CHAPTER SIX

‘OK, TAKE YOUR PICK —plenty to choose from.’

Leandros was speaking, sitting next to her, as he had on the drive from the airport yesterday, in the chauffeured car now cruising through the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, with luxury fashion houses all around.

‘I... I don’t mind,’ Eliana answered. She glanced briefly at him. ‘You’re paying—you choose.’

She was feeling even more awkward in his company this morning after last night. She had slept fitfully, her emotions more tangled than ever, waking only when the house phone by her bed rang and she groggily answered it to hear Leandros’s brisk voice telling her he was off to his client appointment, and would be back after lunch to take her shopping. The butler would serve her breakfast whenever she was ready.

She’d been relieved not to see him, and determined, if nothing else, to enjoy the luxury of her surroundings after so many grim months of poverty and deprivation. She’d decided she would deal with being with Leandros again when she had to—and till then she’d make the most of a filling and leisurely breakfast in bed, then a lengthy, pampering bath.

Then, dressed in the same outdated frock she’d worn the previous evening, since her choice was very limited, she’d gone downstairs to explore the hotel, making her way out into the rear garden. The day was pleasantly warm, sunshine shafting across the small but elegantly laid-out space, and she’d found a quiet bench and read some more of Persuasion.

Captain Wentworth was despising Anne Elliot with ill-concealed disdain. Anne was enduring it painfully.

Eliana felt for her.

At least Anne Elliot hadn’t had to endure Wentworth’s scathing tongue. As Eliana did Leandros’s now.

‘Eliana.’ Leandros’s voice was bladed. ‘I told you last night—drop the martyr pose. You’re here with me of your own choice and now you can choose the clothes you’ll be wearing here.’

She named a fashion house—one she could see they were nearing, and which she did personally like—and the car pulled up at it. She was left to make her own choices as the vendeuses ushered her to the fitting rooms, to emerge some time later with her choices made.

Leandros was sitting in the plush waiting area, reading a magazine about upmarket cars from a selection thoughtfully provided by the fashion house for attendant males.

He looked up as she emerged. Eliana felt his eyes go to her. Rest on her. Saw his expression change.

There was approval in his eyes—and more. A light she had not seen before, yet could remember, oh, so well. She felt colour flare...walked forward hurriedly. To see Leandros look at her like that, letting her know, quite openly, that he liked what he was seeing, that she was pleasing to his eyes...

‘Finally,’ he said, nodding slowly.

He got to his feet, his gaze still taking in the change in her appearance.

She wore a belted two-piece in cinnamon-coloured fine wool jersey, gracefully skimming her slender figure. It was both chic and comfortable to wear. She’d accessorised it with a plain but soft leather handbag, moderately heeled matching shoes, and a printed silk scarf that went with the short, lightweight jacket with bracelet sleeves. She’d added some fashion jewellery—topaz beads and a chunky bracelet.

One of the vendeuses had discreetly inquired whether she would like to avail herself of the fashion house’s own-brand make-up selection, and she had done so. She hadn’t used it lavishly, just applied some tawny eyeshadow and mascara, and a tinted lip gloss to give a soft sheen to her lips, finishing off with a spray of the fashion house’s latest perfume. She’d redressed her hair too, changing it from the plain ponytail to a stylish French pleat fastened with faux tortoiseshell combs.

As she’d put the final touches to her face and hair, she’d told herself that it was because her outfit deserved it. That it was part of her attempt to make amends to Leandros...

But it was more than that, she knew. Knew it when she saw his eyes resting on her with approval in them—and more than approval.

He used to look at me like that all the time. Is that what I’m yearning for? To recapture that?

She put the thought aside—it was too painful, too difficult.

Too tangled.

Instead, she simply said, ‘I’ve bought quite a lot—you said I should.’

He made no demur, merely settled the hefty bill to cover a good half a dozen carrier bags bearing the fashion house’s name with the flick of a platinum credit card.

‘Now for evening dresses—but not here,’ he said.

They got back into the dutifully waiting car, and the carrier bags were stashed neatly in the capacious boot by the chauffeur. Leandros named a fashion house that Eliana knew made a speciality of ultra-alluring designs. She’d never shopped there. It had been too sophisticated for when she’d been young, and not conservative enough to please her father-in-law. As for Damian—well, he’d just wanted her to wear whatever his father had wanted her to wear. That had been his sole concern—not contesting his father’s dictates or defying his will. Except, of course—

She pulled her mind away. Gave herself over to what was happening now. This time it was Leandros making the choices, not her. Well, if that was what he wanted, that was his call. This whole expedition was his call, after all. She would not be keeping any of these clothes when her time with him was over. However venal he thought her, she would not prove it to him in that, at least. Even if she could not defend herself for her past actions and they would stain her for ever...

She was grateful to him for diverting her thoughts, her painful memories, by saying, ‘Time for some sightseeing—shall we see what’s happening to Notre Dame?’

‘Why not?’ she said.

She kept her voice studiedly neutral. But it was an effort. Somehow, when she’d just been wearing her poverty-stricken, cheap-of-necessity clothes, making no effort to look good, it had been easier—easier to ignore, or downplay at least, the impact Leandros had on her. But now, chic and elegant, with her flattering hairstyle and a touch of make-up to enhance her appearance, she was more conscious than ever of the man sitting beside her in the confines of the chauffeur-driven car.

More like old times. When I only wanted to look good for him, to revel in his finding me beautiful. I thrilled to see him looking at me...wanting only to gaze at him in return...feeling myself melting inside...

Deliberately, she made herself look out of the window, away from the temptation that was Leandros, and away from the memories she should not allow herself, for those times had gone for ever. Instead, she watched as the car crossed over to the ?le de la Cité, closing in on the great cathedral.

‘It’s still in repair after the catastrophic fire a few years ago,’ Leandros was saying. ‘But we can look at the outside. Would you care for that?’

‘Why not?’ said Eliana again.

They got out, walking on to the great concourse by the west front. It was milling with tourists, and there were plenty of noticeboards showing the extent of the original damage and what was being done to restore it. She saw Leandros gazing up at the solid, four-square towers, at the Romanesque arch between them with its ornate carvings.

‘I first came here with my father,’ he said. ‘We went up on to the roof, saw the gargoyles. Great for a twelve-year-old.’

There was a fond, reminiscent note to his voice. He had been close to his father, Eliana knew. Although their fathers had been very different, it was something she and Leandros had had in common, and they’d talked about it sometimes. Unlike her, sadly, Leandros had no memories of his mother—she had died when he was a baby.

He glanced at her now. ‘I know your father didn’t like travelling, and his health was not great, but why didn’t you take off as a teenager, Eliana? Do Europe with your friends?’

She wondered why he was bothering to ask, but she answered all the same.

‘My father would have worried about me,’ she said. ‘And I didn’t want to leave him.’

‘You were very sheltered,’ he said slowly. ‘Cossetted.’

His eyes were resting on her, and what she saw in them hurt.

‘I didn’t think you were spoilt, simply...naive. Entitled, I suppose, but not really realising it. I didn’t think it mattered. As my wife, you’d have everything you could want, so what would it matter if you’d grown up taking that for granted, expecting to go on being looked after, cossetted, for the rest of your life?’ His voice changed, hardened. ‘How wrong I was.’

Eliana was silent. What could she say? Nothing in her defence—nothing at all. Instead, she started to walk away a little, as if studying some other aspect of the cathedral. But she was taking little of it in.

He thought me entitled, but after the desolation of losing my mother, my father feared me leaving home, leaving him. It made him shower me with gifts and protect me, which I let him do because I knew it gave him comfort to do so...made him feel...safe. Just as I knew that he was glad that, since I was so keen on marrying, at least it was to someone who would be based in Athens, not too far away.

It was painful to remember...painful to think that. And pointless too. Her father was dead, and she had never married Leandros...

Leandros came up to her.

‘The crypt is open, if you wanted to visit? Otherwise I was going to suggest Sainte-Chapelle—it’s a short walk from here, and we can go inside, unlike here.’

Eliana resisted the impulse to say Why not? again, lest it draw an edged comment from Leandros. So instead she said politely, ‘That sounds good.’

Did it sound good? Did anything they were doing sound good?

But then, how could it? How could anything about the tangled, knotted, twisted mess of emotions she was caught in, ever be ‘good’? It was a tangled mess—and Leandros was at the heart of it. Confusing and conflicting, jostling past and present. How overwhelming it was for her to be with Leandros again, however painful the reasons.

The reasons she was admitting.

The reasons she was not...

Her eyes went to him now, as they started to walk away from Notre Dame. How tall he was...how familiar. Once so dear to her so that her breath would catch with it, at seeing his strong profile. She felt a sudden impulse to reach for his hand, to take it and walk along beside him, hand in hand, as they had once always done...

She felt her hands clench at her sides in painful self-denial.

‘Just along here,’ Leandros announced, and she looked to where he was indicating, at Sainte-Chapelle, instead of where her eyes wanted to linger—on him at her side.

Leandros got entrance tickets and they went inside. Immediately, Eliana gasped in awe. Sunshine was pouring through the narrow windows that soared the height of the walls, one after another along the length of the nave, leading the eye towards the glory of the vast rose window above the altar. She gazed, amazed at the sheer incredible beauty of it.

‘It’s like being inside a jewel box!’ she exclaimed wonderingly, gazing around her.

‘The rose window depicts the Apocalypse,’ Leandros was saying. ‘The Four Horsemen are there somewhere, and all the other signs of the end of the world.’

She gave a little shudder. ‘I won’t look too closely,’ she said.

She turned her attention to the painted pillars, as brilliantly coloured as the stained glass, and then to the vaulted ceilings running alongside the main aisle, painted in French blue with the French royal fleur de Lys.

‘The chapel was commissioned by Louis IX, the saintly King of the early Middle Ages,’ Leandros remarked beside her.

‘He was the one whose first wife was Eleanor of Aquitaine, wasn’t he? Before she went off to marry Henry Plantagenet, King of England.’

‘No, she married an earlier Louis, then Henry Plantagenet of England. Two glittering marriages—a queen twice over. Of course, as an heiress in her own right she didn’t need to marry to enjoy a lavish lifestyle.’

Eliana made no answer—there was none to make. If it was yet another dig at her, then it was one he was, after all, entitled to make. She wandered away a little, moving to examine one of the many painted statuettes adorning this jewel box of a chapel, knowing that the sting of his words was both hurtful and to be expected. And there was nothing she could do about either. Yet they hung in her head for all that, heavy and hard.

Leandros let her be and she continued her exploration, wanting diversion. As she returned from her circuit he said, pleasantly, ‘Seen enough?’

She nodded, and they made their way out again.

He glanced at his watch. ‘We should be getting back. You’ll need time to get yourself ready—we’re going to the opera. Puccini’s Manon Lescaut . It should suit you.’

That was definitely a dig—it was an opera about a poor girl who rejected her equally poor lover in favour of a wealthy suitor. She wanted to protest, riposte, find some way of answering back. But how could she? Like Manon, she had chosen wealth over love.

Not that that had stopped her first love from wanting her to want him still.

As she got into the car that Leandros had summoned to their side his words from the night before were in her head—how he did not want her to make a sacrifice of herself. Taunting her that she would be eager for him.

He wants me to want him.

Her eyes shadowed as she pulled her seat belt across. The man she wanted was the man she had once known, so long ago. The man she had once loved—and rejected. This man now—this Leandros—was not that man. And she was not the woman he had once loved either.

So what is there left? Nothing that I want.

That was the truth of it, she thought bleakly. Leandros here, now, only wanted a sexual affair with her—she had forfeited anything more. But for herself...?

Her eyes went to him now, in profile, as they crossed over the river to the Left Bank. Emotions flowed within her as turbid as the waters of the Seine—and as unknowable.

She gave up on her thoughts, which were as hopeless as her emotions to try and untangle, as the car made its way through the Paris traffic. Leandros was studying his phone messages, absorbed and silent.

Back at their hotel, in their suite, he spoke.

‘The Paris opera is very grand, so look your best. Wear one of the new evening gowns. I’ve taken a box—a loge —and there will be people there this evening whom I know.’

She nodded acquiescently, before disappearing into the sanctuary of her bedroom. It would take time to get herself ready.

Memory played tormentingly of how once she had rejoiced in making herself as lovely as she could for an evening with Leandros, taking endless trouble with her hair, her make-up, wanting to look wonderful for him, wanting...longing...to see his eyes light up when he saw her. Light up with love.

And now...

Now it will only be with desire.

Pain twisted inside her and, knowing how useless it was, she went to select from the three evening gowns Leandros had bought her. All were fabulous—and revealing. Designed specifically to show off her beauty—and her body.

She picked the pale blue one, because its décolletage, though low cut, was draped, and she could pin it higher than it would otherwise fall. For all that, when she finally slipped it over her head, letting the silk glide down her body, the bias cut clung to her hips, the length of her thighs. Her shoulders were all but completely exposed by the thin straps.

She wished she had a shawl, or a stole of some kind, but there was only a luxuriously soft fake fur evening jacket, which would have to be discarded once they were seated.

She gave herself one last look in the floor-length mirror on the wall, her expression troubled. Even after pinning her bodice higher, she still felt it was too low. She also knew that with her ice-blue slinky evening gown, her full maquillage , and her hair in a sophisticated upswept style, it was almost as if she were a different person. A new person. Not the drab, work-worn pauper living the poverty-stricken life forced upon her, not the jewel-laden trophy wife of Jonas Makris’s son, and nor—she felt a painful pang go through her—the youthful self she had once been, romantically gowned, her hair loose and flowing, wide-eyed and adoring for the man she loved.

Now she was the woman Leandros wanted her to be—alluring, tempting, a femme fatale...

The only way he wants me to be now.

Her expression changed.

And what do I want to be now?

The question hung there, unknowable and unanswerable, all part of the tangled mess of her emotions, confusing and conflicting.

A sharp tap on the bedroom door made her turn away from her disturbing reflection, her disturbing thoughts. She slid her bare arms into the short fake fur jacket, picked up the satin evening clutch bag in matching ice-blue, and walked to the door on heels much higher than she was used to. Outside waited the man who had once loved her—then hated her.

Now he only desired her.

A poisonous, toxic mix.

She opened the bedroom door and walked out.