Page 18 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

This might have been our honeymoon together! Starting our lives together. Living our dream together.

But she had made that dream impossible. All that was left to her—and to Leandros, claiming from her the one thing he still wanted of her—was this poisoned present.

Nothing else.

She reached for her wine again. To conceal the tears that threatened...

CHAPTER FIVE

THE PARIS TRAFFIC was bad as they crawled around the Périphérique to make their slow way into the centre. They were staying, so Leandros had told her, on the Left Bank, near Les Invalides.

‘You can add Napoleon’s tomb to your sightseeing list,’ he remarked. ‘Our hotel is one of the former grand residences of the city. Once owned by one of Napoleon’s marshals, so I understand.’

He was being civil, making conversation, and though Eliana was glad he was not making any more cutting remarks to her, his politeness was detached, impersonal.

I could be anyone—anyone at all.

But how could it be otherwise? she thought painfully. Since she had tugged his ring from her finger, her voice stilted, telling him of her change of plan, everything they had once had between them had been obliterated, as if an axe had fallen. All intimacy severed for ever.

The car was gaining the centre of Paris, familiar from a hundred films, and she craned her head to catch a glimpse of the sights. Leandros pointed them out to her and she realised he must, of course, be far more familiar with the city than she was. She had not travelled abroad much with Damian—his father had liked to keep him close by and under his watch.

An unexpected start of excitement pricked at her now as the iconic Eiffel Tower came into view nearby. She was here, in Paris, and however...difficult...the reason, it was something to be here—and a change, she had to acknowledge honestly, from the dreary, dismal, endlessly grinding impoverishment to which she had been confined since Damian’s death.

A sudden yearning smote her.

If only... If only I were here with Leandros as we should have been!

She crushed it down. There was no ‘if only’ possible. Face set, she kept on gazing out of the window, not looking at Leandros, the man she had betrayed and abandoned. Who would never, could never, forgive her...

The hotel was, as Leandros had said, a former grand townhouse, and as they arrived Eliana looked about her with pleasure at the way past and present were intermingled in the luxurious interior.

‘We’re in the Résidence,’ Leandros said to her as he checked them in. ‘The main top floor.’

He guided her into the lift, inset beside a grand staircase sweeping upwards, and Eliana felt her nerves start up. The reality of what she was doing was hitting her...the reason for her presence here. At their floor, they emerged on to a wide landing set with a pair of gilded double doors, which Leandros opened with a flourish.

She stepped inside into a beautiful drawing room—there was no other word for it—eighteenth-century in style, with a carpet in rich hues of blue and gold and furniture which, although modern, looked as elegant as the rest of the room, and was styled for comfort as well as elegance. Paintings adorned the walls—again, a skilful mix of modern and classic—and there was a large mirror above the marble fireplace. Long blue silk curtains graced the French windows which, she realised, led onto a little Juliet balcony, overlooking a narrow formal front garden and the quiet street below.

Several doors opened off the drawing room. Leandros crossed to open one of them.

‘Your bedroom,’ he said.

Eliana’s eyes flickered to him, and then to the doorway, and she walked through into the room beyond. It was a double bedroom, with a silk-covered bed, more silk drapes at the windows, and the glimpse of an en suite bathroom through another door.

‘Mine’s next door,’ Leandros said.

Was his voice dry? She didn’t know—knew only that her breathing had quickened, as if in agitation, and that nerves were plucking at her again.

‘I’ll leave you to freshen up,’ he was saying now—and he walked back out, closing the door behind him as he did so. ‘I need to change for this evening.’

Slowly, Eliana let her shoulder bag down onto the beautiful counterpane and looked about her, still feeling her heart thumping. Dear God, she was here, in Paris, in a hotel suite, and there was only one purpose for her presence here.

Faintness drummed through her, and emotions she could not name—would not name at all. She took a deep, steadying breath instead. The best way to cope with this—the only way—was not to think, not to feel, just to keep going, one moment at a time.

‘Freshen up’, Leandros had said. So she did just that, repairing to the en suite bathroom.

It was a long time, it seemed, since she’d got up that morning, and as the bathroom facilities in her studio were both primitive and limited, the contrast with the palatial bathroom here was total. Almost without realising it, she felt her spirits lift as she stripped off, turned on the shower, stepped inside. The vanity unit came with an overflowing basket of expensive toiletries, and within minutes she was revelling in the feel of washing her hair under a strong, hot stream of water, lathering her body with richly scented bodywash.

Oh, but it felt good to have such a shower again—not since she’d lived with Damian had there been such luxury for her.

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