Page 6 of Greek's Temporary Cinderella

Another thought came.

And with her beauty, it won’t take her long to find one...

Eliana was staring at her bank statement on the screen of her laptop. It made depressing viewing. Her income, such as it was, mostly went out again almost immediately, right at the beginning of the month, leaving her precious little to live on. As for credit cards... She had her own now, with a low limit—all that the bank allowed her in her new penurious circumstances. The credit cards she’d enjoyed as Damian’s wife had been stopped the day after his funeral—his father had seen to that. Seen to a lot else, as well.

He hadn’t bothered to confront her himself—had communicated only through his lawyer, who’d called at the villa she’d shared with Damian and informed her that she must vacate it, taking only her own personal possessions. And those did not, he’d spelt out, include any of the jewellery she’d worn as Damian’s wife.

‘They were not gifts to you, merely provided for you to wear,’ the lawyer had informed her.

The same had applied to her wardrobe as well, and all she’d been permitted to take had been what she’d brought with her when she’d married Damian. She would be granted a small allowance, and she must make do with that. She knew even that was grudgingly made, and had been done for the sake of appearances only. She had wanted to refuse it, but she was in no position to do so.

She knew well why she was getting such harsh treatment. Jonas Makris had been unforgiving of her for failing to present him with a grandson. He’d been keen on her marriage to his son originally—a trophy wife who was beautiful, well-born, and old money—and the fact that the ‘old money’ was all but gone had appealed to him, too, for it had meant he could dictate the terms of her marriage to Damian. Terms she’d agreed to. Just as she had agreed to terms with Damian.

Her face shadowed. Jonas had been a harsh father. She might never have loved Damian, but she had come to pity him.

Their marriage had been useful to both of them, but—

No, don’t go there. It’s a mess, and that’s all there is to it. And now you just have to cope with it.

And that included coping with a financial situation that was precarious in the extreme, and one from which there seemed to be no way out. She’d just have to budget yet more draconianly. Her eyes went to a rare extravagance that she had indulged in that day, reduced for clearance at the supermarket she worked at. She hadn’t been able to resist splashing out on it, unwise though it had been to do so. A colourful plastic toy boat—just right for bathtime fun...

She sighed. She’d ask for another shift at the supermarket...get a little more money in, feel a little less precarious. Night shifts paid a fraction better, and as she had no social life whatsoever, what did it matter if she spent her evenings working as well as her days?

But it was wearing—she knew that...felt it. Wearing, tiring and depressing. With no end in sight—none. Just on and on. She was stuck now.

She gave another sigh. There was no point dwelling on it. Her life was what it was. She had made her choice six long years ago, and now she was living with the consequences. Stuck with them.

In her head she could hear again the taunt that Leandros had made, out on the terrace at that hotel where she had so disastrously set eyes on him again, wishing with all her being that she had not.

‘Tell me, are you here to catch another husband? Another rich husband—the only kind you go for...’

His words mocked her—and condemned her.

She had no defence against them.

None.

Nor against the torment of seeing him again. The man she had once loved, and whose love she had so faithlessly betrayed.

Leandros was at his laptop and he was searching the Internet. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t stop himself. A demon was driving him as he typed her name into the search box.

Eliana’s name.

Photos leapt on to the screen. Photos from the glossy magazines and tabloids that loved to highlight those living the high life. And Eliana had done just that.

Leandros’s gaze bored into the screen. Image after image...

Eliana in a ball gown at some charity gala in Thessaloniki...at a private party on a yacht...at a fancy restaurant...at the opening of one of her father-in-law’s prestigious properties... The images went on and on. Eliana with the man she had preferred to himself, Damian Makris. Nothing much to look at—but then his appeal had not been his looks, but his family money.

Leandros frowned involuntarily. He’d barely known the man, but to be dead at twenty-nine was a cruel fate for anyone. His gaze rested now on a sombre image: Eliana without her husband at her side, in a black dress, her father-in-law beside her, leaving her husband’s funeral.

Thoughts flickered in his mind as he recalled what those two brokerage directors had said about how Jonas Makris had all but cast his daughter-in-law out of the family. And again that taunt he himself had thrown at her at that party in Athens. That she must be on the lookout now for a replacement for Damian Makris. A wealthy one, of course.

But not necessarily to marry.

Just someone to provide her with the luxury lifestyle that apparently she was now deprived of.

Someone...anyone...

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