CHAPTER FIVE

T HE P ARIS TRAFFIC was bad as they crawled around the Périphérique to make their slow way into the centre. They were staying, so Leandros had told her, on the Left Bank, near Les Invalides.

‘You can add Napoleon’s tomb to your sightseeing list,’ he remarked. ‘Our hotel is one of the former grand residences of the city. Once owned by one of Napoleon’s marshals, so I understand.’

He was being civil, making conversation, and though Eliana was glad he was not making any more cutting remarks to her, his politeness was detached, impersonal.

I could be anyone—anyone at all.

But how could it be otherwise? she thought painfully. Since she had tugged his ring from her finger, her voice stilted, telling him of her change of plan, everything they had once had between them had been obliterated, as if an axe had fallen. All intimacy severed for ever.

The car was gaining the centre of Paris, familiar from a hundred films, and she craned her head to catch a glimpse of the sights. Leandros pointed them out to her and she realised he must, of course, be far more familiar with the city than she was. She had not travelled abroad much with Damian—his father had liked to keep him close by and under his watch.

An unexpected start of excitement pricked at her now as the iconic Eiffel Tower came into view nearby. She was here, in Paris, and however... difficult ...the reason, it was something to be here—and a change, she had to acknowledge honestly, from the dreary, dismal, endlessly grinding impoverishment to which she had been confined since Damian’s death.

A sudden yearning smote her.

If only... If only I were here with Leandros as we should have been!

She crushed it down. There was no ‘if only’ possible. Face set, she kept on gazing out of the window, not looking at Leandros, the man she had betrayed and abandoned. Who would never, could never, forgive her...

The hotel was, as Leandros had said, a former grand townhouse, and as they arrived Eliana looked about her with pleasure at the way past and present were intermingled in the luxurious interior.

‘We’re in the Résidence,’ Leandros said to her as he checked them in. ‘The main top floor.’

He guided her into the lift, inset beside a grand staircase sweeping upwards, and Eliana felt her nerves start up. The reality of what she was doing was hitting her...the reason for her presence here. At their floor, they emerged on to a wide landing set with a pair of gilded double doors, which Leandros opened with a flourish.

She stepped inside into a beautiful drawing room—there was no other word for it—eighteenth-century in style, with a carpet in rich hues of blue and gold and furniture which, although modern, looked as elegant as the rest of the room, and was styled for comfort as well as elegance. Paintings adorned the walls—again, a skilful mix of modern and classic—and there was a large mirror above the marble fireplace. Long blue silk curtains graced the French windows which, she realised, led onto a little Juliet balcony, overlooking a narrow formal front garden and the quiet street below.

Several doors opened off the drawing room. Leandros crossed to open one of them.

‘Your bedroom,’ he said.

Eliana’s eyes flickered to him, and then to the doorway, and she walked through into the room beyond. It was a double bedroom, with a silk-covered bed, more silk drapes at the windows, and the glimpse of an en suite bathroom through another door.

‘Mine’s next door,’ Leandros said.

Was his voice dry? She didn’t know—knew only that her breathing had quickened, as if in agitation, and that nerves were plucking at her again.

‘I’ll leave you to freshen up,’ he was saying now—and he walked back out, closing the door behind him as he did so. ‘I need to change for this evening.’

Slowly, Eliana let her shoulder bag down onto the beautiful counterpane and looked about her, still feeling her heart thumping. Dear God, she was here, in Paris, in a hotel suite, and there was only one purpose for her presence here.

Faintness drummed through her, and emotions she could not name—would not name at all. She took a deep, steadying breath instead. The best way to cope with this—the only way—was not to think, not to feel, just to keep going, one moment at a time.

‘Freshen up’, Leandros had said. So she did just that, repairing to the en suite bathroom.

It was a long time, it seemed, since she’d got up that morning, and as the bathroom facilities in her studio were both primitive and limited, the contrast with the palatial bathroom here was total. Almost without realising it, she felt her spirits lift as she stripped off, turned on the shower, stepped inside. The vanity unit came with an overflowing basket of expensive toiletries, and within minutes she was revelling in the feel of washing her hair under a strong, hot stream of water, lathering her body with richly scented bodywash.

Oh, but it felt good to have such a shower again—not since she’d lived with Damian had there been such luxury for her.

Luxury she’d once taken for granted.

Luxury that had come with her marriage.

She felt a kind of sudden hollowing in her stomach. And now it was going to be hers again—courtesy of the man she had rejected marrying.

She cut the shower—cut the thoughts starting to invade her mind. They were too disturbing and for too many reasons. Disturbing reasons. Because they were conflicting reasons...reasons she was fighting against admitting.

Being here like this—in Paris, with Leandros—was not simply for the reasons she had been telling herself. Because she owed it to him...because she wanted final closure, so she could move on with her life, move on without Leandros...

She reached for a towel to wind around her wet hair, another to wrap around her naked body. She was conscious of avoiding looking at her reflection. Yet she saw it all the same. Slender...so slender...her nakedness covered only with a towel, her arms and shoulders bare, her legs bare, her breasts pressing against the confines of the towel. She felt an awareness of her own physical body...felt as burningly conscious of herself as she had been of Leandros on the flight over...of the body that soon Leandros would—

Urgently, she tore her thoughts away again. Too disturbing...too conflicting. Just like her emotions. Ragged and raw. Tangled and tormenting.

Impossible to make sense of.

Leandros stood by the Juliet balcony, hands thrust into the trouser pockets of his tuxedo. His mood was strange, his thoughts disjointed, contradicting each other. Had this been a major mistake, letting Eliana back into his life? An act of insanity he would regret all his life? Was he just raking up dead ashes that should be dug into the earth and never exhumed?

Even as the thought came, its negation came even more swiftly. It was his love for Eliana that was dead and gone—nothing else. Seeing her again had rekindled—instantly, totally—everything else he’d ever felt about her. And it was that ‘everything else’ that he was reviving now—reclaiming now.

That and nothing else.

He felt his heart harden the way he had taught it to—the way she had caused it to. No, there was nothing left of love between them. His face hardened along with his heart. Not that she had ever felt any love for him. It had been self-interest, that was all. The moment his father had threatened to disinherit him she’d cut and run...

But now he’d brought her back into his life. Deliberately and consciously.

On my terms only. For a limited period—and a limited purpose.

To get her out of his system once and for all. It was all he asked for.

The door from her bedroom opened and she emerged. His eyes went to her immediately. She’d changed, and was now wearing something a little more suitable for her surroundings. A below-the-knee dress with a slight floral print, high-waisted and with a blouson bodice. Her hair—newly washed, he could see—was drawn back into a still-damp ponytail.

‘That dress isn’t chain store,’ he heard himself saying.

She gave a little shake of her head, as if his remark had taken her aback.

‘No, it’s one my father bought me. Like he bought the gown I wore to Chloe’s party. They’re old now, but good quality.’

He frowned. ‘You must have had a decent wardrobe from Damian?’ he said.

‘I was not allowed to take it when I had to leave the house we lived in,’ she said quietly.

Leandros’s mouth twisted. Jonas Makris had certainly done the works on her all right.

But I don’t want to see her in clothes she wore for the man she rejected me for.

‘Well, you’ll leave Paris with a new wardrobe,’ he said. He crossed to the drinks cabinet. ‘I’ve some time before I need to leave. Would you like a cocktail?’

Into his head came the answer she would once have given instantly. A Kir Royale—champagne infused with cassis. It had always been her favourite.

‘G and T,’ she said now.

He glanced at her, reaching for the bottle of gin out of the plentiful array in the cabinet, together with tonic water and ice cubes.

‘Very English,’ he said dryly. He frowned. ‘You used to like sweet cocktails.’

‘Well, now I prefer something more astringent.’

There was an edge in her voice, and he could hear it. He mixed her drink, and then a martini for himself, coming across to hand her glass to her where she stood in the middle of the room.

He looked at her a moment. ‘You look tired,’ he said abruptly. ‘Worn down.’

She took the glass, met his eyes. ‘I’m a widow, Leandros. And I’ve no money. I’ve had to take a job with long hours and little pay. So, yes, I’m tired.’

He frowned. ‘I know your father died a while back, but surely he left you something?’

She took a sip of her cocktail. ‘He had nothing to leave,’ she said. ‘When I married Damian, Jonas paid my father’s debts, but put a charge on his estate. When my father died the charge was executed. There was no money to repay it, so... Well, Jonas foreclosed.’

Leandros was still frowning. ‘What about your mother’s family? I know you’d said they weren’t keen on her marriage.’

‘No—they wanted her to marry the man she’d been expected to marry until she came out to Greece on holiday and met my father.’

There was a sour taste in Leandros’s mouth suddenly.

Like mother like daughter...

‘So she jilted her English boyfriend to marry your father?’

Eliana did not answer him, only took another mouthful of her drink.

‘Have you no English family to turn to?’ he pursued.

This time she did answer. ‘There are only a couple of cousins now, and an aunt who was always jealous of my mother—she wouldn’t help. And anyway—’

She stopped short. He did not press her to continue. His veiled gaze rested on her. Her youthful dress, her tied-back hair and lack of make-up made her look younger than her age. More like the age she’d been when he’d romanced her, entranced by her natural, radiant beauty.

His expression hardened. She might have looked like an ingenue, wide-eyed and innocent, gazing at him so ardently, adoringly, whispering sweet nothings to him, but nothing was all that he had ever meant to her. She’d walked away from him without the slightest hesitation once his father had made it clear he’d cut his own son out of his inheritance, cut him off without the proverbial euro if they married.

She is venal, and worldly, and material wealth is all she cares about.

He spelt the words out in his head deliberately, harshly. He must remember them—not forget them.

Or I will never be free of her.

The sound of the house phone was welcome against such dark thoughts. He crossed to the sideboard to pick it up. He listened, hung up, and turned back to Eliana.

‘That’s my car. I must go.’ He paused. ‘I have no idea how long this dinner will go on, so don’t wait up. As I said, order whatever you want from room service. This suite comes with its own butler, so discuss it with him.’

She simply nodded, saying nothing. His eyes rested on her for one last moment. She looked...frail. That was the word.

He shook it from him. He hadn’t brought her here to pity her, but to get closure—finally to achieve that.

He strode towards the door and was gone.

Eliana lay in bed. After Leandros had left for his dinner she’d stood a moment, wondering what she should do, feeling strange. Had she really just had a cocktail with Leandros, all dressed up in his dinner jacket, as effortlessly devastating as he always was in a tuxedo? But then, of course, he was devastating at any time—any time at all...

She felt emotions flicker—conflicting, confusing. But how could they be anything else at seeing Leandros again—having him physically in front of her, with the sheer overwhelming impact on her that he’d always had—but for that to be dominated by all that now separated them.

She went across to the sofa, sat herself down on it, sipping her G and T, wanting the alcohol to numb her nerve-endings.

There was a complicated-looking remote control on the low table in front of her and she picked it up, clicking it. The mirror above the fireplace sprang into life—a wall-hung TV. She channel-surfed idly, not engaging, and then let it settle to an English language news station. Perhaps the miseries of the world would take her mind off the moment. So, too, might ordering dinner for herself—drinking on an empty stomach was not wise.

She picked up another handset, placed on the side table by the sofa, and got through to Reception, gave an order for dinner. She’d asked for something she could eat while watching TV, and was duly obliged, with the politely attentive butler setting out her repast on the coffee table, then taking his leave.

She ate, then took her empty plates through to the kitchen that came as part of the Résidence, and busied herself washing them up. Then she made herself a herbal tea and went back to the sofa. She found a nature programme, and then a history one—they whiled away the time.

She ought to relax. Here she was in a luxury hotel, with nothing to do but indulge herself. Yet she was strung out like a piece of wire.

After a while she gave up on the TV and retired to her bedroom. There was a well-stocked bookcase in the drawing room, many books in English, and she’d selected an old favourite— Persuasion.

But as she sat up in bed, wearing the Victorian-style nightdress that she had worn long ago as a teenager, the soft mattress a world away from the lumpy bed in her studio apartment, propped up on luxuriant pillows, she thought maybe Persuasion had not been a good choice. Jane Austen’s heroine had ruined her own life over the lack of money. Turning down the man who’d loved her.

She got a second chance, though.

Bleakness sat in her eyes. Second chances did not always come.

They can’t for me. Leandros only wants closure—nothing else.

And so did she. Surely that was all she wanted? All that it was sane for her to want?

Wearily, she dropped the book, shut her eyes. She had committed herself to this—to being here in Paris with Leandros—but the more she faced the actual implications of what was going to happen now that she was here, the more tangled she became, emotions meshing and twisting, troubling and tormenting.

She gave a start—that was the door of the Résidence opening. She heard Leandros moving around...heard, she thought, the clink of a glass, then the sound of his bedroom door opening. Then silence.

For a long, endless moment she just went on lying there. Her heart was beating fast in her chest, she could feel it. Emotions, tangled and tormenting, twisted inside her. Wanting and not wanting. Not wanting and wanting...

Wanting...

Leandros was here—so close, a mere room away. Leandros who, for six long years, had been impossibly out of reach, impossibly distant. Leandros from whom, six years ago, she had walked away. And now... Oh, now he was back in her life—for whatever dark reason, whatever bitter purpose... He was here now, and so was she...

So close—so very, very close...

Leandros.

His name cried out in her head.

Without any consciousness of what she was doing, letting some impulse direct her—some impulse she could not repress, could not deny—and with her heart still beating audibly within her, the breath stopping in her throat, she felt herself slide out of bed. Set her feet on the floor. Cross the room. Open the door...step through it.

On leaden feet, impelled by the guilt that had consumed her for six bitter years, and impelled by so much more...by those tangled, twisting, tormented emotions...she headed towards the door of Leandros’s own bedroom.

It opened with a click, and she stepped inside.

Leandros was reading. The bedside lamp was sufficient to illuminate the text of the international business journal he was attempting to look at. Attempting was the only word that was appropriate. He couldn’t focus on the contents. His thoughts were all over the place.

Correction—they are in one place only...

The bedroom next to his.

She was there. Eliana. Real, live and no fantasy. No dream. No long-lost yearning.

So go to her.

The words were in his head, in his will—but he was resisting them. Yes, he’d brought her here to Paris for precisely the purpose that was now urging him on, but with his head—if not, alas, his body—he knew that now was not the right time. Tonight it had been a formal dinner, tomorrow he had his client appointment—he wanted all business affairs out of the way before he turned his focus on Eliana.

And there was another reason too. He wanted to give her time. Oh, she deserved no consideration, but he would allow it her all the same. He would treat her well—whether she deserved it or not.

He forced his gaze back on to the article he was attempting to read. He wished he felt sleepy, at least, not as if this edgy restlessness was possessing him.

And then, as his eyes glazed over yet again, not seeing the text, he heard his bedroom door open.

Immediately, his gaze flashed upwards, pulse leaping.

It was Eliana. Standing in the doorway.

And Leandros’s blood leapt again.

Eliana forced herself forward. Her feet felt like blocks of lead, and her heart was thudding in her chest at the thought of what she was doing. But she made herself pad forward.

Leandros’s gaze had lifted from his magazine and gone straight to her—eyes fixed on her like lasers. She felt her cheeks flush, then whiten, as her own gaze took in, instantly, the fact that he was sitting in bed, bedclothes casually drawn over his lower half, his torso bare. Smooth, muscled, lightly tanned, lithe and powerful...

She swallowed.

She had to say something. Of course she did. But her throat was as narrow as a crushed straw.

She swallowed again, halted halfway across the room.

Leandros let his magazine drop, his lasering eyes never leaving her. Saying nothing.

So she spoke instead—she had to. With an effort, she managed to get the words out, past the deafening thudding of her heart, the blood drumming in her ears. She felt hot and cold all at the same time, weak and faint, forcing herself to stay upright.

‘Leandros...’ She said his name, faint and hesitant. ‘I... I...’

It was all she could manage. Something changed in his face. His expression was edged...became guarded and loaded at the same time.

‘Yes?’ The edge was in his voice too.

She took another halting step forward, half lifted a hand, then let it drop again.

‘Leandros.’ She got his name out again, less hesitant now, but with a husk in it that even she could hear. She swallowed once more, took another step forward, lifted her hand again.

Was she imploring him? And if so, for what?

‘Eliana.’

He echoed her style of address, his voice flat now. The edge was still in his face, and in his voice.

‘What is it that you want?’

It was a polite inquiry—or could have been. But she knew it wasn’t. She felt herself flush again and made herself speak. He obviously wasn’t going to help her out.

She took a larger breath, lifted her chin—looked straight at him. ‘You brought me here to Paris for one reason only, so—’ she took yet another breath ‘—here I am.’

She let her hand drop, knowing she was just standing there, wearing her ankle-length nightgown, a few metres from the end of his bed. And he was sitting there, propped up by his pillows, his bare torso exposed, looking at her.

Like a pasha waiting for his chosen female from the harem to approach him...

Dark stories from the grim centuries of the Ottoman conquest and occupation of Greece were in her head. Was that what she was? One of those hapless females procured to serve...to service...their imperial masters?

Her face tightened. No, she was not.

I’m here by my own choice—because I choose to be here.

And whatever the tangled and tormenting reasons for doing what she had done—coming here to Paris with Leandros, coming into his bedroom now—they were her reasons.

She pressed her lips together a moment, then spoke again. Firmer now, more resolute, though the blood was still thudding in her ears.

‘You said you wanted the honeymoon I denied you. So now I...’ she took a breath, knowing it was ragged, knowing her heart was still beating audibly in her chest ‘...I give it to you.’

It was all she could say. She wanted to say so much—but that was impossible. All she could do was take another step forward, and then another, as if drawn towards him. At the foot of the bed she stopped. She was so close...so very close. She felt her heart rate quicken...emotion quicken. But which emotion? She didn’t know—there were too many inside her...

Something was wrong. His expression had changed and she could see the planes of his cheekbones, taut beneath the skin. A sudden shaft of dismay struck her.

‘Ah, I see—the sacrificial maiden.’

His words dropped into the silence between them, into the yawning gulf between them.

He shifted position suddenly, flexing his sinewed shoulders. The metallic glint in his eye was steel. And there was steel in his voice as he spoke.

‘Well, as it happens, Eliana, I don’t require a sacrificial maiden—not that you qualify as a maiden any longer. I don’t want a sacrifice at all—and least of all...’ the steel was a blade now ‘...do I want one who thinks she can assuage her wrongdoing by making such a virtuous sacrifice...’

She cried out with protest in her voice at what he was saying. ‘No! It isn’t like that—’

He didn’t let her say more. His voice was twisted, sarcasm knifing in it. ‘Do not think,’ he said, and each word was a twist of his knife, ‘that you can make me feel bad about bringing you here—that you can present yourself as some kind of victim, required to lay down her beautiful body for my vengeful lust!’

His words were stripping her, but he was going on, leaning forward suddenly.

‘You don’t get to play that convenient role. Because, my sweet, faithless Eliana, when you do join me in my bed, believe me—oh, believe me!—you will be as eager for me as you so fondly think I am for you. Honeymoons—even mockeries of honeymoons, like this one—are mutual. Don’t comfort yourself by thinking otherwise!’

The steel in his eyes glinted in the lamplight as he leant back against his pillows, deliberately picked up his magazine. He cast one more look at her, not steely this time, but scathing.

‘Get back to bed—your own bed. We’ve a full day ahead tomorrow.’

She was dismissed. It was as blunt, as brutal as that. Colour flared in her cheeks. Humiliation and more than that—worse than that.

With what self-control she could summon, she turned, walked back to the door. Blood was surging in her, flaring in her heated cheeks. In her room, she flung herself back into bed, felt emotions surging along with the blood in her distended veins.

Was he right? Was that why she had gone to him as she had? Just to assuage her own guilt at what she had done to him six years ago? Making a sacrifice of herself? Atoning for the wrong she’d done him?

Is that the only reason I went to him? Truly the only reason?

Easier to think so. Or was she deceiving herself? Suppressing a truth she dared not face...emotions she dared not arouse...?

As she huddled into the bedclothes, turned out her bedside light, she could still see in her mind’s eye Leandros in his bed, torso bared, looking at her. And she felt her emotions writhe and twist like snakes with poisoned fangs.