Claimed For His Duty (Greek Tycoons Tamed Book 1)(20)
The edgy request warned her not to argue.
Increasingly aware of the high-pitched chirp of a bird in the olive groves, the rustle of leaves, and the painful thud of her own heart, she studied him under the guise of bravely facing him.
As always, he was dressed in formal clothes but the shirt was unbuttoned, and his hair looked like he had messed it up quite a bit.
From the arch of his eyebrows to the straight line of his nose, from the way his mouth tilted up on one side when he smiled to the blunt nails of his long fingers, he was painfully familiar to her now...a desperate longing awoke in her, to trace that austere face, to taste him in tenderness, to just once meet him as his equal without lies and fears.
“How is your collection coming along?”
Blinking, she searched for an answer. “Very well. I finalized the design on the last dress. I’m terrified that it might not be as breathtaking as I think it is.”
“The wedding gown?”
The smile came naturally then. “Yes. I have to do the cutting on it. I’ve been taking the fabric, laying it all out and then just staring at it for hours... I can’t afford to...”
“You’re nervous?” he said with such genuine warmth that she flushed.
“It’s the prize of my collection but it means so much more to me. A wedding dress, as much as it has become a symbol of status and wealth and showing off in these days, it means a lot to a woman, right? It’s the one day she gets to be what she longs to be all her life.”
Somehow, he had moved closer to her. Her hand lay in his loosely, the pad of his thumb tracing the top of it gently. “What is that?”
“Beautiful, special, loved.” Pulling her hand away from him, she smiled to herself. “No matter what age, that day, she is the center of the whole universe for this one man...that day, it’s a new beginning, a fresh start, a promise she cherishes that her life will hold meaning to someone else. It’s the first day of a whole new way of life, of the most important, intimate relationship she’s ever going to have...and the wedding dress... it symbolizes all those hopes and dreams she’s ever cherished.”
Sensing his stillness, she turned and saw the lacerating pity in his eyes.
It was like the most vulnerable part of her, the part she even hid from herself, had been ripped open.
Shutting her eyes to stop the heat building behind, she saw what he remembered.
She had married in a ghastly cream silk dress that had been too tight on her chubby body. With a stone-faced Dmitri as witness while Giannis lay in a hospital bed. Drowning in guilt over Calista, numb that she always seemed to be saying goodbye to loved ones, terrified about what Stavros intended, and hating herself...
That bleary day had been about punishment and penance, about duty and fear. Just as the moment after when he had pressed his mouth to hers, had been.
Even then she had been eager for his kiss, had clung to him in her shame when he had put her away from him, and wiped his mouth.
“At least, that’s the statement I want this collection to make, you know.” Her blasted voice wouldn’t stop quivering. “Like you said, it’s a career saturated with so many fresh faces that you can disappear in a second... You have to be able to put a new spin on your collection, present it almost like a story so that your consumers will fall in love with it, and that’s how—”
Clasping her chin, he turned her toward him. From casual to a vehement intensity, his expression changed in mere seconds. “Don’t, agape mou.”
Still, she tried to pretend. “You probably find this intensely boring.”
“Do I not deserve the truth even in this, Leah?” Resting on his haunches in front of her seat, he took her hand in his. The tenderness in his gaze unraveled her defenses. “Do not lie about something that is so important to you, do not cheapen what truly comes from your heart. Not this...”
“I...”
“Did you once dream like this too? Was marriage that important to you?”
Her throat raw, she nodded. “I believed in the sanctity of it once, yes. My father...I never knew my mother and I always used to get this sense that a part of him was gone with her. He loved me but his heart...it was with her. When you grow up seeing love like that, you believe in its power. You start hoping for it even when you know...” She shrugged, loath to betray herself even more.
“I’m sorry for ruining your dreams, Leah,” he said with such withdrawal, that it was Leah who held onto him this time. “You were a dangerous combination of recklessness and... I had to protect you from fortune hunters and—”
“Myself, of course.” But there was no real bite to her words.
She could not lie and absolve him of any of it. Despite wanting to hate him, she even understood why he had done it, but his apology touched something inside her. “I wanted a lot of things. But life happened. I’ll be fine, Stavros.”
He nodded and rose to his feet. “What will your collection be called?”
“New beginnings.”
“I do not know about dresses...” he said with such a straight face that she laughed, “but the passion I hear in your words, I am sure it will come through in what you do, ne?”
“You think so?”
“I believe that it will.”
He said it with such confidence that a snippet of conversation she had heard between him and Giannis came back to her. Her grandfather had been asking Stavros about his contacts with major design houses and Stavros had been patiently explaining who would be open to launching a new label with a fresh designer.
Pushing her chair back, she stood up, her stomach in knots. “Your belief in me is encouraging, but I can’t forever be ensconced safely in this world that Giannis and you have created for me. I can’t let you and him launch a label for me using your contacts and the might of...
“If you meant your apology, if anything has changed in how you see me—” she could feel heat rising in her cheeks, but she continued stubbornly “—you’ll stop arranging my life in cahoots with him.”
“He wants to do it for you because he cares—”
“Becoming successful because I’m the Katrakis heiress or Stavros Sporades’s wife will forever ruin my joy in this. Will you do that to me again, Stavros?
“Please... allow me the freedom to succeed or fail on my own merit. Tell Giannis to stop with this launching my label nonsense.”
“If you haven’t realized it, your grandfather has a will of iron—”
“And you can convince him that you could walk on water, so get him to back off.”
Smiling, he nodded. “Anything else?”
She hesitated, which in itself, held Stavros’s attention instantly.
“After that imperious command, what can be so hard, Leah?”
“I have been researching various fashion events and programs around the world and there’s one in Athens tomorrow night that caught my attention.”
“Ahhh...that’s why the uncharacteristic call to my office.”
She let his comment pass. “It’s like a co-op event, to be exact, an incubator for fashion design. No big labels or famous designers. Instead your... Helene and a group of fashion icons like her provide a stage for up-and-coming designers to showcase their talents. My application is ready. But I...”
He waited patiently.
“The entry fee is pretty hefty. Even with that, anyone who gets picked has to actually come with a recommendation from one of the event coordinators.”
Wariness and pity filled his eyes and Leah blanched at it. “Helene is one of those rare women who won’t take you on to do me a favor, Leah. In fact, recommending you to her will only lessen your worth in her eyes.”
She shook her head, wondering if he would always think her less than capable, less than what she was. Did she have anyone but herself to blame if he did?
And why, in God’s name, did the thought hurt so much?
“No, all I want is an introduction to her. My collection, at that point, will hopefully speak for me and garner her recommendation. Even if she doesn’t like it, I will still get some exposure to the industry folks.” Even as she confidently made her case, another tension filled her.
Just admitting the fact that Helene knew Stavros in a way Leah never would, made her want to throw up.
How could he mention the other woman so glibly? Where was his honor now, she wanted to demand. But to ask would be to show that she cared. That she spent entire afternoons wondering how he justified breaking his vows to her so boldly.
Was she so completely and irrevocably only a responsibility that he didn’t think he was cheating on her?
Standing up from his chair, he extended a hand to her. “I’m sure I can convince her to give us ten minutes before the show begins.” He stood tall and broad and incredibly handsome in front of her. His gaze was on her mouth; he was thinking about their kiss, she knew. Because it was impossible not to think about it. “But I need something from you in return, Leah.”
The soft intonation of her name stole her breath.
He had changed toward her if he was asking and not commanding. And whatever the reason, he was even more irresistible and dangerous now.
The judging, dominating Stavros, she could hate. This insightful, approachable Stavros...she didn’t stand a chance.