Page 19 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

Luxury she’d once taken for granted.

Luxury that had come with her marriage.

She felt a kind of sudden hollowing in her stomach. And now it was going to be hers again—courtesy of the man she had rejected marrying.

She cut the shower—cut the thoughts starting to invade her mind. They were too disturbing and for too many reasons. Disturbing reasons. Because they were conflicting reasons...reasons she was fighting against admitting.

Being here like this—in Paris, with Leandros—was not simply for the reasons she had been telling herself. Because she owed it to him...because she wanted final closure, so she could move on with her life, move on without Leandros...

She reached for a towel to wind around her wet hair, another to wrap around her naked body. She was conscious of avoiding looking at her reflection. Yet she saw it all the same. Slender...so slender...her nakedness covered only with a towel, her arms and shoulders bare, her legs bare, her breasts pressing against the confines of the towel. She felt an awareness of her own physical body...felt as burningly conscious of herself as she had been of Leandros on the flight over...of the body that soon Leandros would—

Urgently, she tore her thoughts away again. Too disturbing...too conflicting. Just like her emotions. Ragged and raw. Tangled and tormenting.

Impossible to make sense of.

Leandros stood by the Juliet balcony, hands thrust into the trouser pockets of his tuxedo. His mood was strange, his thoughts disjointed, contradicting each other. Had this been a major mistake, letting Eliana back into his life? An act of insanity he would regret all his life? Was he just raking up dead ashes that should be dug into the earth and never exhumed?

Even as the thought came, its negation came even more swiftly. It was his love for Eliana that was dead and gone—nothing else. Seeing her again had rekindled—instantly, totally—everything else he’d ever felt about her. And it was that ‘everything else’ that he was reviving now—reclaiming now.

That and nothing else.

He felt his heart harden the way he had taught it to—the way she had caused it to. No, there was nothing left of love between them. His face hardened along with his heart. Not that she had ever felt any love for him. It had been self-interest, that was all. The moment his father had threatened to disinherit him she’d cut and run...

But now he’d brought her back into his life. Deliberately and consciously.

On my terms only. For a limited period—and a limited purpose.

To get her out of his system once and for all. It was all he asked for.

The door from her bedroom opened and she emerged. His eyes went to her immediately. She’d changed, and was now wearing something a little more suitable for her surroundings. A below-the-knee dress with a slight floral print, high-waisted and with a blouson bodice. Her hair—newly washed, he could see—was drawn back into a still-damp ponytail.

‘That dress isn’t chain store,’ he heard himself saying.

She gave a little shake of her head, as if his remark had taken her aback.

‘No, it’s one my father bought me. Like he bought the gown I wore to Chloe’s party. They’re old now, but good quality.’

He frowned. ‘You must have had a decent wardrobe from Damian?’ he said.

‘I was not allowed to take it when I had to leave the house we lived in,’ she said quietly.

Leandros’s mouth twisted. Jonas Makris had certainly done the works on her all right.

But I don’t want to see her in clothes she wore for the man she rejected me for.

‘Well, you’ll leave Paris with a new wardrobe,’ he said. He crossed to the drinks cabinet. ‘I’ve some time before I need to leave. Would you like a cocktail?’

Into his head came the answer she would once have given instantly. A Kir Royale—champagne infused with cassis. It had always been her favourite.

‘G and T,’ she said now.

He glanced at her, reaching for the bottle of gin out of the plentiful array in the cabinet, together with tonic water and ice cubes.

‘Very English,’ he said dryly. He frowned. ‘You used to like sweet cocktails.’

‘Well, now I prefer something more astringent.’

There was an edge in her voice, and he could hear it. He mixed her drink, and then a martini for himself, coming across to hand her glass to her where she stood in the middle of the room.

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