Page 50 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

Her answering laugh, and her smiling eyes meeting his, confirmed his thoughts.

No, not yet.

CHAPTER TWELVE

ELIANA’S PHONE WAS buzzing softly but insistently, waking her up. It was morning, but early still. As she groped for it the call went to voicemail—but the number was still displayed.

Immediately, she slid out of bed. Leandros was still asleep, and she was grateful. She hurried from the room, wanting the privacy of her own bedroom so she could hear the voicemail. But after she did, she set the phone down, sank down on the unused bed, consternation in her face.

Then, her breathing shallow and agitated, she got to her feet.

She needed to go—right now.

Leave Paris.

Leave Leandros.

Leave this brief happiness that had come so unexpectedly, had been so unlooked-for—which she had always known could only be brief and soon must end.

And now it had.

Leandros sat in his airline seat, his hands clenched over the armrests. His face was tight, expressionless. But behind the mask of his face a storm was taking place.

She had gone. Walked out on him. No explanation. No justification. No attempt at an excuse. Nothing.

Except a scrawled note.

Leandros, I have to get back to Thessaloniki.

The words stabbed in his head as the plane flew on above the clouds, heading south. Stabbed him—and mocked him. Just as the past had mocked him, was still mocking him now. It was happening again. She was walking out on him, walking away. Just as she had done before.

But this time—

Why? Why is she doing it again now? Six years ago she left me to marry money—but what is there for her in leaving me now? There is nothing for her in Thessaloniki—just the scraps from Jonas Makris’s begrudging table!

He closed his eyes, his grip on the armrests of his seat tightening so that his knuckles were white with it. The rest of her words stabbed at him.

We knew from the start that Paris was only to set ourselves free from the past—nothing more.

Now the stab went deeper. Mocking him even more. Yes, his wanting to be free of her, to stop her haunting him, tormenting him, had been the reason he’d taken her to Paris. He’d wanted nothing else. But now—after those carefree, contented days with her, those incandescent nights with her...

Is that still what I want?

Her final words tolled in his head.

Nothing more.

His eyes flared open, bleak and empty. And those words tolled again.

Nothing more.

Each one was a stab to his throat.

Eliana was at the bank, her face set. She was going to have to raid her minuscule pot of savings, assiduously hoarded out of what had been left of her allowance and her earnings. With a grim expression, she made the payment she had gone there to make. Then headed back to her apartment. Not that she could afford to live even there now.

She felt a flicker of unease. What she was doing was risky—but she had no choice. Her finances demanded it.

Her mind flitted back, like a magnet seeking true north, to where it longed to go—where she longed to go. But that was barred to her now.

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