Page 47 of Greek's Temporary "I Do"

She pulled up short, eyes wide, body tense with shock.

‘Why is Leander in California, Helena, and who is the blonde with him?’ another voice demanded as someone tried to peer through the window.

Helena jumped back and then jumped again when her phone rang in her hand. She answered it without thinking.

‘Helena? Are you okay?’ Megan’s voice asked.

‘What’s...what’s going on?’

‘They know, Helena. They know that it was Leo with you, not Leander.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

LEO LOOKED OUT at the Aegean from the coastal path on his parents’ island. He’d taken the helicopter and arrived the night before, forgetting that his parents were away visiting friends in France.

But he was thankful for it. He told himself that he wanted to be alone. That after seven days of nothing but Helena it would do him good. He told himself that he didn’t care that the place felt empty, that he didn’t somehow know that any place would feel empty now.

He picked up a rock from the ground and hurled it into the sea, where it was consumed by grey, angry waves. He had woken up after a restless night, tossing and turning, to find the sun clawing its way into a startlingly cold and grey morning. The wind whipped cruelly around the island and pulled and pushed at the trees on his parents’ estate.

Lonely. He felt lonely.

That’s what happens when you turn yourself into an island. Just like the one you’re standing on.

His brother’s voice had been getting louder and louder and much more frequent in the last week than it had ever been before. Leo’s head hurt from the tug between the past and the present, his brother and Helena.

And that’s what happens when you don’t fight for what you want, the voice taunted.

Leo growled, turning around, half expecting to see his brother striding towards him from the house, but there was no one there. He wanted to fight, to lash out, to get rid of this feeling in him. The feeling of guilt, of shame, of helplessness, because the voice was right.

He hadn’t fought for what he wanted. Because, deep down, all along, he’d known that Leander wasn’t happy, hadn’t he? He’d pretended not to see it; he’d pretended to be shocked by his choice. Oh, it had still been utterly horrifying to experience—his brother choosing the money over him. But he couldn’t lie to himself any more. He couldn’t afford to.

What Helena had said about Leander was right. Leander would have been utterly miserable at Liassidis Shipping. He was a risk-taker, a daredevil, who would have been suffocated by the company that involved the more grounded and staid work that Leo relished. Because he suited that.

And why hadn’t he fought it? Why hadn’t he tried to face Leander all those years ago? Because, deep down, he couldn’t shake the feeling that even if he had fought for his brother to stay, it wouldn’t have changed a thing. Because he wasn’t enough. So it had been easier to paint Leander as the guilty party. As the one responsible for it all. For Leo to emerge blameless, the martyr who had sacrificed all for the greater good of the company.

A sacrifice he’d made all over again.

Helena.

Just the thought of her was a sucker punch to his gut—enough to make him double over in pain. And in that moment he realised that what he’d felt when Leander had walked away was almost nothing in comparison to the earthshattering loss of Helena.

He braced his hands on his knees and groaned, dropping to the ground.

What had he done? He’d let his brother walk out of his life. He couldn’t let Helena do that. No, he’d not survive it. He needed her. The montage in his mind of the week he’d just spent with her, of Helena daring him in the art gallery, of her laughing with Leander’s friends at the nightclub, or her smiling at the waiter in the small fishing village, and of her looking up at him, playing with that damn necklace that he should have given her himself that Christmas. That Christmas, when she had wanted to give him a present...the one that she’d put in the...

The cubbyhole.

He’d turned back to the house before he’d even realised it and what started as slow steps turned into a jog, driven by an urgency he couldn’t name. He shoved through the front door, taking the steps of the staircase two at a time. He came to a stop opposite the painting, imagining a fifteen-year-old Helena outside his room, hearing that she meant nothing to him. Christós, his heart buckled in his chest, each beat agony.

With his breath captured in his lungs he lifted the painting, behind which was a small, dusty shelf on which sat a crumpled box wrapped in faded festive paper.

He reached for it at the same time his phone chimed. Once, twice, and then again. With the present in one hand and his phone in the other, he looked at the message beneath his assistant’s name.

Check the news. Right now. Then call me.

Nausea ate at Helena’s empty stomach. The moment she had discovered what had happened, she’d called Kate to warn her. And no matter how many times she’d seen the grainy pictures of Kate and Leander passionately kissing, she couldn’t stop herself from hoping that somehow the headlines would change.

Twin-Swap Scandal!

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