Page 26 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

She gave up on her thoughts, which were as hopeless as her emotions to try and untangle, as the car made its way through the Paris traffic. Leandros was studying his phone messages, absorbed and silent.

Back at their hotel, in their suite, he spoke.

‘The Paris opera is very grand, so look your best. Wear one of the new evening gowns. I’ve taken a box—a loge—and there will be people there this evening whom I know.’

She nodded acquiescently, before disappearing into the sanctuary of her bedroom. It would take time to get herself ready.

Memory played tormentingly of how once she had rejoiced in making herself as lovely as she could for an evening with Leandros, taking endless trouble with her hair, her make-up, wanting to look wonderful for him, wanting...longing...to see his eyes light up when he saw her. Light up with love.

And now...

Now it will only be with desire.

Pain twisted inside her and, knowing how useless it was, she went to select from the three evening gowns Leandros had bought her. All were fabulous—and revealing. Designed specifically to show off her beauty—and her body.

She picked the pale blue one, because its décolletage, though low cut, was draped, and she could pin it higher than it would otherwise fall. For all that, when she finally slipped it over her head, letting the silk glide down her body, the bias cut clung to her hips, the length of her thighs. Her shoulders were all but completely exposed by the thin straps.

She wished she had a shawl, or a stole of some kind, but there was only a luxuriously soft fake fur evening jacket, which would have to be discarded once they were seated.

She gave herself one last look in the floor-length mirror on the wall, her expression troubled. Even after pinning her bodice higher, she still felt it was too low. She also knew that with her ice-blue slinky evening gown, her full maquillage, and her hair in a sophisticated upswept style, it was almost as if she were a different person. A new person. Not the drab, work-worn pauper living the poverty-stricken life forced upon her, not the jewel-laden trophy wife of Jonas Makris’s son, and nor—she felt a painful pang go through her—the youthful self she had once been, romantically gowned, her hair loose and flowing, wide-eyed and adoring for the man she loved.

Now she was the woman Leandros wanted her to be—alluring, tempting, a femme fatale...

The only way he wants me to be now.

Her expression changed.

And what do I want to be now?

The question hung there, unknowable and unanswerable, all part of the tangled mess of her emotions, confusing and conflicting.

A sharp tap on the bedroom door made her turn away from her disturbing reflection, her disturbing thoughts. She slid her bare arms into the short fake fur jacket, picked up the satin evening clutch bag in matching ice-blue, and walked to the door on heels much higher than she was used to. Outside waited the man who had once loved her—then hated her.

Now he only desired her.

A poisonous, toxic mix.

She opened the bedroom door and walked out.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LEANDROS STILLED. SHE’D cut it fine, timewise, but Thee mou, it had been worth it! His gaze went to her like a magnet. Six years ago her beauty had been that of a young girl, just on the brink of womanhood. Now...

She has become the woman—no longer the girl.

No longer the sweet, innocent ingenue he had known.

His heart hardened. But she had never been that, had she? Not when she’d been threatened by a reality she did not wish to accept.

She wanted me only when she thought me wealthy.

Well, now his wealth would lift her out of the poverty into which she had sunk at least for the duration of his desire for her. Then she would have to make her own way in the world again. He would be done with her.

‘The car is waiting,’ he said.

His voice was curt, his thoughts dark. Her beauty, her allure, mocked him.

Mocked him even as his eyes went to her as they took their places in the limo and it set off through the Paris traffic for the opera house on the Right Bank. He made no attempt at conversation—his mood had darkened and he saw no reason to disguise it.

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