Claimed For His Duty (Greek Tycoons Tamed Book 1)(13)

“Anyone who’s someone knows I have a wife. Which also means I don’t have to fend off women with marriage on their mind...”

She stared, unblinking. Her nostrils flared. “You’re...disgusting.”

It was addictive to play her own game with her, so compelling to watch the different expressions pass through her eyes. In that moment, there were no lies she could tell him. In that moment, the connection between them was as explosive and destructive as the wildfire that had wrecked through the surrounding acreage a few years ago.

A fire that was going to need feeding soon if he didn’t it to want it to consume him, as it had already begun to...if he didn’t want to lose all sense of right and wrong.

And what was wrong with wanting his own wife in his bed? Maybe if he gave in to the fire, he could function normally again.

“You wanted to know,” he goaded her.

“No, I didn’t. I was just trying to make a point.”

“You sounded like a nagging, jealous wife. Just what I wanted my marriage to be.”

All color fled from her face, leaving her gaze stricken. Tears pooled in her eyes. And the sight of those big brown eyes brimming with moisture punched him in the gut.

“Theos, Leah—”

“I hate you. I hate that you’re keeping me here. I hate that you have so much power over my life and that you use it at every turn to put me in the wrong. And I’m such a pathetic coward that I still stand here, day after day, hoping that you will change your mind. I forget that all you want is to punish me, and yourself, for what happened to Calista.

“That’s all this is, isn’t it? Duty, righting a wrong...nothing touches you beyond that.”

She cast another desperate glance at him, swiped her hands roughly over her eyes and walked away.

Her words sliced at Stavros rendering everything she said about him a lie.

It did hurt, he realized with a strange new awareness. What she said about him mattered because he hadn’t meant to hurt her today. Christos, he had never meant to hurt Leah.

He had been powerless about her influence on Calista, he had despised her willful rejection of Giannis’s love, he had resented that she had sealed his fate the moment she had walked into his life but he had never meant to hurt her.

Not even the day when he had spoken his vows to her utterly petrified form.

Yet, it seemed it was all he had ever done.

That Leah could be vulnerable when it came to him, instead of making him powerful, felt like a curse.

Giannis had saved him from a life of misery and poverty and yawning emptiness and all he had done in return was make his granddaughter’s life miserable.

He wouldn’t forsake his duty, but neither did he want to hurt Leah anymore.

* * *

Leah leaned against the wall in her workroom, shame ringing in her ears. She couldn’t believe she had betrayed herself like that. She didn’t even care that he had investigated Philip or about what he had found.

But when he had called her a nagging, jealous wife, it was as if she could see their future like that...as if he would never see her true self. As if he would never know the real her.

Standing up, she reached for a jug of water. Poured herself a tall drink and guzzled it down.

It couldn’t matter this much, not when she would be gone soon.

She couldn’t be so vulnerable to him, couldn’t get so emotional. The only way to accomplish that was to accept him this way. He would watch her, hover over her, dictate her life forever, if she wasn’t careful now.

She would give up a little now for the long run.

It wasn’t as if the news of Philip’s past engagements affected her.

For as long as she had understood herself, only one man had always stubbornly occupied the space in her head. And still, only one man could set her heart racing, only one man could make her hate herself that she wasn’t smarter or calmer or even stronger, that she wasn’t a match for him in any way.

* * *

For the next week, Leah barely slept. The retail buyer, Mrs. DuPont, set up an appointment to see what Leah had for her so far. The conversation that followed, where Leah explained to her that she was now living at Stavros’s estate and her reaction to the fact that she was that Textile Magnate’s wife, had been extremely awkward. As if suddenly Leah’s worth as a designer had changed. Whether for good or bad, Leah had no idea.

Once she had heard from her, Leah had finished the sewing on the first three dresses.

Unaccountably nervous, she had snarled at Stavros yesterday for making it all so complicated.

The evening after Mrs. Dupont had called, a seamstress had arrived at her workroom. Her mouth falling open in awe, she fingered the turquoise sheer silk of the cocktail dress, had said in broken English that she loved sewing, and would Mrs. Sporades please give her work.

Having neatly been maneuvered into it, Leah had nodded. Now, she was glad she had given in to Stavros’s tactics. Anna was not only talented but also enthusiastic. Having arranged the three dresses on a rack, Leah endlessly tidied the workroom, her stomach a tangle of nerves.

She had risked a lot to be able to make this ready for Mrs. DuPont, to arrive at this stage of making her dream come true.

And yet, it was Stavros’s challenging gaze that stayed at the forefront of her mind. The strength of her desire to show him that she was talented, hardworking, that she had what it took to succeed, only grew.

She was determined to make him see her as his equal, in this at least.

* * *

Leah would have had her meeting with the retail buyer this afternoon.

The small nugget jolted through Stavros’s subconscious like he had set up a reminder chip in his brain to go off every hour. All through his day, through numerous meetings, he found himself thinking of her, of how nervous she had been last night, of how he had seen her work long hours, only remembering to eat because Rosa threatened her.

In the last two weeks, he had found that he couldn’t fault her dedication or hard work. And the night before last, learning that she had once again skipped her dinner, he had gone into her workroom.

He had found himself on her doorstep, stunned into silence as Leah commanded Anna to turn around slowly. Being almost as tall as him, Anna was the perfect model to showcase a knee-length sheath dress in red silk.

Simple yet chic, it touched Anna with sophistication she hadn’t possessed before.

Suddenly, he was extremely glad that Giannis had pushed him and Dmitri to start their work at his textile factories on the sewing floor.

In two weeks, he had learned how dedicated and hardworking she was, and in that moment, Stavros had no doubt of her talent.

It was after six by the time the helicopter touched down at his estate. A curious eagerness buffeted him like the wind from the rotor blades.

He headed directly for her workroom, seeing the light on as he approached the house.

He found her at her drawing table, one hand around her nape, turning her head this way and then other. And then her face flopped down onto her table, her shoulders trembled, and a loud, rattling sigh escaped her.

The depth of frustration in that sound startled him.

She straightened up again, tore off sheets from her sketchpad, crumpled them and tossed them.

He must have made a sound, because she suddenly turned then. “I’m so sorry, Anna, but I won’t have any work for you in the near—”

In the few seconds before she realized that it was him, Stavros saw it. Distress and disappointment, which slowly cycled to wariness for him.

She slid off the high stool, holding herself stiff. “I thought it was Anna.”

“How did it go?” he said, his eagerness to know unprecedented.

Folding her arms defensively, she shrugged. He saw her swallow, look away, and turn toward him again.

When she met his gaze again, she looked ready to battle him. “You were right,” she said with bitterness coating it. “She didn’t like a single design. You’ll be happy to know—”

“You think I would be happy that all your backbreaking work came to nothing?”

She had the sense to look ashamed. Theos, she truly believed him to be a sadistic monster, didn’t she? Had he ever given her reason to believe otherwise?

“How so?” he asked, noting the lines of strain around her mouth.

Now, she looked stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Why did she reject them? Did she give a reason?” When she still stared at him blankly, irritation touched him. “I’m trying to have a conversation, not attack you,” he burst out.

“She thought they were far too high-end for her store, way too sophisticated and bohemian for the clientele that comes to her boutiques. Too geared toward the jet-setting club like your husband’s were her exact words.”

* * *

Whatever she had shown her, Mrs. Dupont had refused to budge from her stance. Disappointment settled on Leah’s shoulders like a heavy cloak. Had she risked everything for nothing?

“So what is your plan of action next?”

She pulled her attention back to Stavros, sharply aware of his potent presence in her small workroom. In every conversation they had ever had about her work, his interest had been genuine, and suddenly she felt like an ungrateful bitch. Grabbing the notebook, she showed him the notes she had scribbled earlier. “I did what you said I should do in the first place. Had a lengthy discussion about her expectations.” That he asked so politely made her failure even more real. “So it’s back to the drawing board for me.”