Page 38 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

The shock, the pain, at discovering that everything he’d thought about his brother had been wrong was devastating to him. It had shaken the foundations of what he believed in, and the only way he had been able to survive it had been to cut Leander from his life. To cauterise the wound with abject denial.

He had taken the tattered ruins of his plans for Liassidis Shipping—the only thing he’d had left after Mina had abandoned him—and forged a path ahead alone. Until he’d eventually forgotten that there was a time when he had shared everything with his brother, and instead now shared nothing with anyone.

‘Leander,’ he told her hotly, as if he could convince her as much as himself, ‘would, and did, sell out his own brother for his own selfish whims.’

‘In the last ten years, Leander has made time for me to celebrate the wins and commiserate the losses. He’s been there to take me out for dinner, or dancing or whatever, because he knows that’s something that I need. He has given me so much and, in return, all he got is a forced fake marriage.’

Leo clenched his jaw against the picture she was painting of his brother. Trying to cling to his anger instead of the memories of the times that Leander had tried to reach out to him.

‘He was there even when I tried to avoid him because of how embarrassed I was over what happened with Liassidis Shipping and my mother,’ Helena said, looking at her hands.

‘That’s because he didn’t have to clean up the mess,’ he bit out without thinking. But the moment he saw Helena pale, he regretted it instantly.

‘That’s because he valued my friendship. So please don’t undermine my relationship with your brother just because you don’t have one.’

Her words sliced clean and deep.

‘It’s not like that,’ he dismissed instead.

‘You could probably say that to anyone else, but I know what you two were like before your father offered you the choice of inheritance between the family business or a financial lump sum.’ Her gaze on him was steady and knowing. ‘I know how close you were, how sometimes you were so similar only your parents could tell you apart. That kind of connection doesn’t just disappear.’

But she was wrong. He admired that Helena was someone who could grow up with parents like hers and still hope for more. Still reach for, want, that familial connection. But he couldn’t.

No. From that first moment, from the second that Leander had chosen to walk away, Leo had drawn a line. A hard line between them. He hadn’t wanted to speak to, see or hear from the person who had once been half of him. Leander had come home occasionally so he’d been unable to avoid him completely, but five years ago even those sporadic visits had stopped and Leo had refused all contact since then.

That was how he worked, that was what worked for him. That stubborn determination was how he survived.

Yet still Helena pressed on, unaware of his thoughts. ‘But I also know that Leander would have been miserable if he’d worked with you at Liassidis Shipping. And I’m pretty sure that you know it too.’

Everything in him wanted to deny her words. Refute them with all his might.

‘What I know is that my brother gave me absolutely no warning. The coward let me think that he was going to come with me and then took the money and ran.’

‘What do you think would have happened if he’d joined the family company with you?’ Helena asked. And his mind went utterly blank. ‘Would you have had help? Would you have had someone to talk to? To share your burdens and your fears?’ she asked.

Yes, he answered mentally. Yes, to each and every one of those questions.

As if she’d read his response in his face, she nodded. ‘But all those things are about Leander helping you, not Leander making his own life a success, doing the things that make him happy. Believe it or not, but your brother’s purpose is not to make your life easier.’

He wanted to be outraged. He wanted to be furious. But he couldn’t deny what Helena was saying. He couldn’t deny the hurt and the shock and the pain that her questions had uncovered. And he couldn’t stop his next words from falling from his lips.

‘He left me.’

‘I know,’ Helena replied sadly. And in her, he saw the pain of a daughter who’d lost her father too young and whose mother had barely been present for her.

‘But he chose to do that,’ Leo insisted, clinging desperately to his resentment, terrified of what it meant if he didn’t.

‘Yes,’ Helena agreed. ‘He had a choice to go it alone, do it the hard way and make something from nothing...rather than slowly lose pieces of himself working in an industry he had no interest in, for a company that would have ignored him in favour of you. What choice would you have made?’

He was prevented from answering by the appearance of one of the yacht’s staff.

‘Mr and Mrs Liassidis? A sunset dinner has been prepared for you on the lower deck.’

Helena wasn’t sure that she could eat at that moment, but didn’t want to offend the staff, who had created a feast of absolute deliciousness. Laid out on the table that looked out over nothing but sea and sky were what looked like twenty or so plates of different Mediterranean delicacies.

Absently, she ran the little silver peony pendant across the chain at her neck as she took in the prettily set table and the romantic candles illuminating the deck. The sun was beginning to set, casting streaks of pink and ochre across a sky turning a shade darker with almost each breath she took.

She felt Leo’s presence behind her, the warmth of his body like a physical touch against her skin. Despite the difficult conversation they’d shared there was no animosity between them, but she could tell that Leo’s thoughts were heavy.

---