Page 45 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

Yet the moment they were gone he felt silence threaten again. He dismissed it with resolve. He’d wanted an easier day, and wading into asking questions such as he had on the balcony was not conducive to that end. Now he wanted that sense of ease back again. Wanted the atmosphere lightened.

Wanted to feel again what he had felt during the day.

Companionable.

Deliberately, he raised his refilled champagne glass to Eliana across the table.

‘Bon appetit,’ he said. ‘I hope our dinner is as delicious as you have said it sounds.’

He made his voice light, replacing his flute and picking up his fork to start to do justice to the beautifully layered vegetable terrine that was their first course.

‘I’m not sure what all the layers are,’ he pondered, ‘except that one of them, judging by its colour, is definitely beetroot.’

‘There’s courgette in there somewhere,’ Eliana answered, and he was glad that her tone of voice was as light as his. ‘And perhaps asparagus?’

They went on identifying the multi-coloured, multi-textured layers. It was easy conversation, light and inconsequential. But it served its purpose. Lightened the atmosphere.

He glanced towards her. As ever, her beauty made his breath catch.

It comes to her naturally—she makes no effort, but it is there all the time.

Memory came—how struck he’d been when he’d first been courting her, wooing her, making her his own, by just how naturally beautiful she was. Unsophisticated, yes, unlike the females he usually ran with, but her beauty had been in her smile, her eyes, her sun-kissed hair... In the way she’d laughed, and dropped her gaze when he looked at her—not in a flirtatious way, or to entice him... Although sometimes he would catch her stealing a look at him from beneath her smoky lashes...a look of longing...

He’d liked that—had liked to bring the colour flushing to her soft cheeks when he’d paid her compliments, which she’d absorbed like a flower drinking in the warming rays of the sun...

I thought I’d found a woman different from any that I had known. One to fall in love with.

He hadn’t intended to fall in love at all. It had not been on his agenda—but Eliana had changed all that. With her in his life he’d no longer wanted to play the field, hadn’t been interested in the chic, sophisticated females he’d once focussed his attentions on. Eliana had swept him away—swept him totally away.

Until she’d walked away from him. Handed back his ring. Walked out of his life.

But now she’s back in it. I’ve let her in. Thinking I knew why.

His gaze rested on her now, and he felt again the confusion he’d felt in the night, when he’d realised the truth about her marriage...felt again, even more intensely, what had passed between them out on the balcony just now.

What do I want of her? What do I want at all?

No answers came—or only one, to which he now returned.

He wanted to be with her as he had been today—easy, peaceable...companionable.

Nothing more than that.

Nothing less.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE WALL-HUNG TV blazed with a last burst of colour and declared The End. Robin Hood and his Maid Marian had just ridden off into their personal sunset. The choice of film had been mutual, and just right. A colourful swashbuckler, traditional Hollywood, as familiar as it was enjoyable.

Eliana stretched her legs from being curled up under her on the sofa. Beside her, but not too close, Leandros sat lounging back, long legs extended, crossed at the ankles, picking at the last of the petits fours on the coffee table.

He turned towards her.

Smilingly.

‘Daft, but fun,’ he said.

She gave a light laugh. ‘Definitely,’ she agreed.

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