Page 4 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

‘Her father’s financial affairs are seriously shaky. Rumours are flying all over town that he has debts he cannot pay. If he goes under, she’ll want a rich husband instead.’

The words stabbed at his head now—and yet he had disbelieved them, right up until the moment when Eliana had slid his ring from his finger. Then, with a bitterness that had been like a knife in his throat, he’d realised his father’s warning had been right.

Just as he was right to tell me he was going to test her, by telling her that if I married her he would disinherit me—that our marriage would come without the contents of the Kastellanos coffers for her to enjoy.

He’d told his father to go right ahead—knowing that Eliana would not care, that her love for him was all that mattered to her, not his wealth.

How wrong I was.

Bitterness seared through him again, as strong now as it had been that fateful evening when he’d watched her walk away from him...walk away for ever. Eviscerating him.

He wrenched himself away, heading back indoors. He wanted another whisky. And another one after that, if need be. Anything to block memories.

But they came all the same And just as toxic.

Eliana and me, on that sofa there. She curled up beside me like a kitten, her head on my shoulder and my arm around her. And I was kissing her, and her mouth was sweet like wine, and her body was soft against mine, and all I wanted in the world was to lift her up, carry her upstairs to my bed...

But that had been impossible.

Impossible not just because this had been his father’s house then, but also because he’d known Eliana would not have yielded to his mounting desires. She’d wanted to wait till their wedding night.

That ugly twist to his mouth came again. Had that been part of her machinations as well? Withholding her body from him to make him all the more eager to marry her?

He set the empty whisky glass aside. What the hell was the point of standing here, remembering what had happened and what had never happened? Remembering a woman who had never been the woman he’d thought her. Who had made a fool of him...

And then walked away from him.

He had never set eyes on her again—until tonight.

He strode from the room, wrenching his black tie undone as he did so, making for the staircase. He would put tonight out of his head. Tomorrow he was flying to Frankfurt on business, and he was glad of it. Putting as much distance as possible between Greece and himself was the smart thing to do. The only thing.

CHAPTER TWO

ELIANA STEPPED OFF the train on to the platform. She felt dog-tired. She’d slept almost not at all, and the train from Athens to Thessaloniki seemed to have taken for ever. She’d dozed only fitfully in her seat during the five-hour journey, and she still had a bus ride to her destination.

She hefted her small pull-along suitcase, grateful it was on wheels, heading out of the station. As she passed the waiting taxis, her mouth thinned. A bus ride was all that she could afford. Just as her pokey studio flat in a run-down apartment block was all she could afford.

The meagre widow’s allowance made to her by Damian’s grudging father, Jonas, was supplemented a little by her work in a local supermarket, stacking shelves and minding the till. She would put in a shift this evening, tired as she was.

A wave of depression sank over her. Was this now all her life was going to be? Because how could it be otherwise?

Would to God I had never seen Leandros again...

Stirring up the past. Six years—six years—since she had last seen him. Surely she should have become immune to him in those six endless years? But all it had taken was that one single moment of seeing him again for her to know that Leandros Kastellanos, with every reason in the world to hold her in contempt for what she’d done to him, still had exactly the same power over her useless, pointless, pathetic senses as he ever had. As if those six long years had never existed.

It was a galling truth—a hopeless one.

I made my choice—I made my life—now I must live with the consequences.

And it was a life without Leandros—a life that could never have him in it again.

Never.

Leandros was back from Frankfurt. He’d returned via London and Brussels, but as he’d come back to Athens it had been as if the city closed over him again. Restlessness had possessed him, and he’d wanted to be off again on his business travels. But right now that wasn’t possible. Since his father’s death three years ago he’d taken over the running of the company, and it was more than a full-time job. Working lunches, like today’s, were the norm.

Today’s was in Piraeus, with a couple of directors of a shipping brokerage who were keen on Kastellanos investment funds. Leandros was in two minds about it, and wanted to discuss it with them in person.

The problem was he was finding it an effort to focus on business—ever since seeing Eliana again he’d been finding it so. Try to block them as he might, his thoughts kept gravitating back to her. They did so again now, as his chauffeured car made its way out of Athens south to Piraeus.

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