Page 5 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

Helena needs this. Really needs it. So please. I’ll ask...beg. But please, don’t leave her alone on the wedding day.

Leo clenched his teeth again, a thin lightning strike of tension spreading up his neck and jaw. Of all the women in the world, his brother had chosen to marry Helena Hadden? Leo would have been happy to have lived the rest of his life never seeing or hearing of a Hadden woman ever again.

There had been a time when things had been different. When he’d enjoyed Helena’s company, when he had almost thought them friends. But that was before Helena had taken Leander’s side following his betrayal, and things had only become worse three years later, after what her mother, Gwen, had done to Liassidis Shipping following the death of her husband.

Whether it had been grief or sheer stupidity, Gwen’s actions had nearly destroyed Liassidis Shipping for ever by engaging the competitor of an existing client at a knockdown price. It had taken everything, everything, Leo had had in him, to pull it back from the brink of ignominy.

Christós, what was he even doing here?

He looked back at the church doors. No matter how much he resented the Haddens, and hated his brother, he couldn’t have left Helena alone to face down a near obscene number of wedding guests, let alone the press corps camped outside. No, only his selfish, uncaring brother would do such a thing. And he—Leo assured himself with an almost violent intensity—was nothing like his brother.

The sound of the doors opening screeched against the floor, causing him to wince momentarily at the shocking intrusive sound. And then, just for a second, he saw her centred in the doorframe, smiling at her bridesmaid, her face filled with hope and excitement, and it cut through the red haze of his anger.

That wasn’t Helena Hadden, his body roared.

The effect she had on him was instantaneous, his stomach tensing against a punch to the gut, as heat worked its way around his system. The woman standing in the ivory sheath was statuesque tall, beyond beautiful, and barely reminiscent of the gangly girl he’d last seen ten years before. The sheer marked difference between what he saw and what he’d been expecting destroyed any instinctive barrier against seeing the intense feminine beauty of the woman standing at the opposite end of the aisle and he was frankly relieved when the bridesmaid came to take her place in front of the bride.

Get yourself together. Right now.

Reminding himself who she was, what her mother had done—what his brother had got him into—tuned his feelings back to where they should be. Right around the time that the bridesmaid stepped aside and Helena caught sight of him.

He was staring at her so intently he saw the exact moment she realised it was him standing at the top of the aisle, not his brother. Shock and horror morphed quickly into anger, the fire in Helena’s startling blue eyes burning him as badly as that first impression of her had.

And yet he could do nothing—say nothing—until she reached his side. And even then? They were facing the entire congregation and because someone—probably his egotistical brother—had the genius idea to have the priest stand with the congregation rather than with them, as tradition would dictate, they were in full view of absolutely everyone.

Helena needs this. Really needs it.

Leo bit back a scornful laugh. One look at the sheer panic in her eyes was enough to tell him what he needed to know.

This was no love marriage. Not that he’d have believed it even if they’d tried to deceive him. There had been absolutely no trace of such feeling between her and Leander in all the years that the Haddens had spent with his family. So Leo could be forgiven for thinking that it was a joke when the wedding invitation had first arrived. He’d left the thick embossed cream paper on the corner of his desk, almost needing to see it again and again just to believe it.

That was until the press and the gossip magazines had started to whisper rumours that ‘Leander the Lothario’ was finally settling down.

What had started as a few pieces in lifestyle magazines had taken Greece by storm. The Liassidis family name combined with, Leo would grudgingly admit, Leander’s own achievements were lauded throughout the country. It should have come as little surprise that this mockery of a love story would have captured the nation’s attention.

But Leo had seen members of the international press right by the steps of the church. Was that why his brother had decided to cut and run? Or was there another reason? Did it even matter, Leo asked himself, as his brother had once again proved that only his own needs and desires mattered, uncaring of who he hurt in the process?

He turned his attention back to Helena, who was mere steps away, and she was still glaring at him with a fury that promised nothing less than hellfire.

Finally, she stepped up beside him, her eyes locked onto his face as if he were the one who had put them in this situation, rather than his brother. As if he didn’t have better things to do with his time than to play groom in whatever scheme Helena and his brother had cooked up.

She pasted a smile over exquisite features and hissed out from between her teeth, ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Your beloved fiancé has done a runner,’ he returned with an equally false smile and gritted teeth, aware that the gaze of every person in the room was on them. If he hadn’t been the employer of nearly twenty thousand staff around the globe, he might have found the experience a bit intimidating.

He looked back at Helena to see that the blood had drained from her creamy complexion.

Malákas.

This time, he wasn’t sure whether he was cursing his brother or himself.

‘He said he’ll return before the end of the honeymoon,’ his hitherto unknown conscience prompted him to add.

In her wide eyes he could see her thoughts churning like a sea swell in the Aegean, but they were just as unfathomable to him.

‘Smile,’ he warned as he registered a ripple of unease pass across the guests in the church.

She flashed another glare at him that didn’t need translating. It was the eye-squint equivalent of Don’t tell me to smile, damn you. But she did exactly as he’d said. She turned to face not only the priest but also the guests, the delicate rosebud of her lips widening. And Leo could have sworn he heard a collective sigh pass across them as if she’d bestowed them with a gift.

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