. Especially to a man who had been so devastatingly impacted by her already. But was grief really a weakness? It affected everyone in such different ways and none that could be predicted until it was felt, experienced.

‘At first, Mum was determined to continue on as if nothing had happened. Yes, her husband was gone, but she could cope with that as long as everything else remained the same. And she did that first by trying to carry on with his work.’

Which had been disastrous.

‘I...knew that she had made a mistake that had cost Liassidis Shipping greatly, but...’ she trailed off, shaking her head ‘...I didn’t know that she’d gone expressly against your wishes, or those of the board. I didn’t know that at all. I just thought she’d made a mistake and that you’d...’

‘Exiled her?’ Leo asked, his eyes lit with a strange mixture of understanding and lingering resentment.

Helena pressed her lips together and nodded guiltily. She understood a lot more now than she had then, as to how damaging that would have been for his company. How it would have felt to have his decisions questioned like that, and to have been so publicly defied. In a way, wasn’t that what Gregory had done by stealing such an obscene amount of money from Incendia on her watch?

‘We shouldn’t have let it happen,’ Leo said of himself and his father.

‘No one expected her to throw herself into it to that extent,’ she admitted. ‘But I think it was because... Well, I think because if she could keep everything the same, then nothing had happened. She hadn’t lost the man she loved. She wasn’t drowning in her own grief. If she was busy, if she was doing something, then she didn’t have to think about it. The only problem was...’

‘That if she wasn’t managing her own grief, she wasn’t managing yours either,’ Leo concluded correctly again.

Helena nodded. It was strange how much he seemed to understand her without her having to explain. It was familiar, and it both soothed and hurt at the same time.

‘My grief was a reminder of things she didn’t want to acknowledge. And it made an already difficult relationship painfully strained. One of the teachers at my boarding school referred me to Incendia and it was there that I got some support for myself, rather than having to neglect my feelings in order to try to protect my mother’s. Their help was a godsend.’

But when grief had entwined with the loss of the Liassidises from her life—the anchor that had seemed to hold her little family together—it had felt as if everything had slipped through her fingers. After her mother had failed to navigate her own grief with her husband’s work, she had returned to England and thrown out everything that had ever belonged to him. She had put the house in Mayfair on the market without even telling Helena and although it had never really felt like a home it had still been a devastating blow.

Helena had clung to Kate in those early months, and even Leander. But the people she’d missed so terribly, her father and...and Leo, she forced herself to admit, were gone.

‘I worked with one of their counsellors, and then began volunteering when I had started to find my feet again. Knowing first-hand how important their work and the funding they raised for such specific research was—the kind that big pharma doesn’t have any interest in because the conditions are so specialised there is little financial incentive—just made my work there more important.’

Leo was listening intently, impressed beyond belief at the kind of strength it must have taken to work at a charity where every day she must be reminded of the loss of her father.

‘So, after my A-levels, I went to study business management at Cambridge Judge Business School.’

‘That’s incredible,’ he said.

‘You sound surprised,’ she accused.

‘Not in the least.’ And he wasn’t. Because he had always known, really, that whatever she put her mind to, she could achieve.

‘I did my master’s there too. Did a few years in the sector, worked as a consultant across a few startups. I won a few awards,’ she admitted, as if it were something to be shy about rather than proud, and Leo was back to cursing the mother who had taught her daughter to expect so little.

‘And when Incendia approached me about the CEO’s position it was... It was a dream come true.’

Leo wondered whether she realised it—how passionate she sounded when talking about Incendia. Helena shone the moment she talked of it, her eyes bright and powerful, the flush on her cheeks nothing to do with anger, or sexual tension. Just joy and inner pride that made her more beautiful than he’d ever seen her.

His conscience twisted painfully in his chest as he realised not only how much he’d missed, but the active part he’d played in her isolation during such a painful and grief-stricken time. He knew then that no apology could cover his behaviour. But he found himself wanting to explain, to justify.

‘I had no idea. About Gwen. About...’

Helena bit her lip, but he pressed on.

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